She still had to pick out gifts for the three women she was with today, but once she got in the swing of Christmas shopping, they’d given her plenty of unintentional hints about what they might like.
“I know you’re tired. I am too,” said Ava, sitting next to her in the back seat while Aine drove. “But did you have fun?”
She laughed. “Honestly?”
“Uh oh,” said Odette from the front passenger seat.
“No, it’s the opposite. It was magical.”
Ava squeezed Zary’s hand. “I’m so happy,” she whispered.
It had also taken her some time to get used to how much money she was spending. A couple of times she’d considered calling Gunner to make sure she wasn’t overdoing it, but Odette had reassured her.
“You looked like you had sticker shock in the last store,” she’d said as they were on their way into another.
“I’ve spent so much money,” she’d whispered.
“Oh, girl, you haven’t seen anything yet.”
“What about your mother?” Ava asked. “Did you see anything for her?”
“I saw too much. I couldn’t decide.”
“We can always go back out tomorrow before the wrapping party.”
Ava and Aine had invited her over to their suite to wrap everything they’d purchased today. Zary had no idea what to expect, but since she’d had so much fun today, she decided not to stress over it.
She looked out at the snow softly falling outside the SUV’s window, and thought about the conversation she and her mother had had two days ago.
“Devochka moya,” her mother began. “Nam nuzhno pogovorit’.”
Zary sat down and held her mother’s hands. “We don’t have to talk, not if it is too painful,” she answered in their native language, Azeri.
“You need to know.”
“They told me you and father were dead. They took me to an orphanage.”
Her mother looked away. “They told me you were dead too. Both of you.”
Her mother went on to explain that, at first, she’d stayed at the compound in the Old City until Rauf had come to get her to take her back to Armenia.
“I didn’t want to be alive. I tried to take my life,” her mother confessed. “They put me in a hospital for the insane.”
“How long were you there?”
“Many, many years. It was almost as though I had died like I’d wanted to. Only Rauf came to see me, and that wasn’t often. I expected to live there for the rest of my life.”
“How did you get to Baku?”
“Rauf was the one who came to get me from there. I asked where he was taking me, and he told me we had to return to the Old City. When I asked why, he said your father’s name.”
“And you were held prisoner there?” Zary asked.
“I had only been there two days before you were rescued. When Rauf told me you were alive, that we had been so close yet not seen each other, I felt my heart break all over again.”
“Had you seen Petrov?”
“Just once. He told me that Topor, what he called Rauf, had told him I’d gone insane. He said that he’d paid for my care all those years and it was time I paid him back.”