Paradise Burning

by Blair Bancroft

  Karim Shirazi abruptly straightened from the tree trunk on which he had been leaning for so long and double-timed it back to the house ahead of her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mandy slumped into a chair at the kitchen table, raising her head from her hands only when Peter plunked a mug full of steaming coffee in front of her. “Bless you,” she murmured.

  “Put it on before I left. Figured we’d need it when we got back.”

  Blast him! He looked so smug. She never smiled before her second cup of coffee. Mandy took a sip, sighed her appreciation. “I hate mornings. How I ever got us into this mess I really don’t know.” She stilled, eyes narrowing, visions of might-have-beens popping into her mind. She slammed down her mug, slopping brown liquid onto the pristine white table. “Dammit, Peter, what if I hadn’t been curious, stayed in my nice warm bed . . .?”

  “You’re an Armitage. It’s in the blood.”

  “Oh, sure.” Mandy grabbed the paper towel Peter handed her and sopped up the spilled coffee.

  “With Jeff as a father, you were raised to save the world. And trafficking’s Eleanor’s particular crusade. When you spotted Nadya, you didn’t stand a chance of gliding by on the other side of the river.”

  “I’m a nerd, Pennington. Not cut out to play hero. I mean . . .” Mandy fisted her hands beneath her chin. “I planned Kira’s mission, every detail. We even had infra red. Nobody was supposed to be near that warehouse. But they knew, somehow they knew, and she died. That’s the kind of hero I am.”

  “Mandy . . . Mouse, it’s the spy game. Bad things happen.”

  “Not on my watch.”

  “Okay, how do you think I felt about witnessing little children auctioned to the highest bidder? Lascivious old men, slimy flesh peddlers, fat cat businessmen who just wanted something extra on the side? I had to sit there, Mouse, horrified and helpless. About the only good thing I can say is that I grew up that night. I promised myself I’d be a better person. I vowed to find a way to tell the kids’ story. And about all the other children, and the women too. I’d make people listen.”

  Peter sighed. “All foolishness. People will read my book, make all the right noises, form committees, mount fund-raising campaigns, and drop it when they find their puny efforts are simply washed away in the hurricane deluge of the international slave market.”

  Mandy’s eyes flashed, her chin firmed. “We’re rescuing Nadya.”

  “We are indeed. Our vast contribution to the war on trafficking. One small step in a hike around the world.”

  “Yeah,” Mandy muttered glumly, “and by the time we’ve finished the hike, the whole ghastly system will have sprung back up behind us.”

  “That’s about it.”

  She sipped her coffee, staring blankly past Peter, sorting random bits of knowledge, searching for . . . crumbs. “We couldn’t help Jade, but we might have made a bit of progress with Delilah,” she suggested hopefully.

  “Maybe.”

  “Come on, Peter! How can you finish your book if you think it’s a lost cause?” Mandy demanded.

  Peter’s usually handsome features morphed into angles, crags and sunken pits, dimmed by shadows inexplicable in a sunlit Florida kitchen. “Because I’m driven. Those kids haunt me, Mouse. I have to write the book. For them. For Jade. And Fawn, who’ll probably never know love. And Delilah who tries, but may not be strong enough to break out.”

  “And Kira,” Mandy added, nodding. “And the endless procession of nameless, faceless women and children who simply disappear, as if they’d never existed. Who become slaves, die slaves. And never know anything but the venality of the underbelly of the world.”

  Peter, his author’s eyes wide with appreciation, offered a lop-sided grin. “Mind if I quote you?”

  Mandy returned a fond look. “Silly.”

  He reached for the morning newspaper. “So let’s grab a fast Danish”—he nodded toward a plastic container on the counter—“and get back to work.”

  Mandy swallowed a sigh of relief. For a moment there she thought she’d lost him. And maybe herself as well. But the sun was shining and the day was young. Hope lived.

  The evening’s partying was over. Karim stood in the open front door of the renovated cracker shack, basking in the sound that, nightly, was the sweetest music of the day: the crunch of the van’s tires on the marl circle in front of the house, the fading whoosh of tires moving down the long road to the southeast. Relief flowed through him as he followed the red glow of the taillights until they rounded a bend and were hidden by the dense curtain of the jungle which—Allah curse the day He made such places!—seemed to be closing in. Growing even in the midst of winter. Creeping closer each day.

  As was disaster.

  It was nearly twenty-four hours since he’d seen Nadya with the man and woman at the river. He was investigating who and what they were himself, for if he called on the vast resources of the organization behind Misha, the whole story must be told. And Nadya would be dead.

  She should be dead now. That was the level of discipline expected from a Chief of Security.

  He couldn’t do it.

  Not yet. How serious was the threat? Perhaps the couple had simply met Nadya while drifting by on a fishing expedition.

  At sunrise?

  Devotees of fishing kept strange hours, that much he’d learned from American television.

  Something had changed hands. A piece of paper. Not good.

  He could demand she tell him, confine her to the house until she did . . .

  A red flag to Yuri and Misha, who would learn of his failure.

  He could beat her. Beatings were expected. He could say she refused him.

  Beat Nadya? Allah forfend. His first blow—if he could bring himself to strike it—would kill her. The Americans might miss her, make a great fuss . . .

  Ah, such torturous reasoning to arrive back where he started.

  Nadya had betrayed him.

  Any contact with the outside was trouble, and the scene he had witnessed in the clearing was as far from an accidental social call as it was possible to get.

  He, Major Karim Shirazi, had been made a fool. How long had Nadya been meeting with these people? Everything—money, the organization, his job, his life—was at stake. The responsibility was his. And yet . . . when he took this job, he had not anticipated murder. Killing in a war was one thing. Killing to protect the lives of Nadya and the other girls was a possibility. But killing to stay in business. Killing so men could indulge themselves in the services of the world’s oldest profession . . . That did not sit well.

  Killing to stay out of jail . . .? Could he do it? Or was that the line he could not cross?

  Karim shut the front door, his powerful bronzed hand white-knuckled around the frame to keep himself from slamming it off its hinges. His people, the Persians, had given birth to humanity itself. And here he was, doing what? He would not name it. His shame was too great.

  By the time he came to Nadya’s door rage had overwhelmed his shame. Rage at himself. At the ease with which he had been bought. At Misha and his hard-eyed superiors who, if they knew, would demand more of him than he was willing to give. At Florida, which was supposed to be beaches, condos and fashionable living, yet here he was stuck in this . . . this place they called a cracker shack for no earthly reason he had been able to discover. Left to molder, drowned in greenery and a river the color of turds. This was not America. This was hell.

  He needed a woman. His woman. She who was the bait in the trap that kept him here. The weak link. The traitor who would bring the whole house tumbling down around them.

  His woman, the whore.

  Whores. All of them whores.

  He himself, a whore. Selling his soul for money.

  Nadya was slipping the white caftan over her head when the door cracked back against the wall. Karim caught a glimpse of high full breasts, a wispy triangle of lace panty before the cloud of white descended. She stood straight and proud, staring
back at him as if she were an empress and he a lowly officer of her guard.

  “No river tonight,” he barked, looking straight through the cotton as if it weren’t there, the cotton that enveloped her in a virginal innocence he himself had helped to destroy.

  Sensing his mood, she’d gone very pale. He could see her struggle to remain cool. To act normal when, clearly, she was aware he teetered on the brink of madness.

  Nadya straightened her shoulders, drew a breath harsh enough to penetrate the sudden heaviness of the air. “Why was Tama screaming?” she demanded. “What happened?”

  “No matter.”

  “Yes, it matters!”

  Karim ground his teeth, reached behind him to close the door. Why must she always be difficult? “An overeager client,” he said, the words fighting their way through the red haze in his mind while his feet seemed to be mired in foul-smelling muck. “Tama is foolish. These things happen.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Nadya’s chin, at a defiant angle, was on a level with his heart.

  “Neechevo.” Karim tossed out the Russian expression that covered a myriad situations. He should kill her now and be done with it. He could see Misha’s implacable face, hear the order.

  Kill? Kill Nadya? There was no threat great enough to make him do it. He would die first.

  In fact, when he looked at his Nadyenka, death was the last thing on his mind.

  Nadya caught the stark feral gleam in the dark eyes towering over her. She stepped back. One step. Two. And came to an abrupt halt against the bed that took up most of her small room. In her private moments with Karim she had seen desire in most of its forms from outright lust to surprising tenderness. She had seen humor, had even indulged in occasional bouts of intelligent conversation. Only once before had she seen him like this.

  There was no way around him. Or through him. The room was far too small. He could break her with one hand tied behind his back. Nadya scrambled onto the bed, coming to a halt on her knees at the far corner where the headboard met the wall. Defiantly, she faced him, lower lip protruding, blue eyes blazing. He could kill her, but she wasn’t going to make it easy for him.

  Kill. Was that what it had come to? she wondered as her pounding heart threatened to rise up and choke her. Was this where the nightmare ended? With death the only possible release for either of them? No! She loved life. Somehow she would grasp it, make it hers. These past few months were an aberration. A horror to be conquered. Put behind her.

  But Karim’s eyes were cruel. Worse than that other time. She truly could not tell if he was going to rape her or kill her.

  No more time to think. He was upon her. Nadya bit her tongue as he sent her sprawling face down on the bed, the caftan up and over her head before she could catch her breath. She gasped as the narrow elastic on her panties broke, snapping hard against her thigh. She had never fought him before. From the time she met him she had been resigned to the fact that Karim Shirazi was part of her job. She had not given herself, but she had submitted with some semblance of cool grace. Even that time he had so violently raped her. And occasionally—when she had needed someone as badly as he sometimes needed her—there had been moments of something more.

  And he had been generous about her trips to the river. Allowed her the ritual cleansing of quiet beauty. The inevitable renewal of dawn.

  But now, tonight, she was terrified by the wild-eyed stranger in her bed.

  A shoe thudded to the floor. Face pressed into the bedspread, Nadya took a shuddering breath. Into the terrified numbness of her brain, a rational thought intruded. Karim could kill her without taking off his shoes. If he was undressing . . .

  Nadya turned her head, opened her eyes. Ah! Bozhe moi, she should not have looked. Always, she tried to avoid looking. He was not a man. He was her keeper. What they did together was part of their jobs. He protected her from the excesses of some of the customers. And from Yuri and Misha, who would also like to sample the wares. But always she made a conscious effort not to look at Karim too closely. Not to acknowledge his humanity. Deep down, she might be grateful he had singled her out, but she refused to look upon him as a man. As a person with thoughts or feelings. A conscience.

  And yet . . . at this moment, she could not take her eyes off him. He stood beside the bed, bronze and beautiful. Fully naked, his erection hard, pulsing with a life of its own. Head thrown back, eyes closed, fists clenched, as if willing himself back from the brink of hell. His body was taut, quivering on a hair trigger. A war was being waged, and Nadya could not tell which side was winning. If she touched him, took him into her mouth—as she was now so skilled at doing—would he become the Karim she knew? Or would he snap her neck?

  They seldom called each other by name. It was too personal.

  “Karim?” Soft. Tentative. Terrified.

  “Karim . . .?”

  Doggie style, he was thinking. Maybe doggie style would be degrading enough to punish them both. They were filth, he and the little Russian whore. Scum. Perhaps even the coupling of animals was too good for them.

  No. Not Nadya’s fault. The sin was his own. And not all the blood of his Russian bosses, or the blood of the two Americans, or all the water in the muddy brown river could wash it away.

  Karim’s nails cut into the palms of his hands. His penis ached, oozing the liquid of life into the void where it would never produce the heirs of his body that made a man a man. This girl—this beautiful Russian with so much soul—did not deserve he should use her so.

  He opened his eyes, drew a ragged breath, forced himself to look at the woman lying face down on the bed, one blue eye, huge with fear, peeking at him over the dented folds of the bedspread. She was so fair. So dainty, pale, and beautiful. With her silver blond hair cascading around her, down her back, over the pillow, onto the floor. She did not deserve to be the vessel into which he plunged his anguish, purged his soul.

  Yet this ethereal nymph was going to destroy them all. She was the first grain of sand in a storm that would grow to a roar, collapsing, burying everything in its path.

  She was all he had. In spite of everything, this woman was pure. The only trace of goodness left in a life of lust, violence, and hate. His salvation lay before him. Only Nadya could give him peace.

  Worse yet, he was very much afraid he liked her. Maybe . . . maybe more than that.

  Karim stretched out a hand, watched its unaccustomed quiver with almost clinical fascination. Slowly, it came to rest on the smooth roundness of the nearest inviting buttock. He heard a soft rasp as Nadya sucked in her breath, felt her body shudder beneath his hand. Good. She was afraid. She should be.

  So was he.

  The urge to pound out his anger, as he had done once before, was fading. His hand moved softly over the mounded flesh, smoothing, soothing. He should demonstrate his fury at her betrayal. His fingers should be sinking in, inflicting bruises, ugly reminders of his rancid soul. Instead, his index finger slid down the back of her cleanly shaven leg. First one leg, then the other.

  She was very, very still. Not her usual indifference, resignation, acceptance. Was she frozen by fright, holding her breath? The thought did not give him the satisfaction it might have a few moments earlier. As always, touching her gave him peace. The horror at what he had become drained away. His mind unlocked, flowing free.

  Karim lifted a handful of long blond hair, laid it gently to one side, repeating the maneuver until he had laid bare the alluring curve of her spine. Starting at her neck—her lovely elegant neck that held up the proud head so full of spirit as well as beauty—he slowly traced the graceful indentation, pausing occasionally to tease her with softly rubbing palm or tickling fingertips.

  An almost subliminal hum seemed to fill the room as his fingers moved lower, gently cupping, then parting Nadya’s feminine folds. Was this not why Allah had made male and female, created the Great Difference, this perfect match of physical parts?

  For now, only his fingers moved. Feeling her liquid heat, t
he soft swelling of her readiness. The intense satisfaction of knowing he could do this to her. He, Karim Shirazi, who was her enemy, could do what none of her customers could do. He, and he alone, could give her pleasure. And, for a few moments, take away the hate.

  When he felt the convulsions ripple through her body, he lowered himself onto her back, burying his face between her shoulders, and hung on tight until her breathing leveled and the room was once again silent around them.

  She was alive. Nadya was almost afraid to frame the thought. He had not killed her. Had not raped her. Instead, he had given her ease. And taken none for himself.

  She should hate him. And could not.

  She should fear him. And could not.

  Nadya bit into the bedspread to stifle her groan of anguish. If two souls met and were stripped bare—however soiled and frayed they might be—could their minds possibly be enemies? Was it pity her heart felt? Gratitude? Or the faint awakening of something far more terrifying?

  Appalled, Nadya turned over, seeking escape, only to find Karim’s head descending to the erotic pillows of her breasts. Without volition, her fingers rose to smooth a black bushy brow, drift down his prow of a nose, gently tease his mustache.

  She smiled.

  He had almost never seen her smile.

  “Your turn,” Nadya said. And offered as sacrifice to his gleaming white teeth the erect and throbbing pink peak, the fountain of maternal nourishment and comfort that was not always reserved for babies and small children.

  The theater was an eighteenth-century gem imported from Scotland. Tucked inside a modern facade, the home of the Manatee Bay Ballet was a delightful surprise. Mandy threw a short-lived attempt at sophistication to the winds and craned her neck to examine the graceful curves of the box seats, the ornamentation gilding the mezzanine, the steeply angled, high-flying sweep of the balcony above. The ballet could be awful, she decided, and she’d still be glad they’d come.