She showed up at the engagement party in a red dress and immediately caught the sheikh’s attention, but a few hours later she disappeared β what happened shocked everyone π±π€―π¨
Until that night, Naomi had tried not to think about her family’s past. Seventeen years earlier, her father Edward had died in a car accident on the way back from Europe. That’s what the police had said, and over time, Naomi had stopped questioning that version of events. He had worked in international shipping between Europe and the East, but her mother had never given her any details.
Naomi was now twenty-seven, and she had come to her best friend Lillian’s engagement party. She wore the red dress she’d long wanted to show her friend.
“Naomi, why on earth did you wear that dress here?” Lillian asked quietly but irritably.
“What’s wrong with it? You’re the one who said it suits me.”
“Don’t you think it’s a bit much to draw so much attention to yourself here?”
Lillian glanced around, then abruptly grabbed her by the arm.
“Fine, just try to stay out of sight of strangers, and especially away from that man by the far wall. Don’t look at him. And whatever you do, don’t walk near him.”
Naomi looked anyway. A tall man in a dark suit stood among the guests, completely calm, yet no one around him dared to speak too loudly. His name was Zayn Al-Malik. An influential sheikh many had heard of but few truly knew. He’d come to the celebration as an honored guest.
“Why should I be afraid of him?” Naomi asked.
“Because he’s dangerous. Just stay away from him.”
“God, fine.”
Naomi headed toward the table, trying not to look in Zayn’s direction anymore. But Zayn had already noticed her. And soon he noticed something far more disturbing.
Two waiters had been watching Naomi for far too long. One of them kept pretending to adjust his tray, though he was actually keeping an eye on the girl. The other was discreetly signaling something to a man near the exit. That man kept checking his phone and glancing toward Naomi from time to time.
Zayn frowned.
“Who is that woman in red?” he asked his bodyguard.
“The bride’s friend. Naomi.”
“Has anyone checked the people watching her?”
The bodyguard looked toward the waiters.
“No. What’s concerning you?”
Zayn didn’t answer right away. His gaze settled on the man by the exit.
“Start now. And don’t let any of them leave.”
At that moment, the lights in the hall suddenly went out.
Screams rang out, dishes crashed to the floor, someone collided with a table. For a few seconds, complete darkness reigned around them.
When the lights came back on, Naomi had vanished, along with the waiters and the man by the door.
Zayn moved toward the exit almost without thinking.
Naomi’s car was in the parking lot. The door was open, and her phone lay on the asphalt.
A few hours later, Naomi opened her eyes in an unfamiliar room. Her hands were bound, her head was spinning, and a man stood in front of her.
“Where’s the book your father hid seventeen years ago?”
Naomi stared at him, not understanding a word.
“What are you talking about? I don’t understand. How do you know my father?”
The man took a step closer.
“It seems I know more about him than you do.”
At that moment, heavy footsteps sounded behind the door. The man turned sharply, and Naomi grew even more afraid. A million questions raced through her mind. She didn’t understand what was happening, why she specifically had been kidnapped, or what connected her father to this mysterious book.
And it was at the most terrifying moment of her life that something happened that absolutely no one expected. π¨
Continued in the commentsβ¦ πππ
The door swung open abruptly, and Naomi saw Zayn.
“Zayn?… What are you doing here?”
He hurried over to her and cut the ropes.
“This isn’t the time for questions. We need to leave.”
“But who even are you people? Why is everyone talking about my father?”
Zayn looked her straight in the eyes.
“Because I knew Edward.”
Naomi froze.
“What?”
“He worked together with my father. They ran shipping operations between Europe and the East. Seventeen years ago, they died in the same car.”
Naomi couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“But my father died alone.”
“That’s what the official version was supposed to look like.”
Zayn explained that before his death, Edward and his father had discovered an illegal scheme involving their shipping operations and the people using their company. They had gathered evidence and hidden it in a book, kept at one of the old warehouses.
“Then why did they kill my father?”
“Because he refused to hand over the book.”
“And where is it now?”
Zayn looked at her.
“You’ve been carrying it with you this whole time.”
Naomi turned pale.
“What?”
Zayn explained that the book had been hidden in an old box that Naomi’s mother had given her after her father’s death. She’d never known there was anything important inside it.
Naomi remembered the box and understood why the kidnappers had been so sure she knew the answer.
But one question remained.
“Why did you help me?”
Zayn was silent for a long time.
“Because Edward saved my younger brother’s life before he died. I couldn’t save him back then. But today, I won’t let anyone take his daughter.”
Naomi looked at Zayn, and for the first time, the old wariness between them disappeared.
A few days later, the evidence from the book was handed over to the police. The people behind the kidnapping were arrested, and the true circumstances of Edward’s and Zayn’s father’s deaths were finally revealed.
Naomi was no longer afraid of the past.
And Zayn realized that he was ready to fight for this woman not out of a debt to her father, but because he had come to love her.
And after seventeen years, one old book had finally closed the story that two now-deceased friends had once begun.
