30 Years Ago 2016

Abdel Tawab El-Tayeb, a tough, shrewd arms dealer from Minya, built a substantial fortune in the shadowy world of weapon trade but paid a heavy personal price. He survived the loss of both wives, sold off his property, and pulled his children—Hassan, Gamal, Nabila, Sameh, and Hoda—into a new life in Cairo, where he opened an arms shop in the bustling Attaba district and married a dancer named Sonia. Their world quickly grew prosperous, and they welcomed a daughter named Nagwa, who seemed to embody the family’s mix of charm and risk. Before his death, Abdel Tawab divided his wealth evenly among his children, naming his eldest daughter Nabila as their guardian. Nabila, working in concert with her siblings, began to consolidate power and moved to marginalize Sameh and Hoda in order to seize their rightful inheritance, shaping the family’s fate for years to come.

Sameh’s son, Omar Sherif Mounir, grew up in poverty and chose to seek his fortune abroad, leaving behind a legacy that would echo through the generations. Hoda’s son Emad Ahmed Al Saqqa pursued a career as a literary critic, yet financial struggles persisted as he watched the world of his family’s wealth drift further out of reach. Hassan, who kept the family’s weapon trade alive, looked for even bigger gains and arranged for his daughter Noha to marry one of Port Said’s wealthiest arms dealers to further entrench their control over the family’s wealth. Hassan’s son Selim, meanwhile, stirred trouble in a friend’s life and fanned flames of betrayal that strained loyalties and tested the bonds within the clan. Gamal kept trading arms with Hassan, and his daughter Rasha found herself drawn to Omar, eventually stepping into the family business and reshaping loyalties from within. Sonia’s daughter Nagwa, known for her flirtations with younger men, unwittingly fed a darker undercurrent by watching her own son Hani spiral into drug addiction. In the background, through the publisher Hisham Hisham Sharaf Sharaf, Emad encountered the poet Hanan Mona Zaki, who came to Cairo in search of opportunity and a chance to be heard.

Fifteen years pass, and Omar returns from abroad a self-made billionaire, only to discover he is infertile. He decides to liquidate his holdings and distribute the wealth among his scattered relatives, a move that unsettles the delicate power balance the family had built. In this moment of financial reckoning, he meets the enigmatic poet Hanan Mona Zaki again and seeks to help her, while a chilling warning from Majzoub hints at a planned, merciless purge of nine family members. What follows is a cascade of violent, meticulously planned acts that leave a deep mark on everyone involved.

First comes tragedy for Hani, Nagwa’s son, who dies under a freight train, a blow that reverberates through the household. Next, Nabila falls from a balcony and dies, removing the guardian from the equation and shifting power once more. The losses continue as Selim and Noha suffocate in a gas incident, and Hassan, shattered by the cascading deaths of his children, takes his own life. Rasha, who had pursued Omar’s wealth and influence, makes a bid to win him over through marriage, but the couple’s life is shattered by a terrible accident that claims Gamal, Rasha, and Nagwa, leaving Omar and Emad as the sole survivors of a devastating night.

With the deaths cascading one after another, Emad leaves the country, fearing the ominous warnings that haunt the family, only to return later and discover that Hanan has married Omar. The story threads toward a bitter, desperate end as Emad and Hanan engage in a new conspiracy, each seeking to outmaneuver the other. In the final, haunting turn, Emad is executed while Hanan inherits the entire family fortune, leaving the legacy of Abdel Tawab El-Tayeb’s ambitions to haunt the next generation.