Stockholm Syndrome. Capture-bonding. Traumatic bonding. My therapist had used all of these terms during our few brief sessions together. She had been trying to get me to talk about my feelings for Julian, but it had been too painful for me to discuss the man I’d thought I lost, so I stopped going to her. I did look up the terms later, though, and I can see why they would be applicable to my experience. I don’t know if it’s as simple as that, though, or if it even matters at this point. Naming something doesn’t make it go away. Whatever the cause of my emotional attachment to Julian, I can’t turn it off. I can’t make myself love him any less.

By the time I turn back to face Julian, the flight attendant is gone from the main cabin. I can hear the jet engines roaring to life, and I automatically fasten my safety belt, as I’d been taught to do my whole life.

“Champagne?” he asks, reaching for the bottle at the table.

“Sure, why not,” I say, and watch him deftly pour me a glass.

He hands it to me, and I sit back in my spacious seat, sipping the bubbly drink as the plane starts rolling.

My new life with Julian has begun.

3

Julian

Sipping from my own glass, I study Nora as she looks out the window at the rapidly shrinking ground below. She’s wearing jeans and a blue fleece sweater, her small feet clad in a pair of chunky-looking black sheepskin boots. Uggs, I think they’re called. Despite that off-putting footwear, she still looks sexy—though I far prefer seeing her in summer dresses, her smooth skin glowing in the sun.

Watching her calm expression, I wonder what she’s thinking, if she has any regrets.

She shouldn’t. I would’ve taken her regardless.

As though sensing my gaze on her, she turns toward me. “How did they find out about me?” she asks quietly. “The men who kidnapped me, I mean. How did they learn of my existence?”

At her question, my entire body tenses. My mind flashes back to those hellish hours after the attack on the clinic, and for a moment, I’m gripped by that same volatile mix of burning fury and paralyzing fear.

She could’ve died. She would’ve died, if I hadn’t found her in time. Even if I’d given them what they wanted, they would’ve still killed her to punish me for not giving in to their demands sooner. I would’ve lost her, just like I lost Maria.

Just like we both lost Beth.

“It was the nursing assistant at the clinic.” My voice comes out sounding cold and distant as I place my champagne glass back on the tray. “Angela. She was on Al-Quadar’s payroll all along.”

Nora’s eyes glitter brightly. “That bitch,” she whispers, and I can hear the pain and anger in her voice. Her hand shakes as she puts down her own glass on the table. “That fucking bitch.”