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Yusef didn’t say anything as small waves pushed the speedboat toward the shore. Odai reduced the motor to idle until they were in waist deep water. The taller, now silent man put down an anchor and Odai switched off the engine.
Yasmine didn’t take much notice of what happened after that. She was aware only of Odai then capturing her bound wrists and prying the rings off her finger. She struggled and cried out, but there was absolutely nothing she could do with her arms tied behind her back.
She was just grateful that there were no jewels in her lobes. She’d made it a habit to take off her earrings before bed. Odai didn’t share her sentiments. At her lack of jewelry he cuffed her across the head, leaving her ears ringing and her head aching.
“Don’t hurt her,” Yusef growled. “Do you want to face the wrath of Sheikh Arif?”
Odai pocketed the rings and shrugged. “You betrayed Sheikh Jamal. I’d be more concerned abouthisplans of retribution.”
Yusef’s face whitened. “Jamal will come after all of us, not just me. We have to be smart from here on in and not get noticed. Selling the Sheikha’s rings will put us right under the spotlight.”
The taller man finally spoke, his voice now firm and resolute, as though he’d made his mind up he was in this all the way. “Then you get to walk away without the bonus sale of the rings. Either way, Sheikh Jamal’s focus will be on finding you. By the time he does, Odai and I will have long disappeared, never to be found.”
Odai chuckled at his friend’s sudden grit, then nodded toward the beach. “Here they are.”
Yasmine followed his gaze and cringed at seeing the handful of camels plodding toward them from the desert, their riders then commanding their steeds to kneel next to the ocean.
Whatever Yusef might have said next was cast aside as he focused on the riders at the beach and said with a heartless smile, “Time to go.”
Chapter Nineteen
Yasmine held back panic as Yusef picked her up and held her against his chest.Ugh,how she would love to add to the scar that cut through his beard. But as he slipped from the boat into the water and waded toward shore, attacking him was impossible, not with her arms tied. She was more concerned about drowning if he released her.
It was only once they reached the sandy shore, where she caught sight of Sheikh Arif, that panic morphed into terror. His age didn’t make him any less threatening. His lifeless dark eyes pierced right through her, his thin mouth, fat jowls and hooked nose making her think of a predator about to swoop for its prey.
It didn’t mean she’d submit to him. Once Yusef set her onto her feet, she straightened to her full height. She wasn’t tall but she had to be damn near as tall as Arif! She threw back her shoulders. It mattered little that the angle made the ropes burn into her skin. She’d be in far more pain shortly anyway.
Arif stalked toward Yasmine, his white robes scraping along the sand and his nut-brown eyes glittering. “I should have known you’d be dressed like a western woman. A slut.” He nodded to Yusef. “Cut off her ropes. I didn’t want her bruised or hurt.”
Yusef nodded, then used a serrated knife to cut through her bindings. She bit her lower lip at the drag and pull motion that teared at her skin. When the rope finally broke and fell away, there was no relief. Though her arms moved freely, her now flowing blood sent pins and needles coursing through her veins.
She refused to cry out in pain, refused to cower in any way. These men would enjoy that far too much.
Arif stopped right in front of her, inspecting his prize from head to toe. “You were my property, forbidden to marry anyone else but me.” Reaching for her hand, he lifted it and asked, “And yet your fingers are bare?”
She didn’t respond, and he shoved his face closer to hers, his breath a pungent scent of onions and red wine. “Whyisthat?” he asked.
It took everything she had not to recoil and empty her stomach all over his pudgy, sandaled feet.
It was Yusef who finally broke the strained silence. “Odai took them. He and his partner were planning to sell them.”
The tallest of her kidnappers jerked his head toward Yusef, his eyes popping wide open with guilt and panic and his mouth flailing, though no words emerged.
He should have listened to his instincts.
Odai did all the babbling. “My apologies, Sheikh Arif. We intended to give you those rings along with your hostage.” He stuck his hand into his robe’s pocket, then held the rings in the palm of his hand. “They’re yours.”
Arif’s cold and deadly eyes narrowed, reminding her of some reptilian creature as he stared at Odai. “Why not just leave them on her fingers for me to remove when I wanted them?”
When Odai seemed to lose the power of speech, Arif pulled a gun out of his pocket.Bang.He shot the tall man in the head, his lifeless body dropping onto the sand with athud.
“I don’t like traitors.” When he turned the muzzle toward Odai, he put his hands up, the rings dropping onto the sand. “Please, let me explain, I—“
Bang.
Odai dropped dead beside his partner-in-crime, never to get up again, and all of Yasmine’s screams stayed on the inside. Arif killed without thought, like taking the life of another human being was as simple as snipping the head off a flower.
Though she didn’t condone what the men had done, they might well have families, brothers, sisters, wives, perhaps even innocent children to take care of.
