Charlotte’s frown cut deeper as she glanced into the room, and when Pen saw how the woman’s eyes went wide at the sight of two dead bodies sprawled on the red carpet, she almost felt sorry for Doctor Charlotte Goodwin.
Almost.
The dull thud of the bullet hitting her body came a full second before the sound arrived, and Pen watched as if in a daze as the spatter of blood marked the yellow sandstone walls of the hallway. Charlotte went down silently in the doorway, her blue eyes still wide, the gun still in her hand.
“Oh, God,” Pen gasped, closing her eyes and then turning to the kids. Once again they seemed relatively unaffected, and Pen thought back to what Charlotte had said about where these kids came from, what they’d seen as infants.
“Ya Allah,” the Sheikh muttered, closing his own eyes for a moment as he took a long breath. Pen could tell he was affected by it, but she also knew he’d done what he needed to do by drawing her into the line of fire.
“How did you know?” Pen asked after a long moment of silence as the four of them stood safely out of view of the balcony. “I mean, how did you know her husband would take her out as well?”
“I knew it the moment Charlotte said it was about the money. It is never about the money. The money is just incidental.” He shook his head and sighed. “The families of the South American Cartels—just like the families of the European Mafias—function like royalty of old. The goal is conquest, expanding the empire, exercising power and influence. Everything else is secondary. Everyone who is not of their blood is just a means to an end. Charlotte thought she knew what she was getting into, but she did not. And she paid the price.” The Sheikh blinked, turning his head away from Charlotte’s dead body. Suddenly his green eyes were narrowed with focus, alert with urgency. “And so will we if we do not hurry. Come. It is time to take this battle out to the desert. To my hunting grounds. To where I have the advantage. Come, my queen. Come.”
30
Pen stared at the swaying desert palms rising up like a mirage, the tall trees looming over the thick foliage of a miscellany of desert plants. It looked like a tropical island had been transposed to the middle of the barren desert, and she had to rub her eyes to make sure she wasn’t seeing things.
“That’s the Great Oasis?” she said softly as the Sheikh maneuvered the Range Rover over the last of the dunes and onto the flat sand leading to the edge of the Oasis. “Looks more like the Great Jungle!”
“It is a myth that the desert is a barren wasteland,” said the Sheikh. “The Great Oasis supports almost four hundred acres of greenery and wildlife. I know it like the back of my hand. Once we are in here, it eliminates any chance of a sniper catching sight of us. They will have to follow us in here. Engage us at close quarters. And we will see them coming long before they see us, I guarantee.”
Pen glanced in the rearview mirror at the twins. They were strapped securely in the backseat, both of them earnestly staring out of opposite windows like this was a trip to the zoo. Then she glanced down by her feet and shook her head when she saw the wooden box full of bullets for the Sheikh’s hunting rifle, which was secured in the trunk.
“I still don’t understand why we aren’t taking an army of guards out here with us,” Pen said, even though at the heart of it she did understand. She understood the Sheikh’s primal need to finish things himself, on his own terms, on his own damned turf. “Charlotte’s husband might send an army of Colombian mercenaries with grenade-launchers and machine-guns in there!”
The Sheikh smiled calmly, and Pen could tell there was a part of him that was excited by the looming showdown. God, he is an ape, an animal, an alpha beast! And I love him. Shit, I love him!
“Remember, the children are the priority,” he said in that calm voice which somehow reassured Pen this was going to work even though this man had decided it was a better plan to drive his woman and kids out to the goddamn desert than to hide in his Palace and send out his armed guards to do their jobs and protect their king! “He cannot risk the children being harmed, and so he will not send in a bunch of trigger-happy thugs. We will have the advantage here, Pen. Trust me.”
Pen closed her eyes and took a breath as the Sheikh barreled the Range Rover past the edge of the foliage. Suddenly the sun seemed like it was blocked out, and a cool shade descended on the car. The Sheikh drove as far as he could, but the undergrowth soon got so thick he had to stop.
“We go on foot from here,” he said softly, turning and smiling at the kids. “You two ready for a hike with Daddy and Mommy?”
The twins nodded in unison, and Pen just stared at them and shook her head. Their resilience amazed her, and in that moment she understood what Charlotte had said about what was in their blood, their makeup. She also understood what the Sheikh had said about these families being a throwback to the Royals of old. These kids certainly seemed poised as if they could handle anything. Shit, they’d make a great king and queen, wouldn’t they?
“Shouldn’t they stay in the car?” Pen asked as she hesitantly stepped out of the bulletproof Range Rover and looked down at the desert shrubs that rose almost to her knees.
“They stay with us. The closer they are to us, the closer our enemies have to come,” said the Sheikh.
Pen stared at him. “Am I hearing you right? Are you saying that our kids are bait?”
Rafeez shrugged, smiling at her, that glint in his green eyes telling her that he was in a zone, the zone of an animal, a fighter, a protector. Someone who would do what it took to win. “Yes. And since Charlotte’s husband cannot risk hurting them, they will have to get close to get to us, and I will see them coming. Pick them off one by one.”
The Sheikh patted his hunting rifle, which Pen had watched him clean and load before they’d left the safety of the car. This all still seemed insane, but in a way it also made complete sense. Either way, they were here, all four of them, a weird-ass family trudging through knee-high desert shrubs on their way to a violent showdown with the Colombian Cartel. Just another family vacation. Nothing to see here. Move along, please!
“Here,” said the Sheikh, stopping at a dense cluster of cacti with thick, rounded stems that looked like they could stop a bullet. “We make our stand here.”
31
“Stand still and do not move,” commanded the Sheikh, glancing at the two kids and smiling at them. “We are right behind you. Nothing will happen to you. I promise.”
“This is insane,” said Pen. “No way. I can’t allow this, Rafeez. This is just wrong.”
“It is the only way. We need them to see the children so they know they cannot come in with guns blazing.”
“They? I thought you said it was just gonna be the husband!” Pen whispered furiously.
“I said it wouldn’t be an army of mercenaries, but it will not be just one man either,” replied the Sheikh as he positioned his rifle between the cactus stems and adjusted the sight. “Three, maybe four men in total. Especially since they would have seen us driving out of the Palace without an armed escort. If we had stayed in the Palace, the chances of them bringing more men to storm the gates or scale the walls would be much greater. And although I have an armed Palace Guard, none of them have ever been in combat. We are a kingdom of peace, Pen. My so-called armed guards spend their days standing at attention and posing for photographs!”
“Oh, and you’re ready to kill four trained assassins?” Pen said.
“It is a bit late for this discussion, don’t you think?” said the Sheikh, turning to her sternly though he wanted to smile at his farmgirl. “We are here now. And there is only one way out.”
“Yes,” said Pen. “That way. Back to our bulletproof car. Back to our fortress of a Palace, where we wake up your guards and tell them to do their freakin’ jobs!”
“Protecting his family is a man’s job, and he must do it himself,” said Rafeez. “Now if you will not help,
then at least shut up so I can concentrate.”
Pen started to say something, but the Sheikh held up his hand to stop her.
“What is it?” Pen said, cocking her head as the Sheikh squinted and slowly released the safety on his automatic rifle. “That doesn’t sound like just three or four men, Rafeez! It sounds like a goddamn army!”
The Sheikh squeezed the trigger just as Pen spoke, and the rifle sounded like thunder. The children both jumped and turned, but the Sheikh could tell they were not frightened. Perhaps it was because they trusted him to protect them. Perhaps it was because they had been around gunfire and explosions when they were so young that it seemed normal now. Either way, he knew he could rely on them to stay still.
He fired again, taking down another shadowy figure moving through the thick foliage surrounding the Great Oasis. But a chill rose up in him when he realized Pen was right. This wasn’t just three or four men. It seemed like a goddamn army—at least twenty that he could count, perhaps more, judging by the sounds of the dry shrubs and desert-grass being trampled underfoot as they closed in.
“Ya Allah,” he muttered under his breath, taking aim and bringing down another foot soldier. “What is his plan here? Does he no longer give a damn about the children?”
He fired again, and then the Sheikh realized that although he’d killed three or four of them, he hadn’t heard a single shot being fired in response! He’d underestimated the resolve of this man, and of the Cartel’s foot-soldiers. He squinted as some of the men finally came into view, and immediately his chilling suspicion was confirmed: None of them were carrying guns.
“What’s going on?” Pen whispered. She’d been standing by his side, holding her ground even though the Sheikh could tell that every ounce of her wanted to rush to those children and shield them with her body. But she was smart and willful enough to follow the Sheikh’s orders, trust his judgment that no harm would come to the children, that no one in the Cartel would risk even putting a scratch on their precious skin, draw even a drop of their protected blood. “Why aren’t they shooting back? Are they worried about hitting the kids, just like you said?”
Rafeez shook his head grimly as he hit another man in the shoulder, sending him whirling away as blood sprayed up like mist. “They do not have guns. Just hunting knives. This is a suicide mission, Pen. They have sent too many for me to gun down. They will get to us sooner or later, no matter how many I kill. Ya Allah, it is a goddamn suicide mission! We need to retreat.”
But the moment he said the words he heard the stomping of combat boots from all sides, and he knew they were surrounded. It was over. He and Pen would be gutted like fish, and the children would be claimed by Charlotte’s husband. The man had played along with Charlotte’s convoluted strategy of adopting the children for three years—long enough for him to become a United States citizen so he could freely travel through most of the world, back and forth across the Canadian border with ease. Then he’d eliminated Charlotte and gone directly after what he wanted. In a way Rafeez almost respected him. The man’s blood ran cold, but it also ran royal. He cared for his bloodline and nothing else. Everything else was just a means to an end. So simple. So primal.
A feeling of strange gratitude came over the Sheikh as he lowered his weapon and prepared to engage the enemy at close quarters. He had a hunting knife of his own, and he could take any one of these men in single combat without breaking a sweat. Two, three, five . . . maybe seven. But not many more. Not if they swarmed.
The Sheikh glanced at the children, who for the first time were showing some fear as the foot soldiers drew close enough to hear their grunts, see their grimaces, smell their sweat.
The children will be OK, he thought. It is my woman who must be protected until the end. Until my last breath. Until my hand drops the knife. And that will only happen when I am dead.
“Stand behind me,” said the Sheikh, reaching out and pulling Pen close as he drew his hunting knife and clenched his teeth. “No matter what, do not leave my side, do you understand?”
He saw her nod, her pretty round face almost drained of blood. But she didn’t cry. She didn’t run. She stood by him like his queen, and in that moment the Sheikh knew she would die by his side if it came to that.
Rafeez almost burst into tears as he felt a sudden warmth fill his heart, a deep sense of love, connection, and most of all gratitude. Gratitude. He was grateful, more than anything else in that moment.
“If this is the end, my American farmgirl,” he said, turning and looking her in the eyes, knowing instinctively that she was feeling the same overwhelming sense of gratitude for the depth of emotion they’d shared in their time together. “Then it was worth it. I am grateful for every moment we spent together. Every damned moment, you understand?”
She nodded, her red lips trembling. “I know,” she whispered. “Me too. Every moment, Rafeez. I’m grateful too. Grateful for everything. Thank you for coming into my life. Thank you for being there until the end.”
She burst into tears at the same time he did, and when they kissed it was like everything around them disappeared and it was just the two of them again, the two of them in a North Dakota snowstorm, Thanksgiving around the corner, gratitude in the air.
The Sheikh held the kiss as long as he dared, but then suddenly Pen pulled away, cocking her head as she blinked and stared into the distance.
“What the hell . . .” she muttered, her eyes going wide as an incredulous smile began to break on her face. “Is that . . . no fucking way. It is! Ohmygod, it is!”
The Sheikh opened his mouth to ask what the hell Pen was talking about, but when he turned he saw it. He saw them.
All two hundred of them.
Beaks open wide.
Eyes bugged out and wild.
Two hundred turkeys, pissed off as hell, coming in hot, coming in hard, coming for Mama.
32
THREE WEEKS LATER
“Ohmygod, I can’t get over how those guys ran!” Pen said, covering her eyes as she shook her head in disbelief at the memory, wondering like she’d done a hundred times whether that had actually happen. “Rafeez, did you see those guys run? They were screaming louder than the freakin’ turkeys! Holy shit, I’ve never seen anything like it!”
The Sheikh had to put down his steaming teacup before his own laughter made him spill it all, and even the kids joined in, the twins running around the sprawling day-chambers of the Royal Palace’s Eastern Wing, flapping their arms like turkeys as they gobbled and cackled and tried to reproduce the cacophony of noises produced by two hundred turkeys charging with everything they had.
The makeshift family of four laughed as long as they could. They laughed because it was the only thing they could do. There was no other way to deal with what had happened. There was no other way to thank whatever powers had sent those birds to the rescue. Laughter and gratitude: That was the only way.
Finally the sun was gone and the twins were ushered off to bed, leaving the Sheikh and his bride-to-be alone.
“So the Royal Tailors took my measurements for the wedding gown this afternoon,” Pen said. “I’ve never been so embarrassed. I think they had to use two measuring tapes to get around my ass.”
“Wait until you are pregnant and you have to get fitted for an entire new wardrobe,” the Sheikh said without flinching.
Pen frowned at him. The past three weeks had been stressful, with all kinds of authorities involved after Charlotte’s husband was arrested trying to cross the border into Saudi Arabia. Although the Sheikh had initially wanted to prosecute him under Zahaari law for an attempted assassination—a charge that carried the penalty of death—he’d finally agreed to hand him over to the CIA, who wanted to “debrief” the husband at Guantanamo Bay: a process guaranteed to last for the rest of the man’s life.
It was just a week ago that the Sheikh had walked into the room and annou
nced that a wedding date had been set, and although Pen’s heart had jumped, she’d been a little disappointed at the lack of show. Sure, he’d sorta proposed to her earlier, and she’d sorta said yes. But then he’d sorta been wishy-washy about it, and when he’d just put it out there again like it was a done deal she’d almost been indignant. A part of her wanted the fairy-tale proposal. Not to mention the—
“I have your ring,” the Sheikh suddenly said, breaking her out of the daydream that was making her a bit grumpy. “It took a while, because it required some finesse to manufacture. It also required courage to acquire the raw materials. I have several scratches and beak-shaped holes in my arm to show for it.”
Pen frowned as she wondered what the hell the Sheikh was talking about, and then she squealed in surprise when he went down on one knee and pulled out a big blue box, its lid already open, a gigantic diamond staring up at her . . . a gigantic diamond mounted on the shining, polished, smooth claw-nail of a turkey.
“Oh my God,” Pen said, not sure whether to laugh or squeal again. “How on Earth did you—”
“Trust me, woman, no turkeys were harmed in this operation. I cannot say that no human was harmed, though. It appears turkeys do not like having their toenails clipped.” The Sheikh shrugged and winked at her, feigning annoyance as Pen squealed again. “So will you marry me, my American farmgirl?”
33
ONE MONTH LATER
THE WEDDING NIGHT
“This is the first time, my queen. The first time I will come inside you.”
Pen giggled as she felt the Sheikh’s strong hands find their way through her wedding skirts, his fingers firmly lodging in the waistband of her panties and ripping them down the seam. “Oh, no! I was gonna wear those panties again!”
Grateful for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 16) Page 16
