Veiled by Choice (Radical Book 3) Read online

  A toddler cried. Jessica turned, mind hazy, as the older Yazidi boy yanked a ball from his little brother. The toddler’s head thumped against an upturned chair. Tears spouted from his eyes.

  The poor thing! Jessica ran to him. Her knee scraped the turquoise carpet as she pulled the child into her lap.

  With a scowl, the Yazidi woman elbowed her out of the way and grabbed the boy.

  “I was only trying to help him.” Jessica’s lower lip trembled, the skin chapped in this never-ending heat.

  Red flamed across all the children’s faces in this oven of a house where no one could drink water. The Yazidi woman grabbed a bowl and sat at the table with the toddler.

  Jessica jumped to her feet. “It’s not sunset yet. You can’t eat.” Even if her Arabic did have an accent, she was fluent after three years in this place.

  The woman shrugged and handed the toddler a spoon as steam rose from the bowl of soup.

  Fear shook through Jessica’s limbs. The woman would leave crumbs. Water would spill. Either Kaleb, or perhaps one of the mujahideen who delivered water, would discover how many of the plastic bottles they’d gone through. Breaking the Ramadan fast ensured a beating from Al-Khansaa at least, if not death.

  Dry air flushed through Jessica’s throat as she spoke, increasing the nagging sensation of thirst. “What if my husband comes home?” Kaleb hadn’t been home in over three days, though an ISIS soldier had left another bag of beans and more bottled water at their door—presumably at Kaleb’s request.

  The Yazidi woman snorted and dished food onto her children’s plates. Fatima scrambled up on a chair beside the Yazidi children and they all began digging into the pot of lentils.

  A mujahideen’s fury would flame hot indeed if he learned that those in his own household were not honoring the most blessed fast, but maybe Kaleb wouldn’t come home again tonight. Jessica stared at the tantalizing sight of plastic water bottles that glistened in the chandelier’s light.

  A crimson tapestry hung beside the wonky dining room shelves where the water bottles sat, lending a faint pink hue to the reflection on the plastic bottles. Jessica felt herself salivate.

  A footstep sounded behind the door. No! Terror tore through Jessica. “Quick.” She motioned to the Yazidi woman. “Hide the food.”

  Her heart pounded against her spaghetti strap top as sweat poured down her stomach. Perhaps it was just a mujahideen delivering water. He’d not expect her to let him in with her husband gone.

  Standing to tiptoes, she looked out the peephole in the door. She clapped her hand against her mouth to stifle her scream.

  It was Kaleb.

  The world froze. Numbness spread out from her heart as she floated up above her body and looked down at the sight below. Food littered the table. Lentils spilled across the carpeted floor. Bottles of water stood half-finished on the tablecloth. Fatima stared at her, skinny fingers frozen around a shiny fork.

  The deadlock tumbled inside the latch. The handle twisted from the outside. Jessica leaped for the door handle and clutched it in two hands as she threw her entire weight against the door.

  The handle turned anyway. With a little gasp, the door creaked open. He was too strong.

  Panic rushed through her as her cold fingers fell from the handle. The opening door knocked her back against the wall behind it. A shriek stuck in her parched throat.

  With the thud of boot against tile, Kaleb entered his home.

  Half-empty water bottles still sat on the table, a partially drunk cup of tea sending up steam beside a plate of rice. Blood pounded behind Jessica’s eyes. Her knees went weak.

  Without saying a word, Kaleb pushed the door shut behind him. The smell of the hospital still clung to him. Dust and greasy sweat mixed on his face.

  Fatima clenched the chair spindles behind her, face white, as the half-eaten food before her showed all too clearly that the girl had broken the Ramadan fast. The other children still happily gulped down food, unaware of what was occurring.

  Jessica’s stomach upended. Her knees knocked together. She’d take responsibility for the infraction, spare the children if she could. Taking one step, she reached out and touched her husband’s arm. “I can explain.” Her voice came out as a squeak. She didn’t even dare meet the man’s gaze as she stood there, toes spread against the cool tile.

  He cold-shouldered her away and kept walking to the hallway.

  Dread turned Jessica’s sweat to blood. She wrung her hands. He’d divorce her now! The emir would give her and Fatima to Omar to murder. What could she do?

  The white plaster walls in the darkened room gave no answer.

  Before the hour ended, he’d see Ava. Kaleb threw off his jacket and yanked open the bathroom closet door. The shelves stared back at him empty, not a towel in sight. He’d stopped back at the house for the sole purpose of five minutes in the shower to rinse off the hospital stench in the brown water that ran through this house’s pipes.

  Would the bedraggled daycare that the emir had “rewarded” him with give him those five minutes in peace? Of course not.

  Al Merhaad. Al Merhaad. A perhaps five-year-old boy chattered in Arabic as he bounced off the cracked porcelain of the sink. Kaleb grabbed for a bar of soap and checked his phone once again. Raja the Pedophile hadn’t texted him the house address yet. How was Ava holding up?

  A toddler dunked his head in the toilet bowl, once, twice, a third time.

  The kid could get an infection. “Stop.” Kaleb grabbed the toddler around the waist and pushed the five-year-old out of the bathroom. He slammed the door shut.

  It popped back open from the other side because no ####-ing locks secured doors in this house.

  Kaifa haloka. The preteen that Jessica had brought to the house started shoving towels at him. Not like one towel in a helpful, nice sort of way, but an onslaught to rival Genghis Khan’s hordes piling up around his feet, gathering dirt from the tiles as the worn-out towels avalanched up to his knees.

  “Out! Out!” Kaleb cried, but no one spoke English.

  Through the crack in the open door, a baby came hurtling at a breakneck crawl. The baby’s hand hit a puddle of dirty water and his, or her, not really sure on gender, arms and legs went flying out from underneath him.

  With a mighty flail, the baby smashed his chin against the tile and screamed to put banshees to shame.

  Blood dribbled down the kid’s jaw. Kaleb knelt by the baby. Just a busted lip. Taking one of the towels, Kaleb dabbed off the excess blood.

  A swooshing noise sounded along with pounding footsteps. The Yazidi woman rushed into the bathroom. Grabbing her baby, she clasped him to her chest and started crooning to him.

  In a three-bedroom house, every single occupant had to stand in this bathroom?

  Seizing the toddler’s hand, Kaleb, as gently as possible, shoved six people out of the bathroom and shut the door. He turned on the shower faucet. Brownish water that stank streamed from the pipes.

  Was this rank stuff what the rest of Mosul, who didn’t get bottled water from the emir, had to drink now with the siege and constant mortar strikes affecting the water supply?

  Poor people. He only hoped Pedophile Raja was high enough up in the emir’s good graces that Ava got bottled water. With a groan, he stepped into the shower.

  The cracked tile felt slick beneath his bare feet and, if you ignored the stench, the lukewarm water that flowed from the showerhead felt refreshing in the 120-degree heat.

  The water streamed over his hair down to the scratchiness of the beard that he didn’t have to shave, or trim, or do anything to here in Islamic State, which was kind of awesome.

  A whoosh of air came from where his bathroom door was supposed to be firmly shut. Jessica slid through the cracked door and stood right in his face, a whole nine inches from the shower in the cramped space between toilet and plastic curtain. She opened her mouth. “May I help you?”

  “No!” Sure the house was only five hundred square feet, but did ever
yone have to stand in his ten square feet of it? There were four hundred and ninety more square feet!

  “I’m sorry I asked.” Jessica trembled. Tears slipped down her face.

  “Why are you crying?” That’s all she ever did, mixing in with the whines of six children underfoot. He grabbed for a towel.

  “What have I done to make you hate me?” She hiccupped a sob, emphasizing her chest. Her lacey booty shorts were only one shade darker than her skin and her stance, toes turned in on the tile, made her gluteus maximus muscles jut out of the fabric. Somehow, he’d always imagined Islamic State women wearing burka-things inside the house, not practically lingerie.

  He reached for his shirt. “I don’t hate you.” Why his approval mattered to her, he didn’t know.

  “How can I please you?”

  Never have joined this, his mental choice of words was not fit for mixed company, terrorist organization. He groaned. “Do you need a hug?”

  Couldn’t Islamic State have at least chosen an emotionally stable ISIS woman to throw into his hole-in-the-wall?

  A trickle of tears streamed from Jessica’s eyes, causing some kind of makeup to streak down her face. Her heaving breaths piled over each other with each sob, as much as she tried to contain them. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cry.” She kept repeating those words with each little hiccup as if she expected someone to lop off her head for crying.

  Kaleb laid one hand on her back in a comforting gesture, which would hopefully raise her to an emotionally stable enough level to leave his bathroom. “You’re a perfectly nice person.” Though she had joined ISIS. Had she’d done that willingly? He’d like to think she hadn’t. Also, she sure didn’t seem like the calculating type of person ISIS would choose as a spy. Unless these tears were all a façade?

  Jessica tilted her gaze up to him. A smile quavered on her lips. She rotated in his arms and her breasts jammed up against him. Her almost bare leg brushed the towel around his waist and her slinky top inched up to reveal a perfectly rounded navel.

  Now she was happy? It was like trying to pet a puppy who needed constant approval. Kaleb groaned. She was just a kid. How old was she anyway? He’d guessed mid-twenties before, but with the way she was crying, he was now thinking more like sixteen. You never could tell with girls.

  With another hiccup, Jessica tilted her chin up and looked into his eyes. Her hip rubbed against him, her slinky shirt damp now from where her every curve pressed against his bare chest.

  Maybe Jessica wasn’t a spy, but had been duped into joining ISIS at fourteen like Ava had. Wait, fourteen? This was super pervy if he was noticing a minor’s curves. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty. Do you think I look old?” Jessica wiped at her tears, which just streaked the makeup over her red eyes. The motion moved the strings that held her shirt on, making the whole thing half-fall off her bra.

  He did not have time to emotionally babysit this girl who’d been idiot enough to join ISIS as a teenager. Also, could one not get thirty seconds of privacy in this house to put one’s pants on? He grabbed his pants. Jessica still stood in the bathroom, not taking the hint.

  The shower curtain would have to suffice as privacy.

  Ding. His phone beeped from inside his pant pockets. A text from Raja.

  Jessica stared at the thin shower curtain that separated her from the man who held her and Fatima’s fates in his hands.

  “Where’s Salaam Street?” Kaleb cursed, the same as he had cursed over the phone at Ava’s husband.

  Toes curled against the wet tile, Jessica trembled. This man did not fear God. He would surely divorce her. Already he grew sick of her. Fear shook through Jessica.

  From the kitchen, she heard the uneven sounds of Fatima’s chewing and swallowing. What did Kaleb plan to do about them breaking the fast? He’d said nothing. She had to find a way to ingratiate herself with him!

  “I know where Salaam Street is. I can show you.” Jessica’s voice cracked. She held her breath. Perhaps if she could prove herself useful to him, then he wouldn’t divorce her.

  Kaleb stuck his head out of the shower curtain, dressed now. “You do?”

  “I know all the streets in this city. I’ve lived here three years.” She gripped the edge of the bathroom counter to keep her knees from giving way. All of her street-walking experience, however, came from her nine months in Al-Khansaa. Before that, as a married woman, she’d never been allowed to leave the house.

  Kaleb shoved his flip phone into his back pocket. For the first time, interest sparked in his eyes.

  Fingers clenched, Jessica held her breath. Please, Allah, let Kaleb forget that the children broke the Ramadan fast and think of other things. Her heart sank. Allah would not answer that prayer, for he demanded the thirty-day fast.

  Kaleb grabbed a washcloth from the gargantuan pile on the floor and rubbed it across his wet face in a circular motion, passing down his square forehead, around his clear eyes, over his cheekbones, to the peach fuzz on his jaw. “Want to come with me?”

  “Yes!”

  “Come on then.” Grabbing his jacket, he slung it over his shoulder and headed out of the bathroom, down the hallway, to the front door. He twisted the handle and exposed a view of the dining room to the entire street. She wore nothing more than shorts and a camisole!

  “Wait,” she cried and bounded back, away from the entire street’s view. She slipped on her abaya and started wrapping on face veils at a desperate rate.

  He grunted impatiently as he paused, strong fingers clasping the door’s handle. It sounded like he muttered, “That’s right. I forgot. Have to throw on the black ghost outfit before going anywhere. Nix that, ghosts get eyeholes.”

  But a mujahideen would never say that.

  CHAPTER 13

  Darkness fell around Kaleb as they walked the streets of Mosul. A cross street rose in front of them, tiny houses set back from the street by arid yards. “Which way?”

  “Left,” the black lump that was Jessica said.

  Sweat soaked his shirt. He could only imagine how she sweltered underneath that tent. White Arabic letters etched a street sign. Jessica pointed to a number on the yellow house to their right. “It’s that one,” she said, voice no louder than a murmur.

  Striding across the pebbled walkway, he stopped on the concrete doorstep. Kaleb pounded his fist against the door.

  Heavy footsteps sounded inside.

  A man swung open the door. And it was all he could do not to greet the man’s face with his fist, or preferably a bullet.

  “Welcome, brother.” Raja Khan wrapped one sicko, pedophile arm around Kaleb’s shoulder and gestured inside with his other hand.

  Kaleb managed to not use the opportunity to stab his knife up through the man’s gut into his pancreas, mostly because he didn’t own a knife. If only he could get his hands on some kind of gun.

  Like a black whisper, Jessica followed him through the doorway.

  Inside the house, a tile floor spread out to a dining room area where plump cushions surrounded a low table.

  Kaleb glared at the tapestries that hung over the hallway, blocking any view of interior rooms. “I want to see my sister.”

  “Please, sit, drink tea with me.” Raja motioned to the steaming teapot surrounded by brass cups that the twilight illuminated.

  “I want to see my sister.”

  “Ava has made baklava for us. Slightly blackened, but, you know, she is young.” Raja laughed through his nose as Kaleb considered stuffing that nasal cartilage up into Raja’s cranium with his fist. Raja smiled. “She and your wife will eat in the women’s dining room.”

  “I want to see my sister.” Kaleb spoke through clenched teeth.

  Raja drew his eyebrows down, as if displeased to be contradicted. He glanced to the curtained-off hallway. “Ava.”

  The curtain parted in an instant, as if his sister had been standing there waiting for permission to enter. Black covered every part of Ava except the round mo
on of her face, as if a bolt of fabric had spat up on her.

  No bruises marred her skin and she smiled as she swiftly crossed the carpet. “I’m so glad you’re here.” Ava threw her arms around Kaleb’s neck and hugged him.

  He touched her black headcloth. Dark circles lingered under Ava’s eyes. She looked so different than the happy kid in a ponytail who raced him on her bicycle last summer. He swallowed a sticky lump as he looked at her.

  “Thank you for coming.” Tears shone in Ava’s eyes as she lowered her voice to a whisper. She squeezed his hand. Her skin felt dry, as if she hadn’t taken a drink all day. “The sisters whose family also make jihad for Allah, their husbands respect them more.”

  No, bastards who got gunned down by his M16, they respected his sister more. Kaleb clenched his hand as he looked over Ava’s head at Raja, but he had to set up a foolproof escape plan for Ava before he shot his sister’s rapist.

  The bastard sat cross-legged on a cushion and raised a teacup to his lips. He smiled across a pillar of steam. “Congratulate me. My wife is pregnant.”

  “You’re ####-ing kidding me.” Twisting away from his sister, Kaleb stared at the man who acted like statuary rape, then impregnating an underage girl in a war zone with no medical help was a good thing. Ava could die without prenatal care and modern medicine.

  “I hope Ava has a son.” Raja’s white teeth showed as he grinned. “My wife in Saudi Arabia has given me two sons.” He beckoned for Ava. Dropping Kaleb’s hand, she moved toward the pedophile. She sat on the cushion beside him, a little mound of black hunched down by the thirty-one-year-old rapist!

  Leaning back, Raja motioned him to sit. “You have changed much since you swore at me on the phone a few weeks ago.”

  Right. Pretending to be a terrorist right now. Decapitating his sister’s rapist later. “I was surprised, but now I know why my sister joined Islamic State.” Kaleb emptied a cup of tea into his mouth to wash away the burning acid of the friendly words.