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“I thought we were meeting the Ugandan warlord about our missing gun shipment?” Christian asked.
“I can do that without you. Besides, I’m sure there’s something the ship needs, so it shouldn’t be a complete wasteof your time. And truly, my friend, who would I trust with my darling sister if not you? Don’t take me for a fool. I am very well aware Aliya has grown into a beautiful young woman. She’d be a coveted prize for a good many people I know to kidnap, marry, rape, or any combination thereof. She must be protected. Her husband will expect a virgin on her wedding night.”
“I thought you wanted me to settle the financials.”
Fariq waved that aside as if it were a minor inconvenience. “What does money matter where the safety of my most prized possession is concerned?”
“Who are you?” Christian deadpanned. “What have you done with Fariq Abdal, and is he being treated well?”
Fariq snorted. “I mean, I know you’ll care for her as you would for your own little sister. Finn is her name, isn’t it? Morocco isn’t as volatile as some places we could be, fortunately, but there’s never any guarantee. Especially not with the Wild Mustangs charging out of the shadows at us every chance they get.” He looked up from his tablet again. “Where are they, by the way?”
“According to our sources, ensconced at their headquarters, most likely making last-minute wedding plans.”
Laughing softly, Fariq shook his head. “Who’s getting married?”
“Noah to the journalist Zara Hughes, and Croft to?—”
“Your sister. Yes, I remember now. We’ll need to send them each a gift from me. Nothing too outrageous, mind you—some men and a helicopter should suffice. It’s past time someone taught the Mustangs if they think they can disrupt my business, however and whenever it pleases them and still pretend their families are beyond my reach, they’re very much mistaken. When it comes to wives and children, they have more to lose than we do.” Fariq picked up his tablet again.
“I’ll take Michaelson and Amin to meet with Murammar.” Glancing up from his news report, Fariq gave him a pointed look as he fished a wallet full of local cash out of his desk and tossed it to him. “My darling Aliya is to come back from this venture safe and smiling, yes?”
Quickly disconnecting his own computer from the hidden recording drive that was piggy-backing on Fariq’s database, Christian feigned a disgruntled sigh and picked up the wallet.
“Safe and smiling. Got it.”
He now had less than fifteen minutes to get ready to play bodyguard for an overly-indulged young woman in a crowded bazaar. One of the things he’d learned early on working for Fariq, the man was usually safest when he thought his every whim was being obeyed.
Aliya managed to keep herself calm, cool, and seemingly happy all the way through her brother’s yacht. She practically skipped down the hall, past the armed guards randomly spaced throughout the passageways. Her role as the pampered, vapid little sister to the world’s most notorious arms dealer had long ago begun to cost her more than she could continue to pay, but she couldn’t afford to let it show where anyone could see her.
Completely ignoring the two men stationed midway between Fariq’s room and hers, she slipped past them and was finally back in the relative safety of her quarters. Shutting the door to her cabin, Aliya leaned against it long enough to draw a shaky breath and still her swiftly racing heart.
She’d thought it had been such a grand win when a little more than four years ago, on her eighteenth birthday, she finallyconvinced her overprotective brother to buy her an elaborate computer system, so they could email and FaceTime, she’d told him. ‘For your schoolwork,’ his neat penmanship had read when the computer arrived via mail. Then, much as now, Fariq had never let her stay in any one place for more than a few months. Denied the comfort of making friends, Aliya found solace and companionship online. What a terrible mistake that had been.
Despite all the safeguards her brother had installed to cripple her from accessing any sites he considered off-limits, between her hunger for freedom and her computer science wizard of a dorm-mate, Aliya had wasted no time developing her own mad set of hacker skills. She used to take delight in getting around her brother’s firewalls, monitoring apps, and security measures, but it wasn’t until she discovered the dark web, she began to learn about the world in ways she’d never dared to dream.
The porn had been interesting, providing her with an education her brotherneverwould have allowed, but more than that, she had become fascinated with the dark dealings of international politics and terrorist activities. Researching an unsolved massacre, she had come across a thread about her brother and his arms business. That was the day her perfect world began to unravel.
The thread had appalled her, and at first, she’d followed it in order to defend him. Her loving guardian since she was a child, Fariq would not be involved in anything illegal. Surely not! Until then, her greatest desire had been to graduate, so she no longer needed to live in convents and boarding schools. Then she’d had every intention of showing Fariq her computer skills. Yes, she knew he expected her to follow a more traditional path and become the dutiful wife to some wealthy business associate, perhaps even a minor prince, but it was her dream that once he saw how useful she could be, her brother might let her become a part of his business. With a few clicks of the mouse, that dreamwithered and died. With each progressing article, the things she’d learned about her brother had horrified her. If even half of what she’d read could be believed, Fariq was not at all the man she thought him to be.
She’d tried so hard to deny it. Like an addict, she couldn’t stop looking him up in the news and on criminal most-wanted lists. The more she learned, the guiltier she’d felt for all the things he’d done.
She’d pretended to be sick the next time he’d come to visit her, so she wouldn’t have to see him. She’d stopped FaceTiming him whenever she could avoid it. Her need to somehow atone for his crimes set in, and finally, she’d begun looking for ways to thwart Fariq’s deals and let the authorities know specifics about when and where they might be able to put a chink in what seemed to be her brother’s invincible armor.
That was when she’d met Damian in a hidden chatroom for hackers. What had started as casual and flirtatious soon turned serious when he revealed he was an operative with NATO. Arranging to meet with her in the confessional of the cathedral that overlooked and was part of her boarding school, he’d been direct and honest—her brother was a notorious criminal and needed to be taken down, and she was in a unique position to help.
As easy as it was to sit at her computer and plot her brother’s downfall, it was a whole different matter when she had to take action to actually do it. It was difficult to reconcile her brother, the criminal, with her brother, the protector, the provider, the supreme businessman, and the hero in her mind all over again. It took several meetings and secret phone calls for him to convince her anyone with a conscience would help NATO bring him down. Damian had managed to supply her with not only the tools of the spy trade but the skills necessary to keep her alive. With the help of someone in the archdiocese, Damian had takenon the role of a priest to infiltrate her school. She had spent many months learning spycraft—weapons training, self-defense, explosives, codes and coded messages, and the like.
He’d held her hand, so to speak. He’d taken all her justifying arguments meant to absolve her brother of his guilt and ruthlessly, realistically shredded them. He’d taken her phone calls, letting her bawl on his proverbial shoulder when she finally reached the point of not being able to justify anything anymore. In short, they had become good friends. If Damian hadn’t been open with her about his relationship with Zara Hughes, Aliya was quite certain she would have fallen for the tall, dark, and lethal intelligence officer.
When she got the phone call from NATO agent Dewey Robinson, informing her of Damian’s death, she’d been devastated. The hand-holding was over. Dewey had given her the choice to opt-out or to try to destroy Fariq’s business from the inside. He’d never said as much, but Aliya was certain Dewey believed Fariq had murdered Damian.
Unable to reconcile herself to any other course of action, she’d agreed. Then, for whatever reason, Fariq swept back into her life, taking her out of boarding school to live with him on his yacht full time. She’d been here for a while, an agent, she supposed, without any real contact with those supposed to be backing her and undercover, in the den of a monster she was related to.
Steeling herself, Aliya pasted on her happiest smile and turned from the door to fake her carefree façade for an empty room. She’d been on this ship for three days before she discovered the first hidden camera. Nowadays, she just assumed she was being watched all the time, but back then, she’d been angry enough to retaliate by cracking into Fariq’s online computer system in search of the rest. They weren’t just in herprivate room, however. They were all over the ship, but they weren’t the only ones.
Six days into her covert search, she’d stumbled across several cameras and listening devices different from the ones her brother used. It hadn’t taken long for her to tap into the feed from both systems. It had taken even less time for her to realize someone besides her was spying on Fariq.
She wiped her shaky hands over her skirted thighs as she went through the room, gathering only what she absolutely needed—sunglasses, the little pink purse that matched her dress and shoes. It was a useless thing. There was no money in it, no credit cards, or so much as a single form of ID. Those who needed to know, knew exactly who she was. Fariq took care of everything else. That’s what made the betrayal she was about to deal so hard. In their family, females simply weren’t as valuable as sons. As much as it still stung to admit it, in her father’s eyes, she hadn’t been valuable at all. It was Fariq who’d taken care of her, bringing her food when she was being punished, standing between her and their father whenever the latter flew into one of his rages. She was nine when their father died. Ten years older, Fariq had stepped in to take care of her. He’d raised her, or at least he’d chosen which convents and boarding schools had raised her. In his own way, he’d been a far better father to her than their own had ever been.
