by Holly Rayner
Who knew she was here? Her mother and Tana…but how long would it be before they suspected something was wrong, before they looked into her disappearance? Ali would miss her almost immediately, but whatever this was, she knew it had something to do with him. She didn’t think for a moment that he or his staff were behind this, but he might not be free to act to save her.
The car pulled to a stop. Brooke heard the slamming of doors, and then a hand closed around her upper arm and dragged her out. The ground gave a bit beneath her feet. Sand.
The bag was removed from her head. She looked around, trying to make out her surroundings, to make sense of what was going on, but there was nothing to see, not even a light source. A few moments later, her eyes began to adjust, and she understood—this was the desert. The desert at night. No roads, no buildings, nothing.
Her heart jumped into her throat. Were they going to leave her here? She didn’t know the way back to civilization. How long could she survive alone in the desert?
But her captors didn’t get back into their car. One of them grabbed her by the arms and tossed her down in the sand. Brooke didn’t even try to get her feet back under her. Running away would do her no good. She could see that.
The man who had picked her up from the hotel lobby stared down at her, no longer looking remotely friendly. “So you’re the girl who seduced Ali al-Haffar.”
“Who are you?” Brooke whispered, terror robbing her voice of power.
“The Militia for a Free Shunayy,” the other man said.
Brooke remembered the name from her research. The Militia for a Free Shunayy was the organization responsible for the violence against the government, and was thought to be behind the Sheikh’s attempted murder. But they were supposed to have been overthrown.
Hadn’t they?
The driver stepped back to the car and returned with Brooke’s purse in hand. “She’s got al-Haffar’s personal number in here,” he said.
“Text him,” the burly man said.
“What are you telling him?” Brooke asked.
“Just sending a little message from his girlfriend,” the driver said. “We wouldn’t want him to think you’d forgotten him, would we?”
“He’ll be able to tell that isn’t me,” Brooke said, though she wasn’t at all sure that was true.
The driver didn’t seem concerned about it. “I’m not so sure about that,” he said. “You couldn’t tell who really wrote that letter you got.”
Brooke’s blood turned to ice.
The driver laughed. “You thought that was from him, didn’t you? You thought he sent for you. Would you like to see the letter he really wrote you? He never confessed his true identity…didn’t think you were important enough to know the truth, I imagine. He asked you to stay away for good and forget all about him. That’s what he wanted, girl. For you to go away. But we couldn’t have that.”
It had been a trick. It had all been a lie. Brooke had been right to hesitate in trusting that letter, but Ali wasn’t the one she should have mistrusted. Now, they were both going to pay the price. She had to find a way to let him know the Militia for a Free Shunayy was still active, still plotting against him. But what could she do, alone in the desert?
The driver handed Brooke’s phone to the burly man. “You text him,” he said. “Make sure to keep it familiar. Remember, they’re lovers.”
“No, we aren’t,” Brooke lied.
The driver shifted his robe, revealing a pistol strapped to his hip. “Don’t lie to me, girl,” he said, a bite in his tone. “We’ve been watching you since the boy moved to your little town. We’re hacked into palace security. All those cameras the royal family keeps on each other were easy to put to our own use.”
Of course, Brooke realized. That explains how they were able to get someone into the palace. Hadn’t she read that the would-be assassin had managed to enter and leave the palace without being apprehended? It was supposed to be the most secure building in all of Shunayy. There was no way anyone could have done something like that unless they had eyes and ears on the inside. The palace staff must have been infiltrated. The driver standing before her was probably a genuine palace driver—maybe Ali had even sent this man to pick her up—and perhaps the burly man worked for security.
She had to find a way to contact Ali. She had to let him know that his home had been infiltrated!
“There,” the burly man said, showing the driver what he’d entered on the phone. The driver nodded, and he hit send.
“What did that message say?” Brooke asked fearfully.
The driver laughed. “Are you afraid? Don’t worry. You’ll see your prince soon enough.” He turned to address the burly man. “Put her back in the car.”
“We’re taking her with us?”
“Yes. I’ve changed my mind. I want her to witness this. Besides, we can use her.”
“But I thought the plan was to leave her—”
“I said I’ve changed my mind,” the driver snapped.
The other man shrugged and hauled Brooke over the sand and back to the car. Brooke tripped over her feet, trying to keep pace with his long strides.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Back to the hotel.”
“The hotel? Why?”
The man waved Brooke’s phone at her, as if to taunt her, and then tossed it into the back seat. “You just texted your boyfriend asking him to pick you up personally. Needed a little time to get ready for your first meeting with Mommy and Daddy. Of course he understands, you’re nervous. He’s already on his way.”
Brooke struggled in his grip. “What are you going to do to him!”
“We’re going to put a bullet in him,” the driver said, approaching with a grin. “Just like we did his father, but this time, no mistakes. Our men are already at the hotel, waiting.”
“Ali isn’t going to fall for this,” Brooke said. “He’s too smart.”
“I don’t think we’re going to have a problem,” the driver smirked. “The moment he sees you sitting in the lobby, he’ll walk right in.”
Brooke considered this. They were depending on Ali seeing Brooke to lure him into the trap, meaning there might be a chance for her to warn him. What could she do? If she screamed as he approached, he might have time to run…
“Whatever you’re thinking,” the driver snapped, “put it out of your mind. If you try to warn him—if you do anything other than exactly what we tell you—we’ll kill you. And then we’ll kill the whole hotel full of innocent witnesses. Is your prince worth that?”
Brooke didn’t answer. She couldn’t. A tightness was growing in her chest, and she felt light-headed. She allowed herself to be roughly pushed into the back of the car, and they set off back toward civilization.
22
Ali
Ali pulled the car to a stop outside Brooke’s hotel. He was eager to show her that he’d been keeping up with his driving, and though he’d been more interested in focusing on her that afternoon, tonight seemed like the perfect opportunity to take her for a ride. He was glad she’d called him to come pick her up. He should have planned on doing this in the first place, he thought as he stepped out of the car.
“Sir?” It was a man in a hotel uniform. “Sir, you can’t leave that car there…oh…” Ali had just passed under the lights of the hotel awning, and the hotel employee had gotten a look at his face. “Your Highness. Welcome. Will…will you be staying with us tonight?”
“Just picking up a guest today.” Ali favored the man with a smile.
“May I park the car for you?”
Ali frowned. “It’s in park.”
“Well, it…it needs to be in a parking space, sir.”
“Oh.”
“If I might take the keys,” the man said, “I’d be happy to park it and then fetch it for you when you and your guest are ready to leave.”
Ali shrugged. “Sounds good.” He tossed the keys to the man, who fumbled and almost dropped them, and then st
rolled inside.
Brooke was standing in the center of the lobby. But Ali could see immediately that something wasn’t right. She had changed into a lovely black dress, but it looked rumpled, and there was no way Brooke would have chosen a rumpled dress for this occasion. Her hair looked as if it had previously been immaculately styled, but it was falling free of its clips and hung disheveled around her face. She caught sight of him, and her eyes didn’t light up. The smile he was expecting didn’t spread across her face. Instead, she looked scared and upset.
“Brooke?” He took a step toward her.
“Ali.” Her eyes were wide. “Thank you for coming to pick me up.” She spoke almost robotically. Something was very wrong. Was she hurt? He stepped closer, and her eyes seemed to widen even further.
“Are you okay, Brooke?” he asked. “I know you’re nervous about tonight. My parents are excited to meet you, I promise. Everything’s going to be fine.”
“No,” Brooke said, high-pitched, babbling a little. “No, I’m not nervous, I’m…I mean, yeah, I’m nervous.” Her eyes fixed on something over his left shoulder. “Can we go now, Ali?”
“Sure, let me just…” He took one step closer to her, intending to put an arm around her, to help her relax, but as he did so Brooke inhaled sharply, as if she’d seen a ghost. Immediately, Ali heard the clicking of several guns being cocked. He spun around.
The door was being blocked by five members of the Militia for a Free Shunayy.
Ali stared at the guns that were now being pointed directly at him. He had thought the militia had been disbanded, its core members now imprisoned and the fringe followers too disorganized to continue the group’s violent agenda. Apparently, he had been wrong. He recognized them by their dark green uniforms and the little star each man wore pinned to his left breast pocket.
Instinctively, he stepped in front of Brooke, trying to shield her. Almost simultaneously it occurred to him that these men must have had their hands on her already. It was the only explanation he could think of for how roughed up she looked. Fury burned through him, sudden and hot. How dare they touch her?
“Sheikh Ali al-Haffar,” one of the gunmen said, “surrender yourself into our custody, or you will be killed.”
“What will you do if I surrender myself?” Ali asked, stalling for time.
“That’s our concern,” the gunman snapped.
Ali thought he knew anyway: they would use him to force his father to direct the government to act in their favor. They would threaten to kill Ali unless the Sheikh did their bidding. Then they would probably kill him anyway.
“Okay,” Ali said, doing his best to sound unconcerned, even though his nerves were sparking like live wires. “Kill me.”
“No!” Brooke shrieked. He gripped her wrist, hard.
“Maybe we’ll kill your girlfriend, too,” the insurgent said.
“Leave her alone. She’s nobody,” Ali snapped. “Once you kill me, nobody in this country even knows who she is. She’s worthless to you.” It pained him to describe Brooke as worthless. But if it would save her life…
“So you’ve made up your mind?” the gunman asked. “You won’t surrender?”
“I won’t surrender,” Ali said through gritted teeth.
The man smiled. “I’d hoped you would say that,” he said. “We were ordered to take you alive, if we could, but since your family is the reason most of mine is in jail, I have no interest in seeing you survive. In fact, I’ve been looking forward to the day I got to put a bullet in you.”
And he raised his gun.
Ali sprang forward and slammed his fist into the man’s face, disarming him as he did so. The four surrounding men scrambled to turn their guns on him, but Ali sweep-kicked the legs out from under one of them, taking himself down low enough to shoot another in the leg. As the man he had shot howled in pain, Ali sprang back to his feet and hit another with a shot to the shoulder, causing him to lose his grip on his gun. Ali caught it and slid it across the floor toward Brooke. Peripherally, he saw her pick it up and turn her back to the fracas. She was watching to make sure no additional insurgents came to join the fight. Good girl.
Two men remained. Ali hit one of them with another shot to the leg. The final gunman, apparently not liking his odds, dropped his gun and tried to run for the front doors of the hotel, but Ali stopped him with a bullet to the posterior that dropped him to the ground.
Brooke joined him, and the two of them moved among the fallen insurgents, kicking their guns out of reach. “How did you do that?” Brooke asked him, sounding out of breath. “That was amazing.”
The hotel employees, who had dropped to the floor behind the desk when the shooting began, now slowly rose, trembling. “Your Highness,” one woman said, looking around at the mess of groaning people on the ground. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Ali said, wrapping an arm around Brooke. “Would you please call the police for us?”
The woman nodded and picked up her phone.
Ali turned to Brooke. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She was staring at the men on the floor.
“What did they do to you?” he asked urgently. “Before I arrived. Did they hurt you?”
“No. They…that one was dressed as one of your drivers. They put me in a car…I thought they were taking me to the palace, but they put a bag over my head and drove me out into the desert instead.”
“Oh my God. Brooke…”
“It’s okay. They didn’t hurt me.”
“You must have been so scared.”
She didn’t answer, just leaned into him, and he could feel her shivering. He took off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. “I’m so sorry,” he said softly. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
“It isn’t your fault,” she said. “Don’t start thinking it is, okay?”
Ali was silent.
She looked up at him. Some of the old steel had returned to her gaze. “Ali. It’s not your fault. You didn’t ask for this any more than I did.”
“It’s because of who I am.”
“It’s because of who I am, too,” she said firmly.
“What? No it isn’t.”
“Yes it is. I’m the girlfriend of a Sheikh. I don’t have to be that. Nobody and nothing is making me. I chose this. You didn’t choose to be here, in this situation, but I did. So it’s definitely not your fault. Understand?”
He pulled her close again, feeling warm, unable to speak.
The hotel concierge emerged from behind the desk and led them to a pair of armchairs, but Ali didn’t want to let go of Brooke, and she didn’t seem to want to let go of him either. Now that the adrenaline of the moment was leaving their bodies, they were both shivering, and the warmth of closeness felt wonderful. Ali knew he should call his parents, but he kept putting it off. It would be an unpleasant phone call, explaining that the Militia for a Free Shunayy was still active. His father would probably want to get in a car and rush down here, and if the ruling Sheikh was on the premises, it would be hours before they would be able to leave. He would explain everything when they returned to the palace.
“I’d hoped you would arrive with security,” Brooke said. “Your security is usually so good. Where were they?”
Ali shook his head at his own stupidity. “I asked them to wait outside. They were so preoccupied with threats I might meet on the way over here…to be honest, I think they thought I was more of a threat to myself than anything else.”
“You’re a good driver!” she protested.
“Thanks.” He gave her a squeeze. “But none of them had seen me drive until tonight. If I’d had the team that was in Vermont, it might have been different.”
“Where’s that team?”
“Guarding the palace. Here in Shunayy, we have a special team of guards for when we’re mobile. They thought I was just running inside to pick you up—well, we all thought that—so they agreed to wait outside.”
“
They didn’t come in when the shooting started?”
Ali pointed to the door, where his security team had established a perimeter. “By the time they reached the door, it was over. It all happened pretty quickly. I know it didn’t feel that way.”
Flashing blue-and-red lights indicated that the police had arrived, and Ali saw an officer step out of his car and speak briefly to the head of his own security force. A moment later, the doors opened and several officers entered.
Ali approached them, his arm still wrapped around Brooke. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”
“Militia for a Free Shunayy?” one officer asked, gesturing to the men on the floor. He looked to be the chief—he had a badge pinned to his chest, and he was the only one in a hat.
Ali nodded. “They seem to have reformed their ranks.”
“They don’t seem to have given you much trouble,” the officer noted.
“I was lucky,” Ali said.
“He’s being modest,” Brooke interrupted. “He took the gun from that one and disabled all of them in about five seconds.”
“That’s pretty impressive,” the officer said. “How were you able to do it?”
“To be honest, it’s because of Brooke here,” Ali said, smiling. “She taught me how to shoot while I was living abroad, and when I returned home I kept up the practice.”
“You did?” Brooke asked.
“It helps me focus and relieves stress,” Ali said. “Never thought I’d be putting it to such good use, though.”
“Well, we’re grateful you did,” the police officer said as the rest of his team hauled the insurgents off the floor and out to the cars. “We’ll have to keep an eye out for the rest of the Militia members. They don’t seem to be going as quietly as we’d hoped. And in the meantime, Your Highness, you might want to inform your family that they’re still out there.”
Ali nodded. “I’ll be sure to do that.”
“Both of you are free to go, then,” the officer said.
Brooke turned in Ali’s arms and slipped her arms up his chest and around his neck. He pulled her close. “We’re safe now,” he murmured.