The book starts with two high school girls who share a dorm-apartment in a very private school on Long Island, New York. One is Zabi, a fourteen-year-old genius born in Tehran. The other girl, Colette, looks like a French high-fashion model and is eighteen. Though she was born in Paris, her parents now live out in the state of Wyoming, USA. Both are seniors at the private school. Zabi gets a letter, seemingly from her father, which tells her she has been married off to some Arabian sheik. Arranged marriages of girls in Islamic Iran are allowed, starting when a girl is at least thirteen years old. Colette tells Zabi that she needs to go out to her father's ranch in Wyoming to hide. While Zabi is having lunch with Colette's parents in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Zabi's iPhone starts buzzing. Zabi and Colette's parents hear that Colette is being captured by two Iranian men because they couldn't find Zabi at the private school.