Freya Arsov sits on top of a world of diamonds and sports cars. Her father is a billionaire, head of a world-renown company, her mother, an esteemed lawyer. She attends the most prestigious boarding school in England. She has four amazing best frien...
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RAINA AL HASSAN WAS POSITIVELY CERTAIN that she was insane. No sane person could possibly consider slaughtering their entire family, would they? Okay, perhaps not slaughtering them, three brothers, two sisters, and the headache-inducing boatload of cousins, aunties and uncles included, just, mutingthem, like one would mute a television. But then again, no sane person would also survive the al Hassan household without losing a few pints of beautiful patience.
Today was one of those days when she lost a lot more than a pint. Her older brother, Saiid, was leaving to return to Harvard where he was studying medicine and didn't let anyone forget it and she was more than happy to see him go, after a summer of listening to people praise him endlessly and chastise her mercilessly.
Saiid! You have grown so tall!
Saiid is going to be a doctor, Fatima. Any girl would be lucky to marry him.
There he is! The future of Ibrahim!
And then there were the comments that came her way.
Raina, don't slouch.
Raina, you should spend less time in your room. No man will every marry you if you are a recluse!
Wallah! Raina! Why can't you be more like Saiid?
All the while, her brother pretended she didn't exist. Saving her not glare or a smile. Just nothing.
It was five o'clock in the morning and she and her entire armada of a family were at the private landing pad owned by her father. One of the company's plane was parked peacefully behind Saiid as he stood, talking to her father. The company logo was visible against the white plane in bold black letters. A crescent and a burst of stars followed by the letters spelling out "Ibrahim" in reference to the founder, her grandfather. The crescent and burst of stars were also visible on the thick silver bracelet encircled around Saiid's wrist. It matched their father's and had belonged to their grandfather.
Raina remembered when her father, also Ibrahim al Hassan, had given it the Saiid over the summer. During a family dinner where all Raina wanted to do was go up to her room and video call Amelie, who was achingly absent from her life and the lives of her other friends at the moment or even call Seth Jabir, who was the only other student from Arrowsmith who lived in Riyadh. He was also a close family friend, as well as, her childhood crush that she had not outgrown and perhaps would never outgrow.
Her father had called everyone to attention, her aunts and uncles and mother and cousins and younger siblings, all of them, and then proceeded to present the family heirloom to Saiid, effectively naming him the heir to it all, handing him the keys to the kingdom. Raina's blood had boiled so hotly that night that all she could do to stop seeing red was go on a Teen Wolf marathon.
