The room was small, but the screen was big enough to burn.
Layla Rami sat motionless on a faded couch in her borrowed Paris apartment, cigarette trembling between her fingers. Outside, the city bustled with its usual indifference—cafés, tourists, yellow vests. But inside, all the noise had disappeared.
Her eyes stayed locked on the screen.
The man on the podium was mid-sentence when the first bullet hit.
His body jerked, as if yanked backward by some invisible thread. A pause — the kind that seems to stretch years — and then the second shot. This time, his head snapped back.
Blood. A sharp, clean spray.
Screams erupted in the hall. The camera dropped. Static. Black.
Then the broadcast cut to patriotic music — the anthem of Aldarrah, played over a montage of national flags waving in digital wind. The state's way of saying, You saw nothing. Move on.
But Layla had seen everything.
Her hand finally moved, crushing the cigarette into the chipped ashtray.
"Jamal," she whispered. "What did you walk into?"
The man who had just been assassinated was Jamal Al-Kouri — leader of the reformist New Dawn party, and Layla's mentor. He was supposed to be safe. The whole damn rally had been billed as a show of strength before the elections. Cameras everywhere. Security thicker than blood.
She reached for her phone. No calls. No messages.
She tried her brother. Straight to voicemail.
Then she logged into the encrypted thread she shared with Jamal's inner circle. Dead silence.
She lit another cigarette.
Three years ago, Layla had been the regime's golden speechwriter. The youngest political advisor ever appointed to the Council's media directorate. Then she uncovered a shadow fund moving millions into fake civil projects — and made the mistake of thinking evidence was enough.
That was her first lesson in Aldarrah politics:
Truth doesn't win. Power does.
She fled the capital with nothing but a passport, a USB stick, and her brother Adam's voice screaming down the phone: "Go now. Don't pack. Just run."
She hadn't seen Adam since.
But this assassination? It felt like a signal.
Like someone had just fired the first shot in a war that had never really ended.
And Jamal, poor brave Jamal, had been the opening sacrifice.
Later that night, her door buzzed.
She wasn't expecting anyone.
She moved silently to the peephole — saw no one.
Then she spotted the envelope, slid halfway under the door.
She opened it slowly.
Inside: a photograph of Adam, bruised, blindfolded. A note paperclipped to the back.
"If silence is survival, why are you still talking?"
Her hands trembled.
There was no signature. Just coordinates, and a time: 10:45 PM. Tomorrow.
She looked back at the TV. The news was already rewriting the story. "Isolated radical... tragic security failure... lone wolf narrative."
And Layla?
She poured herself a shot of cheap arak, swallowed it raw, and whispered into the dark:
"If they want me quiet, they're about to hear me scream."