THEIR_VIRGIN_PRINCESS (6 page)

Meet me at 7 at the
Jackson Club downtown. Please. I need help.

It was unsigned, but the stationary was unmistakable. It had
come from the Bezakistani embassy in New York.

“We’ve seen and discussed this note.” Dane sighed. “You’re
right. She must have believed she knew who wrote it. Whoever’s behind her
abduction knew she would respond to a request from the embassy. It stands to
reason this person knew exactly who she was and targeted her. Motherfucker.”

“The question is why,” Riley said, then turned to Tal. “You
never received a ransom note?”

The sheikh shook his head. “No. I would have paid. I would
have paid anything.”

“Then they weren’t after money,” Dane concluded.

Riley shrugged a little. “We can’t be completely sure of
that, but there’s one other reason we’re convinced this wasn’t random. If we
were just dealing with slavers filling an order, she would have been raped
about ten minutes after her kidnapping. You’ve read the medical file. You know
that didn’t happen.”

Dane’s whole body had stiffened. Coop wasn’t any happier.
When they had first heard Alea’s story, he, Dane, and Lan had sat down and
talked. Even if she hadn’t been raped, she’d been through a lot. They had
backed off physically because of it. Coop had started reading about the
psychology of victims, trying to understand.

Law frowned. “From what we’ve been able to tell, Alea was
brutalized in every other way imaginable. They left her virginity intact for a
reason.”

Tal slapped at the table. “Do we have to talk about this?”

“The information won’t leave this room,” Coop vowed. “But
you asked us to be responsible for Alea’s well-being. It’s hard to do that if
we don’t talk about information that might be relevant.”

“This is none of anyone’s business, even yours. I tasked you
with making sure she doesn’t get hurt again. That’s all.” Tal glowered.

Ouch. That hurt like a
bitch.
But Coop refused to back down. “Knowing what she endured may tell us
what happened to her and why, so yeah, I think it’s my business. I also happen
to think that protecting her life is more important than protecting her
modesty. She’s not just a job to me. She’s a good woman who deserves to close
her eyes at night and sleep soundly, knowing that she’s safe.”

Tal drew in a calming breath. “Sorry. You’re right. I know
how you all feel about her. I’ve seen how Alea reacts to you three. I asked you
here for a reason, and it wasn’t as her security team.”

That was news to Coop. The last he’d heard, the sheikh had
reminded all three of them of their completely non-royal status. Dane had gone
the “I hate authority” route, while Lan had slid into his whole “woe is me/I
grew up in a trailer so no woman can love me” pile of shit. Coop…he’d seen the
play for what it was at the time.

Back then, Tal had been in a bad place with Piper. He’d been
a bear growling at anything that even halfway moved. Dane wasn’t known for his
subtlety. Lan sometimes stepped in it—when he bothered to speak at all. So
they’d made nice, big targets for the sheikh. When Coop had written off Tal’s
craptastic mood and snarling outburst to not getting any, Dane and Lan had
called him an overly optimistic Pollyanna and told him to shut the fuck up.

Coop shrugged. He was realistic, thank you. The other two
could be morose morons. But they were his family.

“What are you saying, Your Highness?” Dane asked, his jaw
squaring in that comic book, all-American hero way of his.

Tal turned to Dane. Coop’s stomach rolled. Here it came, the
big emotional “I’m sorry” scene that had been building for six months.
Fuck
. Coop hadn’t gone into the Navy so
he could have the verbal equivalent of dude hugs. He’d rather cut through the
crap and put it behind them. “Let me translate. Tal fucked up and he’s sorry.
He’s cool if we go after Alea because he knows we’ll take care of her. Now can
we move this along?”

Tal frowned Coop’s way. “That’s not exactly how I planned to
say it, but yes. I had a very long apology planned, too.”

“Can’t we handle this like men?” Coop asked. “Just punch
each other, then share a beer and we’re all cool.”

Dane’s lips curled up. “Sorry, Tal. Coop isn’t a big
believer in the whole ‘emotional sharing’ thing. I think it’s because he grew
up surrounded by cattle.”

Coop shrugged. Sometimes he missed his dad’s ranch. “I was
raised by cowhands who were long on work and short on chatter. Sorry.”

A huge smile crossed the sheikh’s face. “Well, Cooper was succinct,
but correct. Alea needs you. I’ve talked this over with my brothers, and we’ve
agreed that we will approve the marriage if you can convince her to accept.”

“We will.” Coop smiled now. “But it’s not fair. You had it
easier. You got to steal a bride.”

“We followed in the tradition of our ancestors. They would
whisk a woman away to someplace quiet and fuck her until she finally agreed to
marry them,” Tal said with a long sigh. “You’ll have to be sneaky. I doubt Alea
will prove as accommodating or as easily deceived as Piper. Plus, we had the
whole language thing on our side. Unfortunately for you, Alea is proficient in
five languages. I don’t think she knows Swahili. Do any of you?”

Coop rolled his eyes. “I think we can all agree Alea is
smarter than any of us. We’re going to have to rely on how hot we are.”

“That’s worked so well for us up to this point.” Dane rolled
his eyes. “So please stop walking around in your boxers on the off chance that
Alea will walk in, see your body, and fall at your feet.”

He elbowed Dane. It could have worked.

Law yawned, looking generally bored. “If you guys are done
with the huggy portion of the evening, we could move on.”

Riley frowned at his brother. “Sorry, he’s the emotional
equivalent of a lobotomized pit bull. Now for the bad news. There is no
indication that Khalil had anything to do with the kidnapping. In fact, we
talked to the private investigators he hired to look for the princess.”

“What?” Tal asked, nearly coming out of his seat.

Coop was confused, too. Khalil had been a violent asswipe
bent on destroying the whole family. “He hated his cousins.”

“He hated everyone in line for the throne. Alea isn’t. And
there’s no doubt he hired a small firm in California to search for her. It was
actually a smart play. Those particular investigators have deep ties in South
America.”

“It had to be a ruse,” Tal shot back.

“I don’t think so. Yes, he could have used it to point
suspicion away from him if you’d thought he had something to do with the
kidnapping. But it makes more sense to me that he would look for her so he
could get his hands on her before you. That leverage might have been very
interesting to a man like Khalil. Unfortunately for him, your investigators got
there first,” Riley explained. “And the firm he hired doesn’t know anything we
don’t.”

So if Khalil hadn’t been guilty, and the act hadn’t been
random, where did that leave them? Screwed. Everything inside Coop tightened.
Knowing that the asshole behind Alea’s torment was still free to plot against
her again would feed his nightmares. Random, they could deal with. It sucked,
but the Lennox brothers had taken vengeance out on the men who had actually
grabbed Alea from her university. He, Dane, and Lan found comfort in that. Even
Khalil as the mastermind made him feel better. That fucker was dead, and Coop
knew that he and his buddies would watch over her and make sure nothing ever
happened to her again.

But neither of the above wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

“So you believe that Khalil was in the dark, too.” Tal’s
fingers splayed across the table as he leaned forward and cursed in Arabic.

Riley continued. “We’ve made a careful study of the flow of
money of the abductors and the brothel where your cousin was held. It’s all a
bit of a nightmare. The brothel was owned by a man who had close ties to the
Delgado Cartel. The money filtered through there, but when the Lennox brothers
took down that cartel and killed the Delgados, it splintered into three
different groups. Getting any kind of financials on a criminal organization is
difficult. Scraping figures together on one in disarray is nearly impossible.”

“So you’re saying you’ve reached a dead end?” Coop was
already planning a trip to Colombia in his head. He would cut through all that
red tape and just kill a bunch of fuckers until one told him what he needed to
know.

“No. I’m saying I’m a genius and the world should really bow
at my feet,” Riley quipped with an arrogant smile.

Law made a vomiting sound. “He likes to build it all up so
he looks good. All he did was play around with his computer.”

“Luddite. I can cause more trouble with a few keystrokes
than you can with all the guns in your arsenal. Now, I don’t have it all
figured out, but I do have a very interesting pattern of deposits and
withdrawals. If you look on page sixteen, I’ve documented what I’ve got.” Pages
shuffled, and Riley went on. “I’ve managed to discern that the brothel’s
business transactions were handled by the owner’s wife. It’s all routine and in
cash until two weeks after Alea’s kidnapping. A wire transfer of twenty-five
thousand hit a bank account the cartel used strictly for the brothels. Now, we
all know they were selling women, but the same account then wires five thousand
every ten days until two days before Alea was rescued.”

Dane shook his head. “Like…someone was paying for her
upkeep?”

“If that’s the case, they definitely overpaid. According to
Cole, she was kept in horrible conditions,” Tal muttered.

“I think someone was paying them simply to keep her alive,
Tal,” Coop said darkly.

This twisted plot was far worse than he’d imagined. Someone
out there had paid to keep Alea tied up and drug addicted. Someone had wanted
her held captive. But why?

“Where did that money come from?” he demanded of Riley.

The PI paused. “Directly from a Cayman account, which was
closed shortly after Alea was rescued. I’m still looking for the records that
indicate where and how the account was funded, but as you can imagine, the
banking laws in the Caymans are beyond liberal.”

“So what you’re saying is that we might never know.” Dane
scrubbed a hand over his hair. He’d let it grow after he’d left the Navy. Coop
kept his in a military cut because it was easy, but that hair of Dane’s seemed
one way he distanced himself from his past.

Riley squared his big shoulders like he was ready for
battle. Though he came across a bit like a geek, he was obviously in good shape
and possessed a little badass. “I will figure it out. I won’t stop.”

“He’s serious,” Law explained. “He’s pissed off now. He’ll never
quit. It’s why Dominic sent us out here. We’re going to go through some of the
palace records. Some of them are kept on paper.”

Riley shuddered. “That’s barbaric, but I have to examine
those records.”

“Are you suggesting someone at the palace was behind the
atrocity?” Tal asked, clearly horrified by the prospect.

“We have to rule out every possibility,” Riley said without
a hint of apology in his voice. “I’ve already checked on everyone Princess Alea
knew in New York, including all the employees at the embassy. I suspect that
whoever is behind her abduction is someone she knows.”

“Will they try again?” a soft, shaky voice asked from the
shadowed doorway.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Alea walked into the light and stood like a gorgeous statue in her gown, her
hair caught in a soft chignon that Coop wanted to run his hands through until
all that midnight softness flowed around her shoulders. Her face was a tense
mask. She had obviously heard far more than they wanted her to.

Dane touched the comm device that rested in his ear. “Lan,
you’re missing your charge, buddy.”

“No, I’m not.” Lan stepped up behind her. His face was
closed off as though he was just waiting for Dane’s brutal judgment to fall
down on his head. “It’s her life. She has the right to know.”

Coop winced. Hell, there was going to be a throw down now.
He would be lucky if he managed to keep the ballsy Texan from losing his life,
much less his job.

Alea walked into the room, her head held high. “I caught
wind of this little meeting and I threatened Landon. He didn’t have a choice.”

Dane’s face had turned a spectacular shade of red. “What
exactly did you threaten him with, Princess? Were you going to use your nail
file on him? Maybe you were going to throw one of your high heels at him.”

“Don’t be condescending. I threatened to tell my cousins
that he’d made a pass at me and have him fired if he didn’t cooperate.” Alea
stood her ground even as Dane rose and stalked toward her.

Coop stood, too, because this could get out of hand very
quickly. “Now, Dane. Hold up. We should listen.”

Dane towered over her. Her crazy-hot, four-inch heels were
no match for his six and a half feet of pure muscle. Alea tilted her head back
to look him in the eyes. “I didn’t give him a choice, so if you have a problem
with me being here, you really should talk to me.”

Lan shook his head, and Coop knew he was about to do
something stupid. “She didn’t threaten me. Besides, everyone knows I hit on her
all the time. I haven’t gotten fired yet.”

“That’s not going to be a problem anymore, Nix. Consider
yourself officially fired. You can pack your bags and be out of here by
morning.” Dane turned to the rest of the room. “Gentlemen, I think we have
everything we need. I’m sure the sheikh will cooperate fully with the
investigation.”

Tal was sitting back in his chair, watching the drama unfold
with curious eyes. “Naturally, I will help in any way I can.”

Alea wasn’t through with Dane. She stomped one of those
designer shoes as she followed him. “You can’t fire Landon. I won’t allow it.
Tal, tell him.”