Page 46 of Deadly Storms (Sunrise Lake #3)

“My mother. Her security team pushed her into the armored SUV, and they drove away. I was looking straight at her, and she didn’t even look over her shoulder at me.

I took that to mean she was confident in the system, that I’d be ransomed easily.

It was just business, and I should be calm. But that wasn’t the reason, was it?”

Rainier cursed under his breath. He brought her fingertips to his mouth and bit down gently. “I feel as if I’m always bringing bad news. I hate doing this.”

“ I’m doing this, not you. I need to face the truth, Rainier. I can’t keep hiding from it. That’s part of the reason the PTSD episodes are so severe. These are things I can’t talk about to anyone else.”

She didn’t trust anyone enough other than Rainier. She loved her parents, and she didn’t want anyone else to know anything she uncovered that would put them in a bad light.

Rainier was silent for a moment, and then he sighed. “I understand, baby. You need to talk about this, we talk about it.”

How could she not love him? His reluctance and his reasons were clear, but for her, he would do it. More than ever, she knew she was making the right decision to spend her life with him.

“Scorpion hated my mother, didn’t he? He intercepted the ransom because he was making his own demands. That was what was happening, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Rainier sounded terse. Grim. The tension inside the car grew.

“Was he making her part of the negotiations? Money and my mother to get me back? If Scorpion did that, my father would never agree. He’d surround my mother with ten million guards.

” She wasn’t really asking, because how could he possibly know?

Could he? She was musing aloud the way she often did when she was piecing together a puzzle.

Rainier didn’t utter a single word.

Shabina refused to be a coward any longer.

She hadn’t trusted Talia Warren enough to explore her worst fears with her.

Her father had hired the therapist, and, although she’d explored going to a few others, she didn’t like repeating the story, so in the end, she’d stayed with Talia.

Even though she was told often everything she said was confidential, for all she knew the therapist reported every word to her father.

Her father had enough money to buy a tremendous amount of loyalty, and she’d been pretty messed up when she’d first come back.

Who was she kidding? She still was. She probably always would be.

Shabina considered whether the silence from Rainier meant he knew the answer to her question.

He was astute, very intelligent, and he had access to various sources of information she never would.

She decided not to press him. Her mind was already coming up with answers, and she was certain she would find the truth without forcing him to reveal anything he was reluctant to say, especially if it made her parents look bad.

“My mother’s family is from the Middle East. Since I was a very little girl, I’ve never seen them or heard from them. My mother always speaks of them lovingly, but she doesn’t visit them, and they don’t come here, although my father could afford to bring them here.”

Why hadn’t she ever put that together? Her thigh ached. Her headache began to return with a vengeance. She tasted copper in her mouth. That meant she was coming very, very close to a revelation she should have put together long ago.

“Arranged marriages are very common in Saudi Arabia, especially in the smaller villages, either through a matchmaker or family. My mother comes from a family where they most likely promised her to someone.” Her voice sounded strangled, even to her own ears.

Of course, her mother had been promised in marriage to a man. Her father would have had many offers for her. Yasemin was beautiful, strikingly so. She had been raised in a traditional family. She was quiet, submissive and made the perfect wife.

Her father had married Yasemin when she was very young. An oil fire was raging in one of the prince’s main oil fields, and no one had been able to put it out. Jack admitted he met her mother in Saudi Arabia and once he laid eyes on her, he had known she was the only one for him.

“Yasemin was promised to a friend of the prince, a man who brought with him ideas for a particular irrigation system for those farming in the desert,” Rainier said abruptly.

“The prince was especially fond of him, and once the young man saw Yasemin, he asked for her in marriage. He lived in another country, and that must have terrified her. She was very young, and she’d never been out of the country. ”

“You know who he is.” For some unexplained reason, her heart began to pound.

Identifying Scorpion was paramount, yet she was reluctant to learn more.

It didn’t make sense, and she was determined to overcome the barrier her mind continued to erect.

She knew it was to protect her, but knowing who Scorpion was should alleviate some of her worries and paranoia.

“I suspect. I don’t yet have enough proof, and I don’t kill innocents.”

He stated it as an absolute.

“My mother isn’t outgoing at all. She’s quite shy,” Shabina said. Timid might be the proper word to describe her mother.

“At the time, Darian Lefebre was considered a brilliant young man who spent a great deal of time going to countries in need of finding a way to get water into dry lands.”

Her breath caught in her throat. She knew the name Darian Lefebre.

Everyone did. He was an ambassador for Canada.

One of the good guys. Charming. He had his hand in many charitable organizations worldwide.

He was known for his mediation when things got heated between countries.

The name Lefebre was synonymous with kindness and benevolence.

He was beloved in his country and nearly everywhere he went.

She found herself shaking her head. “Rainier, that can’t be.”

“Your reaction would be the world’s reaction,” he replied. “He’s charming. Has charisma and despises your parents with every breath he takes. He’s also a sadist. That’s a well-kept secret, but in following him, it wasn’t difficult to find the very young women he abuses.”

Her hand crept to her thigh. “Are you certain that he’s Scorpion?”

“If I were certain, I would have taken him out already. Once I’m completely satisfied he’s Scorpion and I can leave proof behind on his body, I’ll take him out.”

She bit down on her lip trying to equate the man who gave speeches on peace, the man who led others by being first to put up money for hard-hit nations when natural disasters struck, with the sadistic, vicious mass murderer.

Scorpion took pleasure in torture. In killing.

In leading others to kill. How could it be the same man?

“How did my mother come to be with my father and not Lefebre?”

“Your father was needed to put out massive oil fires. He saw your mother and the two met secretly several times. Your father negotiated with the prince to make her part of the deal to put out the oil fires. Lefebre was a nobody with too much money at the time, not the diplomat he is today. The prince had plenty of money and little need of Lefebre. He needed the fires put out. What was the giving of one woman to a man who could save him millions of dollars?”

Shabina understood. The prince would view the exchange as a simple business transaction, whether Yasemin agreed or not.

Even if Yasemin had loved Lefebre and wanted to stay with him, the prince would have offered Lefebre money for his loss, but he wouldn’t have changed his mind.

His word was absolute law. Yasemin would go to Jack, so Jack Foster would put out the fire in his oil field.

“Jack and Yasemin were married immediately. The prince hosted and attended. It was a huge event. Lefebre was humiliated. Although he was invited to attend the wedding, which took place at the palace, he refused. Jack and Yasemin made a bitter enemy. I doubt that Yasemin knew, but Jack certainly did.”

She knew Jack. Her father would have been so arrogant as to taunt his rival. More, once Darian Lefebre entered politics, Jack would have waved his marriage to Yasemin like a red flag.

“Jack has opposed Lefebre in nearly every possible way he could over the years,” Rainier added. “A man like Lefebre would take special delight in torturing Jack’s daughter. Jack taunted the diplomat, unaware he was an international mass murderer.”

“How were you able to prove that two of his friends were part of Scorpion’s cabinet?”

Rainier’s set features hardened even more. “The proof was irrefutable.” His voice was grim. “I’ll catch Lefebre the same way.”

Her mouth went dry. Clearly, whatever proof Rainier had, he didn’t want to share. That boded ill for her. It meant that whatever he found, it had involved her.

“Things make a little more sense now,” she admitted.

“My mother’s personality is very different from mine.

She’s extremely quiet and lives to please my father.

She’s very devoted, nearly hero-worshiping him.

My father keeps her wrapped in a loving cocoon.

He loves my mother above all else. He would do anything to protect her, even getting word to an assassin to kill his own daughter to prevent his wife from suffering when he no longer believed his daughter could be rescued.

” It was a guess, but one she was certain was the truth.

Rainier remained silent.

“It’s difficult for my mother to even look at me now, but when I’m away from their home, she becomes frantic over my safety.

My father wants me to live on their estate in order to give her peace of mind.

When anyone crosses him, he becomes very angry, and that’s putting it mildly.

He’s used to getting his way. When it has anything to do with my mother, he rages until he fixes the problem. ”