Chapter Three

(NOORIA)

The slap comes so fast I don’t see it coming.

My father’s open palm cracks across my cheek with the force of a man who’s held back rage for years. My head whips to the side; pain blooms white-hot, spreading from my face down into my jaw, my neck, joining the constellation of bruises Valentino already painted there. I stagger, knees buckling, and drop hard onto the cool marble foyer floor. My palms slap down to brace myself, but the impact jars every sore muscle in my body, my thighs, my hips, the tender skin of my backside still throbbing from last night.

A sharp gasp escapes my mother. “Ahmed!”

The front door slams shut behind me with a thunderclap that echoes through the high-ceilinged hallway. The sound feels final, like a judge’s gavel.

My father stands over me, breathing hard, face flushed dark with fury. His eyes, eyes that used to crinkle with pride when I recited Quran verses perfectly as a child, eyes that beamed at my graduation photos last night, are now black with something close to hatred.

“You shameless, ungrateful girl,” he hisses. Each word is a lash on my skin, leaving marks on my heart. “You have dragged the Al-Fariz name through the filthiest gutter imaginable. Do you even understand what you’ve done?”

I try to rise, my arms shaking. My hijab has slipped sideways, causing strands of hair to cling to my tear-wet cheeks. “Baba, please…let me explain…”

“Explain?” His voice rises to a roar that makes the crystal chandelier above us tremble. “Explain how photos of you naked, bruised, in bed with that criminal are plastered across every news site from here to Dubai? Explain how our family name is trending worldwide as the punchline to a scandal? Our mosque chat is exploding, my business partners have already called, three canceled meetings this morning alone. Neighbors are standing at their gates whispering. Our cousins in Kano sent messages asking if we’ve lost our minds. LOST OUR MINDS!”

He grabs my upper arm and yanks me upright. Pain flares between my legs; I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying out. He doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care.

“Look at you,” he snarls, shaking me once. “You reek of sin. You look like you’ve been used and discarded. And you have the audacity to stand in my house and ask for mercy?”

Faiza appears in the arched doorway to the living room, arms wrapped tightly around her middle like she’s holding herself together. Her eyes are swollen, cheeks streaked with mascara. She looks small, fragile, the picture of innocence betrayed.

“Nooria…” Her voice cracks on my name. Fresh tears spill. “How could you do this to me? I trusted you. I booked that suite so you could escape after Marcus humiliated you. I wanted you to feel safe. And instead…you went to him. To Valentino. You knew…he was supposed to be mine. Our families had an understanding. The wedding was planned. And you…you slept with him. You let him touch you. You let the whole world see.”

Her lower lip trembles. She presses a hand to her mouth as though the words are too painful to speak.

Guilt slams into me like a second slap, and my stomach churns. I want to scream that the juice was drugged, that I stumbled into the wrong room, that she might have orchestrated every second of this nightmare, but the words die in my throat.

Because what if she didn’t?

What if I really am the one who crossed the line? What if the drug only lowered my inhibitions and the rest—the begging, the moaning, the way I came apart under him over and over—was all me?

My father turns to Faiza, voice softening instantly. “Habibti, don’t cry. This isn’t on you.” He pulls her into his arms, strokes her hair while she sobs against his chest. Over her shoulder he glares at me, eyes burning.

“Look what you’ve done to your sister. She hasn’t stopped crying since the first headline dropped at dawn. The engagement was for the family, for alliances, for stability, for respect. And in one disgusting, reckless night you shattered it all. Who will marry your sister now after a broken engagement?”

My mother steps forward, hands fluttering helplessly. “Ahmed, please. She’s our daughter. She’s young, and she was hurt. Marcus betrayed her on the most important day of her life. Maybe she wasn’t thinking…”

“Not thinking?” My father laughs, a harsh, ugly sound. “She wasn’t thinking when she spread her legs for a man like Valentino Delucca? A killer? A man who makes his living in blood and shadows? Her sister’s husband? She thought plenty when she let him mark her like property.”

He releases Faiza and rounds on me again, stepping so close I can smell the mint on his breath.

“The internet doesn’t forgive, Nooria. The ummah doesn’t forgive. Our name is poison now. But I will not watch this family burn because of your filth.”

He straightens, smooths the front of his thobe like he’s regaining control.

“I’ve already spoken to Sheikh Khalid Al-Mansour in Abu Dhabi. His youngest son, the heir everyone calls the ‘silent sultan’, is seeking a wife. Someone pure, and obedient. Someone who can bring honor back to a tarnished lineage.” His gaze bores into mine. “You will marry him in three months. The papers are being prepared as we speak. You’ll go to Abu Dhabi, you'll behave, you’ll bear his children, and you will never ever speak of last night again. You will disappear from this city, from this scandal, and you will repair what you destroyed.”

The words land like stones in my chest, and I can’t breathe.

“Baba, no…” My voice is small, cracking. “Please. I can’t…I’m not ready…I don’t even know him…”

“You will be ready,” he says, voice flat and final. “Or you are no longer welcome in this house. No money. No family. No name. You’ll leave with the clothes on your back and nothing else. Choose.”

My mother makes a broken sound. “Ahmed, she’s only twenty-two. She just graduated. After everything…”

“After everything,” he cuts her off, “she has brought ruin on us all. This is mercy. The Al-Mansour family is powerful, protected, and untouchable. They can shield us from the fallout, from Delucca, from the press, and from our own shame.”

He turns away, shoulders rigid. “Go to your room. Pack what you need. You leave for Abu Dhabi in two weeks to meet your future husband. The rest will be arranged.”

I stand frozen. The foyer spins. My legs feel like they might give out again.

Faiza watches me from behind my father’s back. Her tears have slowed. Her expression is almost serene now—eyes dry, mouth curved in the tiniest, coldest smile.

My phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out and I'm not surprised by seeing Valentino's name on the screen.

He promised he'd come for me.

But right now, with my father’s ultimatum ringing in my ears, Faiza’s silent triumph burning holes in my skin, and the suffocating weight of an arranged marriage to a stranger in a foreign palace pressing down like a stone slab, I don’t know which is more terrifying.

That he might actually come, or that he might not.

I turn around and head to my room, stumbling up the stairs like my legs belong to someone else. Each step sends fresh jolts of pain through my bruised thighs, my swollen core, the raw skin of my backside. My cheek throbs in time with my heartbeat. The house feels too quiet after my father’s shouting—only the soft click of the air conditioning and the distant hum of the city outside the walls.

I reach my bedroom door and push it open. The familiar sight hits me like a punch: my neatly made bed with the pale blue duvet, the Quran on the nightstand, the framed photo of me and Faiza at my secondary school graduation when we were both laughing, arms around each other.

Everything looks the same, even though nothing is.

I shut the door behind me and lean against it, sliding down until I’m sitting on the carpet. My knees draw up. I wrap my arms around them and press my forehead to the fabric of my leggings. Tears come silently at first, then in choking sobs I can’t hold back anymore.

The door opens again, soft, almost careful.

Faiza slips inside and closes it behind her. She’s still crying, but the tears look different now: slower, more controlled. She leans against the dresser, arms crossed, watching me.

I wipe my face with my sleeve. “What do you want, Faiza? To gloat?”

She doesn’t answer right away. She walks over and sinks down to sit cross-legged in front of me, close enough that our knees almost touch. Her mascara has run in dark tracks down her cheeks, but her eyes are clear. Too clear.

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” she says quietly. “Not really.”

I stare at her. “You drugged me.”

She doesn’t deny it. Just looks down at her hands, twisting the gold bangle on her wrist—the one Baba gave her for her eighteenth birthday.

“I couldn’t do it,” she whispers. “I couldn’t marry him, Valentino Delucca.” She says his name like it tastes bitter. “You’ve heard the stories. Everyone has. The men who disappear, the businesses that burn, the women who vanish after they cross him. He’s not just dangerous, he’s a monster. Cold, and cruel. The kind of man who smiles while he destroys you.”

Her voice cracks on the last word.

“I begged Baba to call it off. I told him I’d rather die than be chained to someone like that. But he wouldn’t listen. ‘It’s for the family,’ he kept saying. ‘For alliances. For our future.’ So I… I found another way.”

My stomach drops.

“You sent me to his room,” I say slowly. “You drugged the juice, and made sure to give me the wrong room number so I’d end up there instead of you.”

She nods once. A small, miserable movement.

“I thought if he took someone else—if the engagement blew up in public—he’d never want me. I thought he’d reject the whole arrangement. I didn’t think…” She swallows. “I didn’t think he’d claim you. I didn’t think he’d look at you the way he looked at you in those photos. Like you belong to him now.”

I feel sick. “You used me. You let him hurt me. You let the whole world see me like that.”

“I know.” Her voice is barely audible. “I’m sorry, Nooria. I was scared. I was desperate. I thought if it was you—if it was my perfect, pious little sister—he’d be disgusted. He’d walk away, and I’d be free.”

She reaches for my hand. I jerk back. “Don’t touch me.”

She flinches but doesn’t move away. “I never wanted this to happen to you. I love you. You’re my sister, but I couldn’t marry him. I couldn’t let him own me.”

I stare at her, really look at her. The girl who used to braid my hair when we were kids, the girl who covered for me when I snuck out to study late at the library, the girl who just sold me to save herself.

“You could have told me,” I whisper. “You could have trusted me with your feelings and we could have figured something out together.”

“I was ashamed,” she says. “And I thought… I thought you’d never understand. You’re always so good, and so perfect. I didn’t want you to look at me like I was weak.”

The room feels smaller, and the air thicker.

I open my mouth to say something—anything—but the words won’t come.

Downstairs, a door slams.

For a long second, there's silence.

Then a single, sharp crack splits the air.

A gunshot.

My mother’s scream rips through the house, high, raw, terrified.

“Ahmed! Oh God…Ahmed!”

Faiza and I freeze. Our eyes lock.

The scream cuts off into choked sobs.

Footsteps pound up the stairs; fast, heavy.

Faiza grabs my arm, nails digging in. “Nooria…”

The bedroom door flies open.