by Holly Rayner
Copyright © 2018 by Holly Rayner, Ana Sparks
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
Contents
1. Ali
2. Brooke
3. Ali
4. Brooke
5. Ali
6. Brooke
7. Brooke
8. Brooke
9. Brooke
10. Ali
11. Brooke
12. Brooke
13. Ali
14. Brooke
15. Ali
16. Brooke
17. Brooke
18. Ali
19. Brooke
20. Brooke
21. Brooke
22. Ali
23. Brooke
1
Ali
Ali Suleman al-Haffar, lauded philanthropist and son of the ruling Sheikh of Shunayy, awoke on his couch with a splitting headache.
Maybe I should have reined it in at the fundraiser, he thought blearily. Ali loved animals, so he had been happy to attend the animal rescue fundraiser on behalf of the al-Haffar Foundation, and his pleasure had certainly not been dimmed by the discovery that the event had an open bar. Ali knew he tended to be more magnetic and charming when he drank, and that had proven true once again; not only had he given the organization a substantial sum on behalf of his family’s foundation, he’d also made the case to the others at his table and convinced them to give generously, too. Ali felt he’d earned his free drinks last night, and then some.
The trouble was, he’d earned himself a brain-drilling hangover in the process.
Just then, the knock at the door came again, and Ali realized the pounding he’d been woken by wasn’t in his head after all. He glanced at the clock. Eight thirty. Nobody should be knocking on his door this early. His security team was going to hear about this.
Ali rolled over and pulled the pillow over his head, but the knocking grew more insistent. They’re not going away, he thought glumly, rolling to his feet. He staggered over to the door and peeked through the hole.
His head of security, Jim Wellers, stood outside the door. Wellers was a retired U.S. Marine who now worked as a private security guard for high-profile individuals. Ali’s father had hired Wellers back when Ali first came to the U.S., nearly ten years ago, to study at Columbia University. After graduation, when Ali had decided to stay, the family had extended Wellers’ contract. The two knew each other very well, and most of the time Ali appreciated Wellers’ nonintrusive approach. It was usually possible for Ali to go about his day and completely forget Wellers was there.
This early-morning banging on the door was, in short, both unwelcome and uncharacteristic.
Ali opened the door. “What, Jim?”
Wellers pushed him back through the door and into the living room, closing the door behind him. “Away from the windows, please. Center of the room.”
Ali complied. “Hell of a way to tell a guy good morning.”
“Good morning. Sit on the floor, please.”
“Jim, what’s going on?”
Jim was making a sweep of the apartment, opening closets and checking under furniture. “Is anyone in here?”
“You’d know if there was. I live on the seventeenth floor, and you guard the entrance.”
“If you have a way of sneaking people in, now is the time to tell me.”
“What am I, fourteen? I’m not sneaking girls up here, Jim. I bring them through the front door.”
“All right.” Wellers took a knee in the center of the room, beside where Ali was sitting. “Last night, your family received a death threat, and you were named as the target.”
“And?”
“And we take every threat seriously, Ali.”
“Jim. Come on. Do you know how many death threats my family has gotten? It’s got to be in the hundreds. Do you know how many people probably want to kill me? You can’t get this upset over every single one of them.”
“Let me do my job, please.” Wellers peered out the window. “Do you want to pack a bag?”
“Pack a bag? Where am I going?” Ali felt a sudden thrill of fear. Would Wellers send him back to Shunayy? Not that it would be awful to see his homeland and his family again, of course, but after ten years here, Ali felt he was a New Yorker. He was far from ready to be sent home.
“We have a safe house ready for you,” Wellers said.
Ali laughed. A safe house? This had to be some kind of joke. “You’re telling me someone on the other side of the world made a threat on my life and I have to leave my apartment because of it? This is totally unnecessary!”
“This is what royal protocol demands. This is what your father demands.”
“Yeah, okay. You know Dad’s a ceremonial figurehead, right? Shunayy is a democratic state. My father doesn’t have any actual power to make demands.”
“He has the power to make demands of the people who work for him,” Wellers said. “And that includes me. My orders are to transport you to the safe house. We’ll be leaving in fifteen minutes, so take this time to pack a bag if you want to.”
Ali shook his head, but he got to his feet and went into his bedroom. He knew Wellers and his father were overreacting, but there wasn’t all that much he could do about it. His security team was made up of ex-Marines; it wasn’t as if Ali could stand up to them. He knew they’d never harm him, of course, but they would have no problem cuffing him and putting him in the back of a car until they reached their destination. He was going to have to go along with this.
Ali pulled down the duffel bag he’d purchased at a consignment shop during his third year of college. His father had hated this bag, preferring the monogrammed luggage he’d purchased for Ali before sending him off to school.
It gave Ali some satisfaction now to stuff his clothes and personal items haphazardly into a bag his father thought was beneath him. It frustrated Ali how attached his father was to the idea of royalty. Yes, technically their family was royal, but what did that mean anymore? Ali’s own idea of royalty had a lot more to do with getting invited to the best parties than it did with pomp and ceremony. “Remember, we represent Shunayy”, his father was fond of saying, but people who didn’t represent Shunayy probably didn’t receive death threats and have to run from their beautiful loft apartments first thing in the morning. They probably got to sleep in after benefits.
This is all Dad’s fault.
With his bag packed, he returned to the living room to see Wellers peering suspiciously through the peephole in the door. It was hard to keep from laughing. The idea of an assassin showing up at his apartment door in Manhattan was ludicrous. Members of the royal family had been receiving death threats for generations, and no one had ever actually been killed. It was practically tradition. Ali cleared his throat and tossed his bag on the floor, indicating his readiness to go.
Wellers glanced back and nodded. “The helicopter is standing by, and there’s a car outside waiting to transport us to the launch pad. Let’s move.”
“Helicopter?” A potential perk of the situation suddenly occurred to Ali. “Where are we going?”
“To the safe house.”
“Yes, but where is the safe house?” Ali had always wanted to see more of the United States. He’d made numerous plans over the past decade, but his planning had always been cut short by the complications of his situation. It was hard to set up a suitable living situation for a member of the
royal family. They’d gone to the trouble of securing this apartment so he could attend college at Columbia, but having the proper protective measures in place could take up to a year, particularly if it wasn’t a matter of any urgency. And Ali’s philanthropist father never seemed to want to shell out for a properly secured vacation home anyway. This, though, might be his chance to see someplace different.
“We’ll be going to Vermont,” Wellers said.
“Vermont? I’ve never heard of any safe house in Vermont.”
“It’s a secret location. Only your father and the security team know about it. Even your mother wasn’t told.”
Ali tried to remember what he knew about Vermont. Not much came to mind. He could roughly place the state on the map—it was one of those tiny ones along the northern part of the East Coast—but he couldn’t recall anything it was known for. Was it the one with great lobster? No, that was Maine. Did it even have any cities? It must, but he couldn’t think of any, and that did not bode well.
“Jim,” he appealed, “you know this is crazy, right? Sending me all the way to Vermont because of one death threat? Those things are written by crazy people. Whoever wrote it is probably in Shunayy right now. All we’re doing by moving is showing them they have power over us. We’re probably giving them exactly what they want.”
Wellers shook his head. “We don’t know any of that. The letter could have come from anywhere.”
“Wasn’t it postmarked?”
“It was hand delivered.”
“That means it definitely came from Shunayy!”
“That means it was delivered by someone in Shunayy, who could easily be working with an associate in Manhattan. You need to take this seriously, Ali. Besides, I don’t have a choice, and you know that. My orders are to transport you to the safe house, and that’s what I’m going to do. Arguing will get you nowhere.”
Ali slumped down onto the couch. This had to be his father’s idea of a punishment, a way of getting him to take his royal responsibilities—such as they were—more seriously. Ali and his father were constantly embroiled in arguments about the way Ali spent his time. Even constant participation in philanthropic pursuits didn’t seem to be enough. Just last week, Ali’s father had called from Shunayy to lecture him about overindulging on drinks at a heart disease benefit. Ali had retorted that if the idea wasn’t for people to drink, an open bar shouldn’t have been provided. The conversation had ended badly.
What was he going to do with himself in Vermont? No benefits were ever held there, he knew that much for sure. And all his friends from Columbia, who still held frequent gatherings and parties, would remain here. He wouldn’t even be permitted to tell them where he had gone. He would probably be alone in the middle of the woods with no one but Jim Wellers for company.
What a disaster.
Wellers opened the door and motioned for Ali to follow. Ali scooped up his duffel back and glumly trailed after Wellers down the stairs. Apparently they couldn’t even take the elevator. They had to sneak out like criminals. The car was waiting, not in the front of the building, but in an alley by the employee exit. Wellers stood guard while Ali ran with his head down and clambered into the back seat, feeling stupid.
The car was a plain 4x4, but the tinted windows gave it away as important, and Ali couldn’t help feeling that if Wellers and his team were really taking this escape seriously, they’d have found a way around that detail. Maybe he was just being cranky, though. After all, it wasn’t Wellers’ fault that royal protocol had to be followed. The man was just trying to keep his job. Ali couldn’t fault him as a bodyguard. He had done a good job being subtle but effective while Ali had been in New York. It was exactly what he would have asked from his head of security, had he been the one to make the hire.
It was his father who had hired Wellers, of course. His father decided everything.
By the time they arrived at the helipad, Ali was boiling with resentment. Whoever had sent that death threat probably didn’t even know him. It was probably a tactical move to get something from his father. If his father were more willing to compromise, this probably wouldn’t be happening. And if he were more realistic about what actually posed a threat and what didn’t, Ali wouldn’t be expected to drop everything and flee over one little letter.
He boarded the helicopter and fastened himself in. Wellers checked the straps to ensure they were snug—another policy his father had put into place. Ali had to hold back from rolling his eyes. Next thing, his father would be hiring someone to pre-chew his food for him. It was ridiculous.
As the helicopter ascended, Wellers handed Ali a manila folder.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“Your new identity.”
“Seriously?”
“By assuming a new identity, you can still be allowed out of the safe house from time to time,” Wellers explained. “If you were to insist upon your own name, I would have to keep you under house arrest.”
“Where am I going to want to go in Vermont anyway?” Ali muttered, flipping open the folder.
“The documents you’ll need are in the pouch at the back.”
Ali paged through to the back of the folder and found a plastic pouch with a photo ID, a social security card, and a birth certificate, all bearing the name Blaine Mustafi. “What kind of a name is Blaine?”
“An American one. The idea is that you blend in as much as possible.”
“Do you want me to speak with an American accent, too?”
“Can you do it?”
Ali carefully modulated his vowels, adopting the patterns of the New Yorkers he’d spent so much of his life around. “Not a problem for me, Jim.”
“Good. Now, what’s your name?”
“Blaine Mustafi.”
“And you’re how old?”
Ali checked the dossier. “Twenty-five. Really?”
“You have a youthful face.”
“Great. Thank you.”
They went over the rest of Blaine’s information as the helicopter powered its way up to Vermont. Blaine Mustafi was listed as a New York native, making use of Ali’s familiarity with the city. He was an only child, and both his parents were listed as living abroad. “In case anyone asks after your family,” Wellers explained. “It’s easier if you’re never called upon to produce a living family member.”
“Got it.” Ali was fine with that. A break from answering to overbearing family members would probably be the best part of this whole experience.
“Another thing. As long as we’re here, you’ll be expected to report on your whereabouts to myself or a member of my team. That means every time you leave the house, you’ll tell us where you’re going and what time to expect you back. Failure to do so will result in a search operation that’s likely to end with you being pulled back to Shunayy, which I know you don’t want, so I suggest you cooperate.”
Ali slumped back in his seat, frustrated. “How long are we going to be here?”
“Until the threat is determined to have passed.”
“So, what, indefinitely?”
Wellers nodded.
“Who makes the decision about whether the threat’s passed?” He was hoping the answer would be Wellers himself, or perhaps one of the security staff in Shunayy. All that would be required for them to decide it was safe for Ali to return home would be a cursory investigation. Everyone knew these death threats were a joke.
“Your father decides,” Wellers said. “Don’t give me that look. You know he can’t govern if he’s worried you’re in danger.”
“He doesn’t govern! He makes public appearances!”
Wellers frowned. “You should have some respect for the office of Sheikh. After all, it’s going to belong to you someday.”
“Don’t remind me,” Ali grumbled.
He leaned against the window, watching glumly as the helicopter left the tall buildings and bustling streets of New York behind and flew out over farmland and forest. Whatever awaited him in Vermon
t, Ali was sure it would be a colossal waste of time.
2
Brooke
Brooke Bailey hadn’t left her apartment in three days.
She had probably been working for hours, but it was hard to keep track. It seemed as if every time she looked up from her pottery wheel, the sunlight had advanced several feet across the floor.
Under her hands, the vase she’d carefully built up wilted to one side. Frustrated, Brooke balled up the wet clay and tossed it on a sheet of plastic she’d put down, then reached over for a fresh lump. Was this the fourth time she’d started over? She’d lost count.
The problem was the heat. Brooke’s apartment had an air conditioner, but she didn’t earn enough money from her sculpting commissions to afford such luxuries. Even paying for groceries was a stretch some weeks, and this was definitely going to be one of those weeks if she couldn’t finish her commission. She’d been so excited when she’d set up a website, thinking she’d finally start getting lots of orders for her work, but the truth was, most of her business still came from friends, neighbors, and customers at the monthly farmers’ market. She couldn’t even afford her own booth at the market. If it hadn’t been for the generosity of her best friend, Jan, who allowed Brooke to sell pottery alongside her own vegetables, Brooke’s business would probably be cut right in half.
Brooke dropped the lump of clay she’d been kneading. Maybe she should try again after the sun went down and things cooled off a bit. In this heat, it was unlikely she’d have any luck getting her work to set.
She wiped down her hands, wrapped her clay, and adjusted her ponytail. Taking a break always made her realize how thirsty she was, and she headed into the kitchen for a glass of ice water, her thoughts turning idly toward dinner.