22
Irene stared at the tall, muscular figure in the doorway. She recognized him immediately—those green eyes, that heavy jawline, those high cheekbones, full lips, thick arms and broad chest. Still, it seemed like a dream. It must be a dream.
“How?” she mumbled as the Sheikh stepped into the room. “Oh, my God, why are you here?”
A chill came across her, then a flash of rage. Was this entire scheme concocted by Bilaal himself? Was he trying to . . . what, take his son away from her? What the hell was going on? And if this wasn’t Bilaal’s scheme, then why would her captor bring the Sheikh here? What about all that talk about a hare-brained scheme to “adopt” his way into the throne of Khiyani? Was this Plan B? Should she have agreed to that insane Plan A to buy them some time?!
“You did not really believe I had set my hopes on Plan A, did you?” came Blackbeard’s voice from behind that curtain. He laughed. “Of course, if you had said yes, it would have been interesting. You would have been a queen, and your child would become king. Perhaps you would have come to love me in time. Arranged marriages have resulted in love for centuries. Who knows. Anyway, we are on to Plan B. And since three out of the four targets are in this room, Plan B is off to a wonderful start.”
The Sheikh stared at Irene for a long moment, the color rushing from his face as he blinked hard, like he was trying to piece together everything Blackbeard had said. Then he turned toward the curtain, and with a roar charged across the room and came back into view dragging the laughing Blackbeard.
Irene quickly covered Sage’s eyes and watched in shock as the Sheikh punched Blackbeard in the face, breaking his nose, cracking his jaw, and then hurling him to the floor. The armed attendants were nowhere in sight, and Irene just blinked as the Sheikh kicked the man hard in the ribs, almost certainly shattering bone with his heavy foot. Then he grabbed him by the throat and pulled him to his feet, pushing his broken body against a wall and bringing his face close.
“Four targets? Who is the fourth? My niece?” the Sheikh growled. “That is Plan B? You intend to do something to my niece while I am here in Canada? You dare threaten me? You dare threaten my family?” He spat into Blackbeard’s face, and Irene could see that deep-seated rage she caught a glimpse of that night they’d made love. “You and your brother cannot get to her anyway. You have failed. Because now I have you, you foolish—”
“You are the fool, great Sheikh,” whispered Blackbeard through his broken jaw, spitting out a tooth and drooling blood. “I am not a man of violence, and neither is my brother. It is you who are the man of violence, remember.” He smiled crookedly. “My brother and I were students of art and literature when you destroyed our lives with your violence. And that day we pledged to destroy your life, Sheikh. Not with violence, but with love.”
“What are you saying?” growled the Sheikh. “Speak clearly, or by Allah I will break your neck in front of my son!”
“Your son,” said Blackbeard, still smiling. “Have you even looked into his eyes? You abandoned him before he was born, and now you are here as the hero, eh? Just like you were on that mountainside saving the world. Trying to redeem yourself for your wife and unborn child, and what you did all those years ago. Yes, Sheikh. I know your history. Everyone in the Islamic world knows of your history. There was never any proof, but we all know what you did. You do not deserve a family, and you know it. In the end your lust for violence will be your downfall, just like it has been the downfall of many others.”
The Sheikh closed his eyes tight, and when he opened them Irene could see only coldness, green steel, a wall of dead stone. “Ah, my own violence is to blame, yes? So then here is what will happen. First I will kill you, you demon-tongued rat,” muttered the Sheikh, raising his fist. “And then I will track down your brother and do the same to him. Finally I will take my woman and child out of here, make sure my well-protected niece is still safe, and carry on with my life as if you never existed.”
“Well-protected niece . . .” whispered Blackbeard. “Protected from violence, yes. But is she protected from love?”
The Sheikh cocked his head as he blinked rapidly, fist still raised.
“My brother . . .” Blackbeard continued. “Did your intelligence reports reveal that although he emigrated to Canada with me, he left two years ago to attend graduate school in England? Perhaps not, because he changed his name before that. He is smart that way. Also talented. He graduated with a degree in Theater, and got a fine job at an exclusive boarding school in Switzerland. In fact, he wrote a play that was performed at the school recently. Very well received, he told me. The students love him. Young, impressionable students, many of whom idolize the dashing young drama teacher with the exotic accent, a Middle-Eastern lilt with a British twang. Your niece . . . she will be eighteen in a few months. Old enough to truly fall in love, to marry . . .”
“You are insane,” the Sheikh said through gritted teeth, and Irene could see his fist clenched so tight the skin was white. “And soon to be dead.”
“True on both counts, but you are here with me, are you not, great Sheikh?”
“True on both counts?” shouted Irene. “What does he mean? Is he expecting to die in here? Is this a trap? Where are all the attendants? Why are we alone? Why is no one stopping you from beating the crap out of him?”
The Sheikh blinked and drew his hand back again. Then he opened up his fist and let go of Blackbeard, who sunk slowly to the floor, landing slumped against the wall, his broken face still twisted in a smile.
“I am a fool,” the Sheikh muttered. “A prisoner of my past mistakes. I could think of nothing but trading myself for my woman and child, something I was not able to do once before. And now . . . now . . .”
“Now what?” shrieked Irene, holding the crying Sage close and staring at the Sheikh and the laughing Blackbeard.
“Now . . . boom!” whispered Blackbeard. “Now all of us go boom. And my brother and your niece ride off into the sunset on a silver chariot. Happy ending! Inshallah!”
The Sheikh ran to the closed wooden door and hurled himself at it, but the door did not give an inch. Bilaal tried again, and Irene shouted for him to stop because she could tell that he would shatter his shoulder before that door broke.
“Reinforced steel in the door,” the Sheikh shouted, running along the walls and pounding on them to find a soft spot he might be able to punch through. “And concrete walls. Bloody hell, this place is a prison. A death trap.”
“No windows,” Irene said. “I know, because I looked.”
“Ventilation shafts,” said the Sheikh, reaching up to a ventilator grill and smashing it in before cursing that the shaft was too small to crawl through. “Sage will fit there, but an explosion will make its way through the ventilation shafts first, so we cannot take the risk.”
The Sheikh paused and turned to Irene and Sage, as if affected by saying the name of his son. It was the first time she’d heard him say the name, and the way he said it—like he knew the name, had known it for years—sent a warm buzz through her even though the panic was rising like steam.
“I have it,” shouted the Sheikh, and he rushed over to the kitchenette area of the room, where there was a steel-doored fridge built into the sideboard. He pulled open the doors and began pulling the shelves out, tossing the bottles of milk, baby-food, and water out as he cleared enough space for Irene and Sage to fit inside. “Come, Irene. Both of you. Now!”
Irene picked up the hysterical Sage and started to make for the refrigerator, but from the corner of her eye she saw Blackbeard rise. He began to rummage in the drawers of a desk near him, like he might be looking for a weapon, and Irene strode over to the Sheikh and handed Sage to him.
“Hold your son while I take care of something,” she said quickly, depositing the child in his father’s strong arms.
Then she walked over to the bedside table, where she’d kept the small thermometer that she’d asked for on the second day to check Sage’s temperature. She picked it up, closed her fist around it, and hurried over to the bumbling, bleeding Blackbeard. She grabbed his turban and yanked his head back, and in one clean stroke stabbed him in the eye with the thin glass thermometer, pushing it in as far as she could while he screamed and collapsed on the floor. She watched as he writhed for a moment before going still.
“The eyeball,” said the Sheikh, absentmindedly rocking his son, who’d suddenly calmed down. “Quickest way to the brain.”
Irene stood there for a moment, transfixed by the dead man. Then she wiped his blood off her hand and spat upon his dead body.
“You kidnapped my son. You endangered my life. You planned to murder us all. That’s bad enough, but I might have let you live if not for Beauty,” she whispered. “You don’t kill a frontier-woman’s horse and get away with it.”
She walked over to where the Sheikh was holding their son, her breath catching when she took in the beautiful sight of Sage in the arms of his father, a sight she’d resigned herself to never seeing. But there wasn’t time to take in the view, and she quickly climbed into the refrigerator and reached out as the Sheikh handed Sage to her.
“Wait,” she said as Bilaal started to close the door. “What are you doing? You can squeeze in here with us.”
The Sheikh smiled and shook his head. “All of us cannot fit. The door will not close completely. I cannot take the risk.”
“Are you calling me fat?” Irene said, sucking in her cheeks and making a show of it. “I just had a baby, you know. Now stop body-shaming me and get the hell in here with us. Sage wants you here.” She paused. “Your son wants you here.”
The Sheikh blinked and tried to look away before Irene saw that his eyes were misting up, but he didn’t pull it off. Then he tried to push the fridge door shut again, but she stuck her hand out so it wouldn’t close.
“We both want you here,” she whispered. “We both want you with us. Now and forever. But mostly now.”
Just then a beeping sound came from across the room, and Irene saw that it was from Blackbeard’s wristwatch. “Now!” she screamed, grabbing the Sheikh’s arm and pulling him towards them.
The Sheikh cursed in Arabic and then crammed his way into the fridge along with the two of them, pulling the door as far as it would go. The door closed almost all the way, and he held it in place with his strong arms. The little light in the fridge stayed on, and for one pristine moment the crazy thought entered Irene’s mind that they were a little family, weren’t they, the three of them!
The Sheikh looked down at his son, then up at his woman. “Oh, by the way,” he said calmly, as if they were sipping tea at a roadside café. “Your horse Beauty is just fine. They used a high-powered tranquilizer gun to bring her down, but she didn’t break a leg or anything, and I believe she is with the other horses and being taken care of by the state of Wyoming.”
“Oops,” whispered Irene, snuggling up to her baby and man.
“Yes, oops,” said the Sheikh, leaning in and kissing her as if it was nothing, as if he knew her, as if they were man and woman and child, one family.
He kissed her again, and everything went boom, inside and outside.