Shabina found herself laughing with the others. Zahra might sound like she was complaining, but she loved that bundle of fluff.
“Raine, I may as well take Daisy with me when I take the little monster out. I can swing by and pick her up.”
Raine’s Jack Russell was very active and loved to run along the canal three times a day. Raine’s shattered leg was healing slowly,preventing her from going for the long runs she would normally take with her dog. She walked, but it was still very painful for her, and Daisy tended to stay close to her rather than run like she needed to.
Raine’s face lit up. “Zahra, you really wouldn’t mind? I try to take her for walks, but Daisy won’t leave me when we go out. You know how she is; she needs tons of exercise.”
Zahra waved her hand. “I have to take this naughty one out anyway. And it will be good for them to become friends.”
Chapter Two
“I did have something I wanted to run by all of you,” Shabina said. She kept her voice carefully controlled, but her friends instantly fell silent, waiting, as if they knew this wasn’t as casual as she was trying to make it sound.
She couldn’t help laughing. She was so lucky. “You women. I can’t get anything past you. You knew all along I wanted to talk about something important.”
“It’s been obvious you’re upset about something, Shabina,” Stella said, her voice gentle.
“Your dogs are on edge,” Harlow pointed out. “Whether they’re picking up your mood or there really is something wrong, it’s apparent something is out of sync. We’ve just been waiting for you to share.”
Shabina took a deep breath. Now that she was going to articulate her fears, they seemed silly. What evidence did she have that anything was wrong? She found herself hesitating. If it got out that she was worried, her parents would insist she come home. They’d keep her locked in their house, surrounded by security. She wouldn’t be able to move or breathe without permission orhaving half a dozen guards around her. All the things she loved doing wouldn’t matter.
“I’m not exactly sure how to start. Now that I’m going to say it out loud to someone, I feel a little ridiculous,” she admitted.
“Shabina.” Raine sounded more than gentle. “Take your time. We’re your friends. You don’t have to worry about how you sound. Just tell us what’s bothering you.”
Shabina sank to the floor so she wouldn’t be tempted to pace. She’d worked hard to appear relaxed and calm at all times. The moment she sat on one of the cushions scattered on the floor, Malik lay down on one side of her and Sharif on the other. They pressed against her thighs, crowding close, feeling her inner agitation. She had to keep reminding herself these were her friends and they had her best interests at heart.
“You know my father puts out oil fires all over the world, that he’s considered the best in the business, right?” She knew they were aware of her rather famous father, but she had to start somewhere. “I told you that when I was fifteen, he took my mother and me to Saudi Arabia to put out fires there and I was kidnapped. It was a strange time. Quite a few kidnappings had taken place, and my mother and I were coached on how to behave if it should ever happen to us. We were told ransom would be demanded. It would be paid, and we would be freed. We were instructed not to resist. Not to try to escape. Not to agitate our kidnappers in any way. We were told repeatedly that sometimes negotiations broke down but not to worry, they always resumed.”
“How strange that would be,” Vienna said. “Having to worry all the time about being kidnapped, so much so that you’re given instructions on how to respond.”
Harlow exchanged a long look with Shabina before she admitted to the others that she’d also been given strict instructions. “Igrew up with a father in politics. We had security around us all the time, but obviously, my training wasn’t as intense as Shabina’s.”
Shabina sent her a small smile, thankful someone understood the pressures of having to be constantly on alert for danger. “My mother and I went shopping at this little market. It wasn’t like we weren’t heavily guarded; we were. The next thing I know there was shouting and jostling and guns waving at us. My mother was grabbed by our security guards and they made a run for the armored vehicle. I was on the other side of the table of a fruit seller’s stand. I remember looking at the oranges exploding all around me and then at my mother’s back as the men shoved her into the SUV. My guards threw me to the ground, and we rolled under the table with all the fruit.”
“You must have been so frightened,” Stella said.
“I mostly remember being worried about my mother. I didn’t like being separated from her. She didn’t look back either. That felt so strange to me. She didn’t call out or look back. She let them push her inside the SUV. I told myself if my mother could be that calm and do what we were told in the situation, I should be able to do it too.”
Raine let out her breath. “You were fifteen, Shabina. Separated from your mother in the middle of gunfire. No one would have blamed you if you panicked.”
Shabina shifted her gaze to Raine. Raine could be a firecracker if she thought one of her friends had been misjudged—or in this case, was taking on guilt that wasn’t hers. She found herself smiling again, the heaviness in her heart lifting a little.
“The thing is, Raine, I didn’t panic. I just told myself the security team had gotten my mother out of there, and mine would get me out.”
“But they didn’t,” Stella whispered. She wrapped her arms around Bailey’s neck.
Shabina pressed her palm against her thigh, high up, where sometimes the muscle refused to stop aching. Like now. She told herself it was psychosomatic, not real, all in her head. No matter that she ran daily and stretched endlessly, that pain from the scarring never quite left her body.
“No, those men with guns were everywhere. My team didn’t want to start a war and get everyone in the marketplace killed, so they opted to lie down with the rest of us when they were told. Two of them tried to cover me, but it was my mother and me they were looking for. I was taken along with six other prisoners. Two women in their thirties, both from France, and three men from London in their early twenties, and a woman from Argentina who was close to sixty. I didn’t put up any resistance. No one had been killed. I think a couple of people may have been wounded, but for the most part, when they left with us, the market just had to be put back in order.”
“The fact that you weren’t the only one kidnapped was reassuring to you?” Harlow inquired.
Shabina nodded. “So much so that when the older woman, Kathryn was her name, began to cry, I whispered to her not to resist, that they would negotiate for our release. I was certain they wouldn’t hurt her. I spoke in Spanish, hoping our captors wouldn’t understand me and be angry that I was reassuring her. I had been told to stay very quiet and not draw attention to myself, but I didn’t like seeing her in such distress.”
“That’s so you, Shabina,” Raine said. “You have the most compassionate heart. You clearly had it even then.”
“I would have been too petrified to move,” Vienna said.
