Malone laughed and shook his head. “Listen, missy,” he said. “This here container is fitted special for human passengers. It’s got a ventilation system and everything. There’s an intercom that goes directly to my cabin, in case you got an emergency or the air cuts out. It’s got a bed. Clean sheets. I’ll get you a pillow. And Jane will come in here and escort you to the ladies room a couple times a day.” Now he lowered his voice, glanced over towards where Harry had been standing a moment ago. “And trust me, lass. This is the safest place on board. No one except me and Jane know about this container. Not even Tom. Just me and Jane. It’s gonna be fine. I’ll get you some magazines or something, and before you know it, we’ll be there and you’ll be free to go.”
Cristy had almost started to relax with Malone’s assurances, but then she picked up just the slightest hesitation in that last sentence, saw the smallest twitch in the muscles near his face, picked up the shifty way he had broken eye contact as he said the words, “you’ll be free to go.”
And as the dread set in, Cristy felt her world getting smaller, going dark, turning to black as Malone gently but firmly pushed her backwards into the tin can that was going to be her prison for the next twenty-three days.
Her prison, or her tomb.
6
“Cristy will stay with you?” Rizaak asked Jane as the two men pushed and prodded him along the narrow hallway that was lined with small doors. He tried to sound as nonchalant and unconcerned as possible, even though the dread was building in his core. He had made a mistake. A momentary lapse of concentration, that moment of eye contact with this blue-eyed witch . . . yes, as much as Rizaak hated to admit it, he had been distracted for that one moment, and in that one moment he lost Cristy.
Jane was a few steps ahead of Rizaak, the heels of her ankle-boots clicking loud against the metal floor. She turned halfway as she continued to walk, her eyebrows raised as if she hadn’t heard him clearly.
“I asked if Cristy would—” Rizaak began to say, but then he checked himself. “I will have my own cabin, Ms. Jane? Or will we be sharing a room so you can keep me under constant supervision?”
Now Jane tilted her head back and laughed a tinkling, high-pitched laugh that ricocheted off the metal walls as she walked on in front of him in those tight blue jeans and black ankle-boots. She stopped in front of a door, pulled out a small keyring from her back pocket, and flipped through four keys before selecting the correct one.
She unlocked the door and stepped back, crossing her arms over her chest as Harry nudged the Sheikh into the cramped quarters of the single-occupant cabin. There was a single bed that was almost certainly not long enough for the Sheikh, and perhaps not even broad enough for his frame. There was a small table, a stool the size of a thimble, and a miniature sink with a tiny, oval mirror above it.
“Bathroom?” Rizaak said.
“Number one goes in the sink,” Harry said with a grunt. “As for the rest, you’ll have to hold it until—”
“Spare us,” Jane said, twisting her face away from Harry and glancing up at Rizaak as she reached for the door handle to pull it closed. “Harry or Dick will bring you food and take you to the little boy’s room. Harry’s right across the hallway from you, so if you feel lonely, just holler his name and I’m sure he’ll come right over to play with you.”
“Oh, yeah, sure. Right after I finish playing with Miss Piggy and her nice big—”
—and suddenly Rizaak RAMMED his fist into Harry’s face, getting him square on the nose, crushing the tender cartilage, and the blood EXPLODED all over Harry’s face as he stumbled back into the hallway, bouncing off the side wall as Dick grabbed him so he wouldn’t fall.
Harry was coughing and sputtering, blinking and thrashing as the blood ran down his face. He was gasping for breath, and for a moment Rizaak wondered if he would choke on his own blood right there in the hallway. It was certainly possible, though Rizaak was fairly confident he had not struck hard enough to push the bridge of his nose far back enough to kill the man. He could have, of course. And perhaps he would, in due time. But this display of violence was not so much about Harry as it was about Jane. Rizaak wanted to see how she reacted. He wanted to see if he had read this woman right.
One look at the blond and Rizaak knew he was indeed right about Jane. She stood there transfixed at the sight of poor Harry coughing and sobbing, breathing in and swallowing his own blood as Dick helped the broken man down the hall.
“I’ll be back with my gun,” Harry managed to cough out before Dick took him around the corner and called for help. “Goddamn it, where’s my damn gun. Dick, where’s my—”
“Your brother the Captain has taken all the guns?” Rizaak said, keeping his voice low and resonant as he looked at Jane. “Yes, that makes sense, because U.S. Coast Guard will board the ship for a routine inspection before it leaves American waters. Any sign of unlicensed firearms would mean that the Captain is to be immediately detained. He cannot take the risk.”
Jane turned to Rizaak slowly, like she was in a daze. Now she looked into his eyes, her blue eyes misty and glazed over, like she was in a trance, like she hadn’t heard a word of what he had said. There was a strange look in her eyes, a look that Rizaak had seen before, back when he was with the military and working in some of the war-torn areas of the Middle-East and Eastern Europe.
Yes, it was the look he would see in the eyes of women that the soldiers used to call “blood groupies.” They were women who were drawn to the violence, who got off on the danger, would literally get aroused at the sight of blood. Some of those women were simply twisted and damaged from the circumstances of their lives. Others were natural born, true-blue psychopaths. Which one are you, Jane?
Yes, which one are you, Jane? Rizaak wondered as he watched Jane lick her rosy-red lips, run her fingers through her hair like she was hot, rub the back of her neck like she was stiff.
He could feel her arousal already, see the way her nipples were erect beneath her tank-top. He could literally smell it on her as she came close and took a breath, sniffing him like she was a goddamn animal, like he was a damned animal. Oh, Jane, it is clear that you are an original. Natural born psychopath.
And now, easily shutting down the slight rise in his own heat, Rizaak thought back to what he had learned in those psychology classes at Paris-Sorbonne University . . . that certain traits of psychopathy are genetic. Which meant that there was a distinct possibility that someone else in Jane’s family exhibited the same attraction to violence and blood, the same inability to feel empathy for another human’s suffering, the same incapacity to feel basic human emotions like love, gratitude, and . . . mercy.
Malone, Rizaak thought as that dread came back and he almost shouted in anguish at his inability to track where the man had taken Cristy. He looked at Jane now as she stood there before him, the woman almost panting as she slowly took a step towards him, towards him and that single-occupant cabin.
Rizaak touched her cheek now, grazing her smooth white skin with the back of his hand as she trembled under his touch, her lips parting as she tried to get his fingers into her mouth. But Rizaak withdrew his hand and backed away, holding firm, intense eye contact as he slowly shut the door of his cabin.
She stood there as the door closed, her eyes ablaze like blue gun metal. She licked her lips again as she held Rizaak’s gaze, but she did not push her way in. And as Rizaak closed the door and heard the key turn outside, he sighed and sat down hard on the stiff bed, burying his face in his hands for a moment as he felt the tension slowly leave him.
He had played this right, he thought with crushing relief. This woman had been aroused, yes—but she had also been in control of herself. A psychopath is a master of manipulation, and if Rizaak had made the mistake of moving forward with her too soon, he would have lost any semblance of control he might have had.
And Rizaak would need to control this game. Because this game was for all the marbles. It was for everything. Everything.
<
br /> “Hold on, my queen,” he heard himself muttering out loud, the words making no sense but all the sense in the world as he lay half-conscious on the musty mattress and tried to clear his head so he could think about the next step. “Hold on, my queen.”
7
Cristy awoke in a panic. Indeed, the past few days had been ALL panic—beginning from the moment those metal doors clanged shut, confining her to that cold metal box. She had felt the ship’s monstrous engines roar to life, and she had held on to the corrugated sides of her prison as the vessel had picked up speed once it hit the open waters. Malone had brought her some food—a can of cold beans, a crusty roll, a child-size carton of milk, and a small bottle of water. He brought her two of those meals a day. In between Jane would stop by and reluctantly take her to a tolerably clean private bathroom below decks, away from the main crew’s cabins. Just a toilet. No shower. Cristy had stacked up the empty water bottles so she could track the time: two bottles per day, so eight bottles meant four days. Four days. Four days gone.
And it was on the fifth day that she awoke in a panic. By now she had fallen into a sort of routine, timed by the arrival of the food. But she had finished her evening meal not long ago, and it certainly wasn’t time for the morning meal! Jane had already taken Cristy for her evening bathroom break, and so when the metal doors creaked open and the cool, salty air of midnight drifted into the stale container, Cristy sat up in her cot and stared into the darkness.
It was Malone, she knew. She knew it by the smell: the smell of grease and sweat, of unwashed clothes and uncleaned teeth. It was him, and Cristy knew what he had come for . . . yes, she knew what he had come for just like every woman locked in a cage knows what her captor wants when those cage doors open in the dark of night.
“No,” she whispered as his silhouette loomed against the night sky. “Oh, please, no.”
“Hello, lassie,” he whispered in the dark, and now he turned to close those metal doors behind him, slowly shutting out the sky, the stars, the scent of free air. “How’s my lassie doing? Is it time to play? I think so. Harry wouldn’t know what to do with you. I, on the other hand, do. You think this container was set up for stowaways? Nay, my little American pumpkin. I designed this special. Been usin’ it fer years. No one will hear you in here, lassie. Not when these doors shut tight. Here, let me—”
Malone grunted as he struggled with the large metal doors, which didn’t seem to want to close past that last inch. And as Cristy sat there and stared, transfixed by that sliver of night sky she could see through the inch of space between the heavy metal double-doors, she felt roused to action, like somehow the universe was giving her a chance to do something, to do anything!
She was suddenly fully alert as the adrenaline roared through her system, activating parts of her that she didn’t know existed. Silently she swung her bare feet off the cot, her eyes scanning the tiny space for something she could use as a weapon. She glanced at her shoes, but she rarely wore heels and these were a step above flats. The empty plastic water-bottles wouldn’t do much either.
Cristy rose to her feet now, feeling like she was being commanded by a force outside herself, a force that was making everything seem like it was moving in slow motion, like time itself was bending backwards to help Cristy. And she felt herself turn slowly on her feet, silently backing up until she felt the cold rear wall of the container against her bottom. Still in that slow-motion reality, she felt herself take a deep, long breath and close her eyes tight. Now her eyes flicked wide open and suddenly she broke into a full run, picking up as much speed as she could in the run-up, and she HURLED herself at Malone, her feet leaving the ground as she hit him with everything she had, with her entire body weight and all the momentum she could muster.
She felt his head SLAM against the heavy metal doors, and she herself hit those doors hard as Malone went down cold beneath her bare feet, barely a groan escaping his grimy lips. Now Cristy pushed her way through those half-open doors and stood there for a moment under the silver starlight, her eyes wide, her face peaked, every sense in her body alive and operating at full capacity.
She wanted to SCREAM into the night, HOWL like a damned animal, WAIL away the tension and turmoil of the past four days. But she stayed in control, her mind racing like she was a different person, a magnificent creature with the grace of a wild animal and the intelligence of a goddess.
She held her breath for a moment and listened for signs of movement, but there was nothing but the steady drone of the engines and the distant swish of the heavy ship cutting through the dark ocean. Now she turned back and looked down at Malone. He was bleeding from his forehead, and certainly he would have a scar. But he was breathing—though Cristy wasn’t sure if she’d have been too upset it he weren’t.
His left foot was sticking out past the threshold of the container, and Cristy pushed it in and then closed the heavy doors. They shut smoothly, silently, and Cristy didn’t stop to wonder why they hadn’t closed so easily for Malone. If there were angels watching over her, then she didn’t want to insult them by questioning when things fell her way.
Now she drew the heavy deadbolt shut and looked around for a padlock, but there wasn’t one in sight. Maybe Malone took it inside with him? Or maybe there was never a lock on it—after all, the deadbolt would be enough to keep the prisoner inside. So she checked the deadbolt and exhaled in relief, and just like that she was outside and Malone was inside.
Immediately Cristy thought of that intercom inside, but then she remembered that the intercom was connected to Malone’s cabin. Did he share his cabin? No. He was the Captain, and he’d have his own rooms. So she had some time—at least until the morning, when Jane came by for the bathroom run. So Malone would be missed by late morning, which meant Cristy had maybe eight hours.
But eight hours for what? What should she do? Find a cell phone? A radio? Did they even have radios on ships? The Internet? Could she email the police in America? Could she put an SOS on Facebook? Did she really want to be shot dead while logging in to Facebook?! What would people say when that report came out?!
What do you do now, Cristy? What do you do?
Think, dammit! THINK!
8
Think, you fool, Rizaak told himself as he stared out of the tiny porthole in his cabin. The porthole had been bolted shut from the outside, and the glass looked thick enough to stop a missile. Regardless, it was too small for him to fit through, even if it had been covered with nothing but plastic wrap.
It had been four days and he had not made any progress with Jane. He had seen her every day—she seemed to have the only key to his cabin, and so she would show up to let Dick toss in some food or escort him to the bathroom. Rizaak hadn’t seen Harry at all—perhaps he was in the ship’s sick bay; or perhaps Tom had ordered him to keep his distance because he didn’t want any out of control incidents or accidents. After all, they did need Rizaak alive and well.
But what about Cristy? That was what had been consuming Rizaak for the past few days. He had barely slept, his days and nights punctuated by feverish visions of Malone descending on that sweet American woman, while Jane watched in the background, cackling like a beautiful witch as she sharpened a long, curved knife that reminded Rizaak of the scimitars in the old war museum of Khawas.
After that fleeting moment with Jane the first day, she seemed to have grown cold, switched off. It made Rizaak wonder if he had indeed made a mistake not taking it forward with her when he could sense her arousal. Perhaps he should have pulled her into the cabin, thrown her onto his bunk, made her come like she wanted. Yes, perhaps then she would have come back for it every day, and perhaps eventually he would have gotten her to tell him . . . maybe even show him . . . where Cristy was being held. Maybe more.
But now Jane had switched off. Perhaps her man Tom had given her what she needed. Regardless, he was running out of time. If Malone hadn’t already . . . already . . . already . . .
“No!” Rizaak muttered as h
e banged his forehead against the thick glass of the porthole. “She is still safe. Still unharmed. I know it. Ya, Allah, I FEEL it!”
But I must act soon, he decided as he pressed his face to the porthole, the glass misting up with his hot breath. Yes, soon. Tonight! Now! I feel the urgency! I feel HER urgency!
But what do I do? What can I do? Now that we are at sea, they are all carrying guns again. Yes, I can handle one man with a gun if I have the advantage of surprise. But more than that and it is a gamble. A stupid gamble. Think, Rizaak. Think!
Oh, Allah in the heavens above, he thought as he watched his hot breath fog up the porthole. There is a reason you have led me here, a reason that I suspect has something to do with this American woman, this bank teller from Baltimore, Cristy Cartright. There was something that your angels showed me in the car, was there not, Great Allah? A vision, was it not? Yes, a vision . . . when I saw the two of us sitting as one, our images recorded in the private reflection of that rearview mirror . . . that feeling was real, was it not? It was a message, was it not? Am I insane, Allah? In my moment of weakness, my moment of powerlessness, am I desperately reaching for those sentimental words of my mothers and grandmothers, my cousins and aunts, where Allah’s hand is always at play, where God’s angels are forever passing hints and offering clues, pointing all great men and women towards their destiny, the realization of their earthly lives. Is it just weakness and fatigue, or is there some truth to these feelings, that vision, this sense of destiny?
Weakness and fatigue were not words that Rizaak took seriously when describing himself. His years in the Khawasi military had hardened him, and he could function at a high level without enough sleep or adequate food. Even now, years after his voluntary military service was done, Rizaak regularly fasted for up to eighteen hours per day and then worked out at full intensity on an empty stomach, taxing his fatigued body, pushing himself to his limits so he could extend those very limits.
Hostage for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 3) Page 5
