“When are you going back?” Abram never stayed long, never spent enough time away from Saudi to allow the brothers to suspect that he was doing more than attending business in Riyadh.

“In a few days,” Abram answered as Khalid turned back to him. “I’ve brought with me the pictures and files I’ve put together over the months for Shayne and Zach Jennings. The training camp in the mountains, just over the border, has grown in recruits. I counted more than thirty men last week. Ayid and Aman were there, but, as always, their faces were covered. There’s no way to prove it’s them by pictures alone.”

The brothers moved with a distinctive stride and their voices had a clearly recognizable pitch. There was no way to document it though without a recorder, and there was no way Abram could get close enough for that.

“Our main concern at this point is their next move,” Shayne said. “As I told you when I arrived, Ayid and Aman are already accusing you and Abram of being part of the capture of the D.C. cell. That was too important to them, Khalid. They’re going to come after you.”

Of course they were. Sooner or later. They may even get lucky and manage to kill him this time.

Not that they hadn’t tried hard before. Unfortunately, they were limited in the funds Azir allowed them, as well as in the freedom he gave them. And they would never be satisfied unless they could drive the stake into his heart themselves.

“I’ll be prepared, then.” He gave a short, brief nod to the three men watching him. “And I’ll make sure Marty’s protected.”

“There is no more that I can do here, then.” Abram removed the baseball cap to run the fingers of one hand through his hair before replacing the cap. He gazed back at Khalid regretfully. “I must go now.”

Khalid moved to him, embraced him, and damned if he didn’t also feel regret tearing through him. They had made a pact so many years ago, to always be a part of the other’s lives. Now, not only distance separated them, but also the evil whose blood they shared.

“Kiss your lovely woman for me,” Abram said softly as he drew back. “And watch your back, Khalid.”

“Abram, I’ll see you back to your hotel.” Sebastian stepped from the small private bar, his black eyes in contrast to the dark blond hair that grew thick and long to the collar of his black shirt.

“Once again, I am in your debt, Sebastian.” Abram nodded as Shayne also moved forward.

Extending his hand, Abram shook Shayne’s firmly. “Watch out for my little brother.” His lips quirked with amused fondness as he glanced back at Khalid. “See you soon.”

Leaving the room, Abram didn’t look back. He never did. Khalid saw his big bodyguard, Mohammed, step forward to lead Abram from the building. And then the door closed behind him and his brother was gone once again. Turning to Shayne, Khalid gave a weary sigh. “I must make a few calls. If you don’t mind meeting me in the bar later?”

Shayne gave a quick nod and an amused grin as he strode to the door before turning back. “Tell Zach I said hi.”

The panel closed softly behind him, leaving Khalid alone with nothing but his thoughts and his fears.

The fear that his past was rising against him now, and the fear that despite the battle he had waged against it, Marty would be smack in the middle of it this time.

Jerking the cell phone from the holster at his side he flipped it open and placed his call.

“Zach.” The FBI director answered on the first ring.

“We have a problem.”

A week. Khalid managed to stay away from the tempting little vixen one full week. He’d never realized how often he’d sought Marty out over the years.

When he had spoken on the phone with her godfather, a hunger-a need to bind her to him-rose inside him like a fever that couldn’t be cooled. It had tightened his body and torn at his soul.

He felt like an addict needing a fix. In the past, just the sight of her had been enough, or perhaps a dance, a flirtatious remark, or a heated little exchange. But always there had been the knowledge in the back of his mind after those occurrences, that she was still his. That she still belonged to him.

Until the full seven days had passed with no sight of her and no small comments or tidbits of information from her normally too talkative father, Joe. And suddenly he needed all those things desperately.

Thankfully, Marty had shown no interest for any man other than him. So there had been no threat that she would be taken from him. But his past had always been the reason he couldn’t reach out for her, either. Why he couldn’t possess her.

As he stood, staring out the window of the room used to meet with his brother, Khalid watched as Shayne walked through the wide French doors leading from the bar to walk into the confines of the garden below.

His past was about to rise again with a vengeance. It was also the reason Shayne was in D.C. It was the reason Azir had sent Abram on his hasty trip from Saudi.

Azir was desperate to regain Khalid’s favor. Favor he had never possessed, and never would. The man who had bought, raped, and tormented Khalid’s mother was a monster to him. The only reason Khalid had agreed to go to Saudi just after he turned eighteen was to find a way to destroy Azir.

Azir hadn’t been destroyed, though. Abram and Khalid had been the ones to suffer.

Staring out into the flowering gardens below, it wasn’t the beauty of the perfect blooms he saw.

He saw his past.

He saw the blood.

Raking his fingers through his hair, he drew in a hard, frustrated breath before turning away and stalking back to the drink he had sat on the table next to the couch and tossed it back quickly. Grimacing at the burn as it traveled down his throat, Khalid wondered if he would ever erase the sins of the past from his soul.

His jaw clenched as memories and rage threatened to flood him. It had been ten years, and still he couldn’t get the sight of it, the horror of it, out of his head.

He could still hear Abram’s howls of rage as they echoed through their father’s desert palace. He could see the woman he and Abram had pledged themselves to, spread out upon her marriage bed, naked, her gaze staring in blank horror at the ceiling above the bed, blood covering her body and the satin sheets, and pooling between her thighs.

And now, here he was, so many years later, tempting that horror to strike once again.

“The day will come, brothers,” Ayid had warned them in a letter sent to both Khalid and Abram weeks later, “when you will claim a woman that is yours rather than another’s. The day will come when you will cling to one heart. And when it does, we will be there. We will strike. And you will know it was your actions that took the life of the one you love. Just as your actions took ours.”

Khalid knew he must be insane, because there wasn’t a chance in hell that he could endure the pain Abram had endured when he lost Lessa. Should he lose Marty to the vindictive cruelties of his half brothers, he would go on a killing rampage unlike any Ayid and Aman could imagine.

Even knowing it was more than he could endure, he couldn’t stay away from her. Not anymore. But more important, she had declared herself, and Marty wasn’t backing down in spite of what she had said a week ago. He knew Marty too well. Even if Khalid didn’t respond, his brothers would take notice of her eventually.

And with that knowledge came the realization that to have her, he would have to protect Marty as he had never been able to protect another. And there was one man, besides Abram, who he trusted to help him do that.

Moving from the meeting room, Khalid strode down the stairs to the main bar where he found Shayne sitting in solitude, as he normally did, a newspaper raised as he lounged comfortably in one of the recliners in the corner of the large room.