I suck in a deep breath. “What success?”
“His father.”
“Oh my God.” I press my hand to my mouth. “No.” I need this not to be true. It’s the most awful thing I can learn. My knees tremble. “You must be mistaken.”
“He was poisoned by a member of our group over the course of several months.”
“Dad. No.” It’s all I’m capable of saying.
“I didn’t know about it at the time. Not for certain.”
“But you suspected?”
I face him just in time to see his eyes squeeze shut. “I don’t know. No. Not that. I knew they wanted to act, but I had no idea they were already moving the pieces. It was all…theoretical.”
I take him at his word because I have to. I’m not ready to believe my father
is a murderer. “Would you have stopped it if you’d known?”
At least he doesn’t lie to me. “I don’t know. You have to believe this, Amy. I was a different man then. My time in the States, my exile, has made me look at everything differently. I am grateful, so grateful, that I never had the chance to do more than plot.”
I’m shaking all over. I stare at my father and realise I have no idea who he is. I’ve been wrong all this time and Zahir’s been right. Again and again, I’ve thrown my father’s innocence at him, begged him to be nicer to the man who was part of a group that killed his own beloved father. How he must have hated that. Hated me?
My skin flushes with unbearable heat. “I can’t believe this. I have to go.”
“Listen to me.” Despite his revelations, his voice still has the power to bring me to a stop. “He asked me not to tell you this. He believed it would be too hard for you to hear, too hard for you to face this truth, but I needed you to know it. I am everything he believes me to be. At least, I was. And I’m sorry. I let you down, and I let your mother down. I gambled our lives on a fanciful, stupid political game. I have regretted my actions every day of my life.”
I sob, because I do believe him. But it’s too late, too much has happened, too much has been lost.
“I have to go.” I leave and I don’t look back, because finally I realise: looking back is the root of all evil.
“You should have told me.” I slam the door behind me, stalking across his office, ignoring the presence of two security officers by the door. Zahir dismisses them with a small wave of his hand.
“Told you what?” He’s guarded, staring at me as though he doesn’t know everything my dad just revealed.
“Damn it, I know,” I say, shaking my head, no idea how pale I am, how wild I look. “Dad told me everything.”
Zahir swore under his breath. “Still unable to be trusted.”
“Don’t. Don’t do that. I’m not excusing any of his choices back then, not by a longshot, but this is different. How dare you keep this from me? How dare you let me go on defending him to you after what he did?” My voice softens, anguish flooding me. “Zahir, how have you been able to go through with this?”
“I told you that we should not discuss him. I thought it was best.”
“I find that arrogant and condescending,” I snap, brushing it aside. “I deserved to know the truth as much as you did.”
His eyes spark with mine, and I feel a rush of awareness, an understanding that even when at loggerheads, our bodies arc with an uncontrollable electrical current.
“Why? To what end? So you could hate him too?”
I flinch at that and I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
“Nothing good comes from you knowing. It changes nothing about the past, nothing about the future. It just saddens you and I didn’t need that.”
“I’m a big girl; I deserved the truth.”
“I told you I had my facts straight.”
“You didn’t tell me anything about what they did to your father,” I whisper.