Chapter 10 - SAMIRA'S CONFESSION
At 22:02, Samira’s second video arrived.
This time she was alone.
The camera had been placed on something stable.
Her hands were still tied.
She looked exhausted.
“I don’t know how much time I have.”
Leïla leaned closer to the screen.
Samira continued.
“I did help Rami.”
Karim cursed.
Leïla silenced him with one look.
Samira took a breath.
“Six months ago, he found me.”
She described meeting Rami at a café.
He introduced himself as Yassin.
He told her Hassan was her father.
She thought he was lying.
Then he showed her Dalia’s old letters.
“He knew things about my mother nobody else knew.”
Samira looked down.
“He said our mothers were both victims of the Rahmani family.”
Malik stared at the screen.
Samira continued.
“He wanted evidence. I wanted the truth. So I agreed to help him.”
She admitted watching Leïla enter the personal authorization code.
Rami had installed a small camera in Naïma’s office beforehand.
The secondary password had been captured from keystroke timing and an internal authentication exploit.
Farid muttered something under his breath.
Samira continued.
“The schedule changes let me enter the West Wing legally.”
She had searched for Dalia’s records.
Instead, she found Hassan’s original succession documents.
“That’s when I learned he had already changed his will.”
Her voice broke.
“I didn’t ask for his money.”
Leïla believed her.
Not because Samira sounded innocent.
Because she sounded angry that anyone would think money could repair her life.
“I showed Yassin.”
She stopped.
“He changed after that.”
Rami wanted the controlling shares.
He claimed they belonged equally to the children of the women the Rahmani brothers destroyed.
Samira refused.
“He told me Hassan deserved to lose everything.”
She had planned to confess to Leïla.
But Rami discovered it.
“He took me from my room.”
Samira looked toward something off-camera.
“I think we’re underground.”
Farid immediately began analyzing the video.
Leïla continued watching.
“Last night he forced Malik into the archive because he wanted everyone to suspect him.”
Malik closed his eyes.
“Then what?”
Samira obviously couldn’t hear them, but the video continued.
“Yassin has a copy of Omar’s master key. He has access to electrical systems, tunnels, old service rooms.”
She swallowed.
“And he has help.”
Leïla straightened.
“Who?”
Samira looked terrified.
“There’s another person.”
The video glitched.
“Someone high enough that security never searches their room.”
Static.
Then the video ended.
Karim stared at the black screen.
“Who?”
Leïla thought through everyone.
Farid.
Naïma.
Senior staff.
Family lawyers.
Advisors.
Then she remembered Hassan’s letter.
Someone inside my own household helped Omar.
Still here.
The traitor did not begin working with Rami recently.
They had been part of the original crime.
Twenty-eight years.
Farid’s laptop beeped.
“I found the video location.”
Leïla turned.
“Where?”
“Old emergency bunker under the south gardens.”
Karim grabbed his jacket.
“Let’s go.”
Farid stopped him.
“Rami expects that.”
“So?”
“So we enter through the northern service tunnel.”
Leïla nodded.
Security split into teams.
They moved quickly.
At 22:31, Leïla descended into the tunnel with Karim, Farid, and four guards.
The air smelled damp.
At the first junction, they found a body.
One of Farid’s security officers.
Alive.
Unconscious.
His radio was missing.
Farid knelt.
“He was stationed upstairs ten minutes ago.”
Karim whispered, “They know we’re here.”
Lights shut off.
Darkness swallowed the tunnel.
Farid shouted, “Night optics!”
Before anyone could move, a metal door slammed behind them.
Then another ahead.
Locked.
A voice came through an old wall speaker.
Not Rami.
A woman.
Older.
Calm.
Leïla recognized it instantly.
“Princess,” the woman said, “you should have stayed in Geneva.”
Leïla stared into the darkness.
May you like
Karim whispered the name first.
“Naïma?”
