The Widow's Keeper

by Kishan Paul

  “If you sneak me out of here and they die…”

  He rested his head against the wall and let out a sigh. “It’s a risk I have to take. Everyone in this building wants you dead. Tonight was the first attempt.”

  She knew neither of them would back down from their decision, so she changed the subject. “I saw them.”

  His fingers fisted again, and his eyes slammed shut. “Has he hurt them?”

  She shook her head. “So far she and the baby have been treated well.”

  Eddie let out a breath and pulled his hand out of hers. He ran his fingers through his short hair. “All this time, I had no clue if she was dead or alive.”

  The pain in his voice stabbed at her. She hugged the blanket to her body and continued, hoping her information would help. “The man who kidnapped me five years ago. His name is Bashar. I'm pretty sure he helped kill Amir and took Farah and the baby.”

  “I know.”

  Her brows rose. “You knew?”

  “I mean I didn’t know until yesterday. When you showed up at the door, I realized things hadn’t gone according to plan. I snuck out and tracked down Leanna.”

  The mention of the escort’s name sent relief flooding through Ally. “She’s okay? I didn’t know what else to do. I had no choice but to leave her and go with him.”

  Eddie nodded. “We know, and she’s fine. She ended up with a concussion and a highly bruised ego.” He grinned. “Which is a good thing because she tracked down the janitors who helped Bashar and got them to talk. Turns out he’s been holed up in Germany for the past four years and had hired them to do some jobs here and there.”

  A shudder went through Ally at the mention of the men in the airport. “How did they know I was going to be on the plane?”

  “Someone bugged your house. Leanna found about three months worth of tapes in Bashar’s home.”

  Ally’s chest tightened. Her thoughts turned to her family and the danger she’d put them all in. “My parents still live there.”

  He nodded. “Leanna’s already had them sweep your place clean. Your family is under their watch. I’m not worried. It was you Shariff and Bashar were after, not them.”

  She stared at the wall ahead. “Did they kill Amir? And where are the boys?”

  Eddie rubbed his palms on his knees. “Farah and Amir lived in Dresden. The janitors helped kidnap my sister and niece. Amir got in the way and ended up with a bullet in the head. They claim Bashar pulled the trigger.”

  “Bashar wants me dead. He killed Amir because of me.” So many lives damaged because of her. “I think he had something to do with David’s death too,” she said in a low voice.

  “Leanna tracked him and the half dozen or so aliases she found in his house.” Eddie’s voice remained without inflection as he scanned the space. He was in work mode. His brain trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. “Turns out he was in Philadelphia a little over four months ago. Even found footage of him with another man.”

  None of what he said surprised her. “Was he the one they have on video, running away from David’s accident?”

  Eddie shot her a look. A look that made her pause. He cleared his throat. “Not Bashar, but the guy he was with, yes.”

  “Do you know who it was?”

  Eddie stared at the wall across the room. “Yeah, but first tell me everything you know.”

  Considering he wanted to find his sister, the request made sense. For the next fifteen minutes, Ally described in detail the incident at the airport, to waking up in the hotel, the burqa Shariff made her wear, her time with Farah and the baby, the multiple car changes, and how Shariff altered his appearance. Through it all, Eddie stayed next to her, listening to her every word, interrupting her every now and then for clarification.

  Ripples of tension flowed from him. “Tell me what you know about the house she is being kept in.”

  Ally closed her eyes, trying to remember. “It’s a new home. I could smell fresh paint and wood stain. Two bedrooms. One bath. Hers is the one by the kitchen, and they keep the key to Farah’s room in the kitchen drawer to the left of the sink. There’s a small grassy front yard with a black metal gate. The iron on the gate was shaped like ivy. There were other houses on either side of it. And in the distance, there were three white high-rises. Maybe about twenty stories tall? They had these orange pyramid-looking structures on their roofs.”

  “That helps. I’ll call in a favor to see if we can find aerial footage of the vehicle you came in today, and we can do a scan for those buildings. With as many spies in the sky that we have, they should be able to backtrack the car to the house.”

  She shook her head. “You won’t be able to. We changed cars twice on the way here, and he even changed clothes in the process. He said he doesn’t trust anyone.”

  He leaned his head back and let out a soft growl. “Motherfucker.”

  It was an excellent description of Shariff. She thought back to the conversation she had with him in the garden. “He hasn’t said so, but I think he’s going to kill Aadam as some perverse way of hurting his father. I have to…”

  “Do nothing,” Eddie snapped. His lips flattened into a thin line. “I’m not sure you’re grasping the seriousness of this situation.” He put up a finger. “David and Amir are dead.” A second digit joined the first. “Farah and her baby are locked up in some room I can’t seem to find.” A third was added. “They were waiting for you at Frankfurt, and Leanna, a trained agent, was attacked and left unconscious.” A fourth digit flipped open. “A man died in this very room a few hours ago.” He added a fifth. “And finally, if I hadn’t been here”—he aimed all five fingers at the spot where the guard’s body had laid—“that asshole and his horny buddies downstairs would have drilled their dicks into every hole in your body until the sun came up, and then killed you. I know this because that’s what they said they’d do and all before they took a sip of their morning coffee.”

  His words stabbed into her, making her stomach twist. She blinked and stared at his hand and the five fingers he now waved in her face. “And most of this in under twenty-four hours,” he continued. “You can’t do a damn thing about any of it. So what we’re going to do is climb down that closet hole and sneak you out of here tonight.”

  Time had run out. She’d avoided the argument as long as she could. She climbed to her feet and stared down at him. “Until I know Farah and the baby are safe, my leaving is not an option,” she whispered. “I am not the person you need to worry about. Just find them and get them out of Karachi. I can take care of myself.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Do you really think my sister would let me leave you behind? And for that matter, your husband…”

  “Is dead,” she finished. Ally’s face heated but she kept her voice low and calm. “And he can’t do a damn thing to help either of us.”

  Eddie ran his fingers down his scalp. “Clearly your heart is in the right place, and thanks for that.” He stood and planted his hands on his hips. “But you’re not trained for this. Which is why I need to get you out of here tonight.”

  Ally stepped closer until her face was inches from his. “I’m not a dog. And you’re not allowed to pat me on the head and send me on my merry way.” She jabbed a finger into his chest. “If I leave, Shariff promised to sell your sister and her baby. Do you want them hurt?”

  The vein on his neck pulsed. “No.”

  “Then let me help you.”

  He grabbed her finger and scowled. “Help me do what? Swoop in on your invisible jet and use your golden lasso to free my sister from her evil captives?”

  Eddie’s words stung but she didn’t retreat. She watched the way the skin above his collar turned deep red. The color crawled up his long, thick neck. He released her hand. “The only problem with your plan is the fact you don’t have super powers.”

  “I think you should leave.”

  His light brown orbs stayed fixed on her, and he didn’t move. In fact, she couldn’t tell i
f he was breathing. Finally, the corner of his mouth curved up. “I’m all you’ve got, and you’re asking me to leave?”

  “I don’t need your help.” Ally kept her voice void of the uncertainty within. “I need you to go find your sister. And if you don’t leave now, I’m going to open the door and scream for help.”

  “Is this some crazy suicide mission you’re on?”

  “In a way, yes.” Her face stung from the implications of his words. “My husband is dead. Amir is dead. And if your sister and baby are hurt… It. Will. Kill. Me.”

  He slammed his eyes shut, and his chest rose as he sucked in a breath. “You don’t belong here, Alisha.”

  “Neither do they, Eddie. But here we are. Look at me.” He complied. “Use me.”

  His shoulders slumped. “If your husband were alive, he’d surgically remove my balls and staple them to my head if he knew I was even considering this.”

  She smiled. “Yes, he would.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  RAZAA

  Eddie rubbed the back of his neck and paced. “Okay.”

  Ally released the breath she held. She seated herself on the bed and patted the spot next to her. “Tell me what you know.”

  He situated himself on the edge of the mattress beside her and turned to face her. “After Amir was murdered and my sister and niece disappeared, I did some digging. Turns out David sent Farah an email the day before she was kidnapped, asking her to meet him.”

  She tilted her head in confusion. “He’s been gone for over four months and your sister was kidnapped a few days ago.”

  His head bobbed. “Exactly. Dead people don’t write emails. And then I searched deeper and found one she sent him a week before he wound up dead.”

  Ally's breath hitched. “David never told me.”

  “I figured as much. He didn’t respond to it, either.” Eddie tucked one of his legs under him and leaned forward. “Your husband did everything right. Farah messed up by reaching out to him. But I don’t think she led Bashar to you. It was the opposite. Her email to David led Bashar to her.”

  Her hand covered her mouth. “Because he already knew where I lived and was monitoring us.”

  “Exactly.”

  Ally scooted across the mattress until her back hit the wall and stretched her feet out. “Then why wait until now to make a move?”

  “Not sure. What I do know is I ran a scan of all yours and David’s accounts about a year ago, and they came up clean for spyware etc. When I ran it again a few days after his death, I found fingerprints.”

  Tension thudded against her temples as he talked. Ally pressed her fingers into the spots and shook her head. All this time, they’d been in danger and didn’t even know it.

  “Something else I don’t understand is how my sister tracked down David and why.”

  A smile tugged at Ally’s lips. “When we were stuck in the compound, I had Farah memorize David’s contact information. In case she ever got away and needed help, I knew David would do whatever he could for her.”

  He looked over at her, a flash of hurt shot across his face. “If she needed help, why didn’t she ask me?”

  “She was about to have a baby, Eddie. Emotions are high during the third trimester. With all those men around her, she probably felt very scared and alone and needed a mother or sister. Speaking of which, you didn’t answer my question earlier about the boys. How are they?”

  “Fine.”

  Ally shot him a look. Something felt off. “Shariff keeps asking me about them and where they are, so I’m assuming they are somewhere safe.”

  He nodded and cleared his throat. “How’s Farah holding up?”

  The question made the pulsing in her head intensify. “She thinks David and Amir will come and get us out of here.”

  The space filled with silence.

  “She doesn’t know?” he whispered.

  Ally’s eyes brimmed at the memory. “I couldn’t tell her. She needed to believe they were still out there.” She thought about the man who stood outside Farah’s room, monitoring her every move. “There was someone else there. He wore a mask.”

  Eddie stiffened. “What do you remember? Heavy, skinny, tall?”

  “Tall and skinny. Maybe a beard or mustache under there. I got the feeling he knew me and didn’t like me.”

  His eyes stayed glued to her. “Young?”

  “Possibly. The way he carried himself seemed younger, but I’m not sure.” She eyed him. “You know who it is, don’t you?”

  He cut her a look as if weighing the decision. “After the explosion three years ago, the orphans were sent to live with different families.”

  Ally leaned toward him, not sure she heard correctly. “What do you mean different families? You said there were living with Farah and Amir. Who did you separate?”

  Eddie clasped his fingers together and cleared his throat. “All of them.”

  A stunned silenced fell between them. He had avoided her questions about the boys and, when she’d been direct, provided one-word responses. Now she knew why. She cleared her throat and kept her voice low. “Those boys grew up in the same orphanage. They were adopted together by Sayeed. They only had each other all their lives, and you ripped them apart?” Her gaze fixed on him. “Why would you tear them apart?”

  “Because of my sister, I had no choice.” He lowered his head. “With the kind of security clearance I have, a first-degree relative, who is a foreign national and resides in another country, is considered a liability by the Agency and would cause questions of loyalty. So it was best to not say anything about Farah and let them split everyone up.”

  The pulsing in her temples intensified. “Do you know how traumatic it must have been for them to not only lose the only father they ever had but also be separated from each other?”

  He nodded. “Better traumatized than dead, like Amir. If they had been with my sister, what would have happened to them?”

  His words chilled her.

  Eddie rubbed the back of his neck. “I did what I needed to do to keep everyone safe. You can be as mad as you like. But we need to work together, and it also means you need to know the rest.”

  The pounding spread from her temples to across her forehead. She worked the tense area and braced herself. “The rest? What do you mean the rest?”

  “One of the boys disappeared about a year ago.”

  Her brain went straight to the man in the mask. “Who?”

  “Razaa.”

  Ally’s heart broke as soon as Eddie uttered his name. The strongest and most assertive, he was the natural leader and kept an eye on the rest. She’d seen firsthand his deep love for his family, his brothers, her.

  “They sent him to live with a family in Istanbul, but things didn’t go so well. The couple who took him in said he was sullen and angry all the time, and they weren’t surprised when he disappeared.”

  “What have you done?” She thought about the man in the mask from the day before and the way he stared at her. She’d seen anger in his gaze; a testament to how hard his life must have been out in the world alone.

  “I tried to find him. I got a lead he was under the care of an asshole in Qatar, known for rescuing kids like him and promising to take care of them but in reality using them for labor. The unlucky ones end up prostituting themselves all over the world.”

  Ally lowered her head in her hands, and an overwhelming ache for Razaa rocked her. She’d failed him. Failed them all.

  “Someone who looked like him was spotted with a group of migrant workers in Madrid, and then Istanbul a few months later. But every time I followed up on a lead, they were gone. A few days before David’s accident, a group of them was smuggled through San Diego into the US. From the videos I’ve seen, he and Bashar were with them.”

  She removed her hands and glanced at Eddie. “You think Razaa had something to do with David’s death?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think, I know. He was the hooded figure runnin
g away after the accident.”

  Her lungs turned to ice, trying to make sense of it all. “Razaa is not a killer.”

  “Funny thing to say, considering Sayeed trained him to kill.”

  There were so many unknowns in this equation, but this was not one of them. She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter what Sayeed trained him to do. It doesn’t even matter that you took him away from his brothers when he needed them most. I know him.”

  Eddie flashed her a knowing look. “If I recall, there was another kid you knew real well, and he turned out to be a suicide bomber. I’m thinking you might be a little biased on the good kid label.”

  “Umber didn’t know about the bomb. He thought he was meeting me in there,” she snapped.

  “Sure, and this one didn’t know either, right? He doesn’t know he’s holding my sister and niece against their will. He doesn’t know he’s killed Amir and David.”

  Ally thought back to the days in the compound. Umber was the smallest and weakest of the group. Often, when he was picked on by the other brothers, Razaa stepped in, making the others back off. Until she knew what was going on, she was going to cling to the boy she remembered. “So how did he end up with Shariff?”

  “My guess is he must have bought Razaa.”

  Bought Razaa? Ally leaned her head against the wall and looked at the ceiling as she fought the tears. This was not the time to cry for him. She cleared her throat and worked on staying focused. “What do you know about Shariff?”

  Eddie nodded. “What you know, they have the same father, Rizwan Irfani, but different mothers. Rizwan’s made a fortune off selling Afghani jewels on the black market. When Sayeed got old enough, he talked Daddy into expanding his business to a whole new type of trade—people.

  “Sayeed ran it for a few years until he got bored and moved on to the weapons industry. From what I’m understanding, since Shariff is such a people person, Rizwan let him take over the human trafficking part of the company.”

  Bile rose up her throat, and her face twisted at the bitter taste of it all.

  “Clearly there was no love lost between the brothers.”