“Better to make money the old-fashioned way than watch it being flushed down the toilet of the military-industrial complex. Oops, am I talking too highbrow again?”
“You call inheriting the old-fashioned way to make money? Your father made money the old-fashioned way, starting with a mop in his hand and working his way up. The only effort you’ve made is to keep that silver spoon firmly clamped in your mouth.”
Not good. She should intercede, but each man would feel she was siding with the other.
Nikos’s voice lowered. “If you like being told when to eat, sleep, dress, and shit, the military is the perfect place for you. You’ll be taking orders, just like your father, for the rest of your life.”
Rif straightened his shoulders. “And you’ll be leeching off your dad’s millions for the rest of yours.”
“Don’t push your luck. The help can always be replaced,” Nikos said.
“You really want to do this?” Rif’s tone was measured, controlled.
Oh, God, it was like watching a traffic accident. She wanted to do something, but she was frozen.
“You don’t intimidate me, G.I. Joe.” Nikos tossed his bourbon toward Rif’s face, but Rif sidestepped, the liquid splashing onto the deck.
“Last chance to back off,” Rif said.
Her brother drew the heavy crystal tumbler back and hurled the glass. Rif ducked. The glass sailed by him and hit Thea squarely in the face, shattering.
A large shard carved into her cheek.
Stars. Sharp pain. A scream. Hers. She reeled from the blow. Blood streamed down the right side of her face.
Rif grabbed a towel and pressed it against her cheek. “Are you okay?”
“See what you’ve done now?” Nikos glared at him.
Papa and Hakan sprinted out of the house at her scream. Aegis nuzzled close, licking Thea as if to comfort her. Rif drove her to the emergency room, and twenty-two stitches later, they’d missed the entire party. Papa blamed Nikos, but she couldn’t. Not entirely. The night her brother had been kidnapped, she hadn’t done anything to help. Life gave you the same lessons in different forms until you owned them. Well, she got it now. Take charge, and don’t freeze.
She’d had a black eye and a permanent scar on her face. She could’ve tried plastic surgery, but the doctors weren’t optimistic. So she bore it proudly, the scar serving as a daily reminder always to be brave, no matter what the cost.
And never to recoil from conflict.
“Look, look!” Brianna’s voice cut through her memories. “I see something.”
Another mirage? Movement in the distance caught Thea’s attention. Dust kicking up on the horizon. She kept searching the endless desert. A caravan of vehicles was barreling toward them.
In this country filled with despots and warlords, she just hoped these arrivals were friendly.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Thirty minutes later, the distant haze on the horizon blossomed into a billowing cloud of reddish brown. Thea strained to identify five Toyota Land Cruisers racing toward them. Brianna was elated, her energy resurging. Peter’s face relaxed.
In contrast, tightness settled into Rif’s jaw. A similar trepidation hovered in Thea’s mind. They were in the middle of a war-torn country—the last thing they needed was to be “rescued” by guerrillas or other hostiles.
The caravan finally reached the crash site, and the Land Cruisers parked one behind the other. Men wearing desert fatigues exited the vehicles, brandishing AK-47s. One of the soldiers opened the rear door of the third truck. A huge man climbed out, dwarfing the others with height and shoulders that could span the equator.
She shivered, recognizing General Ita Jemwa’s large stature and scarred face from the newspaper articles about Nikos’s kidnapping. Now looming large between her and rescue was the man who’d collected the million-dollar reward for her brother’s return, the man who—according to Nikos’s journal—had been his original kidnapper. She wondered who had put those notes into her bag in the first place. Who wanted her to know what had really happened in Kanzi?
The general nodded to two of his men. The soldiers opened the back flap of the first truck, unloaded a cooler, and handed out bottles of water and sandwiches. Peter and Brianna leaned against a truck, downing water. Rif’s erect posture told her he was on guard. Thea twisted the cap off an icy bottle and guzzled the contents. The water quenched her thirst, but a pit of foreboding still lodged in her stomach.
The general surveyed the black carcass of the plane’s fuselage, then zeroed in on her. “Ms. Paris, I believe. I’ve worked with your father over the years. Welcome to Kanzi. This must be your lucky day.”
Hardly. “I’ll consider myself lucky when I’m sitting in an air-conditioned restaurant eating a steak.” She forced her lips into a tight smile.
The general laughed, a deep, rumbling sound. “I’ll kill the cow myself if I have to—we don’t want our guests to be disappointed.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven