“Withdrawal limits are five hundred dollars at most ATMs. Even lower for some,” Cristy said now, trying to conceal the impending relief she was feeling. God, the LAST thing she wanted was to get on that hulking, evil-looking ship. This way they’d have to stay here until Rizaak could get them the cash. And maybe they’ll just let us go after they get the money, she thought.
“How much we talkin’ about, Malone?” Jane said, pointedly ignoring Cristy.
“Twelve thousand,” Malone said. “Fifteen would be better.”
“Aw, jeez,” Dick said, exhaling and shaking his head.
“How about a check?” Harry said, his eyes wide, his face going red. “You got your checkbook on you, Al? Yeah, sure, you must have it, right? You were at the bank!”
“No,” said Rizaak. “I do not carry my checkbook with me. And besides, it would be my expectation that the people Mr. Malone would like to compensate will not be in favor of accepting a personal check for twelve-thousand dollars. However, I—”
Harry waved his hand. “Why not? You’re good for it, yeah? We can get Miss P—”
“Do not refer to Ms. Cartright by that name again,” Rizaak said in a quiet, even tone that nonetheless conveyed a deadly seriousness. “It is childish and offensive, and I will not stand to listen—”
“You WILL NOT STAND?” Harry shouted now, pulling out his gun and pointing it at Rizaak’s feet, then raising it to his knee. “Hell, I’ll make sure you never stand again, you wise-ass motherfu—”
“Harry, are you insane?” Jane shouted now. “You can’t pull out a gun here, out in the open on the docks. Put it the hell away!” She glanced up at Rizaak now, her expression softening, her breathing going shallow, a quick blink betraying that his dark good looks hadn’t escaped her notice. “And he’s right, Harry. You’re the only goddamn pig that I see. Show a little respect for women, yeah? Who knows, maybe you’ll even get laid someday.”
Harry took several deep breaths, looking at his gun, licking his lips furiously, and then finally putting the gun away and beginning to pace in little circles.
Now a walkie-talkie on Malone’s belt crackled and hissed, and he snatched it up and turned away from the group. After barking into it, he turned back.
“This is it, folks,” he said. “Twelve thousand dollars in twenty minutes, or else the Dublin Dog raises anchor without any of you.” He looked at Jane and shrugged. “What can I do, sis? I’m the skipper, but I don’t own the damn ship. I can’t risk the ship getting seized by the American authorities!”
“If I may,” Rizaak interjected now, waiting for everyone to look at him before continuing. “If I may complete what I was saying before Mr. Harry interrupted . . .”
“Oh, please, Mister Al,” Harry called out as his circles got tighter and he began walking faster. “Please complete your GODDAMN sentence!”
Rizaak inhaled calmly, like he was enjoying the effect he was having on Harry. “I was going to say that although I do not have my checkbook, I am of course carrying my billfold. And although I do not count how much money I carry, I do believe it will cover the amount quoted by Mr. Malone.”
Now a hush fell over the group as they stared in disbelief at this tall, handsome Middle-Eastern man, who seemed to be saying, with his impeccably unique accent and highbrow, almost regal diction and delivery . . . yes, seemed to be saying that he just HAPPENED to be carrying twelve thousand dollars in his . . . billfold!
“Well, your royal highness,” Jane said, smiling as if she wanted to appear sarcastic but was clearly (to Cristy, at least . . .) being flirtatious. “May I see your billfold when you get a moment?”
Rizaak looked into Jane’s blue eyes and smiled full, his gaze locking in on hers as he reached into his hip pocket and pulled out a long, slender leather pouch with a shiny gold clasp that was beautifully recessed into the leather.
He stepped forward and placed the leather wallet in Jane’s outstretched palm, and Cristy found herself frowning involuntarily as she saw Rizaak’s finger graze the outside of Jane’s smooth white hand as he drew away.
It took Jane a moment to break eye contact with Rizaak, and when she did, she quickly glanced at Cristy before looking over at Tom and then finally down at the billfold (that actually seemed designed so that bills would NOT have to be folded . . .). Everyone was quiet as she counted. She frowned, looked up, and then counted again.
“One hundred and seventy-one,” she said as she looked at Rizaak blankly. Then she looked at Tom. “All hundreds. Tom, there’s a hundred and seventy-one hundred-dollar bills in here. That’s seventeen thousand dollars.”
Cries of shock and disbelief rose up, and Malone shrugged and reached for the bills that Jane was holding up. He took them and grinned.
“Welcome aboard the Dublin Dog,” he said through that broken smile as the motley caravan of people headed for the rusty suspended stairwell. “Your new home for the next twenty-three days. Twenty-three days to the land of Éire. Twenty-three days to Ireland.”
4
Rizaak glanced up at the looming stairwell, and then over to his left at Cristy Cartright. For some reason his thoughts were with her, not himself. He could sense the trepidation in the way she walked towards the dark hull of the ship. He did not blame her. He did not like the look of the ship either—all black metal and rust, filled with perhaps thirty seamen from Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Once at sea, the booze would flow, and then who knows . . .
Ya, Allah, she must not step foot onto the boat, Rizaak told himself. You should never have let them take her from the bank itself, but you hesitated at that critical moment when that pig Harry dragged her out. You should have told him then that it was pointless, that two hostages would be very hard to manage, that one was more than enough to prevent the police from firing any shots. Perhaps you should have told them that you know all this because you trained with the Khawasi military and anti-terrorist group despite your lineage as supreme Sheikh and leader of the Royal House of Khawas. You could have even told them that you participated in joint training with members of the CIA stationed in Saudi Arabia and Oman, where you learned the playbooks of all major terrorist organizations as well as all major anti-terrorist tactics—though perhaps that would have made them less likely to want you as a hostage, if anything. But even putting aside all of that, you could have played the trump card and told them the truth: That your uncle, Abdul Bin-Khawas, dear Uncle Bin, is the owner of Midland Bank! Yes, your uncle owns the damn bank, and so he can probably even get you whatever you wanted from that bloody vault in exchange for my release! I am indeed the perfect hostage! You do not need the woman!
Rizaak shook his head as he recalled why he was even at that bank. Uncle Bin himself had sent him there, sent the supreme Sheikh Rizaak Al-Khawas on a “secret” mission to “kick the tires” in one of Midland’s worst-performing branches by posing as a regular customer who attempts to close an old, inactive bank account containing six-hundred-ninety-two thousand dollars. The idea was to see if the bank manager did his best to try and NOT let the account be closed: after all, this was a high net-worth customer! You don’t let customers like that simply close their accounts and walk away! No, you make sure they open MORE accounts, put MORE money in! “I want to see if these lazy employees UPSELL the customer!” Uncle Bin had proclaimed in his over-the-top, dramatic way that Rizaak had always enjoyed as a child.
The idea had seemed like fun to Rizaak, who had been getting bored with the mostly ceremonial duties of the supreme Sheikh of Khawas. And so he had readily agreed, not even really thinking about it too much before making the trip! Why, Rizaak? Why was the decision to do this made so lightly, almost unconsciously? Allah, what a mess!
Now his thoughts were whipped back to the moment as he felt that burning sense of having made a mistake. You fool, Rizaak, he told himself again. You could have convinced them to leave Cristy behind at the bank itself. You damn well KNOW you could have. So why did you not? Why?
You hesitated, yes�
�but it was a strange sort of hesitation, was it not? The sort of hesitation that seems to come from somewhere OUTSIDE you rather than inside. It was not that you did not know what to do. It was not that you lost your nerve. That does not happen, Rizaak. You do not lose your nerve. Especially with unsophisticated thugs like this group. No, the hesitation seemed to come from . . . from . . . from that strange sixth sense that Mother used to say existed outside a person, an otherworldly sense that connects a person to the universe around him, connects him to a place where time does not rule, where past and present are one, where eternity is both master and mistress.
Does it have something to do with this woman, Rizaak wondered as he glanced over at Cristy Cartright once more, allowing himself to take in the sight of her womanly figure, her lustrous brown hair, those smooth, creamy white cheeks, innocent brown eyes that exuded an inner strength that was intoxicating, captivating, mesmerizing. He had noticed her the moment he walked into the bank, and without really thinking about it he had chosen to wait in her service line. There were two other queues with fewer people, but Rizaak had walked right past them.
Why, he asked himself. Why, Rizaak? Because you found her attractive? Possibly. You have borne some minor inconveniences before in order to get close to an attractive woman. And it has generally been worth it—for short spans of time, anyway. But this is not the same sort of shallow, physical attraction you felt for the beautiful but soulless princesses of Niwal and Lajakstan, or the blunt, blind lust you have experienced in your younger days when you were running with the models and actresses.
Certainly there was a strong physical attraction he felt to this woman, Rizaak had to admit. Those curves . . . ya, Allah . . . they made him shiver in his silk socks, tremble in his Italian shoes, made his muscular legs feel weak. She was all woman, he could tell—from the way her back curved out to her beautifully rounded bottom to the way her neckline gracefully led his eye to the swell of her full breasts. And that skirt! Ya, Allah, he had been raised to be a gentleman—at least outside the bedroom. But it took all his royal pedigree and upbringing to not indulge the naughty schoolboy inside and glance up her skirt when he had the chance! No stockings or tights either! Smooth, creamy white legs. Those magnificent thighs. If only I—
Stop, you fool, he told himself. Listen to yourself. Is this truly the reason you hesitated instead of forcefully arguing for her to be left behind at the bank? When you volunteered to be taken hostage, did you do it because you truly wanted to go INSTEAD of her? Or did you do it because somewhere deep down you understood that you wanted to go WITH her! Does lust rule over logic in your brain, Rizaak? Is that how you will rule your nation, help your country progress in step with the rest of the world, lead your people? With your royal COCK?!
Rizaak was disgusted with himself for a moment, but the moment did not last. Because now they were at the foot of the metal stairwell, and just then Cristy turned halfway and looked at him, and in her eyes he felt a strange familiarity, a sense of belonging, a sense of connectedness that defied all logic and common sense. And as he lost himself in her light brown eyes, that sweet round face that seemed to be offering him strength just as much as it was asking for his strength . . . yes, as he lost himself in her eyes once more, he was taken back to that glimpse of the two of them in the middle seat of that blue Honda Civic . . . the image he had caught sight of in the rearview mirror as Cristy leaned into him, as his arms circled her soft waist and pulled her into him. The image touched something deep inside him, igniting a feeling akin to nostalgia, like he was looking at something old, something buried, something long forgotten that was re-emerging, being reborn, living again.
Is that what my sixth sense was pointing me towards, Rizaak wondered as he pondered his next step. This American woman? Perhaps. Perhaps. And you will have twenty-three days alone to think it over on board. If the feeling is still there, you can always find this woman again after you are set free in Europe, he told himself firmly as he knew what he had to do—or at least try to do.
“You do not need her,” Rizaak said just before Tom and Jane began to climb the stairwell. “The police have not tracked you here, and soon we will be out of their reach. I will accompany you to Ireland. Once there, I will have access to my European bank accounts, and I am certain we can arrive at a satisfactory agreement, upon which we can all go our separate ways.”
“I think that makes sense,” Jane said, the words coming almost too quickly. “We don’t need her, Tom.”
Tom glanced at Jane and frowned before turning to Rizaak and shaking his head. “Nice try. But we just paid twelve grand to keep a bunch of mouths shut. And now we just let her walk right out and tell the cops exactly where we are, where we’re going?”
“She will guarantee that she will not talk to the police for one month,” Rizaak said without looking at Cristy. “By then we will have arrived in—”
Malone just scoffed. “No good. Because she knows the name of the ship, and once she tells them that fugitives were given passage on board, then I’m—”
But Tom shut him up with a hard stare, and Malone gulped and looked away and began to climb up the stairwell. “Don’t worry,” Malone said over his shoulder to Rizaak with a snort. “Your girlfriend will be safe from my goons. They know better than to interfere with my private business.” Now he glanced at Harry and then back at Rizaak. “As for my sister’s goons . . . well, you’ll have to speak to Jane about that.”
Rizaak took a deep breath as he looked at Tom. Harry and Dick were goons all right. So was Malone—perhaps even more so. But Tom was not stupid. And neither was Jane. But the blond woman . . . yes, he could get to her, Rizaak knew. Get under her skin. Get into her head. Yes, he could get to the blond woman. But there was more to this man Tom that he had picked up on at first. This operation was not some local thugs knocking over a bank so they could pay rent and go to the strip clubs or do whatever men like Harry did in their spare time. And how much money did they expect to find in that vault? Enough to justify setting up a plan to flee the country? There would not have been that much money in the safe. Not in that small branch of Midland Bank.
Focus, Rizaak told himself again as he instinctively moved around Dick so he could help Cristy take the first big step up onto the stairwell. He also wanted to make sure he climbed the stairwell right behind Cristy, not so much because he was afraid she might fall, but more so because he did not like how that ugly man Harry had been shamelessly glancing at Cristy’s bare legs in that skirt.
All hope of arguing for Cristy’s release vanished as Rizaak began to follow her up the gently swinging metal steps, and now, as the smell of engine grease and sulfur wafted down to him from the deck above, he thought back to what Malone had inadvertently made clear before Tom shut him up.
Yes, Cristy and Rizaak both knew the name of the ship now, did they not? And you cannot get rid of a forty-thousand ton ocean liner the way you can dispose of a Honda Civic. So now the two hostages had information that could always lead back to Malone, and then Jane, and then Tom, Dick, and Harry. Maybe Dick and Harry hadn’t figured it out yet, but Tom certainly had: Cristy and Rizaak now knew too much to ever be let go. The Dublin Dog had sealed their fate. Had they thought this far ahead? Tom certainly had. How about Jane? Could she be a weak link here? Could she be worked? Worked by him?
Rizaak felt his jaw tighten as he took the first step onto the green-painted metal deck of the Dublin Dog. He glanced at Jane’s petite figure, her slim hips, perky little breasts, little button nose, blue eyes peering through strands of golden hair. She would be in high demand amongst most men, he thought. Then Rizaak smiled as he caught her looking at him in a way that reminded the Sheikh that he himself had been in high demand amongst women who looked like Jane—blond and blue-eyed, athletic, toned figures, sharp, defined features. Yes, the Sheikh had been in high demand . . . and had been very demanding when the curtains were drawn and the lights went down. But that was in the past. Those trysts no longer held the same
fascination now as they once had. Perhaps it was because he was taking his role as Sheikh a lot more seriously now. And a serious Sheikh has no time for a woman that he cannot take seriously. Yes, a serious Sheikh does not waste his time and energy on a woman unless she is fit to be his queen.
His queen.
5
“The queen’s chambers,” said Malone, opening the red metal doors and reaching into the darkness. He grasped a filthy string that hung from a solitary lightbulb, and pulled on it twice.
The light clicked on, revealing the space . . . the space which was the cold metal inside of a semi-truck sized container somewhere in the middle of the stack that had been loaded onto the Dublin Dog. Cristy stared into the long, narrow metal box, and then took two steps back, looking around as panic rose and fell like the distant waves of the Atlantic.
“This . . . this is a joke,” she said, like she was talking to herself. “I’ll suffocate in here! Oh, God!” She looked around again, subconsciously seeking Rizaak, the only comfort by her side so far. But Rizaak was still on the upper deck, flanked by Harry and Dick . . . and Jane. He seemed to be looking around, his forehead creased, green eyes almost betraying some worry. Was he looking for her, Cristy wondered. Did he not see me come down here?
She was about to call out and wave, but just then Jane positioned herself right up close to Rizaak, blocking his view as she said something to Harry and Dick. The two men nodded and then pushed Rizaak towards the metal door that led to the accommodations tower, and with one last look over his shoulder . . . a look of concern . . . Rizaak was gone and Cristy was alone. Alone.
Cristy looked at Malone now, fighting back tears. “I’ll die in here,” she said hoarsely. “I’ll die in here. You know that, don’t you.”
Hostage for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 3) Page 4