“Paige, darling, Jafar isn’t the friend you knew then.” Her mother laid her hand comfortingly against Paige’s arm.
“How o we know that unless we know for certain he gave the order to kill Khalid, Abram, and Tariq?”
“Khalid, Abram, Tariq, Marty, and you,” Zach stated gently. “The information and reports we received state that Jafar is unwilling to leave any chance of an heir being conceived or born that can later risk his, or his family’s control of the land.”
Paige lifted her gaze to Abram’s once more. God, she needed him. She felt as though she were losing her entire balance, and none of it made any sense.
Jafar owed her more than this. There had been a time when Chalah had been confused, so at odds with her brother and her family that she had nearly made a very unwise decision. At Jafar’s request, at his plea actually, Paige had returned to America from Spain, allowed Chalah to live with her, and encouraged the young girl to give college a try rather than returning to the Mustafa province and honoring a marriage contract Azir had arranged for her to a much older sheikh in another part of Saudi Arabia. Fear for her brother had guided her, but Paige had convinced her how much Jafar had been against her marriage to a man so old. He also objected to her marrying so close to the time he had chosen to leave Saudi Arabia himself.
He had sworn he owed her and that she need only ask and he would grant her any request.
And still, he had nearly killed Abram in Saudi Arabia and now? Oh God, now she could lose the only brother she had. The one she could depend upon, who she could trust to hold her secrets. She risked losing him as well as the man she loved.
“Paige will go with her mother and me to the villa in Greece.”
Paige was shaking her head as her father spoke. She had no desire to go to Greece or to leave Virginia.
“We need her here, Mr. Galbraithe,” Zach advised him. “We need them in the same location to ensure their protection. We’d like to return Paige to her brother’s home along with Abram, Marty, Tariq, and Khalid, when he’s released.”
It was another confinement.
“Why do this?” she whispered. “It’s over.”
“No, Paige, it isn’t.” Abram stepped over to her, fury and grief filling his eyes. “It won’t be over until one of us dies. I’ll be damned if I’ll allow him to get away with attempting to kill Khalid because he was unable to force me to his will.”
“What if it was not Jafar who gave that order?” Chalah’s voice seemed to echo around the room.
Paige swung around to stare at the other girl. Her jaw tightened at the sight of Jafar’s sister, here at this time, when Paige was so ambivalent about the last time she had see he’r.
Crossing her arms over her br**sts, Paige stared at the other girl angrily. “Does anyone have a bug detector? Chalah enjoys allowing her brother to listen in on her conversations. Next it will be your girls’ nights out.” Her eyes widened in mocking shock. “Where will the perversions end?”
Chalah ran her hands nervously along the sides of the faded, worn jeans she wore.
The frayed hems, holes at the knees, and almost see-through thinness of the material suggested the jeans were simply at the wrong end of worn out, as did the denim jacket she wore over a faded T-shirt.
“I told you I was sorry, Paige,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears and making Paige feel like a bitch.
She was being a bitch, and she hated herself for it.
Pushing her fingers through her hair, Paige ignored both Abram’s and her father’s attempts to comfort her.
“Jafar called me,” Chalah said, her voice low. “He’s enraged. He swears on his father’s grave that he neither ordered nor instigated this attack on Khalid.”
“He called or came to see you?” Abram questioned her coolly.
Turning, Paige watched the confusion that filled Chalah’s face. “He called,” she whispered. “From the Mustafa province.” At that point Zach moved closer to her.
“Ms. Mustafa, your brother is in the States as of today. He arrived in Virginia within hours of Paige, Abram, and Tariq’s arrival. And all reports we have confirm he gave the order, over Azir’s protestations, to kill Khalid, Abram, Tariq, and Paige. And all things considered, I believe we’ll need to ensure your protection as well.”
Paige stared back at the FBI director in shock. He couldn’t be serious?
But of course he was.
Turning back to Chalah she saw the dazed shock in her eyes, and the betrayal. Jafar hadn’t told her where he was, nor had he attempted to protect her. She was an incredible actress. But she really wasn’t, Paige thought. Chalah didn’t have the patience for such games.
“Jafar wouldn’t hurt me,” she whispered as she turned to Paige, her eyes large and dark and haunted with fear now.
Oh yes, she knew exactly how that fear felt. She was personal friends with it now. At this rate fear would soon be a part of her personality. She wouldn’t know how to live without it.
“Paie.” Chalah’s lips trembled when no one answered her claim that Jafar would never hurt her. “Tell them. Tell them he wouldn’t harm me.”
Paige could only shake her head. “He’s the same man who put his blade against Abram’s neck after he lost the fight to determine if we could leave or be forced to stay,” Paige whispered. “I’m so sorry, Chalah. He’s capable of anything.”
“No.” Chalah’s denial was weak though.
“He’s not the brother you knew and he’s not the friend I once claimed, Chalah. So no, I don’t believe he would protect you. And if he could use you against Khalid and Abram he would do it in a heartbeat. Think of that. Remember it. Because if you help him again then our blood may well be on your hands.” And if Chalah made that mistake, Paige promised herself, she would ensure the other girl paid for it.
No matter the cost to herself.
14
She was back where it all began, but this time, Khalid wasn’t going to show up and surprise her. He wasn’t going to come pounding on her door at three in the morning just to deliver yet another lecture on the many and varied reasons why it was ill-advised to sleep with his brother. His brother and his brother’s cousin.
Those lectures haunted her as she lay in bed. She stared up at the ceiling in the darkened bedroom, her brother’s many arguments echoing in her head. She remembered the anger that filled his eyes, his knowledge that no matter how much he lectured, still she ached for Abram. She was fascinated with him. She needed him like she had never needed anything else in her life.