Page 173 of Rescuing You

Jasmine spoke her thanks to the brothers.

“We’ll refuel in the UK.” Derrick stood in the aisle as he explained. “We’ll be in Portland by morning. There’s food and drinks in the back. Help yourselves. Those seats recline.” He opened an overhead compartment and pulled out pillows and blankets. “I assume you’re sleepy.”

Michael took them. “Thank you. I can’t even⁠—”

“No problem. Get comfortable. We won’t take off for”—he checked his watch—“about thirty minutes.”

Leila sat across the aisle from her sister, and after grabbing bottles of water, Michael settled in the seat facing her on the other side of a small table.

He opened a bottle for Jasmine and another for Leila before twisting the cap off his own. He downed about half the bottle before he set it aside and focused on Jasmine.

“What’d you tell him?”

Leila was tempted to tell Michael to leave her sister alone, but Jasmine didn’t seem bothered by the question. “I told him everything I know about what they're planning.”

But how would she have any information?

Before Leila could ask, Jasmine reached across the aisle and gripped her arm. “Don’t talk. I already know your questions.” To Michael, she said, “I didn’t lie to you. I was only with the group of men when they were together for meals, and Hasan and Waleed were very careful not to tell me anything.”

Leila didn’t miss the omission. What about Qasim?

She was confused, but Michael didn't seem to be.

Her sister had told him something he hadn’t told her?

Jasmine said, “I think you have guessed, no?”

He didn’t confirm or deny. “Why don’t you just tell us.”

Not a question so much as a suggestion. Or a command.

Jasmine slid her hand down to hold Leila’s. “Baba arranged a marriage between you and Waleed.”

She nodded. “We escaped in time.” The words were thorns in her throat, but she felt such gratitude in speaking them, in the truth of them…

“You escaped in time,” Jasmine said.

And realization dawned…or darkened.

“I am the wife of Khalid Qasim.”

The words… Leila couldn’t make them make sense. Her sister was married?

Her sister had been married—had been forced by their father to marry Khalid Qasim.

An old man.

A terrorist.

The man who’d snatched Leila off the street in Munich and threatened to hurt her twin if she didn’t come.

Threatened to harm his own wife.

“Oh, sister.” The words hurt, but that was nothing compared to what Jasmine must’ve dealt with. “When?”

“A few years ago.”

Years. She’d been married for years.