101 Nights Box Set: Volume Two Read online

  Please say something. Please! I hold my breath.

  “Do you like French cuisine?” he asks.

  My brow furrows. “Um, yeah.”

  “There’s a place down the street from the palace that made the worst food I’ve ever had. I’ve been there twice.”

  I smile, puzzled. “Why go back if you know it’s horrible?”

  “The first time I went, they’d just lost their chief chef and some poor bloke was way out of his league in the kitchen. The place earned three Michelin stars, one of the only restaurants in the world to achieve such a status, so I decided to give it another shot a week later.”

  “Was it better?” I venture.

  “Best dinner I’ve ever eaten,” he replies softly. “Every once in a while, you run across something too good not to take a chance on.”

  I’m too stunned to respond. Tears fill my eyes, and I cover my mouth. I’m simultaneously corralling my hope, not wanting to read too much into this, while already celebrating as if I’d won the lottery.

  “We’ll talk.” This tone I love, the tender one he used with Layla.

  I can’t speak. I hang up and return the phone to the driver, unable to focus on anything. The world could explode in front of my eyes, and all I’d notice is that I have George. To what extent I’m not yet sure, but I don’t think it matters.

  I. Have. George. The man who makes me feel like I’m not alone, who centers me and likes me despite my awkwardness and crazy mind. He’s intelligent, protective, funny in his own way.

  He’s also built like a god and fucks like one, too.

  I don’t leave the happy place where my emotions are until the driver speaks.

  “In position.” He says to whoever is on the other end of his communications device. He looks in the rearview mirror. I realize he’s focused on something behind the car and not me.

  Turning, I see at least three more of George’s men, identifiable by their black suits, loitering nearby.

  “We’re not here for groceries, are we?” I murmur.

  The driver doesn’t respond. “Eyes on the package.”

  Two men dressed like fishermen flank a third in dark clothing. They’re hurrying from the side of the parking lot nearest the wharf. The others close in around them as they reach the middle of the parking lot then disperse just as quickly. They beeline to positions I’m assuming were predetermined.

  Elijah. The package isn’t trivial. George didn’t send me away to pout in the palace. He put me in the safest place I could be: with the Prince of Nijala being smuggled into a country he’s forbidden by his father to enter.

  Moments later, the door opens, and Elijah slides in. At once, the driver backs out and navigates the car towards the street.

  “Fucking filthy …” Elijah brushes off his clothing. He’s wearing the opposite of the designer clothing he is accustomed to, with his hair ruffled and features scruffy. He smells awful.

  I’m a little too pleased to see him taken down a notch. "Welcome to Nijala,” I can’t help saying.

  He glances at me. He’s not surprised I’m there. “There’s one reason why you’re not on the street,” he replies acidly.

  I laugh. I have George. I hate Elijah, and yet, I can’t find it in me to give a shit right now. The driver turns the opposite direction of the area where Natalie is. “Why aren’t we going the other way?” I ask.

  “Let him do his job,” Elijah replies.

  I twist to look out the back window. There’s a lump in my throat and a dead weight in my belly. I know George is a professional, but the lives of the woman who is like a sister and the man who is somewhat – maybe? – mine are in danger.

  “George knows what he’s doing.” Elijah is quieter.

  He’s too cold and haughty to offer more in the way of comfort, but I understand his message. We both know that George is Natalie’s best hope.

  “Clear,” the driver reports.

  He’s driving so goddam slow. I know it’s part of their tradecraft, to appear like any other car and prevent suspicion. There are dozens of cars and taxis moving back and forth between the city and wharf, and ours looks like any other one, with the exception of the tinted windows. But even those are plentiful in the desert island kingdom where the sun bleaches leather and plastic interiors fast.

  It takes us a full ten agonizing minutes to drive three blocks. I keep shifting back and forth. It’s not like I’ll be able to witness what’s going on from here, but I’m too anxious not to try.

  “Would you sit still?” Elijah growls.

  “I can’t.”

  “You’re not helping by dancing around in your seat.”

  “What are you? My mother?”

  “I’m the man who can make sure you never leave Nijala.”

  I roll my eyes. “Whatever, EJ. I got so much dirt on you, you wouldn’t dare.”

  He really doesn’t like that. His dark eyes are on me. “I don’t see what either of them likes about you.”

  “Yeah, well. Ditto.”

  “George is calling for a truce between you two,” the driver pipes up.

  There’s no hiding the animosity between us. Not only did Elijah steal Natalie out of my life, but he did his damnedest to cut me out of hers as well. Just because he’s a billionaire fucking prince doesn’t mean I’m going to roll over when it comes to the woman I owe what remains of my sanity to.

  I turn around and face forward. Elijah stares out his window, and I look out mine.

  The driver stops at another damn stop sign, and I straighten in my seat. The tourists aren’t crossing the street. They’re staring towards the wharf. At least one is holding up a smart phone to capture what’s happening while others are pointing.

  Twisting in my seat, my world slows to a standstill.

  The area where George and Natalie are, where the operation is running, is billowing with flames. This isn’t a normal fire. I open my door and hear the ricochet of explosions as the sound bounces off the walls of the surrounding warehouses.

  All nine warehouses where Natalie could be are ablaze.

  Chapter Eight: Alisha

  Not George.

  It takes me a minute to process what’s happening.

  And then I run.

  Tourists and dockworkers are fleeing from the direction I’m running towards.

  “Alisha!” Elijah’s cry is nearly lost among the shouts of alarm going up around me.

  I ignore him and tear through the crowds then dart down a side street vacant of tourists. When I reach the end, I’m forced to stop by the heat rolling off the warehouses at the next block.

  Everything is flattened, all nine buildings. Completely, utterly destroyed with what remains of them in flames.

  “Alisha!” Elijah catches up to me. He freezes in place beside me. I hear his breath catch.

  Together, we stare at the destruction. For the first time in my life, I can’t feel anything.

  “Tell me that’s not where she is,” Elijah’s voice is hoarse. “Where George is.”

  I can’t speak. I don’t know how I’m standing.

  George was right. I tipped Hasan off, and he destroyed the only two people in the universe I care about. This is my fault.

  “Emergency evacuation,” the driver catches up to us. He grabs Elijah. Someone else snatches my arms.

  “No!” I wrench away. “I’m not leaving him!”

  “What the fuck is going on?” Elijah demands with bewilderment I feel but can’t express.

  “The team is gone,” says the driver. “We have to leave. Now!”

  Gone. It’s too simple to describe the sensation of my heart and soul being ripped out of me.

  Someone pulls me. I go, not because I want to, but because I’m trying hard to divorce myself from everything around me. I did this with Tony; let him control my body while my mind sought refuge elsewhere.

  Flames stretch towards the sky and start to engulf the neighboring buildings. People are shouting, Elijah cursing, sirens scre
aming. Cars surround us and men in black suits usher us away.

  Elijah trips and almost takes out the security team member yanking him towards the cars. He drops to his knees and then stands, something clutched in his hand. He pushes one guard away and gives another a warning look as he approaches me.

  Whatever he says, it’s lost in the air between us. I’m too numb to let his words or anything else in. His hands on my shoulders start to pry me from the place I want to be, where I feel nothing.

  “Alisha!” He shakes me.

  “Leave me alone!” I push at him. “God you couldn’t just …” I stumble and fall, nauseated as emotions pierce the thin barrier I was attempting to put up.

  Elijah drops onto his knees before me and takes my shoulders again. “Look at me!”

  I push at him, but this time, I’m shaking too hard to jar him loose. The tears start, blinding me.

  “Tell me … tell me this means something!” he says. His voice is ragged, his emotion echoed in my breast. “Alisha! Fucking tell me this means fucking something!”

  His hands drop from my shoulders, and he leans into me, his forehead against mine. “Please, Alisha.” He’s holding something in one hand and breathing hard, in the middle of grappling with the same emotions that are shredding me from the inside, too. I’ve lost my sister and my George; he’s lost his brother and his Natalie. For once, I almost pity him, but the emotion is fleeting, replaced by others that I know will destroy me.

  The blinking on the tablet draws my attention. I wipe my eyes and take it from him.

  George’s tracker. It’s moving but not in this direction. It’s moving …

  … out to sea.

  The transmitter… inability to triangulate Natalie’s ping … meandering locational information from the communications ...

  It means something. I smack my forehead, unable to jar my emotions out of their downward spiral long enough for me to think.

  Out to sea. I catch a glimpse of the crowded bay from here. New strength and hope surge through me. I stagger to my feet.

  Elijah stands as well, unwilling to leave my side. His eyes are red rimmed, and there are tears on his scruffy cheeks. His laser-like focus is on me. “Talk to me.”

  “It wasn’t the warehouse. The transmitter was.” I can’t string a sentence together. My hands shake as I navigated through the tablet to the picture I took of the logo on the warehouse and show it to him. “This.”

  “Aj-Jazira ab-Bayda’,” he reads the Arabic beneath the logo. “Food import company.”

  Excitement and the near devastation of my soul combine to make it hard for me to form sentences, and it takes all my willpower to leave the chaos of my thoughts and tell him what I know. I almost drop the tablet as I go back to the GPS tag and hold it up for him to see once more. “Does the Jazira company thing own a barge?”

  “Yes. Several. They’re the main importers for the Kingdom.” Elijah searches my face. “What are you saying?”

  “They weren’t in the warehouse. They’re on a barge. Natalie is on a ship, and they’re taking George there, too.”

  Elijah faces the bay, realization easing the fear from his features.

  “We couldn’t pin down her position or why their communications were bouncing around in one specific area. They had a transmitter in the warehouse that was encrypting and scrambling everything. It makes perfect sense. The company logo is on their warehouse, their cargo, their barges.”

  “Aj-Jazira ab-Bayda’ is owned by the government,” he says. “Hasan would have access to anything he wanted.”

  The man who’s never out of control takes a step towards the bay. I watch him, wishing I had half the composure he does. I’m shaking and almost too breathless to communicate.

  Elijah’s features have gone from terrified to stone, and I can almost see his mind working. I dug up everything I could about him within days of his engagement to Natalie, until I ran into the brick wall known as George. I know what Elijah is capable of – and it frightens me. He’s methodical, logical, cold and cunning, a sociopath on the surface. What I’ve learned about him more recently is that whatever façade he wears, there’s some part of him that cares enough about Natalie to have himself smuggled into his own country, at the cost of death if he’s caught. Natalie loves him, and so does George. There must be more to him than the appearances he portrays of the cutthroat businessman incapable of emotion.

  “They’re alive,” he says finally.

  “I think so.” I’m afraid to believe it, afraid not to. My emotions are swinging so wildly, it’s all I can do not to stare at the blue dot that is George and break down weeping.

  “I’ve got no fucking power here. I’m a fucking rat hiding in the shadows!”

  I force my focus away from the tablet I’m clutching like it’s all that’s keeping George alive. “You’re a Nijalan prince, Elijah. If you can’t save them, no one can.”

  “It’ll take more than that to un-fuck this mess.” He turns away from the bay and strides towards a car.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To my aunt. Get your ass in the car.”

  “Fuck that. I’ll do this my way.”

  “You talk to George like this?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Elijah approaches me. The remnants of the grief lingering in his features do nothing to soften my opinion of him. I’m expecting him to command me once more. He moves close enough that I have to crane my neck back to look up at him. Unlike George, Elijah is lean with a runner’s build and an air that turns heads when he enters the room, if his perfect features fail to draw the eye of everyone near him first.

  “We both have too much to lose,” he says quietly. “I’m going to need your help, and you’re going to need mine. We work together, or we lose them.”

  He’s making sense. I’m not sure why I’m surprised, except that he’s trying to talk to me, not order me around. It’s almost impossible for me to trust him after witnessing firsthand the extent he goes to in order to silence someone who might be an issue for him. I struggle to identify one thing Natalie or George said that makes me think I should go with him, that I can trust him, after all he’s done to tear Natalie out of my life and the lives of those who care about her.

  Whatever they find redeeming about him, neither has ever shared it. “I don’t understand you at all. Why does she love you?” I whisper before I can stop myself. “Why does George follow you to the ends of the earth? Why the fuck should I trust you after you nearly ruined my life?”

  Elijah’s jaw ticks.

  I start to doubt he’ll answer, when he speaks.

  “I’m broken, Alisha,” he begins. “They make me believe that if I keep picking up the pieces, one day I won’t be. One day I’ll deserve my kingdom, my wealth, Natalie’s love, George’s friendship. One day, I’ll look at my reflection in the mirror and think, there was a time when I was broken. That time has passed, and it was worth every minute of pain I went through to put myself back together to become the man I need to be.” He pauses, struggling to contain emotion I didn’t know he possessed. “Come with me, Alisha. Please. Help me save the two people who matter most to us.”

  Tears trickle down my cheeks at the baring of his soul. He doesn’t blink, and his tone is dispassionate, quiet and factual. There is a human side to Elijah, a man who is as shattered and lost as I am. It doesn’t make his interference in my life right, but at least now, I glimpse him and not the monster I’ve considered him to be.

  “Okay, Elijah. We’ll work together,” I whisper.

  “Good. Now get your fucking ass in the car.”

  Asshole. I start to smile as I head towards the car and the small crowd of George’s men waiting for us.

  We both get in. I’m not sure where they’re taking us, but I almost doubt it’ll be the palace again. I stare at the blue dot on my tablet’s screen, praying I’m right about this. I fucked up once; I can’t let them down again.

  Hang in there, George and Natty.
We’ll find you.

  Chapter Nine: George

  The sharp pain and roaring in my right ear indicate the eardrum is busted. I assess my condition the way I do every day as I awaken. Warm pain indicates bruising or minor cuts. I’m buzzing with warm pain, the hot pain of my ear, and …

  Shit. My right arm. Localized pain that burns but isn’t searing. Bad sprain, along with a gouge or burn, if the scent of blood is any sign.

  I’m in decent shape for having been so close to the building when it went up in flames. Flung across the street, I recall lifting my head to see it burn before darkness swooped into my mind and yanked me under.

  My eyes open. Bars of daylight line the corrugated metal wall across from me. There’s a vent at the top of the shipping box about my head, too small to crawl out of, but large enough for air circulation. The seams of the container are pulling apart in at least two spots, judging by the lines of sunlight piercing the metal. The faded logo from the warehouse that Alisha readily identified is visible on one wall, and there’s a barely perceptible rocking motion, soothing and consistent.

  Barge. Fuck. It didn’t occur to me to run the logo against the barges in the bay. We had a pretty solid signal from the warehouse section where we focused our efforts.

  “Are you okay?”

  I’m slumped awkwardly against one wall and use my left hand to push against the rough floor. I straighten and look towards the corner, where Natalie sits huddled with her arms around her knees. She’s wearing the clothing I last saw her in. There are spots of blood on her shirt, and her features are worn, pale, and bruised.

  “Great,” I reply. My arm is bandaged. It’s sloppy work, but at least she tried. “Thanks for this.”

  “I don’t know much about it,” she admits. “Um, did you plan on getting caught as part of some elaborate rescue effort?”

  I chuckle. Rarely did I interact with her when she was with us in New York, so I’m pleased she at least knows who I am. I did run her background checks and dig through her history for anything that would get Elijah in trouble or become an issue later. Accurately enough, I identified Alisha, which is how I ended up finding her online and meeting her in person.