Page 60 of Wanted

But I couldn’t.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Travis asked me for the thousandth time. He ran through the equipment contracts that I was about to sign. The sun was setting in my home country. Travis and I were one of the few who were still at work. “You could just leave her in the States where she’ll have the best care.”

“Yes, but I don’t want to. She’ll come here, and my people will treat her.”

“You’re going to give Aram ideas, son,” Travis warned me. He squinted his eyes at a detail in the fine print of the documents. “This will turn out to be a costly operation. You won’t get this money back.”

“Mandy will be the first to be treated in Katantia. The equipment we’ll buy will stay for the next patients. Yearly, we fly hundreds of women with cervical cancer, fibroids, and endometriosis to foreign countries for treatment. It almost feels like hysterectomies are illegal here. It’s time to invest in our own hospitals,” I explained, pushing back my desk chair. I had cleared my desk. My laptop and hard drives were in Kamila’s home now. Once Mandy returned to my shores, I wouldn’t leave her side.

“Your mom…”

“What?” I urged Travis. He ran a hand through his hair.

“She had a hysterectomy behind your father’s back. She knew that your father would want more children. She flew to India, and she had it done there. It was the last unsupervised trip she ever had,” Travis revealed. His words confirmed what I knew. My mother’s life had been a complex bundle of despair. I knew that I had to give other women the option of hysterectomies on Katantia. Mom would approve.

“Aram won’t like this hysterectomy venture,” Travis added. He sighed, setting aside the documents. He handed them to me, and I signed one order after the other. “And Aram doesn’t react well to things he doesn’t like.”

“I know. I’ve been made aware,” I responded. I placed the pen on top of the stack of documents once I finished. “I don’t care. My sister has a new man. Mandy has been diagnosed, and now she needs treatment. She’ll have it here. We’ll start with everything she needs, and once her treatment is done, we’ll open the hospital wing to the rest of the population.”

“I repeat. It’ll get expensive.”

“And I don’t care. I’ll spend every last penny in my bank accounts,” I retorted. I needed the discussion to be over. “We’re a country based on sex. I’m bribing all of these doctors to come and help us keep the population safe. End of story.”

“You’re also making a spectacle of your own family,” Travis reminded me. We never openly discussed Aram and Spencer being siblings in palace quarters.

I rolled my eyes. “When will she be here?”

“Mandy Rawlins will arrive in two days once all the equipment has shipped from Germany and China. The private Queen I hospital is preparing the east wing for remodeling as we speak. After Ms. Rawlins arrives, the doctors we’ve hired will confirm her diagnosis. Then they’ll ask her what she wants to do, which is ludicrous since we’re basically abducting the poor girl.”

“We’re not abducting her,” I corrected Travis. No, we weren’t abducting her. I was bringing her back because I couldn’t join her out there. I needed to know she would be okay.

“Will you keep her here after all of it is done?”

I didn’t respond.

♥♠♥

I had opted out of wearing a suit today. For today’s events, I wore plain jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt. There was no need for a jacket. The winter had come and gone in December.

There was a light breeze on our shores, but I didn’t feel it. In fact, I could stand here in swimming trunks, and I wouldn’t give a damn. I was nervous for the first time in forever. The last time I’d felt this way was when my sister left me hanging in front of the wedding guests.

Mandy would probably spend some time hating me. I expected that.

The airport had been cleared. It was only me waiting for Mandy to arrive. I hadn’t told my brother or his wife because the fewer people officially knew about this, the better. If Aram knew what I’d done, he hadn’t put a stop to it.

The plane had landed about ten minutes ago, and the guards were bringing Mandy to me any minute now. I glanced at the clock on the wall of the arrivals hall. I hadn’t brought a driver with me. She preferred it when I drove.

The sliding doors were tainted, so I couldn’t see, but I could definitely hear the steps approaching. I tried to play down the goosebumps that decorated my skin. Travis was right. Adversity was a foreign word for me.

When the doors slid open, I blinked twice. Mandy walked in the middle of five guards that I had chosen for this operation. She was smaller than them, but as they moved, I caught glimpses of her face. She looked at the floor. Her eyes were sunken, and her skin was pale.

The doors closed. The formation of men that surrounded Mandy loosened up, revealing her to me. Her hair was pulled together in a ponytail. She wore grey sweatpants and a white hoodie with Indianapolis stamped over her chest in orange letters. Her shoes were snow white and flat as per usual.

She lifted her gaze, meeting mine.

Mandy stomped towards me. When she reached me, she was out of breath. She’d only taken a couple of steps. She spat, “You’re unbelievable.”

“Welcome back,” I told her, unable to take my eyes off of her. She had become even more fragile.