by Delta James
“Are you all right?” Fariq asked.
“No,” Christian answered for her, stepping off the ladder onto the deck beside her. “She isn’t all right, and neither am I. Want to tell me why we had to play duck-and-dodge with our own men’s bullets?”
For the first time since leaving the café where he’d paddled her bottom, he actually looked angry.
“O-Our own…?” she stuttered, even more surprised. Aliya glanced back and forth between them.
Fariq’s grip tightened on her arm. Although his expression never changed, for just a moment, Aliya was certain he was surprised.
“I beg your pardon?” he countered.
Pushing Aliya aside, Christian closed the distance between him and her brother with a single, looming step.
“Who were you trying to kill, Fariq?”
“Kill?” she whispered as her stomach tightened.
Her brother was horrible, but he wasn’t a cold-blooded murderer. He didn’t just coolly order the deaths of innocent people.
Or did he?
She looked to him, horrified, but her brother’s attention was locked on his second-in-command.
“If you’re suggesting I sent assassins to kill you, my friend, you are very much mistaken. That thought was never in my mind.”
Cocking his head, Christian looked at her next.
There was a statement being made with that look. As surprised as she was to have this kind of conversation taking place right in front of her, it took almost a full minute before she realized exactly what Christian was implying.
It didn’t take Fariq half that long to figure it out. His head snapped from her to Christian, then he grabbed her, yanking her in close behind him.
“Do not,” he growled softly, the distant thunder of the most vicious of storms in his voice, “ever dare suggest that again. I have saved her life more times than I care to count. I would never harm her. Ever.”
Glaring back at him, Christian exhaled a slow seething breath.
“Then we have a problem.”
Straightening, pushing Aliya back with him, Fariq retreated half a step. Moving cautiously, he placed his hand on Christian’s shoulder.
“I gave an order that was grossly,” he said, casting another glare past Christian to where Aliya could now see Lamar and a group of her brother’s mercenaries, all looking exceedingly uncomfortable, “misconstrued. I did not order you killed, my friend. Why would I? There has been a serious misunderstanding here, one I will get to the bottom of, I swear it.”
“I should hope so.” Tics of muscles leapt along his jaw, but Christian eventually backed down.
“I am, however, a little taken aback.” Turning all the way around, Fariq faced her, slapping Aliya once again with that wave of cold as he reached for her. Cupping her shoulders, he looked her over. Catching her chin in his hand, he studied her face until she couldn’t bear it. She reached up, feeling her cheek for what must be wrong. She could feel the thin layer of grime on her skin from the dirt the explosion had thrown into the air.
“I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I must look a mess.”
“As only someone who had to run for her life could,” he assured. His hands drifted down her arms, settling on her waist as he pulled her closer. Their bellies and hips bumped, but at that moment, Aliya was far more concerned about what his hands were feeling. And he had felt it, the waist of her shorts hidden under her dress, she could tell by the way his face changed.
“What happened to the shoes you left in?” he asked.
Aliya swallowed hard. “I-I—”
“They got lost in the run,” Christian cut in. “I got her those. Not like she could walk the streets barefoot.”
Fariq did not look away from her, but his hands on her waist massaged her, drawing her back in until she was once again flush up against him—the hard plane of his flat stomach, the angles of his hips, the muscular thickness of his thighs. Her own quaked.
“That would explain why I don’t remember buying them for you. Tell me, what precipitated the necessity of replacing her underwear?”
Her throat choked her. “I’m still wearing my underwear.”
“Then tell me about these?” He hiked up her skirt, showing the pale white of her loose-fitting shorts beneath. “I know I didn’t buy these either. They are hardly fitting for a lady.”
“I bought them,” Christian cut in abruptly.
Fariq turned around. The second he let go of her, Aliya stumbled back, scrubbing her hands down over her hips and ass as she simultaneously tried to smooth her skirt down and push away the crawling sensation his too intimate touch had sparked off her skin.
“Mind telling me why?”
Closing the distance between them again, Christian glared into his eyes.
“Because she told me Lamar likes to look up her dress. He’s also the asshole who shot at my head.”
Fariq cocked his head. “I see,” he said, more an exhale than a word. Turning, as if suddenly aware they were not the only three people on the deck of his yacht, he searched the faces of those gathered around until he found the one he wanted. “Lamar.” He beckoned.
A wry twist of reluctance pulling at his mouth, the crewman pushed through the row of people between him and Fariq and came forward. He was less than four feet from Aliya when Fariq pulled the gun from his chest holster and shot him through the head without a word.
Aliya jumped, her eyes huge as she watched the crewman fall backward onto the deck. Her brother had just killed a man… right in front of her. So close to her, in fact, spatters of his hot blood blew right past Fariq and hit her.
“Go to your room,” Fariq told her, putting his gun away. “You aren’t to leave it again until I summon you. Is that clear?”
Aliya couldn’t move. Shaking and unsteady, she stared at the blood spattered like freckles up her left arm. A pool of the same was seeping out in a gory halo around Lamar’s head on the deck. Finally, she stared up at her brother as he turned on her with a mild frown.
“Mind me,” he warned. “Go. Right now, my darling.”
Staggering backward, she turned and fled up five decks of stairs, past his room to hers. The ever-present guards pretended not to see anything wrong as she bolted past them to slam her door. She threw herself against it, sagging to the floor before covering her mouth with both hands and bursting into tears.
He’d shot someone. Right in front of her. He’d shot someone. He’d never done that before.
Everything Robinson had told her, everything she had come to suspect over the years—it was all true. Her brother wasn’t just horrible, not just a monster—he was evil.
And he’d touched her. Why had he touched her like that? God, she could still feel the press of his stomach to hers, his thighs to hers, his pelvis… Her stomach rebelled. Scrambling up off the floor, she ran for the bathroom, barely reaching the toilet in time. She heaved, but there was nothing inside her to throw up.
The spasms waned, leaving her with her head on her arms, spitting because her mouth kept watering, even though nothing was coming up. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t feel. She was completely empty.
She sniffled.
Crawling to her feet, not wanting to catch even the most accidental glimpse of herself in the mirror, she cleaned up and made herself into a proper lady again.
“Tea?” Fariq asked, inviting Christian into his office.
A bear in a lion’s den, he came, but only because there was no way to refuse. He was supposed to be Fariq’s second-in-command, his loyal man. He was absolutely supposed to be satisfied with the execution of Lamar and the excuse he’d been given on the deck. What he was not supposed to be was pissed, wary, and frankly, disgusted by the oddly sexual way which the notorious finance villain had manhandled his baby sister.
There was no mistaking that Aliya had been terrified, but there had been so much going on at the time, there was no telling what she’d been scared of. The only thing he did know was not once had she t
ried to extricate herself from her brother’s all-too-familiar grasp.
Because she was used to it? He tried not to think about it.
“Thank you, I’m fine.” He would have been just as fine standing as close to the door as he could get, just in case, but he still had a role to play. He came to the desk as if he and Fariq were nothing more than the dearest of friends, sitting down opposite the man.
He looked at the gun in the holster around Fariq’s chest and tried not to let his hands get too itchy about his own.
“There has been a very unfortunate misunderstanding.” Groaning, Fariq rubbed his face with both hands before pouring two cups of tea, disregarding Christian’s refusal. “I should have been more specific in my commands. The fault is mine, of course.”
“What command?” Christian asked, accepting the cup Fariq passed him.
“Not two minutes after you left the yacht, we received news that NATO had an operative in the area, supposedly to meet with someone from this ship. I gave what I thought to be very clear instructions. Set up cameras and record the area, so we could review the tapes and discover who the traitor was. At no point,” Fariq dryly emphasized, “did I say shoot up the market. I have always enjoyed friendly terms with the Moroccan police… until now. Something will have to be done to smooth this over.”
“I’ll add something extra to their payment this month,” Christian said dryly. That was fairly routine whenever things went cock-up in an ally’s territory.
“Perhaps for yourself, too,” Fariq suggested, opening up his laptop. “A bonus, so to speak, for all the extra effort you’ve gone through today.”
Why did that set off warning bells? Christian grit his jaw, forcing his body to stay relaxed.
“Nothing I’ve done today was anything more than my job.”
“Getting fired on by your own crew is definitely not part of your job.”
“Getting fired on is, by who doesn’t matter.” Christian thought about it. “Until they’re staring right at you and reloading after a missed headshot. It kind of matters then.”
Fariq chuckled, his normally cold features melting into a rare smile that actually seemed sincere.
“For me, too. Although I confess, I was curious about some of the video they brought back. Granted, even having viewed the film, I would not have ordered a bombing or my men to fire into a crowd of shoppers, particularly knowing Aliya was among them. Oh, and you, of course.”
Yeah, fuck you, too.
Mouth shut, Christian let that pass.
“But this struck me as interesting.” Turning his laptop around, he showed Christian a grainy clip of a video. The sound was soft enough that it took him a minute to recognize the cacophony of many men and women screaming as they ran. Now and then, blurry parts of them running along the bottom of the video could be seen, but the focus wasn’t on them. It was on him, shoving Aliya up against the wall and sheltering her with his own body right before the headshot took a chip out of the wall behind them. Lamar must have been standing right next to the cameraman, considering the angle of Christian’s returning glare seemed meant for the camera. For the life of him, however, he remembered only Lamar. He’d been so focused on the moment, he hadn’t even noticed he was being filmed.
“I owe you for that,” Fariq said softly. “He could have shot her.”
“He was aiming for me,” Christian heard himself reply, his tone much calmer than he felt. “I don’t think she was ever at risk.”
“No?” Arching both eyebrows, Fariq turned the laptop back to him, hit a few keys, then spun it back toward Christian. “How about now? What kind of peril is she in now?”
Christian’s gut went right through his seat and hit the floor. There on the screen was him, wrestling Aliya down over his knee in the open air of the café, yanking her skirt up and her shorts and panties down while he blistered her naked backside. Smack after smack, he turned her ass a brilliant shade of red while she bucked, twisted, and thrust back her hand in a vain attempt to stop what he had no intention of halting until he was sure his point had been thoroughly made. The camera didn’t miss a single impact.
Fariq’s baby sister—the one Fariq had just fondled on deck in front of everyone.
“Yeah, okay.” Christian cleared his throat. “She was having trouble following directions. So, I, uh… got her attention.”
He was painfully aware of how the desk between them wasn’t anywhere near far enough to give him dodging room if Fariq suddenly pulled his gun from its holster again. His distance to the door was also uncomfortable, albeit in the other direction. It was too far away. Every prickling nerve crawling across his shoulders under his shirt was telling him to bolt, but where? They were on a ship in the middle of the ocean. He had literally nowhere to run… and he couldn’t leave Aliya.
Except Fariq was studying the screen, instead of him. With a tap of his finger and two clicks of the mouse, he replayed the video, once again watching as Christian spanked his beloved, overly-protected sister.
Christian’s palm prickled, feeling every one of those swats, although there was no sound apart from the running and shouts from the people gathering in the streets. Now and then, the blurs of one passed between them and the cameraman, but the camera remained fixed on him as he dealt his authoritarian justice over Aliya’s bare and squirming ass.
She came up off his knee, grabbing her backside before swiping her long, beautiful hair out of her face, so she could cast that teary, wounded look at him. He pointed a stern finger, the camera not catching a word of the lecture he only vaguely remembered delivering. She dropped her gaze, a flush stealing up her cheeks, the defiance melting out of her. Belatedly, she yanked her underwear and shorts back up her lovely legs, the flush of mortification darkening her blush as she glanced at all the people milling about the café. None of them were looking at her, all too busy, watching the armed police taking tactical control of the street leading back to the marketplace.
The camera caught a glimpse of him starting to sweep the rooftops, just before the cameraman ducked behind the packed-earth wall where he was hiding. It recorded a brief glimpse of the crotch of his uniform pants before the camera was switched off.
Fariq took a breath, seeming to shake himself from whatever thoughts occupied him. He still didn’t reach for his gun, picking up his phone instead. The delay only put Christian more on edge. It didn’t help when Fariq spoke into the receiver.
“Fetch my sister to my office, please.”
Shit.
He never should have put his hands on that girl, no matter his reasons. And what was that bullshit excuse he’d given Fariq? He should have come up with something better to cover for Aliya’s attempted escape and… and what, also hide the fact that he knew the NATO agent they were searching for had been there to meet with his sister?
It took every ounce of restraint he had to keep his face masked in calm. It was all he could do not to stare at Fariq’s laptop. How many cameramen had he had on those rooftops, and did one of them catch Aliya talking to the enemy or losing her virginity to Christian?
A firm knock rapped at the door, and Aliya hesitantly entered. Her face was not the face of anybody’s spy. She showed every bit of the reluctance and worry she was trying to hide. In her hands, she’d brought the shoes and shorts her brother obviously objected to, laying them in a neat stack on his desk.
“I’m very sorry for not being proper,” she respectfully said, head down and hands clasped in front of her.
Tsking, Fariq came out from behind his desk to catch her shoulders.
“I’m not as concerned with those silly things right now. As it turns out, I have found something else for us to discuss.” He turned his laptop so she could watch the video playing out, and her face paled.
Locking himself in his chair, Christian fought the urge to squirm, every fine hair across the back of his shoulders and down his arms prickling.
“I am very disappointed in you,” Fariq told her softly. “What, I wond
er, did you do to make our poor Mr. Reid treat you so?”
“I… I…” She swallowed hard, still staring at the computer, watching the endless loop of Christian paddling her bottom in front of the café.
“You weren’t paying attention, even then?” Christian snapped, much harsher than she deserved, with anger he didn’t feel. He was appalled, and all he could do was hope she latched onto that excuse like the lifeline he hoped it might be. If she was stupid enough to tell Fariq the truth, he honestly didn’t know if being his baby sister was enough to save her.
“I… I don’t know.”
Fariq slid him an unreadable look.
Christian kept his eyes locked on hers, schooling his features into all the irritation he could muster. The sweat of his palms was seeping into his jeans, into his thighs where he kept them braced.
“Maybe I should have stuck your bare ass in the corner to make you think about it. Send her to her room. Obviously, she needs time to reflect on what she’s done.”
“That’s your fetish, my friend,” Fariq replied, making Christian regret he’d said anything. “But I do agree with you in one part. My darling Aliya is a lady, but even the most well-bred woman occasionally requires a… little extra attention to keep her obedient.”
Looking between them, Aliya swallowed again.
“I-I-I’m sorry I wasn’t paying attention. That’s why he spanked me. I wasn’t listening to him. I’m sorry.”
Cupping her chin, Fariq shushed her. “Are you paying attention now?”
She nodded, quick up and down jerks of her head that didn’t melt into relief when Fariq smiled.
“Well then, see how well it works. Come, love, let’s drive the lesson home,” Fariq purred.
Her look of disbelief bled into horror as he took her by the arm, turned a nearby chair around so he fully faced Christian, then sat down. Whether she actively tried to lock her legs against him or the shock of realizing what her brother intended was too much for her, Christian didn’t know, but he knew it was too much for him. He almost came up out of his chair in protest when Fariq pulled her up to stand at his side.