Forgetting Billions | ✓

34 | Forgetting Saviors

SHAYAN WATCHED Evan as they walked through San Diego International Airport. He wasn't sure if this was a trap. He wasn't sure if bringing Evan along was worth the risk, but he didn't have a choice. The man standing beside him was the only one that had a hold on Selena, whether they liked it or not.

He felt eyes on him from every corner of the airport as if they all knew that Shayan was breaking so many laws with a gun loaded and concealed in his backpack. It didn't help that he embodied the exact profile Americans feared the most.

He was so screwed.

Trying to mask his paranoia, he turned back to Evan, who whistled a jolly tune under his breath. The teenage boy ran his fingers through his hair, his eyes flicking around the airport like he thought he was being watched too. At this point, they were accomplices, and Shayan knew that the golden boy who stood beside him, with his spotless record and famous family, couldn't take any kind of bad publicity.

Being found with a gun in the middle of a crowded international airport would be the worst scandal to ever disgrace the Levington family name, especially if their youngest son was found with a man like him: a man that looked exactly like a jihadist.

Shayan lowered his gaze, unable to think about the hypotheticals surrounding their potential capture. He knew from the bottom of his heart, though, that if he and Evan were caught during their mission, it would be his ass in jail with no way out, while the white boy with the influential parents got off scot-free.

He sighed as the intrusive thought rattled his brain. Jasmine would have yelled at him for being so blatantly hateful towards Evan, despite the fact that everything he was thinking was true. She would have told him to be the one who forgave endlessly, the one who made others want to forget their Islamophobia.

Someone as perfect as Jasmine Karesh didn't deserve to suffer. If he had the chance, he would have taken her spot in a heartbeat, but the world didn't work that way. The people who heal were always the ones to be hurt, while the people who destroy live on in the shadows, untouched and unscarred.

It wasn't fair.

Pushing Jasmine out his mind, he cleared his throat to catch Evan's attention. "Call her," Shayan mumbled, scanning the airport for any sight of the Karesh family or Selena in the airport.

Evan groaned. "Calling Selena isn't going to get you to Jasmine quicker. Calm down."

His eyes flashed. "Calm down? You expect me to calm down when the girl I love is in danger of being killed at any minute?"

"You're so dramatic," he claimed with a huff, pulling his phone out of his pocket as he mocked Shayan. The phone began to ring. "Happy?"

"Stop chatting, dumbass. She can't know you're with someone."

"Do you think I'm stupid?"

"Obviously, if I just called you a dumba–," Shayan began but was cut off abruptly when Evan punched him swiftly in the gut. He wrapped his arms around his stomach and winced, not wanting to draw any more attention to himself, as the phone clicked on. He sent the boy a glare that could send him straight into the ground, which was unapologetically ignored.

"Evan?" Selena's soft voice rang through the phone and Shayan could see little, pathetic hearts orbiting around Evan's head.

"Selena, where are you? We need to talk. It's urgent," he replied, averting his eyes to the plane outside the window. It wasn't surprising that Selena could turn Evan into a completely different person with just a few well-placed words. He was much too easy to manipulate, which made him just the match for her.