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“What are they looking for?” she asked Tariq as he worked on a piece of electronics at the small table across the room.
A muttered sound resembling a male grunt met her question. “Azir has spent years trying to find all the hidden tunnels coming in and out of the castle,” he told her. “Each time he finds one he has it dynamited or filled in in some way to make it impossible. ”
She stared back down at the men with a frown. Why would they worry about hidden tunnels?
“To keep Abram from escaping,” she murmured almost to herself.
“Pretty much,” Tariq agreed. “Azir is fanatical about keeping him here until the king releases the funds he had frozen over twenty years ago. If Azir can get them returned, then the government has to pay out, no matter what, for the next ten years or risk breaking a treaty with several of the tribes that were a part of the original pact. They’ll go to any lengths to keep from doing that, and Azir knows that. ”
Greed. Power. That was what it all came down to, one way or the other. Azir was hungry for it, just as his sons had been. Those who didn’t hunger for it tried peaceful means at all costs, and kept their demands clearly stated.
Azir wanted nothing more than to fund whatever fanatical regime he was supporting, and nothing mattered but his wants. Not even the heir who seemed to be his last hope of a comfortable life in his old age.
She continued to stare out the window, watching as they began to track the ground with the metal detector once again.
“How does a metal detector help them find underground tunnels?” she asked without turning back.
“It’s not exactly a metal detector,” he answered. “It’s specially modified to pick up pockets beneath the ground, vacancies that would indicate a cave, a cavern, or a tunnel. ”
“Is there a tunnel where he’s looking?” She glanced back, but rather than searching for his eyes her gaze moved to his naked back once again.
“Not that we’ve found,” he told her with a quick shake of his head. “Abram and I have searched high and low for tunnels that haven’t yet been found. So far, we hnnels thatx2019;t found anything. ”
She turned back to the scene below to see Jafar gesture angrily to Azir with a frown. She would have never believed he was as deceitful as it appeared he was, or that he could have been a risk to her. Learning he had helped conspire to kidnap her had been a disillusioning blow.
There had been a lot of surprises in the past four days though, things she had truly never expected. She’d known Khalid’s cousins most of her life. At one time or another she had been introduced to them under various circumstances outside the Saudi regime. Until perhaps five or six years before, his Saudi cousins had been regulars at many of the vacation spots her parents had visited, for either business or pleasure.
Then, the positions they had held within the Saudi government had been dissolved, Paige had learned.
Because of Ayid and Aman, Khalid had told her. Once the king had received proof they were still involved with terrorist activities, all the males working in the Riyadh government had been asked to return to their own province. Ayid and Aman had destroyed the regime’s trust for the entire family.
Jafar and Tariq had actually held very lucrative positions within imports and exports, allowing them to travel all over the world. Several of Jafar’s family members were still in the U. S. attending college on student visas he had arranged while they were still very young.
But Tariq and Jafar were here now, rather than jet-setting and representing their country financially.
Turning, she stared at Tariq once again, her gaze straying to his smooth, bare shoulders. He was dressed only in the ankle-length loose trousers that he and Abram wore beneath their thobes.
Once the two men entered the rooms, the first thing they did was strip off the thobes. She’d seen Abram pull on well-worn, lovingly faded denim the night before like a man pulling on a favorite lover. She swore his lashes almost fluttered in pleasure for a second.
Tariq’s bare shoulders were the only part of his back that was smooth though. Unlike her mother’s description of Azir with his heavy pelt of body hair, Tariq actually sported very little, as did Abram.
But his back was crisscrossed with what had to be hundreds of very fine, thin scars that went from his shoulder blades to beneath the drawstring waist of the trousers.
“What are you doing?” She cleared her throat uneasily as she moved toward him.
He’d been working on that piece of equipment for two days now.
“Someone found one of the GPS trackers I’ve been using on the Land Rovers and managed to scramble the signal,” he murmured as he continued to peer into the electronic control board. “I’m trying to alter the device rather than attempting to steal the tracker itself back. If I can get it to remotely change the signal, then I’ll have them again. ”
“Who are you trying to track?” She stared down at the intricate array of tiny wires, nodules, and electronic relays with a frown.
He looked over his shoulder at her, his milk chocolate–brown eyes faintly amused as he gave her a glance of male appreciation. “The new soaps Abram brought in for you smell nice. ”
She was that close to him. Not touching, but close enough that he had no problem smelling the very faint scent of rose and sandalwood.
She moved back, a sense of nervousness invading her as he continued to watch her for several seconds before turning back to the electronic device.
It was merely another variation of the same theme that had played out in the past two days that Abram hadn’t been present. The looks of interest, the silent reminder that Abram had already asked him to be his third and that he shared that huge bed with them every night.
