Captive- Veiled Desires (19 page)

“What are you trying to say, Jake?” she asked curiously.

“Come on, Amy, everything about this case spells suspicious. Right from the so-called robbery to Travis Mulholland’s phone number and now this presumably dead drop post box.”

“A dead drop?”

“Think about it, Amy. Mulholland has given a local mailing address. Why would he do that when his office is based in Washington? It doesn’t even state the office title. All it says is Travis Mulholland, P.O. Box 81352.”

“He’s probably delegated someone here to help us.”

“It’s got
his
name on the address. And why do you have to post it at a specific time? Besides, he said he would talk to a superior only after he has received and verified the authenticity of the will,” Jake argued. “Why would he delegate anybody prior to that?”

“Well, I’ve got to do something,” she said tiredly. “You make sense, Jake. But it’s a risk I have to take. I have to mail this.”

“Fine, let’s do it. But I have a plan.”

Mateen strode into his rented room in Kashmir. The girl was already there, waiting for him. She wore a pair of jeans and a white shirt as he had instructed.

“You’re a strange one,” the girl said. “Usually men want us in as little as possible. But whatever rocks your boat, man.”

She began to unbutton her shirt.

“Don’t,” he said. “I’ll do that for you.”

She grinned and ambled sexily up to him. “Sure. But will you get to it quickly? Your mysteriousness is making me hot.”

He smiled and turned to fill in a glass with water. “Drink,” he said, handing it over to her.

“It’s just water,” she said curiously.

“I know.”

She shrugged and downed it all. “Now, what?” she asked, wiping her lips.

“I want you to protest,” he said.

“Excuse me,” she asked with uncertainty.

He slapped her hard across her face and she fell to the ground.

“Protest, bitch,” he grit between his teeth.

She glared at him, massaging the sting he had left on her cheek. “So, you got a rape fetish. Fine, I can handle that. But you don’t have to hit me so hard. I’ve got a living to make with this face.”

She pretended to groan and plead for mercy. Something snapped inside him, her poor acting skills infuriating him.

He grabbed her hair and dragged her across the room.

“Stop! Let me go! Let me go! You’re hurting me!!”

He threw her against the wall and smiled. “That’s more like it.” He punched her in the stomach and she cried, doubling in pain.

“Fuck you! Fuck this!” she groaned. “You can have your money back. I’m getting out of here.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” he minced, pulling her up against the wall.

He choked her neck with one hand and ripped open her shirt with the other. Her breasts sprang free and he caught her nipples with his mouth, sucking violently onto them.

“No, no! Let me go!” she gasped, trying to push him away.

Her protests and screams hardened him to his brink and he desperately pulled down her pants to feel for her pussy.

“Please, let me go,” she sobbed. “Please,…”

His fingers dug into her hole, pumping them in and out of her.

She cried in pain, trying to slide down the wall to get him out of her.

“Stand, whore!” he warned, choking her harder.

She stilled immediately, her lips trembling, her face covered with bruises and tears.

He tore her panties and pulled his cock out of his pants. This was when he got interrupted, he thought, his face darkening with rage.

He pushed his cock into her and she screamed.

This is how it should have been,
he panted.
Nora…

“It’s only half- past one, Jake,” Amy whispered as she looked on towards the post office through a café window. “Maybe, we should wait until two o’clock.”

“No, do it now,” he insisted. “We want to make sure we catch whoever comes to collect the mail from that box. It’s our only chance to find out what’s going on.”

“Do you think he would suspect we’re on to something?”

Jake shook his head. “So far you’ve complied with him. And you haven’t asked any questions that could raise any suspicions. We should be fine.”

“I’m scared, Jake.” Amy trembled slightly.

He put a comforting arm around her. “You have every right to be. But if they know you are, we might lose our only opportunity to find out who is after Nora.”

She bit her trembling lip and nodded. She picked up her bag and the envelope.

“I’ll be watching, Amy. You know I have a clear and direct view of the post box. Nothing is going to happen,” Jake assured. “I’ll be right here when you get back.”

Nora’s legs wobbled beneath her. What had Adam said? He wasn’t returning? He wasn’t coming back.

Everything he had told her whizzed through her repeatedly until she grew dizzy from her anxiety. Her escape… he had planned her an escape route. Why would he do that? After all his insistence that she should stay with him, he suddenly had an escape plan for her? It didn’t make any sense. What had he got himself involved in?

She threw the door open and raced outside.

“Where’s Adam?” she asked the first man she met.

The man stepped back in shock.

“I don’t need your cultural shock now!” she growled. “Where is Adam?!”

He pointed towards a door in the corner of the building and she rushed over to it, her hair blowing wildly in the wind.

“Adam… I’m looking for Adam,” she uttered rapidly when the man at the door stopped her from going through it.

“No, no,” he said, shaking his head.

“Please, let me see him,” she begged.

“No, no.”

“He is my husband!” she screamed at him, losing her patience. “Let me in now!”

The man licked his lips nervously and then stepped aside.

She burst through the door, and he looked up at her confusedly.

“Nora?” he asked, his brow gathering into a frown.

“What’s going on, Adam?” she demanded. “Why did you say you might not come back?”

“This is not the time, Nora,” he said, nearing her.

“Then when is? When are you ever going to tell me the truth about anything?”

“Nora, go up to your room,” Adam said sternly.

“No, I won’t. Not until you give me some honest answers.”

He waved at a man, barking an order at him.

“You’re going to throw me out? Is that what you were telling him?”

“Nora,” he said tiredly, frustration seeping into his voice. “If you don’t leave, I would have to forcibly remove you from this room. And I don’t want to do that. So, please go.”

“Then why did you tell me you weren’t going to come back?”

“Because that is the truth!” he screamed. “You wanted to hear honesty, well there it is.”

Her face paled. “What are you doing? What are you planning?”

Husna scrambled into the room with another woman and Nora panicked. She clenched Adam’s shirt, shaking him.

“No, Adam, don’t,” she begged. “Whatever it is, don’t do it. Please, don’t do it.”

He unclenched her fingers and the woman dragged her out of the room.

“Adam, no! Don’t go! Adam!”

Her sobs echoed through the courtyard. He clasped his fingers around the bars on the window. There was nothing he could say to assure her he would be fine. In truth, he didn’t know if he would be.

“She shouldn’t have come here,” one man grumbled. “This is no place for a woman.”

He clenched his fist tightly and then walked on towards the central table. He couldn’t even defend his wife. If he did, he’d put both their lives at risk.

“The woman is his wife,” Basel remarked sternly. “She has every right to be worried about her husband. If our wives gave half as much a damn as her, we’d probably never be in this business.”

The man snorted. “You were always one to hide up a woman’s skirt, Basel.”

“Respecting the female kind and shoving your head up their asses are two different things, Hayat. I don’t do the latter and I am more than happy to show you how I do the first.” Basel lifted his glance threateningly at the man.

Hayat dropped his gaze nervously, turning to the only other man standing beside him.

Adam rubbed his temples. “That’s enough. We have more important matters to deal with. Do you know why we are gathered here?” He looked about at the three perplexed men. “Tomorrow, we’re going to take a hit on Hazrat Zawahiri.”

The men murmured amongst each other, the shock of his announcement clearly evident on their faces.

“Is there any way to do this without messing with the Zawahiris?” Basel mumbled worriedly.