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“Go with Tariq, first, Paige. ” He gripped her arms and eased her from him before moving her in Tariq’s direction.
“No. I won’t leave you alone with him. ” She stared up at him, seeing the pain in his eyes, the grief in his face, and she knew he had to be inconsolable with rage. She couldn’t leave him alone with this madman. “What if it’s contagious?”
His gaze turned back to hers, a subtle glimmer of bemusement glowing in the wicked, night dark depths. “What is contagious, hellcat?”
“His insanity,” she whispered back at him, at once hearing the ludicrous suggestion, yet the need to make light of the situation couldn’t be fought. That was her. Take it seriously and she could end up sharing Abram’s fate herself. Azir Mustafa could drive a saint crazy, she guessed. And poor Abram, he lived with the old bat.
He had to hate this. This place, this room, it wasn’t Abram. The way he was dressed, the expression on his face, it wasn’t the man she knew. He would never countenance abusing a woman, or kidnapping one.
He was as arrogant as the wind itself, as the very desert that raised him, but he wasn’t the vicious monster his father obviously was.
“I’m certain it’s not contagious,” he promised. “But go with Tariq for now. I’ll take care of everything and I’ll join you soon. ”
“You beg a whore to do as you ask?” Azir cracked behind her. “How you have fallen, my son. ”
Paige refused to glance back at him, rather she continued to stare up at Abram, willing him to leave with her, to refuse to risk himself in his father’s demented company.
“Now,” his voice was nearly silent, but there was no mistaking the dark command that filled it. “Go with Tariq. ”
Tariq Mustafa. She knew him. There were times he had come to America with Abram and visited with Khalid and her family. He had smiled. He had “almost” flirted a time or two, but Abram and Khalid’s displeasure had been clearly apparent.
This time though, his expression was hard, cold, as though he had no idea who she was. There wasn’t so much as a glimmer of recognition as he took her from Abram.
Her lips thinned, her displeasure unable to hide. He had no business lingering here when they needed to make plans. When they needed to get her out of Saudi Arabia.
“Come on. ” Tariq wasn’t flirting with her this time as she forced the strength in her legs to walk to the door. He acted as though he didn’t know her, as though he had never met her. And she would find out why the minute Abram joined them.
* * *
Abram watched as Tariq drew Paige from the room, eased her around the doors and led her up the hall to his suite. Dark, emerald green eyes stared back at him, defiance and anger reflecting in her gaze before she disappeared.
He turned back to Azir, though God knew he didn’t want to. He could feel the killing rage rising inside him, threatening the control it had taken so many years to develop.
For a moment he wondered if she could be right, if the Mustafa legacy of blood, death, and insanity, wasn’t actually a contagion that infected each generation after the other.
Staring at his father, he felt nothing but the overwhelming hatred that he was in danger of allowing to spill from the depths of his soul.
He stared at his father, and he saw nothing but the ragged, agonizing pain his first wife had felt as she died, the fear of his second wife as she died with their unborn child, and his own fear when he had learned that Paige’s life was in danger.
“She’s the very image of her mother, isn’t she?” Azir stated calmly, as though he hadn’t just been throwing that vision across the room with enough strength to kill her if her head were to strike the floor when she fell.
The calm, almost rational tone of his voice only incited the icy rage burning inside Abram.
“Why is she here?” He could only barely force a semblance of calm in his voice.
Azir smiled. A mocking, triumphant curve of his lips as he stared back at Abram.
“She is my insurance, my son, and the gift I would grant you for your birthday. Tell me, do you think her mother is worried? Perhaps certain who has taken her daughter and imagining the many ways I could make her suffer for her mother’s crimes?”
The pleasure Azir clearly felt at the thought of the pain only a mother could feel filling Marilyn Galbraithe, sickened Abram.
“I will be returning her home—” he began.
“Then she will die. ” Azir’s voice hardened, becoming gravely and tinged with anger. “The moment you leave the walls of the fortress with her then the guards will haul her back and I’ll have her stoned for her mother’s crimes. She is no virgin. She was checked for such innocence as she lay unconscious. Convincing the Matawa to order the stoning will be no hardship. ”
Abram stared back at his father in shock and disbelief. Surely even Azir wasn’t that insane. To take such an action would only cause the royal family to be forced to take action against them.
“Don’t do this,” he ground out, his fists clenching, adrenaline surging through him and demanding blood. Azir’s blood. And he would be well within his rights to spill it. He should simply do it. How much better the world would be without Azir Mustafa’s presence. “She’s done nothing to deserve this. ”
