Untangling the Web

Chapter 18

It takes nearly two full weeks before all the plans fall into place. The easiest part of the plan was getting Hikmet settled. The trip to the doctor was a success. He had a full and thorough exam this time, including an examination of his wound with the results sent to the police as evidence of foul play. After the doctor signed off on the travel, Emir, Reyhan, and Melike flew with Hikmet on a friend's private jet to the clinic. Emir and Reyhan stayed a few days and made promises to video chat daily and to visit as often as the pregnancy would allow before leaving Hikmet and Melike to settle in.

When they get back home, they're met with news from the lawyer that everything is ready to deliver to Cavidan. The time to get her out of their lives for good has finally come.

"Did the realtor get the house as well?" Emir asks. He may be putting Cavidan out, but she's still his mother. He can't leave her homeless. She'll have a home with food delivered weekly and a small allowance for living expenses. It wouldn't be the type of life she has grown accustomed to as a Tarhun, but it would be decent. And it was more than her divorce settlement had given her.

"Not the house you picked," the lawyer reports. "As you guessed, when your mother saw that you were getting a house, she assumed it was going to be for Reyhan hanim. So she changed your selection to something a bit less .... desirable."

And by "less desirable" Emir guesses the lawyer means the most broken down and disgusting house Cavidan could find.

Emir sighs. Again, he wished he had been wrong about his mother. But he's not surprised to find out he knew exactly what she would do.

"Serves her right," he says wearily. "She's going to have to live in the house she picked out thinking it was going to be for Reyhan. I would hope she'd learn her lesson, but somehow I doubt it."

Every day he can't help but ask himself how he could have missed this side of his mother for his whole life. So many have paid the price of his ignorance.

"What about the other matter?" he asks, hoping for some good news finally.

"No problems with this, Emir bey," the lawyer says with a smile. "The private investigator was able to track down Zeynep's stepmother and get the document to relinquish parental rights signed. The adoption papers have been drawn up and are awaiting your signature. Everything will be official as soon as we file the petition and go before a judge."

"She'll be ours officially?" Reyhan asks, tears in her eyes. But Emir can see that they are happy tears. He wraps an arm around his wife and holds her close.

Everything is falling into place just how they want it. The only thing that worries him is his mother. She won't be happy when all of this unfolds and she's left with nothing and no one. What she'll do after that is anyone's guess.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Emir goes to the mansion to pick up Cavidan. He thought long and hard about how to break the news to her about her new living situation. At first he considered just letting the lawyer tell her. But he quickly realized that wouldn't work. He has to be the one to tell his mother about the choices he's made. The choices that she has made him make.

He decided to take her out to eat. And while they're gone, he'll have her things moved to her new house. He'll tell her about everything once they get to the house. She definitely won't be happy, but she won't have any other alternative once she's at the house. She won't have any place else to go.

Emir goes inside the mansion and finds Cavidan sitting in the salon. Along with two other women. One woman was about Cavidan's age, the other a bit younger. Probably her daughter.