"What did you buy?" Gwen asked, lifting a glass of the hot red tea to her lips. The tea was served in thin glass cups with no handle, sweetened with sugar or honey. To keep from burning her fingers, she held the cup by the rim.
Max grinned again as she drank. They had a lot in common, being Western women who had married Arabic royalty. They'd also both been abducted, but Max didn't know that.
Max held out her tea. "It's this tea. Love the stuff."
Gwen took a second to connect the two things. Ah, the flowers were brewed to make the tea. Cool.
"I'm right there with you," she told the princess. "I'll have to get some myself. So, now we have some privacy..."
Max rubbed her belly as if to comfort her unborn baby. Or maybe herself. What had this confident woman so flustered?
"I wanted to ask about your kidnapping."
"What kidnapping?" Gwen asked, casually inspecting a pastry while her heart went into overdrive. Damn. Max knew the truth. How was she supposed to handle this?
"The kidnapping that actually happened instead of the official story of you eloping with King Ithnan."
Gwen bit the pastry, but didn't taste a thing. She took her time chewing, but her mind galloped a mile a minute. No one was supposed to know the truth, so how did the foreign princess know? Was there a way Ramadi could use the information against Zallaq?
"Gwen." Max turned honest eyes to her. "Sayd and I have been staying in the palace for the last week as part of a diplomatic mission. I maybe overheard some things. I haven't even told my husband. The secret is safe with me."
"I don't know what you're talking about. There hasn't been any kidnapping." With great effort, she shrugged. "Ithnan and I ran off because we're in love."
"Look, I'm not after state secrets or anything. I want to know how you felt when you were kidnapped. To save you asking why, I have personal reasons." Max blew out a breath. "They think they found a cure for my amnesia, and I’m considering taking it."
"What does that have to do with me?"
Max bit her bottom lip before answering. "You might be the only one who can tell me what it was like. So I can decide if I want to remember. You don't seem messed up at all. No post-traumatic stress or anything. What was being kidnapped like? Were you terrified?"
"Worst experience of my life," she admitted. "Before you ask, nobody hurt me. Had to beat up a guy to teach him a lesson. How about you? What if you remember being assaulted or something?"
"The doctors who examined me assured me there's no sign of trauma."
"You were kidnapped alone, too. I was with Ithnan. He distracted me, supported me. He's why I didn't freak out," she told Max. "If he hadn't been there, I would have tried to escape and ended up dead. I owe him my life."
"And now you're married to him. Must seem surreal."
"Oh, it's real," she said. "Way too real."
"Will you divorce him?"
"I should. Go home. Put it all behind me. Get on with whatever is left of my life."
"But you won't, I can tell." Max leaned over the small table as far as her belly allowed, almost knocking over the teapot. "Did you guys fall in love for real?"
How much should she tell this woman? She was a stranger, yet Gwen wanted a confidante, someone who could relate to her. Max was as close as she was going to get, and she seemed trustworthy.
"I'm not sure he can. There's some stuff in his past he needs to deal with."
Max didn’t push her on what the stuff was, thank God. "What are you going to do?"
"I don't know," she said, honestly. "I guess I’m here for now, until I figure things out. What would you do?"
Before Max could answer, a waiter with a thin beard, wearing a navy-blue Western-style vest over a traditional robe, approached their table. He sweated crazily, pinpricks of moisture on his concerned brow. He carried a brass platter in front of him like a shield.
Despite obvious nerves, he looked straight into Gwen's eyes. In fact, he watched her like he was a baby bird and she was a feral cat about to pounce.
When he arrived at the table, he spoke. "Your Majesty, I have come to throw myself on your mercy."
Gwen waited for Max to answer. Then she remembered that Your Majesty was her.
"Uhm," she said. "Okay. I'm sure we can work out your problem."
"No! I am done for. Do with me what you will." The brass platter slipped out of his sweaty hands and fell, clattering, to the tile floor.
On instinct, Gwen bent over to pick up the dish, getting a glimpse of his feet in the process.
He had one extra-long pinkie toe. A chill went through her whole body. One of the kidnappers had had the same thing. The one with the—
She took a closer look at the man's face. He had a deep groove in the bridge of his nose.
The last time she'd seen him, his face had been covered with a red checkered scarf. He'd pointed a semi-automatic weapon at her.
Fear morphed into rage. She leapt to her feet. No way would she let him hurt Max. Or herself. Or anyone.
"Get behind me, Max," she ordered.
In an instant, Gwen put herself between the criminal who had abducted her and the pregnant princess. She needed a weapon. She grabbed the nearest chair and pointed the legs toward him like an insane lion tamer.
"You're not going to get away with this," she warned him. "Max, get out of here. Your baby."
The man put his hands up in surrender. "I will not hurt either of you. Please."
Max yelled for security, but stayed right where she was. Gwen threatened the man with the chair, and he backed up. By the time security arrived, Gwen had him pinned against the wall, and was trying to figure out where to go from there.
A pair of Zallaqi royal guards dressed in street clothes rushed in. They had the man on the ground in less than a second, pushing his face into the floor.
One of the guards tried to lead her away.
"No." She wrenched her arm out of his grasp.
"The others," said the kidnapper. "They are in the alley. They wish to surrender as well."
"Please, Your Majesty," pled a guard. "Come away. Let us deal with the man."
"No," she said again. "This man is trying to give himself up to me. He came here of his own free will. He didn’t have to. He wanted to talk to me, and I want to let him. Lift him up."
"I am Wafa al Sarkis," he offered when he was standing again. "I beg you, do not allow my disgrace to taint my family."
"You're the one who disgraced your family," Max pointed out. "Queen Gwendolyn can't stop what you set in motion yourself."
"Yes." The man sobbed. "You are right. You are right."
"Okay, what do you have to say for yourself?" And then, because she'd watched too many cop shows, she added, "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."
"You are gracious, Your Majesty."
"I'm also tired of bullshit. Why are you surrendering?"
"Because it is the right thing. You must understand we are not kidnappers—"
Max piped up. "Could have fooled me."
"No, madam," he said, in a pleading tone. "We were hired for one job and no other. We were to come to a certain house in a certain place. We were to guard one man, keep him there for three days. A representative of another group would come and relieve us of duty. I understood a rescue would be staged."
One man? As much as she wanted to interrupt, she let Wafa ramble on. Hopefully he'd get to the point soon.
"When we arrived for our duties, there was not one man, but was yourself and the king. I nearly left, but I knew I did not wish to harm you. I was not certain about the others. So I stayed. We were meant to guard you for three days, and then allow you to escape."
Gwen scoffed at him. "One of you wanted to harm me."
"Mouna dismissed that man after he insulted you." Wafa turned red with what seemed like real anger. "We did not know he had acquired a handcuff key. He snuck back into the compound. How can we apologize to you? Nothing we do will
ever be enough."
Wafa had something genuine about him that she couldn’t ignore. But the words coming out of his mouth made no sense.
"Who was this guy you were supposed to guard?" Max asked Wafa, then turned to her. "Might be a clue to who did this."
"I heard the name Devoe," Wafa said.
"Your father." The disbelief in Max's voice matched her own.
Gwen closed her eyes and forced herself to concentrate.
Okay, so someone had arranged to kidnap her father, then either changed their minds or... or maybe the plan went wrong. Instead, she and Ithnan were taken from the palace, and then some people pretended to keep them captive. If she could believe Wafa, the men she'd thought were kidnappers were actors playing the role of guards.
So why let them escape after three days?
"Who hired you? How do we find them?" she asked.
Wafa, already looking like someone had let the air out of him, deflated even more. "I cannot tell you. The arrangements were made through mobile phones I was ordered to destroy."
"How were you paid?" Max demanded.
"A wire transfer from a numbered Swiss bank account," Wafa said.
Gwen's mind sped like a 4x4 bouncing over desert dunes, trying to make sense of the information. The kidnapping had taken someone with money and the smarts to make the whole business untraceable.
Much easier for someone on the inside of palace business to get into her room and put drugs in the bottled water on her night table.
Made sense. An inside job.
She jumped between conspiracies and explanations, one after the other. None of her ideas felt right.
Something Ithnan had said popped into her mind... he'd told her theirs hadn't been the first abduction.
"Does anyone know anything about the other kidnappings?" she asked the whole room.
The two guards snuck a sideways glance at each other.
"The other high-ranking officials who have been taken," she insisted.
"If there were other abductions," Wafa jumped in, "none of my people were involved. We accepted one task, and no other. I will give back the money. The greatest mistake of my life. I wanted to make things better for my family—"
"Your Majesty," one of the guards said. "I am aware of no other kidnappings. If there had been others, I assure you, security would have been greater."
"But Ithnan said—" She stopped, looking for a way his words could be true. He'd said he'd kept the abductions out of the media, but he would have alerted his own guard.
Something was wrong there. She tried to look queenly despite her reality spinning like a merry-go-round gone wild.
"Very well, take him to..." She had no clue where. "Well, wherever he's supposed to go."
The guards again tried to insist she and Max get back to the palace—for safety, they said. But she wasn't ready to go back.
When the guards had returned to their posts outside, Gwen leaned on the table and tried not to hyperventilate.
"What the hell is going on?" Max asked when they were alone. "What other abductions?"
"I don't think there were any other abductions," Gwen admitted. "I think Ithnan lied."
Kidnappings where the kidnappers got paid their ransom and left the hostages alive? Things didn't happen that way. Coming from Ithnan, the lie had seemed logical and reasonable. She saw the story clearly now. A fairy tale told to help her sleep better.
Max grabbed Gwen by both shoulders and steered her to sit down. "Someone in the palace was behind your kidnapping."
She nodded. "Wish I had something stronger than tea."
"Any ideas who?"
Should she tell Max? The princess seemed trustworthy, and Gwen needed someone to trust. "I hate to admit... Walid looks like the obvious suspect." She felt sick to her stomach. "I'd hoped he and Ithnan would bury the hatchet. Guess that won't happen."
Max hmmmed. "These guys play on a different level, Gwen. If Walid planned the abduction, the implications are serious for all of us."
"For all of us?" But Max didn’t even live in Zallaq... God, she realized. Max meant there would be a war. The incident would set off what Ithnan and Walid had both prepared for. Ithnan would try to take Walid out. People would die.
"Remember to breathe, Gwen. We don’t know anything yet." Max sounded way calmer than Gwen felt. "Who had the resources, plus a mind devious enough to pull off kidnapping you and the king out of the palace?"
"Walid, for sure." She racked her brain for other people. "Ithnan has another brother. Ithnan and Walid being at each other's throats might distract them from something Thale had planned, I guess."
Max raised a skeptical eyebrow. "I've met Thalatha. I don't see it."
"I think Thale is smarter than he looks. No, he's smarter than he acts." She thought back to their encounter at the party, right after she'd given Ithnan back his jewel. Despite seeming drunk, Thale's words had held a lot of meaning.
He'll eat you alive, you know.
Don't trust him.
He takes what he wants, and damn anyone in his way.
"So, if the two biggest suspects are Ithnan's brothers, which one of them benefitted the most from the abduction?" Max asked.
"Not Walid, for sure," Gwen answered. "He actually ended up losing—"
Something else Thale had said popped into her mind. I thought your name was "pipeline."
Gwen froze. Her body went numb from the roots of her hair to her toenails.
They'd been abducted from the palace.
They'd been held prisoner for just long enough for Zallaq's archaic law to kick in.
Ithnan had ended up with the pipeline he wanted so badly, and her father's company in his back pocket.
"Gwen?" Max asked. "Are you okay?"
Gwen blinked at Max. Okay? No. No, she was far from okay. She might never be okay again.
TEN
The day's work did not occupy Ithnan the way he'd expected. He found his focus wandering.
As sat behind a massive desk designed to intimidate those he met with, reading the latest diplomatic dispatches, he found himself drifting to the problem of Gwendolyn. She had agreed to remain in Zallaq, at least for a time. Now, he needed to provide additional reasons for her to stay. She needed a purpose to occupy her during the day.
He would be certain to occupy her himself at night.
He tapped his pen on the folder of the dispatch no longer holding his attention, a golden gift from one of the many oil companies constantly currying his favor. In Chicago, she had been a human resources officer, finding new employees for positions in her father's company. Perhaps she could do something similar here.
He pressed the intercom button on his desk phone. Within a second, Zudora, his efficient private secretary, answered. He informed her to arrange a meeting with the deputy minister of labor. They could find something Gwendolyn would be happy doing. Until the children began to arrive.
One task accomplished.
Now, the problem of his brother. He found his pen tapping faster and harder as he applied himself to the situation. He could not explain why Walid had taken command of Zallaq, and then returned the throne as if he had intended to do so all along.
Ithnan had not finished working out the solution to the puzzle when his mobile buzzed. The ringtone for his security chief. An unexpected call from Jibril was never good news. Even more ominously, the man requested an immediate private audience.
Ithnan buttoned the jacket he had undone and adjusted his shirtsleeves. Now that Gwendolyn had pointed out to him how he used his clothing like armor, he was conscious of doing so.
Less than a minute later, Jibril stood in front of his desk, every muscle tensed. Had Askari forces been spotted at the border? Had Gwendolyn's safety been compromised again?
"I would like to tender my resignation, sir," Jibril stated. "Due to my own failure. The men you hired to guard you and Her Majesty have surrendered."
Ithnan touched his fingertips to each other and remai
ned calm. An unexpected turn. He might require extraordinary measures to keep Gwendolyn from discovering this news, but the situation could be handled.
"Do whatever is necessary to keep Her Majesty from speaking to the prisoners. And keep them away from the media."
Jibril's lips pressed together. "I am afraid the men in question surrendered to her. She has already spoken to them. Extensively, I am told."
Ithnan's thoughts struggled against him. His mind thrashed through a thick mist. If Gwendolyn had spoken to the hired men, she had learned the truth behind the supposed abduction. He knew enough of her tenacity to understand she would find what she sought.
He leaned back in his chair. "I am sure she found the conversation enlightening."
"There is no proof of anything," Jibril pointed out. "Nothing connects you to the incident. Everything I have done is untraceable. And I repeat my resignation."
"Her Majesty is not the kind of woman to require proof. I assure you, she will have an excellent theory about the perpetrator of the crime. Has she spoken to her father?"
"Mr. Devoe departed for Kyoto at ten a.m. Her Majesty has not used the palace landline for any purpose. She has not replaced her mobile phone, which she believes the kidnappers confiscated. She may have used Princess Maxine's phone, as they were together."
"Return her phone to her." The words had come to him without thought, but he sensed the rightness of them.
She had discovered his guilt, he had no doubt.
"Sir?"
"Return her phone to her, with my compliments," he repeated. "Make my private jet ready. Have a flight plan to O'Hare prepared. She may use the plane whenever she desires."
She would leave him. She would betray him.
He had trusted her with too many of his secrets. Perhaps she had earned his trust by design. Could she be a tool of his brother's? Or of her father?
His stomach pitched. Memories of betrayal after betrayal in Hidd threatened to overwhelm him.
He never should have altered his plans. He should have abducted Devoe, never giving her a chance to worm her devious way into his confidence.
Handcuffed to the Sheikh, Too Page 15