She couldn’t bear to be naked as she was. She felt too exposed, despite the sheet and throw she had wrapped around herself. The material didn’t even begin to be protective. Not that clothing would have been.
She couldn’t bear to feel this helpless. That was what Khalid didn’t understand, and what she could never tell him. She had only been this helpless once before in her life and the memories of it sent a surge of terror racing through her again.
She tried to shake the memory away. Dealing with the memories of that night right now would shred what little control she had left over the hysteria bubbling inside her.
She had to clear her head. She had to be able to think and find a way out of this.
She had to find a way out. She had found a way out the last time she was this helpless and had escaped. She had to do it again. She didn’t think her sanity could survive otherwise.
The door was locked. The shutters on the windows were locked. Her mother hadn’t mentioned hidden doors or passageways in this room.
She couldn’t find her clothes. There were no dressers and the four armoires in the room only held bedding materials. There were no clothes.
Her breath felt trapped in her lungs. Her heart was racing out of control and panic was beginning to close in.
She would go crazy in this place.
Abram sat back in the comfortable leather of the modified Land Rover as Tariq drove into the fortress compound. His gaze narrowed at the men and women milling around in the outer yards. The women were covered from head to toe in the required burka, while the men were dressed in fatigues or combat-ready pants and shirts.
The face of the Mustafa province was changing and he hadn’t been able to stop it during the years when stopping it had mattered to him. All he did now was look on in regret.
Once, this land had thrived, if not from oil then from the small mines outside of town where precious ore was eeked out and sold to the government. It had been a minimal income, but when added to the funds the monarchy had once sent, the lands and mines had been sufficient to keep the small farms pulling precious water from the deep wells and the crops growing.
The province had held a small but thriving area of trade due to those crops and the ore. Something it no longer held because of Azir’s greed and murderous inclinations.
“Look who showed up.” Tariq nodded toward the fortress castle where a lone figure stood at the top of the stone steps against the stone wall.
The tall double doors were his backdrop, emphasizing the slender, muscular form, his dark hair pulled back from a lean, Arabic face.
The man who had been slowly overtaking the Mustafa fortress even before the deaths of Ayid and Aman Mustafa. No matter how Abram had fought over the years, still, Jafar Mustafa—along with Ayid and Aman—had facilitated the steady introduction of men Abram was certain were no more than soldiers to the terrorist cell Ayid and Aman had commanded. A cell Jafar was now rumored to command.
First cousin to both Abram and Tariq, Jafar was the son of the youngest of the three Mustafa brothers who had inherited differing sections of the province from their father.
Until the two youngest brothers had died under highly suspicious circumstances. Abram had always suspected Azir had had his brothers killed, but he had never been able to prove it.
“He can’t want anything good,” Abram assured him as Tariq drew the Land Rover to a stop before the castle. Stepping from the vehicle Abram allowed Tariq to move in behind him and cover his back. They mounted the steps and moved up to the entrance where Jafar awaited them.
The dark arrogance in the other man’s expression was a forewarning. Abram could feel the tension emanating from him, the animosity that had been brewing between them mixing to create a heavy, barely civil atmosphere.
The cynical amusement in Jafar’s odd green eyes was a clue to the fact that he wasn’t going to like whatever the other man had to say. Fortunately, there was at least a shred of information in anything Jafar said. He enjoyed the games he played and the fact that Abram couldn’t do a damned thing to stop the steady infiltration of the terrorists moving in.
Like Abram and Tariq, Jafar’s mother had been American. But unlike them, Jafar had actually inherited some of his mother’s traits. His hair was a deep, dark brown, rather than black, and the celadon green of his eyes was damned off-putting in a land of mostly dark eyes.
The men of Mustafa seemed to have a particular fondness for pale-haired or redheaded women. Jafar’s mother had been a Scandinavian blonde and like Abram and Tariq, he had taken his height from her ancestors.
It was a fondness their sons seemed to share as well, Abram thought.
“What the hell do you want, Jafar?” he growled as he topped the stone stairs and faced his cousin.
Jafar chuckled, the amusement in the sound matching that of his eyes as his gaze flicked between Abram and Tariq.
“Perhaps I just want to wish you a good afternoon, cousin. After all, it’s been a while since we’ve visited. Don’t tell me you haven’t missed me.”
“I haven’t missed you,” Abram assured him with a sneering lift of his lip. “Is that all you wanted?”
The smirk on Jafar’s lips assured him otherwise.
It was too bad they seemed to have gravitated to opposing ends of their own beliefs. There had been a time when he and Jafar had been close. When they had both spoken of the dream of a far different future than the ones they had embraced.
Abram waited for long, tense moments for Jafar to reveal why he was waiting, but when he didn’t, Abram’s patience began to dissolve.
“Go to hell, Jafar,” he grunted. “Let me know when you’re doing more than fucking off.”
Jafar’s eyes narrowed at the deliberate vulgarity. He and his cousin had been in more than one battle in the past years over Abram’s language or Jafar’s deliberate disrespect. Many times their disagreements had almost turned violent and nearly resulted in a punch being thrown.
“Tell me, Abram, do you believe your friendship with the son of a prince will save you forever? Or the fact that the unpaid funds owed to the land of Mustafa can only return at your inheritance assures your safety from those who suspect your depravities?”
His depravities. What a damned joke. He enjoyed a good whiskey, a beautiful woman, and on occasion he was prone to enjoy watching his lover become a willing sensual feast for not just him, but a third as well.
Those were his depravities.
“Friendships rarely stand when you need them to, Jafar. I believe we’re both aware of that.” He stared back at his cousin mockingly.
Jafar’s lips thinned. “I knew nothing of Lessa’s crimes, nor did I know of the plans to punish her.” It wasn’t the first time he had denied the knowledge, and it wasn’t the last time Abram would accuse him of it. Because he knew his cousin had to have at least suspected.
“Nevertheless, I vowed I would never again have to depend upon those I call friends to aid me,” Abram informed him. “That is a commodity that only a fool can expect.”
Better Jafar believe to the bone that Abram expected no help from anyone should the religious police decide to actually take action against him for his suspected s, especially the son of a prince, the government contact in charge of investigating the terrorists taking over the Mustafa lands and focusing their attention on Paige Galbraithe.
Until he learned Azir’s plans for her, he couldn’t rest. And so far, he hadn’t been able to learn anything except that Azir was definitely planning something.
Abram would take them all down to keep her safe. Jafar, Azir, the son of a prince, he’d see them all laying in the dust if that was what it took to keep the evil infecting his father from touching her.