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“You sure?” he asked.
“You have your laptop and I have mine.”
“You don’t need yours. You need to rest,” he said.
“If I have a concussion, then I shouldn’t sleep,” I reminded him. “I don’t have a television at home and reading puts me to sleep. Might as well work.”
I could tell he knew he was defeated. He just didn’t know why I was being so compliant now.
You’ll find out soon enough.
“Okay. Let’s get you home,” he said.
And let’s get to work.
I was feeling horrible about what happened to Ibby, but thankful that I had a distraction because being with Niko for the next twenty-four hours in my home would be torture. Physically and mentally.
It was so much easier when I hated the man.
CHAPTER 11
Niko
It felt so strange to be here in Trye’s home. I knew his work and that he was a man who loved his family. That was all. For me, it was all I needed. I didn’t need to know about his personal life. Maybe it was because I didn’t want anyone to know about mine.
Ovi said she was going to shower and change into something more comfortable, and I was standing in her living room, surrounded by photos of what once was a happy family. They were laughing and hugging, and you could see the love between them all. It explained why Ovi was fighting so hard for her father. It's what families do or are supposed to do, for each other.
How could one not be jealous? I wish I could relate. My parents weren’t loving people like Ovi’s. Did they love me? Probably. They never said it. I guess the way they showed it was by making sure no one knew I existed. And if they did know me, they never knew I was their child.
That was a good thing. It wasn’t something to be proud of. But besides that, they weren’t kind. I had no memories of us on picnics or outings. I wasn’t a prisoner in my own house, but I was rarely allowed to leave or have friends. For males, that was odd. Back then, it was just females who had lived in fear and males got to go to school and live a normal life. Nothing was normal for me. I hated my life back then. But I had spent my time reading and teaching myself a variety of things about how the rest of the world functioned. It showed me how dysfunctional Tabiq was and only made me want to get out of it even more.
I shuddered thinking back to those times. It was the part of my heritage that I was ashamed of. If the world knew what Tabiq was before, and how the women were treated and violated, no one would ever want to visit or do business with us. It was our deep dark disgusting secret that the outside world could never learn. One thing about Tabiqians, we are damn good at hiding our failures, our feelings, even when we shouldn’t. Maybe if the world had known, someone would’ve come and put a stop to it long ago, and so many women wouldn’t have suffered through such horrendous acts.
Maybe we could’ve been raised like normal happy and loving families.
Ovi was about ten years younger than I was, so she most likely didn’t have the same experiences or memories of those times as I did, which was a good thing. She knew Tabiq’s history but hadn’t lived through the violence of it all like many others had.
My gut twisted in a knot just thinking that if she was just ten years older, how she would’ve been taken and sold to the highest bidder like many women my age. Ovi was strong, smart, and kind but she was also sensitive to others' needs and pain. I could only imagine how such things would’ve affected her.
Her heart would’ve been ripped into pieces.
We had spoken so much about Tabiq last night. But it was all about the current state, nothing about the human trafficking that ripped families apart. Talking about the past wasn’t going to help this country move forward. And avoiding certain topics was a good thing for me as well. It meant that I didn’t have to speak about my father and whatever part he had played in all that cruelty.
My father had been on the police force during a time when police were feared and hated. They were the enforcers of the evil that had plagued Tabiq. If they knocked on your door, or if you passed them on the street, one couldn’t help but be riddled in fear. And if you were bold enough to fight for what was right, and got caught, then you were never seen again.
I wanted to believe my father wasn’t involved in any of them, but I had no proof either way. And to think that his DNA flowed through me had kept me from having any close relationships. I wanted to believe that I was nothing like him, but I had an underlying fear of what I could be capable of if I was pushed too far.
I had been back in Tabiq for almost ten years, and no one seemed to know who my parents were. I had no plans of changing that.
Even after all these years, I was still haunted by what went down. I had just turned eighteen, and all I was looking forward to was being on my own. My parents had saved money, probably made from illegal and immoral behavior, for me to go to school overseas and I was supposed to be leaving in a few days. It was going to be my way out of this horrendous place I called home. I wanted nothing more than to leave Tabiq and never look back.
But all that changed in one day. The day before I left my home. Some military force of some kind showed up and overthrew our corrupt government and the policemen whoweren’t killed were detained and put in jail. My mother was the one who informed me that my father hadn’t survived the ordeal. She wasn’t crying. Maybe there was no love between them either. All I remember was her telling me to pack my bags because I was still leaving in the morning. She didn’t have to tell me twice. If I had to swim in the ocean for days until I made landfall elsewhere, I would have. Nothing was keeping me in Tabiq.
She didn’t bring me to meet the boat. Not a hug goodbye either. But she gave me money and said that if I had a brain in my head, I’d never return. It was the last time I ever saw or heard from her.
After putting myself through six years of college, I wanted to do something meaningful with my life. Coming back to Tabiq to try to help people was my driving force. I wanted to stand up against all the inhuman treatment that had been taking place. But when I returned, things weren’t as I had remembered. A new government was in place, the Henderson family had built a resort, and the police force was no longer vile and abusive. They were actually out to help the people. They were the good guys now. The way it always should’ve been.
It took a little time for me to settle in. I never let anyone know who I was, and no one really seemed to care. All they knew was that I was Tabiqian. Keeping a low profile, I waited for an opportunity to make a difference. The factory for building and exporting teakwood was perfect. Tabiq had the natural resources for the products and the craftsmen who could do the work.
