froze, his senses on high alert. Not that it took any effort to pinpoint the source of the noise. The racket that followed was unmistakable in direction and nature. Someone was inside Johara’s office and was turning it upside down.
Thief was the first thing that jumped into his mind.
But no. There was no way anyone could have bypassed security. Except someone the guards knew. Maybe one of Johara’s assistants was in there looking for the file she’d asked him for? But she had been clear she hadn’t trusted anyone else with her personal pass codes. So could one of her employees be trying to break into her files?
No, again. He trusted his gut feelings, and he knew Johara had chosen her people well.
Then perhaps someone who worked for Shaheen was trying to steal classified info only she as his wife would be privy to?
Maybe. Calling the guards was the logical next step, anyway. But if he’d jumped to conclusions it could cause unnecessary fright and embarrassment to whomever was inside. He should take a look before he made up his mind how to proceed.
He neared the door in soundless steps, not that the person inside would have heard a marching band. A bulldozer wouldn’t have caused more commotion than that intruder. That alone was just cause to give whomever it was a bit of a scare.
Peeping inside, he primed himself for a confrontation if need be. The next moment, everything in his mind emptied.
It was a woman. Young, slight, wiry. With the thickest mane of hair he’d ever seen flying after her like dark flames as she crashed about Johara’s office. And she didn’t look in the least worried she’d be caught in the act.
Without making a conscious decision, he found himself striding right in.
Then he heard himself saying, “Why don’t you fill me in on what you’re looking for?”
The woman jumped in the air. She was so light, her movement so vertical, so high, it triggered an exaggerated image in his mind of a cartoon character jumping out of her skin in fright. It almost forced a laugh from his lips at its absurdity yet its appropriateness for this brownie.
The laugh dissolved into a smile that hadn’t touched his lips in far too long as she turned to him.
He watched her, feeling as if time was decelerating, like one of those slow-motion movie sequences that signified a momentous event.
He heard himself again, amusement soaking his drawl. “I hear that while searching for something that evidently elusive, two sets of hands and eyes, not to mention two brains, are better than one.”
With his last word, she was facing him. And though her face was a canvas of shock, and he could tell from her shapeless black shirt and pants that the tiny sprite was unarmed, it felt as if he’d gotten a kick in his gut.
And that was before her startled expression faded, before those fierce, dark eyes flayed a layer off his skin and her husky voice burned down his nerve endings.
“I should have known the unfortunate event of tripping into your presence was a territorial hazard around this place. So what brings you to your poor sister’s office while she’s not around? Is no one safe from the raids of The Pirate?”
Two
Aram stared at the slight creature who faced him across the elegant office, radiating the impact of a miniature force of nature, and one thing reverberating through his mind.
She’d recognized him on the spot.
No. More than that. She knew him. At least knew of him.
She’d called him “The Pirate.” The persona, or rather the caricature of him that distasteful tabloids, scorned women and disgruntled business rivals had popularized.
She seemed to be waiting for him to make a comeback to her opening salvo.
A charge of electricity forked up his spine, then all the way up to his lips, spreading them wider. “So I’m The Pirate. And what do you answer to? The Tornado? The Hurricane? You did tear through Johara’s office with the comparative havoc of one. Or do you simply go with The Burglar? A very messy, noisy, reckless one at that?”
She tilted her head, sending her masses of glossy curls tumbling over one slim shoulder. He could swear he heard them tutting in sarcastic vexation that echoed the expression on her elfin face.
It also poured into her voice, its timbre causing something inside his rib cage to rev. “So are you going to stand there like the behemoth that you are blocking my escape route and sucking all oxygen from the room into that ridiculously massive chest of yours, or are you going to give a fellow thief a hand?”
His lips twitched, every word out of hers another zap lashing through his nerves. “Now, how is it fair that I assist you in your heist without even having the privilege of knowing who I’m going to be indicted with when we’re caught? Or are formal introductions not even necessary? Perhaps your spritely self plans on disappearing into the night, leaving me behind to take the fall?”
Her stare froze on him for several long seconds before she suddenly tossed her hair back with a careless hand. “Oh, right...I remember now. Sorry for that. I guess having you materialize behind me like some genie surprised me so much it took me a while to reboot and access my memory banks.”
He blinked, then frowned. Was she the one who’d stopped making sense, or had his mind finally stopped functioning? It had been increasingly glitch riddled of late. He had been teetering on the brink of some breakdown for a long time now, and he’d thought it was only a matter of time before the chasm running through his being became complete.
So had his psyche picked now of all times to hit rock bottom? But why now, when he’d finally found someone to jog him out of his apathy, even if temporarily; someone he actually couldn’t predict?
Maybe he’d blacked out or something, missed something she’d said that would make her last words make sense.
He cleared his throat. “Uh...come again?”
Her fed-up expression deepened. “I momentarily forgot how you got your nickname, and that you continue to live down to it, and then some.”
Though the jump in continuity still baffled him, he went along. “Oh? I’m very much interested in hearing your dissection of my character. Knowing how another criminal mastermind perceives me would no doubt help me perfect my M.O.”
One of those dense, slanting eyebrows rose. “Invoking the code of dishonor among thieves? Sure, why not? I’m charitable like that with fellow crooks.” That obsidian gaze poured mockery over him. “Let’s see. You earned your moniker after building a reputation of treating other sentient beings like commodities to be pillaged then tossed aside once their benefit is depleted. But you reserve an added insult and injury to those who suffer the terrible misfortune of being exposed to you on a personal level, as you reward those hapless people by deleting them from you mind. So, if you’re seeking my counsel about enhancing your performance, my opinion is that you can’t improve on your M.O. of perfectly efficient cruelty.”
Her scathing portrayal was the image that had been painted of him in the business world and by the women he’d kept away by whatever measures necessary.
When
