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At Raiden’s booming growl, Numair held his enraged gaze for seconds before he shrugged. “It would be better for you and for all of us if she just...disappeared. If this were my call, I wouldn’t forgive anyone who betrayed me. Not for any reason. If I were you, I wouldn’t care why she did.”
“You’re not me, Numair. Now give me your word.”
Numair inclined his head vaguely, looking like a malevolent genie from an Oriental fable with his shoulder-length black hair, slanting eyebrows and striking features.
“Give me your oath, Phantom,” Raiden gritted.
He had to have that, or Numair would leave his office and fulfill his not-so-veiled threat. When it came to protecting their brotherhood, Numair would do, and had done, literally anything. But he also had an unswerving code of honor, would give his life to uphold an oath he’d made. But he had to make it first, unequivocally, not just imply it, before it became binding.
Pursing his lips, Numair regarded him with the same steadiness he had since Raiden had first seen him when he’d been five, that of the stern older brother who knew best. He didn’t approve, but he now realized that Raiden wasn’t defending his mistakes in the past or his whims now. He was defending the wo
man he wanted with every fiber of his being.
Though he still had no reason to make that oath, none but Raiden’s conviction, Numair finally said, “You have it.”
* * *
“I don’t have good news.”
Raiden’s heart rammed his ribs viciously at Numair’s declaration.
Numair hadn’t stood up to receive him when Abbas, his right-hand man, had let Raiden into his presidential suite at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. He said nothing more than his opening statement. Instead, he continued staring out of the window at the glittering nighttime Tokyo as Raiden approached him.
Raiden barely noticed his luxurious surroundings as he came to stand before him. Numair only leaned forward on the immaculate brown silk sofa and poured himself a straight whiskey from a crystal decanter. Still without looking at Raiden, he tossed the shot back.
It hadn’t surprised Raiden when only four days after his meeting with his trio of brothers, it had been Numair who’d called him to tell him he had what Raiden had been looking for.
As Phantom, his investigative capabilities were unmatched. Now as Numair Al Aswad, or Black Panther as he was known in the intelligence field, where he was now one of the world’s biggest experts and contractors, his reach had multiplied a hundredfold. The only one who could rival him was Richard, or Cobra, Rafael’s past handler. Not that he’d even considered enlisting Richard’s help. Not because he still felt any hard feelings toward him as one of their past captors, but because of the way Numair felt about him. There was still a possibility those two might end up killing each other. Whatever made the two forces of nature abhor each other so much, even after becoming allies, neither man would ever say.
Dread eating through the rest of his tattered control, he gritted his teeth. “Just give me what you have.”
Numair at last looked up at him. His eyes weren’t indifferent anymore. They were heavy.
Then he said, “Sit down. And pour yourself a drink.”
He complied, because his legs no longer felt able to support him. He descended heavily onto the armchair across from Numair, a fine tremor traversing his grip as he poured himself a shot. “It’s that bad?”
“Worse.”
The fist squeezing Raiden’s heart tightened as Numair reached for a tablet on the coffee table between them, accessed an app, then pushed the tablet toward Raiden. Raiden stopped its slide, and his heart turned over in his chest at what he saw on the screen.
A photo of an exquisite girl with shimmering dark caramel hair, an impassive face and extinguished eyes. A younger version of the Hannah he’d known, with a different hair color. And without the warm, lighthearted, normal expressions. This was her without the act. The real her. A girl without hope.
His upper lip and forehead beading with sweat, he glanced up at Numair, his insides churning.
Numair answered his unspoken question. “That’s Katya Petrovna, whom you knew as Hannah McPherson and now know as Scarlett Delacroix.”
Katya. Her real name at last. It suited her. As anything did. She made anything hers. Names, hair color, faces. Him.
Numair went on. “She was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, in the former U.S.S.R., and raised on the Black Sea coast of the Russian Riviera. She was a descendant of a Georgian noble house. Then, during the collapse of the Soviet Union, she was seven when she was separated from her mother in a riot. She ended up in a white slavery ring.”
The thudding of his heart escalated until it shook his whole body. There could be a hundred possibilities after this point, all ugly and horrific. But he had the terrible feeling he knew exactly where this was going.
Then Numair validated his suspicions. “By the age of ten, she ended up in The Organization’s grasp.”
Even though he’d already suspected that, all his nerves loosened with the blow of confirmation.
The crystal glass in his hand crashed on the marble floor in a thousand diamond-like splinters.
