“That can’t be right,” Maya said, shaking her head. “My father wouldn’t do something like that. He wouldn’t.”

She started pacing, trying to shake the confusion flooding her mind. But what was she really thinking?

When her father had been “sorting out” Meret’s kidnapped —when he told her he wanted Meret taken down—she had assumed Meret had done something unforgivable. Something terrible. Maybe it had been about Cassia’s expulsion thinking Meret was being purposefully ...