by Olivia Gates
But he’d already cornered himself, making it impossible to do anything but watch her go. Anything he did now to override her would only make things worse.
He didn’t recognize himself in this condition, as he’d never been almost out of control. He’d never been unable to project the consequences of his actions, had never acted on impulse or taken a step without premeditation. His brothers had always said he was the epitome of what it meant to be Machiavellian.
But everything he’d done since he’d seen Jenan hadn’t even been actions but reactions, all unpremeditated and uncalculated. He was suffering from something he’d never experienced. A form of insanity.
And it was because of her. Jenan. He was beginning to think she was truly her name. At least one meaning of it.
The meaning he was sure her parents had meant was the plural of jennah—garden, what the ancients called paradise. That meaning was apt, too. But it was the colloquial meaning of the word that was relevant to his condition, what he now suspected she could induce. Madness.
But even in his state, he wasn’t so far gone he didn’t realize she was returning to her Tribeca apartment in lower Manhattan alone. Whether by cab or her own car, it was still a fifteen-minute drive and it was now—he flicked a glance at his watch—2:00 a.m. Time had really flown with her.
But it would compound his self-sabotaging behavior to follow her now. To ensure her safety without further damages, he would have to settle for having her followed.
The moment she disappeared around the corner, he whipped out his phone, called Ameen, sent him a photo of her from the digital file he had on her, ordered him to tail her home then report to him.
Afterward, he stared at the photo. It superficially resembled the woman he’d spent the past six hours with. It was like a lookalike, the mask she presented to the world, hiding her true nature. The charisma that leaped in her eyes, the wit and whimsy that played on her lips and the sheer impact she’d had on his senses in reality were absent. Even so, heat spread inside him just looking at the photo, when before meeting her, he’d surveyed it with the utmost clinical coldness.
Finally closing the door, he went back inside, homing in on the spot where he’d almost made love to her.
Sitting down, he caressed the place where she’d sat, feeling her warmth, even when there was no way it was still detectable. But then her feel was imprinted on his hands, permeating his senses. Her breath still filled his lungs, and her taste still tingled on his tongue.
Jenan. Mind-twisting, will-warping madness.
He’d wanted to possess her every second of the hours he’d spent with her. But he’d managed to hold back, to do what he’d thought more vital—negotiate the terms of future, limitless intimacies. Then she’d revealed her convictions, so serious and unwavering as she lay soft and surrendering in his embrace. She’d exposed the indomitable realist who’d smashed cultural and gender restraints, who didn’t have a smidge of silliness or squeamishness in her expectations, who’d taken on the world and won.
Everything she was explained why she’d hit him that hard. The infallible instincts that had steered him throughout a nightmarish existence, had made him not only survive but triumph over everything and everyone, had recognized her. She had been made to understand him, to withstand him, to appreciate the monster inside him when it sent everyone else cowering.
Rationing his response had ceased to be an option.
He would have taken her, and she would have let him if not for the interruption. Now frustration ate through him. Not that having her would have quenched this blazing need. It would have only left him hungrier for her. He’d never known such ferocious desire existed, or that he of all people could be victim to it. But everything with her had been the most exhilarating thing that had ever happened to him. The attraction that had arced between them had been the most invigorating thing he’d ever experienced.
It was also the most dangerous.
It had messed up his fine-tuned conquering methods, pulverized his impregnable rules. It had reduced him to a reactive, starving man who didn’t follow plans and didn’t have brakes. He’d never once considered the possibility that he wouldn’t get everything he wanted. He’d always gotten his every planned result because he’d never cared what anyone thought of him. People had always been most welcome to hate or despise him as long as they bowed to him. How they bowed had never been a concern. In fact, he’d always preferred to force them to their knees.
But he couldn’t afford—no, couldn’t contemplate—that Jenan would feel any aversion, or even reluctance toward him. He had to have her early eagerness back. He had to have that total trust and admiration lighting up her face again.
He had to have her.
And to think he’d come tonight bent on systematically seducing Khalil Aal Ghamdi’s daughter to obtain his vital heir. But what he’d planned in cold blood had turned into a consuming need. Now instead of gritting his teeth and mating with a woman he’d been certain wouldn’t arouse his most basic urge, he would burn in the raging flames of his desire for Jenan. If their brief time of delirium was anything to go by, he was in for the untold pleasure he’d promised her. More. He was in for the first true pleasure of his life.
If only Antonio hadn’t called when he had. He would have been inside her now, taking her to the first peak of many. But it was a paramount rule of the Black Castle brotherhood, a rule he’d made, to immediately respond to any communication from a brother. With their lethal pasts and perilous presents, no one knew when it might be a matter of life or death.
But Antonio hadn’t been in danger. For some reason he didn’t give a damn about, he’d picked then of all times to recommend a few more hypnotherapy sessions for Numair.
Cursing vehemently, he reached for his phone, then paused. Though Antonio had called him barely half an hour ago, he could now be asleep.
Once their brotherhood’s field surgeon in their years as the slaves of The Organization, Antonio had become Black Castle Enterprise’s resident medical genius, the creator and director of their avant-garde and booming medical R&D business, and a surgeon who was one of the world’s most brilliant and unorthodox. He kept hours as extreme and unpredictable as everything about him. He was also known to sleep at will, to charge his batteries whenever possible for the grueling days he maintained in his lab, the OR and the boardroom. Numair had seen him fall asleep sitting up, in under thirty seconds. It was very possible he’d fallen asleep immediately after his fateful phone call.
But so what? He hoped Antonio was in deep, blissful sleep after months of severe deprivation, or on the verge of orgasm with a woman he’d been panting after for years. He’d love to return the favor.
He almost drove his finger through Antonio’s speed-dial number. By the third ring, Numair was ready to storm out, raid Antonio’s Fifth Avenue penthouse and punch him awake.
Then the line clicked open, and Antonio’s calmly teasing voice came on. “I thought you wanted to kill me when I called earlier.”
“I did,” Numair bit off. “I still do.”
“I interrupted something major, huh?”
“You interrupted the major something. And you weren’t even dying.”
“So this is a courtesy call for our history’s sake, before you come make sure I rectify my oversight?”
Any man would have been worried if he’d inadvertently cost Numair what Antonio had tonight. But having faced death on an almost daily basis together, and defended each other with their lives for over fifteen years, Antonio had reason not to fear Numair’s retaliation. Not that he feared anything. Antonio was the most imperturbable being who’d ever lived. Even more than any of them. Numair wouldn’t be surprised if his nerves were made of actual steel.
He finally asked, “Why the hell did you call, Bones?”
“I told you why, Phantom.”
&n
bsp; They always reverted to those code names, what they’d known each other by in The Organization. Those who remembered their names had been forbidden to use them. Numair hadn’t remembered his, Phantom being the one name he’d known most of his life.
He’d been among hundreds of boys who’d been plucked from all over the world and taken to that isolated installation in the Balkans and turned into mercenaries. He’d been too young when he’d been taken but had still been “broken in,” punished if he mentioned anything from his previous life. He’d first been conditioned to respond to a number. The name Phantom had come much later. He’d forgotten everything about his past. All that had remained of his memories before he’d come to what he’d later called Black Castle had been the name of his panther toy, Numair, and what he’d much later realized were the names of desert kingdoms, Saraya and Zafrana. And the memory of drowning.
He’d spent over twenty-five years of his forty in Black Castle before he’d orchestrated his and his brothers’ escape ten years ago. He’d spent most of those in frustration, unable to build an investigation into his origins on the sparse memories he had. Not knowing who he was had remained a gaping hole in his being.
Then Antonio had finally developed a method of aggressive hypnosis tailored to Numair’s condition and character. He’d thought it would be effective, but warned it could be dangerous. But Numair would have risked anything to find out the truth. He’d been certain someone had been responsible for his decades-long ordeal, and he wouldn’t rest until he’d found them and made them pay.
Antonio’s efforts had seemed to be another dead end, but he’d already expected that initial failure, since Numair was resistant to hypnosis. He’d never expected it to be anything but a long-term therapy as they’d been excavating memories Numair had before he’d been four.
But long-term was what Numair was all about. He’d started planning his escape from The Organization when he hadn’t even been ten. He’d put it into action twenty years later.
In captivity, Numair had grown up fast, toughening into steel and developing an undetectable cunning that had enabled him to navigate his ruthless environment and manipulate his monstrous jailors. By ten he’d already carved a place for himself as the establishment’s most valuable acquisition and future asset. Based on his uncanny abilities in every skill it took to make the best spy, they’d changed his name from a four-digit number to Phantom, beginning a trend of calling boys by names that symbolized them.
But he’d known he wouldn’t be able to escape alone. He had to have help. And in turn, help others escape. Recognizing six boys, all younger than himself, as kindred spirits who had superior abilities complementing his own, he’d manipulated their captors into making them his team. He’d made each swear a blood oath to live for their brotherhood and for one goal—to one day escape and destroy The Organization, saving other children from their fate.
They had implemented his convoluted plan, and after they’d escaped, they’d built new identities and created Black Castle Enterprises, using their unique skills. That was, all but Cypher. He’d left their brotherhood after an explosive falling out. He’d pledged they’d never see him again. They hadn’t.
Though Cypher’s loss remained an open wound in their brotherhood, they’d compensated by focusing on their original pact, dismantling The Organization from the outside in, methodically and undetectably.
Meanwhile, each also pursued his personal quest, for the family he’d been taken from, the heritage he’d been stripped of or for a new purpose and direction. Their bigger quest was sometimes forced to the background until more pressing personal issues were resolved, as it had during Rafael’s quest for vengeance and Raiden’s quest to reclaim his heritage. Both men had achieved their purposes, and unexpectedly found wives, too. Now it was his turn.
Four months ago, Antonio’s hypnosis had borne fruit, and he’d remembered enough to finally piece together his history. He’d found out how he’d ended up in The Organization’s grasp. And who he really was.
So what had the damned Antonio been thinking when he’d called earlier?
He again flayed Antonio with his exasperation. “Why in hell did you suddenly think I need more sessions? Their objective has already been achieved.”
Antonio switched to doctor mode, this frustrating, all-knowing attitude. “That’s what you decided, not me. Your memories were so deeply buried and so partially formed in the first place, then so fractured by trauma and suppression, I was forced to pull back constantly. I had to spread out the sessions, dig over a longer period or risk damaging your psyche and sanity.”
That was news to Numair. “You mean you could have forced memories to the surface faster? You took all those years intentionally?”
“Didn’t you hear the part where I said or risk damaging your psyche and sanity?”
“You actually think I have anything inside my head that could be damaged?”
“As my mentor and slave driver, I would have said your head is made of solid steel. But as your doctor, I’ve touched a few deeply hidden and relatively softer spots. The consistency of rock, granted, but under enough pressure even steel can snap and rock can be pulverized.”
“Where is this leading exactly?”
“You remember—no pun intended—the key memory that was the basis of your investigations into your origins?”
He remembered nothing more. Once the memory had exploded in his mind, he’d felt as if he’d been reliving it. It had been so real he’d almost drowned before Antonio had pulled him out of the hypnotic state.
That memory was of him on a yacht with his father when men, who looked like monsters in his memories, had boarded them. His father had been struck unconscious then thrown overboard. Numair had no doubt he’d drowned immediately. Then the men had tossed him after his father.
He should have drowned, too. And he’d always remembered the sensations of drowning, what had spawned an unreasoning hatred of swimming, even as he’d been forced to excel in it. More probing had unearthed memories of swimming lessons since he’d been born. Investigations had revealed he’d managed to swim to shore in Turkey, where he’d been taken to an orphanage. Over a year later, an Organization recruiter had taken him. And his real ordeal had begun.
Analyzing the history of the whole region at the time, he’d found out that his father had been Hisham Aal Ghaanem, the then Crown Prince of Saraya. And he’d been his father’s heir. He’d concluded that his father’s assassination had been orchestrated by his brother, Saraya’s current king, Hassan. Getting rid of him, too, had spared his uncle from being only regent until he came of age.
“I’d like to revisit that memory.”
Antonio’s demand ended his musings. “Why?”
“Humor me.”
“No.”
“Just no?”
“Yes, as long as you won’t give me a reason beside wanting to strap me down and poke around in my head again.”
“As if I want to poke around that dungeon you call a head. It’s filled with rotting corpses and dismembered remains.”
“As if your head isn’t.”
“It’s my head, so I have to live with it. Infesting it with the contents of your far more nightmarish skull is up there in my priorities with contracting an incurable STD.” Numair started to growl, and Antonio raised his voice, drowning his. “But I feel there are more fragments still stuck in there, like shrapnel. I’m worried if they surface on their own they’d cause uncharted damage. Before you scoff, just imagine yourself with the balance that keeps you precariously on the side of the angels shattered. With your power and intellect, you’d be a full-blown monster. So I’m really worried about the world here.”
Numair hated to admit it, but in The Organization, he’d seen the kind of widespread mayhem caused by those who’d been irrevocably damaged by his kind of life—even when they w
ere nowhere near his caliber.
He exhaled. “What memories could be more damaging than remembering my father’s murder and my own near drowning?”
“I don’t know. But I’ve been reviewing the videos and notes of our last sessions, and I’m convinced what you now know isn’t the whole story.”
“It’s the relevant part of it.”
“Why are you being so pigheaded? I thought you want to find everything about your past.”
“I know enough.”
It was Antonio’s turn to exhale in exasperation. “As long as you understand you’re ignoring my medical recommendation. And you run the risk of having those memories resurface and tear through whatever is keeping you from going berserk.”
“I understand. Anything else?”
Antonio’s huff was self-deprecating. “I should have implanted a posthypnotic suggestion in that impenetrable skull of yours when I had the chance.”
“But you didn’t.” He infused his voice with the older brother’s and leader’s criticism his brothers had grown up with. “I always said your moral afflictions stop you from maximizing your opportunities.”
“Yeah.” Antonio sounded vexed, then he suddenly brightened. “But I can always hit you with a tranq dart and have my way with you.”
“As if I wouldn’t see you coming a mile away.”
Antonio chuckled. “Go ahead, underestimate me. I’ll have you on my table again yet, Phantom.”
“Dream on, Bones.”
Then as it was their way, with the conversation over, they just terminated the call with no lingering goodbyes.
Afterward, he sat there staring ahead, his conversation with Antonio forgotten, his mind again full of Jenan and how he’d come to meet her.
She was part of the other side of his heritage. His mother was Safeyah Aal Ghamdi, a princess of the royal family in Zafrana, a cousin of the late king, Zayd Aal Ghamdi, and Jenan’s distant relative. His mother had left the region after her husband and son had been presumed dead thirty-seven years ago and had never come back. She’d never remarried, and had died four years ago in England.