Imran returned home with a bruised face and bloodstained clothes.

Aisha gasped when she saw him.

He told her about the meeting, the fight, and Rashid’s last words.

Aisha cried as she treated his wound.

“What are we going to do?” she asked over and over again.

Imran did not answer.

He sat staring into space, his mind blank.

That night, they went to bed exhausted and broken.

Imran lay awake, thinking that their lives were irrevocably ruined.

Whatever they did, there was no way out.

If they went to Pakistan, they would face disgrace.

If they stayed in Dubai, Aisha would be deported or imprisoned when the truth about her pregnancy came out.

Rashid had won.

He had all the power, and he knew it, and they were nobodies.

Imran felt something inside him break completely.

The next few days passed in painful silence.

Imran went to work like a robot, drove passengers around, answered their questions in monosyllables, and in the evening returned home and sat by the window looking at the city lights.

Aisha also continued to work.

Although her morning sickness was getting worse, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to hide her pregnancy, she wore loose clothing, but she knew that in a few weeks it would become obvious.

Her colleagues had already started asking questions, noticing her palenness and frequent trips to the bathroom.

She laughed it off, saying she had stomach problems, but she felt the walls closing in around her.

Imran was no longer angry.

The rage that had burned inside him after meeting Rashid had burned out, leaving only emptiness and fatigue.

He thought about his parents, his brothers, what they would say when they found out the truth, about the shame he would bring on his family, about the money they never saved, about the house they never built, about the seven years of his life in a foreign country that had been wasted.

He thought about the child that was to be born, who would carry the blood of the man who had destroyed their lives.

And the more he thought, the clearer it became that there was no way out.

Aisha felt it too.

She saw how Iran was changing, how he was withdrawing into himself, how the light in his eyes was fading.

She blamed herself for everything that had happened.

For agreeing to Rashid’s proposal, for not telling her husband the truth right away, for being weak and allowing herself to be intimidated, for now carrying a child who would be a living reminder of this nightmare.

She thought about abortion, but her religious beliefs instilled in her since childhood prevented her from taking that step.

Killing a child was a sin for which she would answer to God.

But giving birth to a child meant the end of everything they knew.

On Friday evening, after prayers, Imran and Aisha sat on the floor of their small apartment.

Between them lay the Quran open at a random page.

Imran read aloud, his voice quiet and monotonous.

Aisha listened with her eyes closed.

When he finished, they sat in silence for a long time.

Then Imran spoke without looking at her.

Aisha, I no longer see a way forward.

He said, “Whatever we do, only shame and suffering await us.

If we stay here, you will be imprisoned or deported.

If we return home, our families will turn their backs on us.

Our child will grow up in a world where he will be a bastard without a father, without a future.

I’ve thought about this day and night, and all I see is darkness.

Aisha opened her eyes and looked at him.

What are you trying to say? Imran finally looked up and met her gaze.

Maybe there is another way.

A way that will free us from this torment.

From shame, from endless years of suffering.

Aisha understood what he was talking about before he said it out loud.

Her heart beat faster.

You’re talking about death.

Imran nodded.

In Islam, suicide is a sin.

But isn’t what we’re going through now worse? Isn’t a life of shame, poverty, and a child born of violence and coercion worse than death? Perhaps Allah will forgive us when he sees our suffering.

Perhaps this is the only way to end the pain.

Aisha was silent for a long time.

Part of her wanted to scream that this was madness, that one couldn’t think like that.

But another part, exhausted and broken, whispered that he was right, that the life that awaited them was unbearable, that it was better to leave now with dignity than to live for years in hell.

How? She asked quietly.

Imran had thought about it.

There’s a place outside the city where we used to meet with Rashid.

A forest.

There’s no one there.

We can go there at night.

I’ll get a rope from the garage.

It will be quick.

painless.

Aisha shuddered but did not object.

Imran continued, “We’ll leave letters for our families.

We’ll explain that it was our choice, that we couldn’t live with the shame.

We’ll ask for forgiveness.

” They spent the weekend in a strange calm, as if they had made a decision and lifted the burden of uncertainty from themselves.

Imran wrote a long letter to his mother and brothers explaining everything that had happened without mentioning Rashid’s name but only referring to an influential man who ruined their lives.

He apologized for not being able to provide for his family for causing them pain.

He asked them to remember him and Aisha with love not condemnation.

Aisha wrote a similar letter to her parents, begging them to understand and forgive.

On Sunday evening, they gathered together.

Imran took the rope that the builders had used in his house and put it in a bag.

They put on clean clothes, performed ablutions, and prayed as if preparing for a long journey.

Before leaving, Aisha turned around and looked at their small apartment for the last time.

at the bed where they slept, at the kitchen where she cooked, at the window from which a piece of the sky was visible.

All of this was supposed to be the beginning of their new life.

Instead, it became the grave of their dreams.

They got into Imran’s car and drove to the outskirts of the city.

The drive took about an hour.

Imran turned off the main highway onto a dirt road leading to a forest plantation that the UAE authorities had created as part of a desert greening project.

The trees here were sparse, mostly acacia and tamarisque, but the place was secluded.

He stopped the car deep inside, far from the road where no one would see them until morning.

They got out of the car.

The night was warm, the sky dotted with stars.

Imran found a sturdy tree with a thick branch high enough.

He took out a rope and checked its strength.

Aisha stood nearby, shivering despite the warm air.

“Are you sure?” Imran asked.

She nodded, unable to speak.

Imran hugged her and they stood there for a few minutes holding each other for the last time.

Then Imran made two loops and attached the rope to the branch.

He brought two boxes from the car for them to stand on.

He placed them under the tree.

“I’ll go first,” he said.

“I can’t let you die alone.

” Aisha grabbed his hand.

“No, we’re together at the same time.

” Imran hesitated, then agreed.

They stood on the boxes and put the nooes around their necks.

Imran took Aisha’s hand.

“On the count of three,” he said.

Aisha nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks.

One, Iran squeezed her hand tighter.

Two, Aisha closed her eyes and whispered a prayer.

Three, they kicked the boxes away at the same time.

Imran and Aisha’s bodies were found by a local shepherd the next morning.

He was grazing his goats in the area and stumbled upon the car, then saw the bodies hanging from the tree.

He immediately called the police.

Investigators arrived and examined the scene.

There were no signs of a struggle.

No traces of violence by third parties.

Two sealed envelopes with letters were found in the car.

The police read their contents.

The story was shocking, but without specific names and evidence, there was nothing to investigate.

The official version was closed as a double suicide.

The bodies were handed over to the Pakistani embassy, which arranged for their repatriation.

Imran and Aisha’s families received the letters and the bodies of their children at the same time.

Their grief was boundless, mixed with incomprehension and shame.

The parents read the letters over and over again, trying to understand how this could have happened.

Imran and Aisha were buried in their homeland in family cemeteries, their graves located in different villages several hours drive from each other.

The story of their deaths remained within the close circle of family and a few close friends.

The embassy did not disclose the information, not wanting to create a diplomatic incident based on unproven allegations against an influential Emirati.

Rashid al- Maktum never learned of their deaths.

He continued his life doing business, buying expensive things, meeting new women.

For him, Aisha was just one of many, a fleeting infatuation that he had long forgotten.

The case was not investigated further.

Officially, it was closed as a tragic case of two migrants who could not cope with the pressures of life in a foreign country.

Two lines appeared in the Dubai police statistics.

Suicides, motive, personal problems.

No mention of Rashida, of coercion, of pregnancy.

The truth remained buried with Imran and Aisha, known only to their parents, who carried this burden to the end of their days, unable to seek revenge or find justice.

On the morning of her wedding, a 28-year-old Ukrainian woman was shot dead in Dubai.

The investigation established that the murder was ordered by the three official wives of her billionaire fiance.

The three women’s lives were structured according to a strict and predictable schedule.

Fatima, Leila, and Amamira were the wives of Khaled Al- Jasim, a 52-year-old construction magnate whose company built dozens of skyscrapers that defined the look of modern Dubai.

Each of them lived in her own luxurious villa in the exclusive gated community of Emirates Hills, received a monthly allowance of $50,000, and had a staff of servants.

Their worlds never intersected.

Khaled spent exactly 10 days a month with each wife and her children following a strict rotation established many years ago.

This arrangement ensured peace and stability in his complex family.

Fatima, the first and oldest wife, was 48 years old.

She married Khaled when she was 18 and he was just a budding entrepreneur.

She bore him four children, the eldest of whom was already 29.

Fatima considered herself the guardian of family traditions and wielded considerable informal influence in the clan.

Leila, the 39-year-old second wife, was the daughter of one of Khaled’s former business partners.

She had given birth to three children and was known for her impulsive nature and love of social life.

The third wife, Amamira, was the youngest.

At 33, she had two small children, a law degree from the University of London that she had never used, and a reputation as the most calculating and intellectual of the three.

For 15 years, they coexisted within this system, each in her own golden cage, jealously guarding her status and that of her children.

This fragile balance was disrupted in early 2023.

At an international business forum in Dubai, Khaled met Oxana Kovalenko.

She was 28 years old and worked as a senior marketer at a large international PR company.

Her team was promoting Khaled’s new flagship project, a 60story residential complex in the Dubai Marina area.

Oxana had come to Dubai from Kiev 3 years earlier.

She was ambitious, intelligent, spoke English fluently, and was rapidly advancing her career.

Khaled accustomed to the submissiveness and traditional lifestyle of his wives was impressed by her energy, sharp mind and western style of doing business.

Their relationship began as purely business, joint meetings, presentations, business dinners.

After 2 months, Khaled began to show her signs of attention that went beyond professional relations.

He invited her to the most expensive restaurants, gave her jewelry, and sent huge bouquets to her office.

He introduced himself to Oxana as a divorced man, the father of adult children who had been alone for many years.

To back up his words, he showed her fake divorce papers that he had had made to order.

Oxana, charmed by his attention, intelligence, and charisma, believed him.

She saw him not just as a billionaire but as a kindred spirit, a strong and caring man with whom she could build a future.

Their romance developed rapidly.

Khaled rented a luxurious penthouse for her with a view of the bay in the very area of Dubai Marina that he was developing.

He gave her a white Mercedes G-Class worth $180,000.

He gave her a monthly allowance of $15,000, explaining that he wanted her to work less and spend more time with him.

For Oxana, who was used to achieving everything herself, this was unusual, but she was truly in love.

She called her parents in Kiev, breathlessly, telling them about her happiness, about the man who had changed her life, about her plans for the future.

She believed she had found her love.

Eight months after the beginning of their romance in October 2023, Khaled made Oxana an official proposal.

He promised her the lavish European style wedding she had dreamed of.

He said he wanted everything to be official so that her parents could come and share the day with them.

He didn’t want a traditional Islamic ceremony.

He wanted a secular celebration that would match her worldview.

Oxana was over the moon.

She immediately called her parents in Kiev and invited them to Dubai for the ceremony scheduled for the end of November.

They bought tickets and eagerly prepared to meet their future billionaire son-in-law whom they thought was a free man.

Oxana began preparing for the wedding.

She chose a dress, booked a banquet hall at the Burge Alarab Hotel, and compiled a guest list.

She had no idea that her happiness was built on lies and that those lies had already begun to crack, threatening to collapse and bury her under their rubble.

The system Khaled had built failed one evening in late October.

Fatima, his first wife, was having dinner with her friends at an expensive French restaurant in Dubai’s financial center.

It was her free week when Khaled, according to the schedule, was with Amira.

At the next table, she saw her husband.

He was sitting with a young blonde woman, holding her hand, and looking at her with an adoration that Fatima had not seen in his eyes for 20 years.

Before her eyes, Khaled took a velvet box out of his pocket, opened it, and slipped a ring with a huge diamond onto the girl’s finger.

The girl laughed and kissed him.

Fatima felt her world, so stable and orderly, crumbling.

She did not make a scene.

She silently paid the bill, left the restaurant, and drove home.

The rage inside her was cold and calculating.

The next morning, Fatima contacted a private detective agency.

She was willing to pay any price for complete information about her rival.

The detective, a former British intelligence officer, took on the case with enthusiasm.

A week later, a thick report was lying on Fatima’s desk.

It contained everything.

Her name, Oxana Kovaleeno, her age, place of work, address of her penthouse in Dubai Marina.

Dozens of photos taken with a hidden camera.

Here they are having dinner.

Here they are kissing in the car.

Here they are entering the entrance of her house.

Copies of bank transfers to her account.

Documents for the Mercedes she was given.

And most importantly, details of the upcoming wedding.

the date, place, guest list.

Khaled wasn’t just going to take on another mistress.

He was going to marry her, holding a public ceremony that would make this foreign woman his official wife, albeit by western standards.

Fatima realized that this was a threat not only to her status, but also to the status of his two other wives.

A fourth wife permitted under Sharia law would be integrated into the existing system of rotation and hierarchy.

But this Ukrainian woman with her European views, public romance and secular wedding was a completely different phenomenon.

She could become not just another wife for Khaled, but his beloved, his main wife, the one who would displace them all from their pedestal.

Fatima made an unprecedented decision.

She called Ila and Amamira and arranged a meeting at her villa.

It was the first time in 15 years that the three wives were to be in the same room outside of an official family celebration.

Ila and Amamira arrived intrigued and wary.

They sat in the living room keeping their distance.

Fatima silently placed the detective’s report on the table.

They began to look through the photos.

Their first reaction was shock.

Then it turned to anger.

Ila, the most hot-tempered, jumped up, her face contorted with rage.

“That [ __ ] How dare he humiliate us like this?” she shouted.

Amamira, a lawyer, silently studied the documents, her face impassive.

Fatima let them vent their initial emotions, then spoke.

Her voice was calm and firm.

“It’s not about the affair,” she said.

“We all knew he had other women.

The point is that he’s going to marry her in a western ceremony to make her a public figure.

It’s a slap in the face to each of us, our families, and our children.

If she becomes his wife, especially one he loves, our status will be destroyed.

Our maintenance will be cut.

Our children’s inheritance will be threatened.

Ila immediately chimed in.

She must be stopped at any cost.

We must make him abandon her.

Amira looked up from her papers.

It’s impossible to make him, she said coldly.

He’s in love like a boy.

He won’t give her up.

Any scandal will only strengthen his resolve and make us look like jealous fools.

We have no legal leverage over him.

Silence hung in the room.

All three women knew Amamira was right.

Then Fatima said what she had been thinking all week.

If we can’t remove her from his life, then we must remove her from life altogether.

Ila looked at her with a mixture of fear and admiration.

Amira remained calm.

“That’s murder,” she stated.

“In the Emirates, that’s punishable by death.

” “Only if we get caught,” Fatima replied.

“But we won’t get caught.

I have connections.

My brother controls the security service at the port of Jebel Ali.

He knows people who can do any dirty work quietly and professionally.

We’ll hire someone to do it.

It will look like a robbery.

A foreign tourist in an expensive car fell victim to street criminals.

These things happen.

The police will search for them for a couple of weeks and then close the case.

Amamira thought about it.

As a lawyer, she saw all the risks.

But as a woman whose established world was under threat, she saw this as the only possible solution.

How much will it cost? She asked.

I spoke to my brother.

$30,000.

Two hitmen.

They’ll do it clean, Fatima replied.

$10,000 each.

It’s a small price to pay to secure our future.

Ila didn’t hesitate for a second.

I agree.

Amamira was silent for a few minutes, weighing the pros and cons.

Finally, she nodded.

Okay, but everything has to be thought through to the smallest detail.

No direct contact, no traces.

When? We have 28 days until the wedding, said Fatima.

The perfect day is the morning of the wedding itself.

She’ll go to the beauty salon.

She’ll be alone in the car.

The attack will take place at dawn on an empty road.

No witnesses.

Over the next 3 weeks, the three women who for years had communicated only through secretaries began to meet secretly to work out a plan.

Fatima found two perpetrators through her brother.

Pakistani men who were working illegally at the port and had criminal records.

They met with them once in an abandoned warehouse.

Fatima gave them half of the money in cash, a photo of Oxana, her car’s license plate number, and a detailed schedule of her movements, which she had obtained from the detective.

She explained the plan.

The attack should look like an attempted robbery that ended tragically.

There should be only one shot so as not to attract unnecessary attention.

After the job was done, they had to burn the motorcycle and the weapon and lie low.

They would receive the second half of the money after the job was done.

Amir, using her legal knowledge, thought out an alibi for each of them.

On the day of the murder, Fatima would be at a charity breakfast, Ila at a spa, and Amir herself at a parent teacher conference at school.

All three would be in public surrounded by witnesses.

They communicated via a secure messenger app using code words.

Preparing for the holiday meant the murder plan.

Gift meant money for the perpetrators and guest meant oxana.

They were sure they had thought of everything.

That their alliance born of jealousy and fear would remain a secret and that the death of an unknown Ukrainian woman would be just another unfortunate incident in Dubai’s crime reports.

They underestimated only one thing.

The effectiveness of the Dubai police and the ubiquitous presence of CCTV cameras in the city.

They considered their own.

November 25th, the wedding day, began for Oxana with a sense of anticipation and happiness.

She woke up in her penthouse on the 40th floor as the sun was just rising over the Persian Gulf.

Her parents, who had flown in from Kiev 2 days earlier, were staying at a nearby hotel.

In the evening, a ceremony at Burge Al- Arab and a banquet for 200 guests awaited them.

Khaled was supposed to pick her up at noon, but now at 8:30 in the morning, she was on her way to one of the best beauty salons on Jira Beach Road.

She was alone in her white Mercedes G-Class.

She turned on her favorite music, sang, and drumed her fingers on the steering wheel.

She didn’t notice the motorcycle that had followed her out of the parking lot and kept a distance of several cars behind her.

At one of the traffic lights on the almost empty morning road, her car was the first in line.

The motorcycle with two men in helmets pulled up alongside the driver’s door.

Oxana glanced at them and turned away, waiting for the green light.

The passenger on the motorcycle took out a gun with a silencer.

He didn’t say a word.

The first shot shattered the side window and hit Oxana in the head.

The second, almost immediately after, hit her in the chest.

Her head fell back against the headrest.

The Mercedes remained stationary when the green light came on.

The motorcycle sped off, turned into the nearest alley, and disappeared.

The whole incident took no more than 10 seconds.

It was recorded by four city cameras from different angles.

The driver of the car behind the Mercedes was the first to suspect something was wrong.

When the G-Class did not move, when the light turned green, he honked his horn.

There was no response.

After overtaking the car, he saw a broken window and a motionless woman behind the wheel.

He immediately called the police.

A patrol car and an ambulance arrived in 5 minutes.

Paramedics pronounced her dead on the spot.

The police cordined off the area and an investigation team arrived at the scene.

The investigation was led by one of Dubai’s best detectives.

After reviewing the camera footage, investigators obtained a clear image of the motorcycle and the killers, even though their faces were hidden by helmets.

The license plate recognition system did not yield any results.

The plate was fake.

But one of the cameras captured a unique scratch on the motorcycle gas tank.

The police launched a large-scale search operation.

All motorcycle repair shops were checked and hundreds of bikers were questioned.

12 hours later, a patrol helicopter spotted traces of a fire in the desert 30 km from the city.

The remains of a motorcycle lay on the ground.

The scratch on what was left of the fuel tank matched.

Investigators assumed that the killers were hiding somewhere nearby.

The area was combed with dogs.

A few hours later, two men were found in an abandoned building used by shepherds.

They were the same Pakistanis hired by Fatima.

They had no weapons, but experts later found microparticles of gunpowder and glass from the Mercedes window on the clothes of one of them.

Only 18 hours had passed since the murder.

During their first interrogation, the men confessed to everything.

Faced with irrefutable evidence and the prospect of the death penalty, they decided to cooperate with the investigation in the hope of a reduced sentence.

They told everything.

How they were hired, how much they were paid, who was behind the order.

They named Fatima, the first wife of billionaire Khaled.

They did not know the names of the other two wives as they had only communicated with her.

The detective immediately requested financial information on Fatima’s accounts.

The check revealed a transfer of $10,000 to the account of one of the arrested Pakistanis.

The transfer had been made 3 days earlier.

This was direct evidence.

Based on this information, a search warrant was obtained for all three villas in Emirates Hills and Fatima was arrested.

When the police arrived at Fatima’s villa, she was completely calm.

She was having lunch with her children and her alibi was flawless.

She had been at a charity event that morning and dozens of people could confirm this.

She denied all charges, calling them absurd.

But during the search, a second unregistered phone was found in her office.

Technical specialists were able to bypass the security and gain access to the messenger app.

There they found the entire history of the conspiracy.

A group chat called family council consisted of Fatima, Leila, and Amamira.

Detailed discussion of the plan, code words, distribution of roles, Amamira’s fears, and Fatima’s insistence.

It was irrefutable evidence against all three.

That same evening, the police arrested Leila and Amamira.

The news of the arrest of the three wives of one of the most influential men in the country exploded across the UAE media.

It was a scandal of unprecedented proportions.

Khaled, who was at the police station at the time giving testimony as the fiance of the murdered woman, learned of his wife’s arrest from the detective.

His reaction was a mixture of shock, disbelief, and horror.

He refused to believe that the women he had lived with for decades, the mothers of his nine children, could have done such a thing.

But when he was shown printouts of their correspondents, he broke down.

In the days that followed, he gave several interviews to international news agencies, including CNN.

He cried in front of the camera, saying that he had lost the love of his life, that his wives, blinded by jealousy, had destroyed everything.

These interviews provoked mixed reactions.

Many sympathized with his grief, but others pointed out that it was his lies and bigamy that were the root cause of the tragedy.

The Ukrainian government issued a strong statement demanding that the UAE authorities impose the most severe and just punishment on the murderers of their citizen.

Oxana’s griefstricken parents remained in Dubai during the investigation.

their interests represented by a lawyer hired by the Ukrainian embassy.

They refused to communicate with Khaled.

The trial began two months later and lasted 6 months.

It became the main media event in the Middle East.

Each session was covered by dozens of international media outlets.

Fatima, Leila, and Amamira sat in the dock wearing black abayas, their faces covered.

Fatima remained silent.

Ila cried.

Amamira calmly and methodically answered questions, trying to prove that she was against the murder, but had been forced to participate in the conspiracy under pressure from Fatima.

Her lawyer presented the court with messages she had written.

This is too risky.

We must find another way.

But the prosecutor pointed out that after these messages, she did not go to the police and transferred her share of the money to pay for the murder.

The prosecution presented the court with a whole array of evidence, confessions from the perpetrators, camera recordings, financial transactions, and most importantly, correspondence between the three wives.

The motive was obvious, jealousy and fear of losing status and financial well-being.

In May 2024, the court handed down its verdict.

The courtroom was packed.

Fatima as the organizer of the crime was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Ila who actively supported the plan received 25 years in prison.

Amamira despite her attempts to portray herself as a passive participant was found guilty of complicity in the murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The court took into account her initial hesitation and the fact that she was not the initiator, but emphasized that she had taken no action to prevent the crime and had financed it on an equal footing with the others.

It was one of the harshest sentences ever handed down to women from high society in the history of the UAE.

Two Pakistani perpetrators were, as expected, sentenced to death.

The sentence was carried out 3 months later.

After the verdict was handed down, Khaled Aljasim immediately filed for divorce from all three wives.

All their personal property, including villas and bank accounts, was frozen and by court order transferred to a trust fund for their nine children.

Khaled himself stepped down from managing his business empire, handing over the reigns to his eldest son from Fatima.

He virtually disappeared from public view, spending most of his time on his yacht in the Mediterranean.

Oxana’s parents received $8 million in compensation from Khaled.

They returned to Kiev, where they buried their daughter.

With the money they received, they established the Oxana Kovaleeno Charitable Foundation, which helps Ukrainian women who have been victims of violence abroad.

They never publicly forgave Khaled’s wives or Khaled himself, considering him the main culprit of the tragedy, whose lies provoked a chain of fatal events.

The case sparked widespread public debate in the UAE and throughout the Arab world about polygamy, the status of women in modern society, and the clash between traditional values and the Western way of life.

The story of three wives who joined forces to murder a young rival became a cautionary tale about how jealousy, fear, and deception can destroy even the richest and most influential families.

A 29-year-old nurse from Manila burned alive in her own bedroom a few hours after a court confirmed her right to inherit $12 million.

Six men broke into the house at night with cans of gasoline.

Maria Santos arrived in Dubai in 2022 on a contract with a private medical company.

She was 27 years old with a degree from the University of Manila and 3 years of experience working at a city hospital.

A salary of12 on $100 seemed like a huge amount for a family of five living in Quzon City.

Her father died of a heart attack when Maria was 19, leaving her mother with three children and medical bills.

Her younger brothers were in school, and her mother had type 2 diabetes and was unable to work.

Maria sent home $800 every month and spent the rest on a room in a dormatory for medical staff in the Dera district and on food.

For the first 8 months, she worked in a clinic serving wealthy patients from the Persian Gulf countries.

The schedule was grueling.

12-hour shifts 6 days a week with demanding and often rude patients.

Filipinos made up the majority of the nursing staff, and Emirati doctors communicated with them minimally, giving orders through senior nurses.

Maria did not complain.

Every transfer of money home meant paying for school textbooks for her brothers, insulin for her mother, and repairs to the leaky roof.

In October 2022, she was summoned to the clinic director’s office.

The man, who was about 50 years old, explained the situation briefly.

A nurse was needed for a private patient, roundthe-clock care at home, an indefinite contract, a salary of $3,000 a month, plus room and board.

The patient was dying of stage 4 pancreatic cancer, and doctors had given him 3 to 6 months to live.

The family insisted on home care and refused hospitalization.

Maria agreed immediately.

$3,000 meant she could send 2.

5,000 home and her younger brother dreamed of going to university in 2 years.

3 days later, she was taken to a villa in Palm Jira.

The artificial palm-shaped archipelago was considered one of the most expensive places to live in Dubai.

The villa stood on a private plot overlooking the Persian Gulf covering an area of about a thousand square meters.

The house had seven bedrooms, a swimming pool, and separate rooms for the staff.

The security guard opened the gate, and the housekeeper led Maria inside.

The interior looked austere.

Marble, dark wood, minimal decor.

On the walls hung photographs of a young man in traditional Emirati clothing next to buildings under construction with captions indicating projects in the Dubai Marina area.

Abdullah al-Mansuri lay in a bedroom on the first floor which had been converted into a hospital ward, a hospital bed, an IV, a heart rate monitor, an oxygen concentrator.

The man was 76 years old, but he looked older.

His skin was gray, his eyes sunken, his breathing labored.

He hardly spoke during the first few days.

Maria changed his IVs, monitored his pain medication, and helped with his hygiene.

The doctor came twice a week to examine the patient and adjust his morphine dosage.

The pain intensified, and Abdullah moaned at night.

Maria sat next to him, holding his hand until the medicine took effect.

The family rarely visited.

Six sons from three wives came once every 2 or 3 weeks, stayed for 10 to 15 minutes, talked among themselves in Arabic, and hardly spoke to their father.

The eldest was 52, the youngest 38.

They all wore expensive watches, drove the latest model cars, and talked on the phone about business meetings and deals.

Maria heard them discussing the sale of one of her father’s properties and arguing about the distribution of shares.

Abdullah lay with his eyes closed, unresponsive to their presence.

After they left, he would sometimes cry silently.

Maria wiped his tears with a napkin, asking no questions.

A month later, Abdullah began to talk.

He asked where she was from, if she had a family, why she had come to work so far away.

Maria answered briefly without going into details.

He talked about his life in bits and pieces between bouts of pain.

He was born in Dubai when the city was a fishing village and experienced the oil boom of the 1970s.

He started with a small construction company, won his first contract to build a residential complex in 1984, and then went on to dozens of projects.

Dubai Marina, Jira Beach residence, part of Burj Khalifa.

Three marriages, six sons, a business worth $300 million.

He spoke of this without pride, rather with weariness.

Maria cooked for him according to his requests.

Abdullah could hardly eat because of nausea, but sometimes he asked for chicken broth or rice porridge.

She learned to cook several Arabic dishes that he loved in his youth.

He ate two or three spoonfuls and thanked her.

He asked her to read the Quran to him, although he himself was not particularly religious.

Maria did not speak Arabic, but she found audio recordings of the Quran being read and played them in the evenings.

Abdullah listened with his eyes closed.

sometimes moving his lips to repeat the words.

At night, when the pain became unbearable, he would call her and she would sit next to him, holding his hand until the morphine took effect.

In December, his condition worsened.

The doctor increased the dose of painkillers and warned that there was little time left.

Abdullah slept 18 hours a day, waking up for short periods, barely recognizing those around him.

Maria never left his side, sleeping on a cot in the same room.

His sons came once in a month, spent 5 minutes at their father’s bedside, and left.

The eldest son talked on the phone in the hallway, discussing New Year’s plans.

The younger one stood at the door, shifting from foot to foot, clearly in a hurry to leave.

Before New Year’s Eve, Abdullah unexpectedly regained consciousness.

He asked Maria to sit next to him and spoke quietly with long pauses.

He said that she was the only person who had treated him like a human being in recent months.

His sons were waiting for him to die as one waits for a business meeting to end.

His wives had gone back to their own homes and visited once a month out of politeness.

He felt like he was already dead until Maria started caring for him.

She made him feel like he still existed.

Maria didn’t know what to say, so she just squeezed his hand.

Abdullah asked for a lawyer.

The lawyer arrived 2 days later.

He was a man of about 60, dressed in a strict suit with a leather briefcase.

He spent about an hour alone with Abdullah, then came out and asked Maria to wait outside.

A week later, the lawyer returned with a video camera and two witnesses, employees of a notary office.

They recorded Abdullah on video for about 30 minutes.

Maria waited in another room.

No one explained anything to her.

After they left, Abdullah lay silently, staring at the ceiling.

In the evening, he asked her to stay with him until the end, no matter what happened.

He died on January 8th, 2023 at 4 in the morning.

Maria held his hand as his breathing became irregular, then stopped.

The monitor beeped.

She turned it off and closed Abdullah’s eyes.

She called the doctor who pronounced him dead, then called her eldest son.

The family arrived 2 hours later, all six sons and two of the three wives.

They filled the house, talked among themselves, and organized the funeral.

Maria gathered her things, preparing to leave.

The eldest son gave her an envelope with money through the housekeeper, the equivalent of 3 month salary, saying that her contract was terminated.

The funeral took place the next day, according to Islamic tradition.

Maria came in a black headscarf and stood apart from the family.

The man’s sons and relatives filled the mosque while the women gathered separately.

After the burial in the cemetery, no one approached Maria.

The eldest son walked past without looking in her direction.

The younger one bumped her shoulder as he walked to the car.

She heard one of the relatives say a word in Arabic that translated as servant.

Maria left in a taxi and returned to the dormatory for medical staff.

A week later, Abdullah’s lawyer called her.

He asked her to come to his office for an important conversation.

Maria decided that it was about some formalities related to her work.

The office was located in the business district of Dubai in a high-rise building next to Burge Khalifa.

She went up to the 23rd floor and the secretary showed her into the conference room.

Inside were Abdullah’s six sons, two wives, a lawyer, and two other men who introduced themselves as the family’s lawyers.

Maria sat down in the only empty chair opposite them.

The lawyer opened a folder, took out a document, and began to read aloud.

The will was drawn up on December 15th, 2022, certified by a notary, and recorded on video in the presence of two witnesses.

The lawyer read the clauses in a monotonous voice, translating from Arabic into English.

The bulk of the estate was divided among the six sons, a construction company, commercial real estate, land, stocks, and bank accounts.

The total value of this portion was approximately $280 million.

The son sat with impassive faces, waiting for the formality to end.

The lawyer turned the page and continued reading.

A villa in Palm JRA worth $15 million went to Maria Santos.

A penthouse in Burj Khalifa on the 120th floor worth $8 million went to Maria Santos.

A collection of five cars, including a Rolls-Royce Phantom and two Bentleys with a total value of $2 million, was transferred to Maria Santos.

A bank account with $12 million was transferred to Maria Santos.

The lawyer finished reading and looked up.

There was silence in the conference room for several seconds.

The eldest son jumped up with such force that his chair fell backward.

He shouted in Arabic, waving his arms, his face red.

The other brothers also jumped up, shouting over each other.

One of the wives covered her face with her hands while another looked at Maria with cold hatred.

The lawyer raised his hand, demanding silence, but the shouting continued.

The eldest son switched to English so that Maria could understand everything.

He called her a [ __ ] who had bewitched the sick old man.

He said that she had manipulated a dying man, taken advantage of his weakness.

His brothers shouted insults, one spat in Maria’s direction, but missed.

The lawyer took out his laptop, opened a video file, and turned the screen toward those present.

The recording showed Abdullah sitting in bed with pillows behind his back.

The date in the corner of the screen showed December 17th, 2022.

Abdullah spoke slowly but clearly.

His voice was weak, but his words were distinct.

He stated that he was of sound mind and full memory, that he was making his decision voluntarily without any pressure.

He explained that Maria Santos had cared for him during the last 3 months of his life, showing him a level of care and humanity that he had not seen from his own family in recent years.

Abdullah said that his sons visited him once a month, spending about 10 minutes at his bedside discussing the division of his property.

That they treated him as an obstacle to their inheritance, not as a father.

That Maria sat with him at night when he was in pain, read to him, cooked for him, and talked to him like a human being.

that she deserved every dollar, every square foot, every item he was leaving her, that this decision was final, that he hoped his sons would find enough honor in themselves not to contest their dying father’s will.

The video ended.

The lawyer closed his laptop.

The eldest son said it meant nothing, that his father was under the influence of morphine and couldn’t control his words.

that Maria had clearly manipulated him and taken advantage of her position.

The lawyer replied that a medical examination conducted by an independent psychiatrist the day before the video was recorded confirmed that Abdullah was fully competent at the time the will was drawn up that the morphine dosage had been reduced 48 hours before the notary’s visit specifically to ensure clarity of mind.

The will was drawn up in full compliance with the laws of the United Arab Emirates and could not be contested on the grounds of incapacity.

The family’s lawyers began asking questions, trying to find loopholes.

They asked about dates, witnesses, and procedures.

The lawyer responded calmly, providing copies of all documents, medical reports, notary seals, witness statements, video recordings.

Everything was perfectly executed.

One of the lawyers asked whether Islamic inheritance law, which limits testimeamentary dispositions to onethird of the estate, was applicable.

The lawyer explained that Abdullah had taken advantage of the secular laws of the UAE, which allow non-Muslims and in certain cases, Muslims to dispose of property more freely, especially with regard to real estate in special economic zones such as Palm Jira.

The younger son turned to Maria and asked in English how much she wanted to renounce her inheritance.

He named the amount of $1 million.

Maria was silent, not knowing how to respond.

The middle brother raised the bid to 2 million.

The older brother said 3 million in cash immediately if she signed the waiver right now.

The lawyer intervened, saying that Maria had the right to think about the situation, consult with her own lawyer, and that he did not recommend making hasty decisions.

Maria stood up and said she needed time.

She left the conference room, hearing shouts in Arabic behind her.

The next day, the lawyer came to her dormatory.

He explained the situation in detail.

The will was completely legal, and it was practically impossible to contest it.

The family would try.

They would file lawsuits, but they had no chance of winning.

He warned her that they would try to intimidate her, put pressure on her, and possibly even threaten her.

He advised her to hire security, not to go out alone, and not to meet with family members without witnesses.

He asked if she understood what she was getting herself into.

Maria replied that she needed to call home.

She called her mother via video chat.

She told her everything.

Her mother cried, repeating that it was too dangerous, that she should take the money and come home.

Her younger brothers listened silently.

Then the eldest, a 20-year-old student, said that the decision was Maria’s, but that they would support whatever she chose.

Maria did not sleep all night, sitting on her bed in the dorm room she shared with two other Filipinos.

She thought about Abdullah, how he had held her hand over the past few weeks, how he had said that she had restored his human dignity.

In the morning, she called her lawyer and said she would not renounce the inheritance.

The family filed a lawsuit in a Dubai court 3 days later.

They demanded that the will be declared invalid on the grounds of the testator’s mental disorder, undue influence, and inconsistency with Islamic inheritance norms.

They hired a PR agency, which began working with local and international media.

A week later, Arabic language newspapers published articles about a Filipino caregiver who had fraudulently obtained millions from a dying shake.

Posts with Maria’s photo were circulated on social media, calling her a gold digger and accusing her of using witchcraft and manipulation.

Maria began receiving threats.

Messages on social media promised to kill her, rape her, burn her.

Strangers recognized her on the street and shouted insults.

Once a woman in a shopping mall approached her and spat in her face, calling her a [ __ ] Security guards removed the woman but did not detain her.

Maria stopped going out alone and her lawyer hired a private security guard to accompany her everywhere.

The Philippine Embassy contacted her and offered help, but there was nothing they could really do.

Abdullah’s sons gave interviews telling how the devoted caregiver had deceived their sick father.

They described Maria as a calculating woman who had deliberately taken the job knowing about the family’s situation.

They claimed that she had isolated their father from his relatives, controlled access to him, and manipulated his emotions.

They cited other cases where foreign workers had deceived wealthy elderly men in the Gulf countries.

Public opinion in Dubai and the UAE was largely on their side.

The trial began in March 2023.

The hearings were held in the Dubai courthouse closed to the public, but journalists were stationed at the entrance.

The family’s lawyer presented medical records showing the doses of morphine Abdullah had received.

He claimed that such doses could have affected his ability to make rational decisions.

Maria’s lawyer presented the opinion of a psychiatrist who had examined Abdullah the day before the will was drawn up, confirming his full legal capacity.

He presented recordings from the villa’s surveillance cameras showing how the sons rarely visited and stayed for only a short time and how Maria spent 12 to 14 hours a day with Abdullah.

Witnesses from the family claimed that Maria behaved inappropriately, was too familiar with Abdullah, and tried to isolate him from his relatives.

The villa’s housekeeper testified that Maria sometimes closed the bedroom door when the sons came, saying that their father was resting and did not want to see anyone.

Maria’s lawyer called in a doctor who regularly examined Abdullah.

The doctor confirmed that the patient did indeed often ask not to be disturbed when relatives came to visit, that this was his own wish and not the influence of the caregiver.

The court requested testimony from other caregivers who had worked with Abdullah before Maria.

Two Filipino women testified that the patient was demanding but polite, that his family rarely visited him, even at the beginning of his illness, and that he often spoke of feeling lonely and that his sons were only interested in his money.

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