by Anne Herries
She had thought Pasha ruthless to order the execution of his father’s murderer, but now she knew for certain that she had been wrong. Pasha had done what he thought was just in order to save more lives, and it had not been easy for him. She remembered the night he had tossed so restlessly in their bed, and began to understand what it must have cost him. This man would kill without compunction—he would kill for pleasure and greed.
How could she have said such terrible things to Pasha?
She knew now that he had been justified in ordering the arrest and execution of Abdullah. Men like that would stop at nothing to destroy anyone who stood in their way.
Ahmad had been planning to use her against Pasha ever since he realised that she was important to his cousin. He had forced his wife to do as he instructed, using her to lure Chloe back to their apartment that afternoon.
Chloe felt sick inside as she understood that she would be instrumental in bringing about Pasha’s death. They had tried to kill him three times without success, but they would succeed this time, because he would come for her.
Chloe knew without the shadow of a doubt that Pasha would give his life for hers. They had only to offer a trade and he would come willingly to the slaughter. He would do whatever they demanded to save her and the child she carried.
But he mustn’t. He mustn’t! Chloe closed her eyes to hold back the tears that threatened to overcome her.
She wasn’t worthy of his sacrifice. She had turned from him, doubted him—and she loved him. She did not want to live if he died trying to save her.
Sashimi opened the door of the apartment and looked at Pasha. He could see the mountains of luggage waiting in the hall, and knew that he had been right in assuming that it would take her a while to pack her things. She would never leave without her belongings.
She gave him a sullen stare, and there was a flicker of malicious pleasure in her eyes. ‘I knew you would come,’ she said. ‘Ahmad thought he was so clever. He thought you would believe that Chloe had left you, and that we should have her safely hidden where you would never think of looking, but I knew you would work it out.’
‘You went to my apartment to collect her things.’ Pasha frowned. ‘Where has he taken her, Sashimi?’
‘To a house in the country,’ she said. ‘He will wait there until I come. He wouldn’t leave without me. He’s afraid that I might run away from him.’
‘Why don’t you?’
Sashimi rolled up the sleeve of her expensive dress, showing him the dark bruises on her arm.
‘That was just to persuade me to help him,’ she said. ‘Can you imagine what he would do if I really defied him?’
Pasha frowned as he saw the marks, a sense of revulsion filling him as he realised what his cousin was capable of. ‘I had no idea he did this to you. Why do you put up with it? You could go to your father. He is powerful enough to protect you.’
Sashimi’s eyes filled with tears. ‘My father would send me back to my husband. A husband is allowed to chastise his wife if she is wilful. I have always been wilful. My father spoiled me and he did not choose to beat me, but he would accept that it was Ahmad’s right.’
Pasha knew that it was true. He looked at her gravely.
‘I would have helped you had you told me.’
‘It was not so bad until recently,’ Sashimi said. ‘Sometimes he spoils me. I loved him when we married, but I did not know him. There is a devil in him, Pasha. He is capable of such evil.’
‘I am sorry,’ Pasha said, but her words made him anxious for Chloe. ‘I must find my wife. Help me now and I promise you will never have to go back to him. I have influence with the prince, and he will tell your father that you are to be taken back and never given to your husband. I must stop him leaving the country with Chloe. It is my only chance.’
‘He will keep her alive until he is sure of you,’ Sashimi said. ‘I told him he should leave England at once, but he would not listen to me. I am merely a woman and cannot know these things.’ Her eyes flamed with sudden anger. ‘I hope you kill him, Pasha.’
‘He will be brought to justice. I promise you that.’
Sashimi nodded, her lovely face harsh. ‘He deserves to die. He does not know that I know…but he ruined Lysette. It was his child she was carrying when she crashed her car.’
‘What?’ Pasha’s eyes narrowed. ‘How do you know that?’
‘I found a letter amongst his things. She had written to him, begging him to marry her and save her from her shame. She was distraught and terrified of telling you. She thought you would do something terrible to Ahmad when you discovered what he had done.’
‘I might have killed him had I known then,’ Pasha said, his eyes dark with remembered grief.
‘I wish you had!’
‘Will you take me to this house, Sashimi?’
‘You promise that you will protect me? He would kill me if he knew I had betrayed him like this.’
‘You have my word.’
Sashimi inclined her head. ‘He will kill me anyway one day,’ she said. ‘I want you to punish him, Pasha—for Lysette and for me.’
Chapter Eleven
They had been driving along an isolated country road for some time when the car finally drew into the gateway of a house. Set back in some trees, it was difficult to see from the road, and Chloe felt the despair wash over her as Ahmad opened the car door and dragged her out. Once they had her prisoner in that house, she would never be able to escape.
She put up a struggle as he hustled her towards the house, kicking and scratching, scratching his cheek enough to draw blood, and biting at him like a wild thing. Then she sensed that someone else was near, and realised it was the man who had driven the car.
‘Help me subdue the cat,’ Ahmad said, and Chloe felt a pad of some kind put over her face. The strong smell of chloroform choked her and she felt herself swaying as she lost consciousness.
‘She is a wild one,’ Ahmad said to his companion as he caught her and carried her into the house. ‘I would strangle her and have done with it, but Pasha may demand to speak to her before he comes near.’ He glared at the other man, feeling the sting of torn flesh where her nails had scored his cheek. ‘Give me a hand with her. The sooner she’s locked away the better.’
They carried her upstairs and dumped her on a bed. Ahmad stared down at her for a moment before turning away. He might enjoy teaching that little she-devil a lesson before he finally disposed of her, but his main objective was to get Pasha where he could finally destroy him.
He glanced at his watch as he went back downstairs. How long before Sashimi arrived? His wife was becoming too sulky and wilful for his liking, and he might just take his bad temper out on her…
Sashimi glanced at the stern profile of the man driving the car. She hoped she hadn’t chosen the wrong side, because Ahmad was going to make her pay if he came out of this on top, but she was determined that she wasn’t going back to him whatever happened.
She had already begun to fear his moods when she discovered that letter from Lysette. Some little devil inside her had provoked her into confronting him with it, and that had been her mistake. He had really hurt her that time, and though he had afterwards apologised and promised that it wouldn’t happen again, it had. She knew that he would continue to beat her whenever it pleased him, and there was little she could do about it. Her father might try to remonstrate with Ahmad if she complained to him, but he would insist that she return to her husband, unless Pasha supported her.
Supposing Ahmad killed his cousin? Sashimi knew that it was what he hoped to achieve. The black hatred and jealousy had eaten into his soul, and he had destroyed a young woman in the hope of also destroying his cousin, but he had wanted Pasha to go after him so that he killed in self-defence, because otherwise he would not inherit the prince’s wealth.
Looking at Pasha’s strong hands on the steering wheel, she knew that he was very angry at what had happened to Chloe. She was sure he would kill Ahm
ad, and she felt a fierce joy inside her. She would be free at last, free to live her life as she chose.
With the money settled on her when she was married, she could live in Paris and she need never be bound by the restrictions that Ahmad had tried to inflict on her, because she would never ever marry again…
Pasha was aware of Sashimi’s eyes on him, though not of her thoughts. He was wondering how far he could trust her. Was her apparent willingness to cooperate a part of his cousin’s plan to trap him?
He cursed himself as a fool for not realising before that Ahmad was the traitor they had suspected but had not been able to find. He had taken him at face value, believing he was his friend, confiding in him the plans he had for the future of their people—and all the time Ahmad had been plotting against him.
The attempts on his life…but it was Lysette that mattered, the evil that had been done to her deliberately, and now Chloe. Pasha’s hands tightened on the wheel as he wondered what was happening to his wife. If she had been hurt…
Pasha’s mind shied away from that avenue of thought. He was not sure what he would do if Ahmad had harmed her, and his guilt at having so carelessly involved her in all this cut at him like a sharp knife. She was innocent, and unused to dealing with men as ruthless as Ahmad—and himself. He had already shocked her and hurt her and now she had been abducted by a man who would kill her once his purpose was served.
But what might he do to her before he killed her?
Pasha could hardly prevent the groan inside him from breaking free, but he knew he had to hide his feelings as much as he could. He believed that Sashimi was frightened of her husband, and that she wanted to leave him, but would she lose her nerve when the time came?
How could he be certain that she would not simply change sides again at the last minute?
Chloe’s head ached when she finally came to herself again, and she leaned over the bed as the vomit rushed up in her throat and she had to spill it out on the floor. She felt awful, her head swimming as she tried to stand, and she was forced to fall back on the bed as the faintness swept over her.
Several minutes passed before she began to feel better at last, and this time when she attempted to stand she discovered that she could without falling. The stench of the vomit was unpleasant, and she wanted to get away from it, to get out of this room.
Walking a little unsteadily to the door, she tried it and discovered that it was locked. Damn! Damn them! After tugging at it uselessly for a moment or two, she looked round the room. It was possible to see because there were no curtains at the windows and it was just beginning to get light.
She saw another door to the right of the bed, and went to investigate, finding that her head was beginning to clear and that she felt better. Opening the door, which gave easily this time, she discovered a bathroom. Feeling grateful for that mercy, she used the toilet and then took a towel and went to clear up the mess she had made.
Chloe sat on the edge of the bed and wondered what to do next. She was clearly on the second floor of the house, and it was unlikely that she could escape through the window—so what was left? It seemed that she had no alternative but to sit and wait for someone to come.
Perhaps an hour passed before she heard footsteps outside her room, and then a key in the lock. The door opened slowly and then the man she recognised as Ahmad’s driver entered carrying a tray with what looked like a bowl of fruit and a jug of water, and a bread roll. It seemed that she wasn’t to be starved, at least for the time being.
‘When are you going to let me out?’ she demanded. ‘Tell Ahmad I want to see him. I want to be let out of here.’
The man looked at her, seeming not to understand, at least he wasn’t going to answer even if he did. He wrinkled his nose at the smell, and after depositing the tray on top a chest of drawers, he went over to the window and opened it a little at the top.
It was a sash window, and stiff, but slid down halfway when he tugged at it hard. Chloe thought that she would not have had the strength to move it and drew a breath of fresh air gratefully.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘But please—I must speak to Ahmad.’
‘Eat.’ He gestured at the tray and then went out again, locking the door after him. Chloe got up and wandered over to the window. She stared out idly for a moment, then stiffened as she saw that there was a kind of flower box outside the window. It was very narrow and some of the stone looked a bit crumbly, but it had an iron railing above it to make sure that the flower pots did not fall…and there was another one on the next window along.
Supposing she could push the bottom of the sash window up, get out and somehow climb on to the next window box…
A shiver ran through her as she looked down. It was a long way to fall, but Ahmad was going to kill her anyway. She thought that it might be a chance worth taking and struggled to push the top window up again so that she could open the bottom.
She struggled with it for several minutes, but it proved to be too stiff for her and she had to give up. It was probably impossible to open the window next door anyway, she thought.
Feeling hungry, she picked up the roll and an apple and took them back to the bed, sitting on the edge to eat. She had finished about half the apple when she heard someone coming, and then the door was opened and Ahmad stood there looking at her.
‘I need you,’ he said and walked purposefully towards her. ‘It’s time.’
‘Time for what?’ Chloe asked, getting to her feet warily.
‘Time to make your loving husband aware of the truth,’ Ahmad said, glaring at her. ‘He should have spent the night thinking that you had run away from him, and he will be ready to hear from you.’
‘What do you mean?’
Chloe hung back as he reached out and grabbed her wrist. She tried to resist as he pulled her with him, but he was too strong for her and she was obliged to go with him as he half-dragged her along the landing and down the stairs.
She hung on to the banister at the bottom, fighting him all the way, but he succeeded in prying her from it and pushed her into a large sitting room. ‘Where are we?’ she asked. ‘Where is Sashimi? I thought she was coming…’ She broke off as she saw Ahmad’s expression of annoyance. He was clearly furious because Sashimi was not here as he had ordered.
Ahmad pushed her into a chair by the windows, and told her to pick up the receiver of the phone next to her. ‘Telephone the apartment,’ he said. ‘Tell him you are being held prisoner, but that you haven’t been harmed yet—and then give it to me.’
‘And if I refuse?’ Chloe said defiantly. ‘You can’t make me. I know what you want. You want me to lure him down here so that you can kill him.’
‘If you don’t, I shall kill you—and him. He will die soon whatever you do,’ Ahmad said, pushing his face near hers so that she could smell the sweet oils he used on his hair.
‘You are going to kill me anyway.’
‘But I can make you suffer,’ Ahmad warned. ‘Do as I tell you, woman, or you will wish you had.’
‘No!’ Chloe jumped to her feet and started to dash for the door, but he came after her, grabbing her by the waist and wrestling her to the ground. He lay on top of her, grinning down at her, enjoying his triumph as he looked at her. ‘Get off me, you brute.’
‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Maybe I’ll just teach you a little lesson while I have you where I want you—’
Chloe brought her knee up sharply, making him jerk back and exclaim with pain. He got off her and she scrambled to her feet, but before he could make another grab at her the door opened and a man came in.
Chloe was only half-aware that someone had entered the room behind her. Her eyes were fixed on Ahmad and she was breathing hard, poised for flight. Somehow she had to get out of this house before he managed to force her to make that phone call…
Suddenly, she realised that Ahmad’s manner had changed. His eyes were bulging and he was no longer staring at her but at someone behind her. Whirling round, she gave
a cry that was half-fear and half-joy when she saw Pasha standing there.
‘Get behind me, Chloe,’ Pasha ordered and she saw that he was holding an evil-looking pistol in his hand. ‘I have a car waiting in the lane. Try to get there before someone else comes in and stops you.’
‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘He wants to kill you, Pasha. He wants the money and the power that will be yours as the prince’s heir.’
‘I know what he wants and what he is,’ Pasha told her. ‘Now do as I say!’
Chloe looked back at Ahmad, and saw that he was sweating. She knew that he was afraid now that Pasha was the one in command. He had been exposed, and he believed that his cousin would kill him, as he deserved.
Chloe swallowed hard. She thought she knew what would happen in this room once she had gone, and she was reluctant to leave.
‘Have him arrested, Pasha,’ she urged. ‘He isn’t worth it.’
And then she walked from the room. No one had yet come to investigate what was going on, and she thought that Ahmad’s driver was probably expecting to hear screams from her and would not take much notice unless his master shouted for help.
She managed to gain the front door, slipping outside without being caught, and then she began to run down the driveway to the lane outside the grounds where Pasha had told her the car was parked.
Pasha was aware that Chloe was reluctant to leave, but, even though he had already dealt with one man, who was now lying bound and gagged, he was not sure how many might be around and could not risk someone coming in on them in case she got caught in the crossfire.
Ahmad licked his lips nervously as he stared into Pasha’s cold eyes. ‘Why don’t you just do it?’ he asked. ‘What are you waiting for?’
Pasha wondered why he was waiting. He had intended to shoot first and think about it afterwards, but although his finger hovered on the trigger, he hesitated.