Broken Crescent (Devil's Sons Motorcycle Club Book 2) by Kathryn Thomas

phone. He had a heavy weight on his shoulders, being the head of household where his children respected their parents less and less. Rayan was up to no good. He was sure of it. Rashad was keeping his suspicions to himself until he had some proof though. No sense in stressing Fatima, with her fragile health. Neither of the children were aware of how serious their mother’s heart condition had gotten.
     
    “Lie down, Fatima. Stop pacing. Walking a hole into the carpet won’t bring him home any sooner.”
     
    “It’s been three days, Rashad. You tell me don’t worry. Don’t worry, Fatima! How can I not? My only son!” She dashed tears from her eyes, bowing her head and taking a seat on the side of the bed as her husband had instructed. “I am sorry, my love. I mean you no disrespect.”
     
    Rashad laboriously kneeled his heavy weight down on the floor beside her and looked up into his wife’s still quite lovely face. In all their years of marriage, he had been a generous husband, understanding and kind. But, in this, he needed to stand firm. “I will not have you waste yourself with worry. You must rest. The boy is no longer a boy. Although he acts like an insolent child, he’s a grown man. What he does with his life is up to him now.”
     
    “And, Afia?” she lamented. “There is something up with our daughter, Rashad. A mother knows.”
     
    Across town, Afia left a note on the kitchen counter telling Bionca where she was going and slipped out the door to run to the elevators. She willed it to move faster, a sense of urgency in her step as the doors finally eased open and let her out into the lobby. Afia jogged through the doors and down the sidewalk to her car, unlocking the doors and climbing into the driver’s seat with a jangle of her keys and breathless sigh.
     
    She drove quickly to her parents’ house. When she entered the place that had been her home prior to getting her apartment with Bionca once she started graduate school, she sensed the change in the atmosphere of the house. It wasn’t something that could be touched or directly pinpointed, but there was a feeling in the still, empty living room that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand at attention. Something was wrong.
     
    She closed and locked the front door behind her. She strolled through the archway into the hall. “Baba?” she called uncertainly.
     
    Rashad stepped out of his bedroom with a relieved expression. “She’s here, Fatima. Come, Afia. Your mother is resting. She wants to see you.”
     
    At the expression on his face, the sad, weary eyes and tense frown lines at the corner of his mouth, Afia threw down her purse and rushed up the hall to her parents’ bedroom, a room of the house she seldom had cause to enter. She saw her mother lying in bed, looking frail and worn, and her heart leapt in her throat. “Maman!” she said in alarm. “What’s happened to you?”
     
    “Shush, I’m fine,” Fatima smiled, easing up on her elbows and sitting up in the bed. “Your brother has been missing since the weekend. I’m worried sick, but I’m fine.” Fatima waved Rashad out of the room, and he left, albeit reluctantly. She had things to discuss with her daughter. She patted the bed, and Afia tentatively stepped deeper inside.
     
    The walls were painted a deep burgundy, and authentic Persian rugs covered the floor in various patterns and rich hues; each rug overlapped the other haphazardly. Upon the rugs rested a hand-carved, skillfully built four-poster bed with delicately painted panels stenciled with a “Tree of Life” motif. Taupe bedding patterned with dark red roses covered the mattress. She stepped past an intricately designed dresser with mother of pearl inlay topped with ceramics and a vase of silk flowers. A wand of incense burned aromatically from a Qajar incense burner filigreed with peacocks and parrots.
     
    Afia sat on the edge of the plush, comfortable mattress and put her hand on Fatima’s