Bodyguard Confessions

To my family, you are my heart

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Epilogue

Chapter One

They called themselves Al Asheera. The Tribe. Revolutionaries with crimson veils that masked all but the bloodlust in the deepest black of their eyes.

Like desert locusts, they poured from the darkness, swarmed over the palace walls. Consuming. Destroying.

Some carried the poisoned spears and the tapered broadswords of their ancestors, while others—the youths—held the submachine guns and grenades of their allies.

But all were intent on one objective: to kill the Royal Family of Taer.

Quamar Bazan Al Asadi pressed his fingers to his eyes, while a litany of screams pierced the darkness around him. Their mounting pitch taunted him with their unrelenting rhythm. They were the cries of the scarcely living—souls lost somewhere between terror and death.

He thought of the servants, the guards. His cousin, King Jarek, and Jarek’s wife, Saree. Their baby son, Rashid.

All dead.

Rage rose in his throat, forcing Quamar to draw short, bitter breaths through his mouth. The wind had stopped. Its strength bogged—first by the familiar stench of blood and battle, and now by the sweeter scent of hashish and cremated bodies.

A handful of Al Asheera soldiers swaggered around the palace grounds in small groups, confident in their success. Some patrolled, others stood watch from the palace’s silk-draped windows while most celebrated in a drug-induced euphoria.

Quamar moved, half-crouched, to a nearby abandoned jeep. From his position, he observed the courtyard. Bodies littered the ground, strewn about like blood-spattered rag dolls among the marble statues and mosaic-tiled fountains.

Men. Women.

His gaze stopped on a dead Al Asheera soldier, who lay slumped in the jeep’s passenger seat, his crimson scarf torn from his face. Quamar noted the acne that spotted his cheeks and the soft, youthful jawline that hadn’t yet touched the sharp edge of a man’s razor.

A boy. One who wasn’t a day older than fifteen, Quamar realized. His gaze rested on the knife tucked in the boy’s belt, the sword propped under his hand. Shaving wasn’t a prerequisite when it came to butchery.

The Al Asheera recruited the young. Not surprising, considering the promise of riches and rewards appealed mostly to those born poor and who hadn’t suffered the horrors of war.

Frustration filled him, fed his anger. Only cowards made war against women and recruited children to kill. For that atrocity alone, Al Asheera would pay.

A dull throb started at his right temple, but Quamar ignored it. Instead, he shifted deeper into the shelter of the darkness, monitoring his surroundings. He was a big man, wide in the shoulders, with the broad, hard-boned features of the Arabic, the muscle and meat of the Italian.

Still, he was born from the desert, his body carved from its wind, sand and heat. He was a soldier by fate, not choice—a man hardened but not cruel, dangerous but not treacherous. His beliefs were his own—this by his choice—deep-rooted in faith, tradition…

And justice, Quamar thought with grim satisfaction.

More than half of the palace guards had secretly joined the Al Asheera ranks. Traitors who attacked from inside, catching those loyal to King Jarek unaware. Several had died for their betrayal, but not near enough for Quamar’s liking.

A stretch of ground lay between the courtyard’s rear entrance and the palace itself. A few hundred feet. Half a football field.

In the middle lay a cluster of olive trees. Just beyond, fires burned in horrific pillars, their greedy flames fed by the dead.

It was a contemptible testament from Al Asheera. Muslim law forbade cremation—considered it abhorrent—and in doing so, Al Asheera denied the people of Taer their rightful place with Allah.

In the distance, curses mingled with loud bursts of laughter. Quamar leaned forward, his gaze shifting until a circle of Al Asheera soldiers, six in all, crossed his line of sight.

At their feet lay an older man, his worn, leathered features barely distinguishable under the blood that coated his dark skin.

A servant? A soldier?

The Al Asheera bound the man’s hands and stripped him down to a pair of mud-stained linen pants. Even from a distance, Quamar saw his arms were thick. Yet, where once there was strength and sinew, the muscle now slackened with old age. But it wasn’t until they ripped off his turban that he saw the shock of gray hair, the deep-set brow.

Arimand.

In the flickering light, the Al Asheera soldiers dragged the old man, Jarek’s Captain of the Guard, into the middle of the courtyard, then shoved him against an aged, gnarled olive tree.

Quamar edged closer, shifting toward the jeep’s front tire, careful to hide from the glow of a nearby fire.

A rebel tied the rope to Arimand’s secured wrists, then threw the loose end around a branch overhead. Within moments, they hoisted the guard off the ground and left him suspended mid-air with his arms stretched above, his shoulder sockets straining under his weight.

The smoke blended with the night, making the air thick and murky. For a few moments the Al Asheera poked and prodded Arimand with hot sticks and knives. But soon they tired of their game and drifted to the nearest fire for warmth.

Quamar flexed his fingers, felt the reassuring rush of blood to his hands. One against twenty was never good odds. But with every passing moment, the rebels’ hashish slowed their reflexes, dulled their thoughts.

If the number equaled fifty, it would not matter. First and foremost a soldier, Quamar had come to terms with death long before.

He grabbed the boy’s turban and scarf. His home had been assaulted. His family decimated. And because of this, he waged his own personal war. Quickly, he secured the material over his head, then around his face.

A war that took no prisoners.

ANNA CAMBRIDGE STAGGERED through the underground channel. Cobwebs snared her hair, covered her face. She shoved them away. The first two or three had frightened her—along with the rats that scurried and screeched. But no more.

How long had it been since she’d escaped through the passageway? An hour? Maybe two. It seemed a lifetime.

Her steps were slow, cautious by necessity, not preference. Mud oozed between her heels and her slippers while the coarse sand clung to her pajamas, saturating both her tank top and bottoms. The cotton—useless against the cold edge of the tunnel’s draft—adhered to her skin like a moist, sticky cocoon.

Her only warmth came from the baby snuggled low in a sling against her belly. Prince Rashid Al Asadi.

There had been no time to change clothes. No time to prepare. Al Asheera had laid siege too quickly.

Using her hand, she guided herself through the pitch-black, sliding her palm over the wall’s damp, jagged grooves, which cut and tore at her fingers.

The carrier acted more as a small hammock swaying with the cadence of her body. The material looped around one shoulder, then down Anna’s back to her waist, allowing the baby to hang semi-curled against her body.

Her free hand tightened protectively over the wide strip of woven linen. The baby lay quiet in his sling. There had been no whimper, no movement for over two hours. Alma, his nanny, had warned her he’d possibly go six. Anna frowned. He’d been drugged for his own protection and hers, long before Alma had found her. Still, Anna slipped her hand between, felt the soft beat of his heart beneath her fingers.

“Not much longer, little man,” she murmured, knowing the words were more of a hope than a pledge. Alma’s instructions had been desperate but insistent. Hide the baby until his father, King Jarek, or Anna’s father somehow rescued them.

Then Alma had shoved a knife into her hand. “Protect His Highness,” she had whispered, and was gone.

No problem, Anna thought derisively. All she needed to do was find her way out of this underground maze, slip past the soldiers, over the wall, then through the Al Asheera–occupied city.

The scent of stale earth and decayed rodent slapped at her, enough to make bile rise in her throat. Her heart pounded in fear. Another dead end?

She continued along the passageway, cursing herself and the darkness. She’d made so many missteps already—wrong turns, impasses. Still, she couldn’t turn back until she was sure.

A little boy—only months under ten, blond and slightly built—flashed across her mind. Her brother, Bobby, with his blue eyes wide with trust, his face pale with fear.

“I love you, Anna,” he whispered against her ear, tears he’d bravely held back getting the best of him, dropping his voice to a hoarse whisper. “Don’t go. Don’t leave me.” Anna pushed the memories away. But the echoes of his voice remained, riding a familiar wave of anxiety that rolled deeply within her.

She had left him. And her brother had died.

Cautiously, she shifted her foot forward, searching for the dead end with her toes. Anna stopped, steadying herself. The air had turned, sending a faint breeze skittering across her ankles.

A mist—more fog than light—crept across her path.

Blinking hard, she forced her eyes to adjust in the semidarkness, then used the soft haze to guide her.

At the base of the stone, no more than two feet square, lay a vent, its opening blocked by a wrought-iron grate.

Anna braced her back against the wall and slid downward, ignoring the burn of the sandstone against her bare shoulders. “Don’t worry, Rashid, we’re going to make it.” Or die trying, Anna added silently. She looked down at the baby, using his warmth to ease the knots in her stomach.

With a free hand, she tugged on the grate. “Looks like they sealed it with cement,” she murmured. After sitting back on her calves, she nestled the baby across her thighs. “I’m going to need both hands, handsome, so we’re going to have to make you comfortable.”

Outside, bushes flanked the vent, but nothing blocked the hole itself. Anna exhaled, not realizing until then that she’d held her breath.

She pulled Alma’s knife from her back waistband, noting how the cold steel felt foreign beneath her fingertips.

“Here we go.” After stretching across Rashid, Anna set her shoulders and began to scrape between cement and iron. Her movements were awkward and slow as she tried to keep the baby protected from bits of flying mortar. “If we’re lucky, this stuff has been decaying for a hundred years.” She dragged the knife around the four edges, applying pressure until her arms shook, her muscles ached.

As the daughter of the United States president, Anna had been around politics her whole life. At twenty-seven, she understood that greed undermined the rebels’ strike on the royal family. Al Asheera would fail. She had to believe that.

But not before hundreds more died.

At every pass, she dug the blade farther in, scraping and jabbing, trying to separate the grate from cement. The wind picked up, drying the film of perspiration into a tight mask, making her skin itch.

A chunk of cement fell from the top of the grate. With a small cry, she dropped the knife, wedged her fingers between the metal and wall, uncaring when her nails broke. She tugged at the metal until, noiselessly, the grate fell into her hands.

Trembling, she tossed the grate to the side.

“Okay, sweetie, time to run.”

Chapter Two

Arimand was dying.

Before he reached the tree, Quamar had seen the flash of the blade as the insurgent slid it below Arimand’s ribs.

The rage came to Quamar, savage and swift. But death would take its time with the old man. Slow and agonizing. Just as the rebel soldier had intended.

Most of the Al Asheera drifted away, not interested in the ragged breaths of a dying man. But one remained, the one whose knife still dripped with Arimand’s blood.

The guard’s eyes skimmed the darkness while his feet shuffled. From cold or fear, Quamar did not know. Nor did he care. The rebel had sealed his fate the moment he had slid his blade into the old man.

Quamar shifted his weight back, his shoulders forward, while his knife’s blade lay balanced between his fingers. He waited. The ache in his head had morphed into a battery of hammers beating a cadence on his temples. Having lived with the pain for many months, Quamar pushed it away, knowing from experience he had limited time before the pounding increased.

But by then, his objective would be completed.

The guard strapped his machine gun over his shoulder and with long, thin fingers reached for a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket.

Quamar let loose the blade, heard the familiar thunk as steel impaled skull. He spared no more than a glance when the body crumpled to the ground.

After snagging the guard’s machine gun, he pulled his knife free. He wiped the blade on the dead man and slipped into the darkness. Scanning the courtyard, Quamar noted that the killing had gone unnoticed. Instead, all stood watching the pillar of flames lick at the midnight sky.

“Arimand.” For safety, he covered the older man’s mouth with gentle fingers. The papery skin flexed beneath. “Be silent, and I will cut you down.”

Arimand shook his head, forcing Quamar to release his mouth. “No, leave me. I am well beyond help now,” the old guard rasped, pain etched in all the grooves of his face. “Anna Cambridge, the prince. Find them. Save them.”

“Anna Cambridge?” He pictured her long, blond hair, her depthless blue eyes. It was not hard—for months the woman had haunted his dreams. “If she is here, she is dead,” he said flatly. Another life to avenge.

“No. Hassan leads the Al Asheera.” The dark eyes bore into Quamar. “He ordered them to hunt her down. Go now, find her and the child. Take them to your father.” Arimand inhaled sharply. “Promise me,” he said after a moment, his voice harsh, unyielding.

“I promise you.”

Arimand nodded, then closed his eyes against the gut-wrenching pain. “You and Jarek…you both were…. If I had sons…” Arimand stopped, his eyes blinked, opened, their focus softening. “One more promise…”

Quamar nodded, stopping the words he knew hovered on Arimand’s lips. Agony ripped through Quamar, forcing him to tighten his jaw. He’d spent half his childhood with this man, had grown to love him as a son would.

“Go with Allah.” Quamar leaned forward and kissed the old man’s lined cheek. Without a sound, he slid his own knife between Arimand’s ribs and into his heart.

Arimand gasped, his heartbeat stopped beneath Quamar’s hand—and with it his suffering. Quamar dropped his forehead to Arimand’s. “May he keep you always.”

It took most of his will, but Quamar stepped away, knowing Arimand died a warrior. With honor, dignity. Courage.

Quamar moved back toward the tree, his gaze searching for danger among the shadows. Suddenly, a burst of laughter drew his attention. His eyes narrowed on the trio of men, their interest focused past the jeep to the wall beyond.

Curious, Quamar followed their line of sight, then froze. He swore silently. If he hadn’t been watching so closely, he would have missed the rustle of the bushes, the movement of shadows.

The flash of pale, blond hair.

WITH HER KNIFE IN HER side waistband, Anna hugged Rashid close and lay on her back. Her stomach churned under the baby’s weight, sending the bile back to her throat. She’d come too far to lose her nerve now. Using her heels, she pushed herself headfirst through the hole and into the courtyard.

Blood pounded in her eardrums, its rhythm a fast staccato that matched the beat of her heart. Anna dragged in a long breath, then made it two, fighting off the wave of weakness that seeped into her limbs. “Just a bout of nerves,” she whispered and rose to her feet. I can do this, damn it.

Anna forced herself to take first one step, then another. She had started the third when a hand fisted her hair and yanked her back. Anna screamed and struck out, blindly trying to gouge at the unseen features. When she found bare skin, she dug in her fingers.

A string of curse words spewed from somewhere above her head, but the hands locked tighter around the back of her neck, squeezing until the pain took her breath, forced her to her knees and into the light of the courtyard.

While another laughed, Anna bit back her cry of fear and instead concentrated on the cold steel of the knife hidden in her waistband.

From her position, she saw three of them. Identical, with their masks of red, their swords unsheathed.

War cries sounded in the distance. Soon, she knew, there would be more. She snaked her hand to her side, then gripped her knife.

No warning came. No noise, no scent, not even the ping of a bullet. One moment, a soldier held Anna, the next he froze, his features stiff with disbelief as he fell dead beside her—a knife embedded in the back of his neck.

The other two turned in unison, but neither had time to do much more. Anna saw the flash of a sword, heard the slap of steel against skin, then the screams of pain. Both men fell next to their friend. They, too, were dead.

“Get up.” A large, meaty hand grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet, jarring her knife free. With a thud it hit the ground. Her captor’s eyes strayed to the blade, then back to her.

“Pick up your weapon,” the man ordered, leaving his own in the dead soldier. “Now.” While his hand remained tight on her arm, he allowed her to stoop and grab the knife. For a moment she hesitated, gripping the handle.

“Do not be a fool.” His words were clipped, his tone annoyed. The man was a mountain of gloom towering over her with the crimson scarf draping most of his face. At five-six, her head came midway to his chest. His black robes caught in the wind and flitted against her in a devil’s dance, setting off a shiver of trepidation. By sheer willpower, she forced her fear back and stood her ground.

“I am your only way out, Anna Cambridge.”

The Al Asheera closed in, fanning out in a half circle and forcing the giant to shift his back to the tunnel’s vent.

“For now,” she answered, her chin raised, but the fear grew at his mention of her name. Quickly, she put the blade in her waistband, but left her fingers hovering over its handle.

Her action, while subtle, didn’t go unnoticed. Anna heard the grunt of surprise, then caught the giant’s gaze. His dark irises flickered with something—approval, maybe—before he shuttered the emotion closed.

Anna counted more than a dozen Al Asheera, some with swords raised high, others with guns leveled.

A spray of bullets peppered the ground in front of the rebels, kicking up dirt and forcing them to stop within feet of Anna and the giant. So close she caught the sour scent of their bodies, felt their excitement ripple through the air.

Her skin crawled with revulsion. Anna cradled Rashid with her free arm, for the hundredth time grateful he slept.

“Come any closer and die.” Her captor’s voice was pitched low, while the words he spoke were French. The language second only to Arabic in Taer.

The nearest soldier, older than most, with a scar that reached from his temple to nose, hesitated only slightly before he stepped toward the baby.

Her captor’s rifle discharged. Anna stifled a scream as Scar Face jerked, then stumbled while his hands grasped at his chest. Men shifted out of the way, let Scar Face fall, ignored him as he writhed on the ground in agony.

“Anyone else wish to come forward?”

“You cannot kill us all,” came the reply. A chorus of grunts followed his remarks.

“Move one more inch and you will be the second to die, Zahid,” her captor responded.

Anna gasped, recognizing the name. Zahid Al Asadi, cousin to King Jarek Al Asadi of Taer. The betrayal knifed through her.

Zahid salaamed, his black eyes flickering first over Anna, then Rashid. “We meet again, Miss Cambridge.” Anna’s gaze shifted toward the middle of the half circle until it rested on the man who spoke. Dressed as the rest with black robes and his red headgear, he wasn’t large in size. A good head beneath most of the men, with shorter legs and a fairly broad upper body. So large in fact it made him look top-heavy.

Before Anna could answer, Zahid turned toward the stranger. “And you are?”

The giant shook next to her. But when she spared a quick glance, she saw the set of his shoulders, the narrowed eyes and knew it wasn’t fear that caused him to vibrate, but rage. “I am a man holding an M4 assault rifle,” the giant rasped. Anna heard the click of the weapon, saw the Al Asheera shift back before he continued. “The bullets will cut most of you down in three seconds. Starting with you, Zahid.” Without hesitation he grabbed Anna by the scruff of the neck and brought her forward.

“You, in turn, will be firing at me and this woman.” When she cursed him and struggled, he tightened his grip. “Be quiet,” he snapped, his gaze not leaving the mob. “This is the daughter of the president of the United States. In her arms she holds Prince Rashid Al Asadi. What do you think will happen when they die in the cross fire?”

Zahid’s stance shifted, but not before Anna noticed the tight fists at his sides. “All right.” Zahid’s words were slick with oil, his tone cajoling. “You have made your point.”

The stranger released Anna. “As of this moment, they are my property. But I am more than willing to…sell them for a price.”

“If you care about our cause, you—”

“I have no allegiance to your crusade. I care only about their worth in ransom.”

Surprised, Anna glanced up. So the man wasn’t Al Asheera. He might work for another faction of terrorists, but it did not matter at this point. Escaping from one man would be much easier than escaping from a dozen.

“We will escort you into the palace,” Zahid responded. “And I will personally see you are rewarded.”

The man’s laugh was no different than his words, low and raspy. He nudged Anna behind him. The temptation to run prodded her, but she managed to quiet the urge. If she ran now, they would have no alternative but to shoot.

“I will find my own way to the palace.” Steadily, they backed away, the giant’s body now shielding her and the baby, his gun never wavering on the mob that followed. “Tell your father, Zahid, I will be in contact.”

The giant swung his machine gun toward the jeep and let go a burst of gunfire. An explosion shattered the air, the jeep burned in a ball of fire, putting a wall of flames between them and the soldiers.

Two of the rebels screamed in rage and rushed through the fire, but their robes caught the sparks and ignited. Some tried to save them, while others cried out and ran from the blaze.

The giant fired into the remaining Al Asheera even as he pushed her back toward the vent.

“Go through,” he ordered. “Now.”

Zahid grabbed a man, using him as human shield. Bullets struck the man’s chest. Still Zahid held him.