“No one holds a gun to your head,” Zach snorted. “That innocent act isn’t going to get you very far with her.”
“Farther than you’ll get.” There was a hint of amusement there that made Khalid want to shake his head.
At that moment the front door opened and Khalid nearly came to a stop as Virginia Mathews stood glaring at the four of them.
Shoulders tense and thrown back, her delicate frame nearly quivering with anger, her gray eyes shot furious daggers at all of them.
“Now Ginny, it’s not as bad as she thinks it is,” Joe started out. He held up his hands as though to halt the angry words before they poured from her lips.
“I can’t believe the four of you.” She didn’t limit her anger to her husband, her lover, or the men in her daughter’s life. Hell no. She was pissed at all of them.
Stepping into the house, the four men faced not just an angry mother but a furious daughter as well. Marty stood at the far end of the entryway, arms crossed over her breasts, her gray eyes narrowed on them all.
“Finished with your little visit?” She directed her ire at Khalid.
“For the moment.” He shrugged as though that anger didn’t faze him, when in fact he swore he could feel his balls drawing up in primal fear. She looked ready to kill. “I’m certain there will be more in the future, though.”
“Come into the kitchen.” Joe flexed his shoulders as though expecting a lash to descend upon them. “Hell, I’m going to need coffee for this.”
“And you think explanations are going to fix this?” Virginia asked incredulously. “Joe, I’ve warned you about playing with her life. I’ve warned both of you.” She shot Zach a fulminating look as well. “I have a mind to pack my bags and move in with my daughter. God only knows how the two of you have worked me over the years.”
Khalid kept his expression closed, cool. He noticed Joe and Zach did the same. It wouldn’t do to allow the graceful yet renowned temper of Virginia Mathews free. She was a spitfire, and one that knew how to slice the meat from a man’s bones at forty paces.
“Coffee.” As they entered the kitchen Zach headed to the coffeepot; Marty kept a wide distance between herself and everyone else.
“Marty, Virginia, please.” Joe indicated the chairs at the kitchen table. “Let’s sit down.”
They sat, albeit reluctantly, both women staring at the other two men as though they had grown fangs and horns in the past hours.
“Things are a bit complicated,” Joe finally stated, as Zach paced back to the table and everyone took a seat. “And it’s all Zach’s fault.”
Zach shot him a vengeful glare.
“With the two of you involved, that doesn’t surprise me,” Virginia snapped. “You deliberately make things difficult. And don’t even bother playing innocent with me, Joe.”
“We do what we have to do, Ginny.” The edge of weariness in Zach’s tone had Khalid’s gaze shifting from Marty’s angry expression to the resolute determination in Joe’s.
“Enough.” Joe leaned forward, his penetrating gaze locked on Marty now. “You’re angry, but without cause, Marty. No one here has lied to you. We’ve simply attempted to ensure you were kept safe while trying to apprehend Khalid’s half brothers, and whomever they sent here in an attempt to kill you that day your car was shot at. We know they were involved in it, but knowing it and proving it are two separate things.”
“Dad, I hate it when you talk around me.” Marty leaned forward, laying her arms on the table as she glared at Joe. “You called that meeting tonight, knowing I couldn’t be included in it because of where it was. You could have moved Khalid’s brother here, or to your house, and no one would have known. Instead, you kept it there, where Khalid had no choice but to lie to me, or to have me so curious that I followed. You used him.” She leaned forward, fury etched on her face. “And I don’t appreciate it.” Her gaze turned to Khalid, her eyes dark with anger. “And you. You allowed them to do it for most of your life.”
“No one used me, precious,” he assured her with a hint of steel in his tone. “If anything, I used them to achieve my own plans to destroy Azir Mustafa. We just haven’t managed it yet.” His gaze narrowed on her then.
“And the meeting tonight had nothing to do with you,” Zach finished for him. “That simple.”
“You had to get into that club,” Khalid growled at her. “Just as you had to get to that meeting, despite my best attempts to keep you from it.” He met her gaze directly. “You couldn’t wait for explanations; you couldn’t ask questions. Instead, you felt the need to slip around as though I would lie to you rather than meet your questions head-on.”
Marty stared back at him, wondering if somehow the world had tilted on its axis, or if there had been a particular mental plague that affected only the males of the species.
“As though questions were going to get me anywhere,” she snapped back. “You forget, Khalid, I know exactly how secretive you are, and every time I start to ask a question you conveniently have something else to do.”
“Something such as protecting you. It was my fault you were in danger. It was my job to fix it.”
Khalid seemed perfectly serious, and no one around the table was disputing his statement.
“What kind of game are you playing now, Khalid?” Indignation rose inside her. “Do I look as though I’m stupid? That I’m not well aware of the attempts you make to ensure my attention is diverted? That you’re hiding things from me? Perhaps if you weren’t so damned evasive it might be easier to believe you.”
Black eyes flickered with impatience as she glared at him, refusing to blush at the certainty that her parents would know exactly the tactics he used.
“It’s definitely difficult to tell you the truth. Your suspicious nature makes it damned hard to tell you what we suspect.” He grunted. “Nonetheless, it is exactly that, the truth. The meetings between Abram, your fathers, and myself are for an exchange of information and security concerns. Certain factions have become suspicious, though. To allay that suspicion, we meet at the club, to make sure that Abram and I never appear as though we are working together once again, as we did in the past with your godfather.”
She sat back in her chair and stared at him silently. He might be telling the truth, but none of it made sense to her.
“Why would it matter if the two of you were friends or not? You’re brothers,” she pointed out.
Khalid glanced at her godfather, Zach, before breathing out heavily.
“It was an impression we encouraged once I left Saudi. I cut all ties with the entire family when my brothers, Ayid and Aman, learned of my connection to the FBI and began trying to exact vengeance for it. Information I gave at the time led Saudi and U.S. forces to the headquarters my brothers had set up in Riyadh from which they planned to stage a strike against the Saudi royal family for their ties to America. That information led to an attack where my brothers were reportedly killed. They’d escaped instead. Their wives did not. I barely made it out of Saudi alive.”
Khalid managed to hold back the information surrounding Lessa’s death, and his failure to protect her while, hopefully, giving her enough information to allay her suspicions. His brother’s wife had been his responsibility at the time. He’d been overconfident, he’d fucked up, and she had paid with her life. How could he ever expect Marty to place her trust in him if she knew how he had failed with another woman? A woman who had trusted him to protect her?
And there was no doubt that eventually his brothers would strike again. Unless he struck first and ensured they didn’t rise to retaliate once again.
Marty stared at him intently then, as did her mother. He could practically see the gears working in their heads, the information turning over, being dissected and examined.
“And you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that your brothers attacked me?” Marty asked. She could feel a lack of information, missing pieces, but she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was she wasn’t being told. One thing was for certain at this point: If she didn’t ask the right question, then she would never know what he was still hiding.
“There is no doubt,” he assured her.
“And that’s the reason you didn’t move to claim me yourself?”
She watched as Khalid’s gaze became shuttered. “I did that because I could not bear endangering you because of my determination to destroy the Mustafa family.”
But there was more. With Khalid, there would always be more.
“What else aren’t you telling me?”
