Veiled by Choice (Radical Book 3) Page 8

  His house was turning into a ####-ing daycare. Kaleb looked at the Iraqi girl and her mummy-wrapped mother and groaned. He needed a translator in his house just to know what the heck all these people were saying. Then again, maybe little kid screaming was just as annoying in any language.

  Also, he needed to find all these women and children more food, because they’d be out of food and water come tomorrow morning.

  His phone beeped. Cass! He’d texted her yesterday to see if she’d gotten fans running in his soaked apartment.

  Your landlord sent all your belongings to the dump before I got there. Sorry.

  No! That wasn’t legal. My birth certificate and social security cards were in my apartment! Kaleb’s head spun.

  Beep. Cass’s number popped on the screen. I tried to pick up your truck, but the mechanic had sold it. I contacted the police. They said your mechanic has a criminal record. You should cut your vacation short. I can only do so much.

  Cut this vacation short? If only that were actually an option. He shoved the phone in his back pocket, because there was absolutely nothing he could do to fix this before he found Ava. Straightening, he took a long look at the surreal sight of the black-robed “wife” the emir had rewarded him with.

  The power, the women, the sex, that’s all ISIS’s followers talked about. How was this actually supposed to be sexy though? One got multiple sweating women and a bunch of bawling babies shoved inside one’s house without half enough food to feed the inordinate number of mouths that a lack of birth control created. The bar scene possessed about a hundred times more sex and the women didn’t all look like ghosts.

  Granted it stunk more to be an ISIS woman than an ISIS man, but abusing women wasn’t really half as much fun as ISIS made it out to be in their propaganda fliers.

  “Fatima, she will be quiet and she cooks and cleans well. She will not bother you, husband.” The voice emanating from the black tent spoke perfect English.

  He gawked at his so-called wife. “You’re American?”

  “A Brit.” The woman reached up and unfastened a tent peg, or whatever it was that held those burka-things in place. The black cloth slid off her head to billow around her shoulders. She stood stiff, shoulders rigid, as the waviest strands of red-gold hair he’d ever seen tumbled down her back.

  Slowly, she slid the black cloth off her shoulders. The robe fell open, revealing jeans so tight the pockets stretched.

  ISIS recruited from England, he’d read that online, but what the #### would cause a girl like this to join ISIS?

  “I’m Jessica. May I know your name, husband?” She slipped out of the black robe thing and stood there wearing a white tank top so thin he could see her bra straps. She placed one hand coyly on her hip. The bizarre sight boggled the imagination.

  He felt his eyes strain with bulging as a flat-out denial rose to his lips. They were not married. That stranger arching her boobs in front of him was not his wife. But this girl had joined ISIS willingly. Perhaps the emir had sent her to spy on him.

  That would actually be a pretty brilliant plan on the baklava-loving man’s part. Now he needed to keep his mouth shut not just at work, but at home. He narrowed his gaze as he looked at the spy. “I’m Kaleb, Kaleb Schlensky.”

  He’d let the woman stay here for twenty-four hours to honor the emir’s “gift.” Kaleb rolled his eyes. Then he’d get this spy out of his home by divorcing her. Divorce was like super easy under Islamic Sharia Law, right? Something about saying “I divorce you” three times.

  CHAPTER 10

  The hollow core door shut, giving him one measly inch of protection from the constant chaos of small children occurring in this five-hundred-square-foot apartment. Kaleb swirled his fork through the disgusting pile of vegetables and beans as he stared at the other wall that stood all of three feet away from him in this twenty-five-square-foot bedroom that lacked even a mattress. He’d found a couple blowup mattresses and screwed together a metal bunk bed frame in the biggest bedroom for the kids.

  Now, of course, that oldest boy was probably going to head-dive off of it and break his collarbone because the kid never sat still. Kaleb took one vomit-inducing bite of the food on his plate. Sure he was a doctor and supposed to be extolling the virtues of all the magnesium, fiber, potassium, and vitamin A in this stinking heap of boiled gunk.

  Truth is, though, when he gagged down an iceberg lettuce salad with the hospital cafeteria burgers, he considered it success. What the obesity research studies said about low income kids acquiring a taste for junk food really was true.

  After putting himself through med school, he now had a brand-new vehicle, a luxury flat, and a taste for fine wine and triathlons, but he’d never entirely risen above fast food and excessive amounts of processed sugar.

  Was Ava eating beans somewhere in this city too? Ava hated beans. Where was she?

  The sound of kids screaming, grunting, and sloppily eating food vibrated against the walls. The noises boomed through a covered grate at floor level. Something thudded against the cheap door.

  He jumped to his feet and threw the door open. Outside the door, a toddler girl beamed at him. Then, she promptly yanked off her diaper and spilled poop across the tattered carpet.

  In the dining room, the oldest boy jumped on the table. The two girls tossed dishes in the air as they flourished a dish towel between their grubby hands. The Yazidi woman sang a song at what sounded like the top of her lungs.

  “Can you all shut up?” he shouted. They couldn’t even speak English. He’d told them to shut up five times today and the horrible little urchins merely continued bouncing off furniture. Also, the translator had just texted him to be at the hospital at o’dark-thirty and he’d spent last night drowning in the Tigris, so he really did need sleep.

  With a groan, he stepped back into his “House of Horrors”-style bedroom. This was why he was never having kids.

  A pace away, the British girl spun around. She jumped on a chair and said something in Arabic.

  The entire house hushed.

  Kaleb passed his hand across his eyes. He could hear himself breathe. He could smell the, granted disgusting, bean mush. The pounding headache he’d had all day subsided.

  He counted silently. One, two, three. Still, no noise.

  The little boy tiptoed to the table, clambered up in his chair, and quietly dug his spoon into his mush. The silence reverberated through the house.

  Wow. He looked out the doorway at the British woman whose name he didn’t exactly remember. “Thank you. You’re amazing.”

  The girl stepped down from the chair. Moving silently on bare feet, she passed through his doorway.

  Okay? Way to crowd his bedroom. The three-foot by eight-foot space looked even tinier with her in it. The rickety lamp made a pattern on her face through the broken plastic of the lamp shade. Stained vinyl stretched out across the floor. A rotting patchwork quilt crumpled by the wall. He’d given all the rest of the blankets in this dilapidated house to the obnoxious children.

  Moving past him, the girl touched the battered door. Like a whisper, it slid shut, latching against the doorframe. Then, the girl moved toward him. She strutted as she walked, like some runway model, her hips rising and falling with each over-emphasized step.

  Tilting his head, he stared at the uncanny sight in front of him.

  “Well then, Dr. Schlensky,” the girl planted one bare foot on the edge of his moldy quilt, and leaned toward him, her slinky tank top riding up her stomach to reveal skin. “How long have you been in Mosul?”

  What was that girl’s name? Kaleb screwed up his forehead as he tried to remember. Blood pounded against his temples from way too many hours without sleep. With a buzzing noise, his phone vibrated against the wall. He knelt on the floor and reached over the quilt for his cell. More group texts from ISIS. He hit Mute Conversation.

  The girl touched his knee and crouched on the quilt, her tank top falling off cleavage. She wiggled her shoulders and her shirt
slid down her chest. “A week?”

  No way. Within a week, he intended to rescue his sister and get out of this hell-hole along with the five kids and the captive Yazidi woman. Kaleb shook his head. “Last night.” Was there any possibility he could get back to civilized parts in time to get some of his medical research applications in? He’d already missed ten of the applications’ deadlines since arriving in Iraq.

  Thud. The girl plopped herself on the moldy quilt right next to him.

  What was this girl even doing in his room? And what was her name again? Kaleb raised one eyebrow as he waited for her to leave.

  Instead, she scooted closer to him. Her skin felt smooth as she slid her hand across his. He moved back. His knee knocked her bent leg.

  At the periphery of his vision, lamplight reflected off the shiny handle of the closed door. “Goodbye. See you tomorrow.” When he divorced her. Rising, Kaleb crossed to his bedroom door and grabbed the handle to show her out.

  The girl yanked her shirt off. Lingerie more suited to a pinup than ISIS territory clung to her light skin. Rising to a stand, she peeled her jeans off her legs. The material landed against the tile floor with a flutter.

  “Um, what are you doing?” With the way she was mincing around his room clothed in nothing but lace, he couldn’t help but look. The girl was hot. More hot than he’d ever expected shrouded in layer after layer of black.

  “Want to?” Her voice was suggestive, and British accents were way sexier than he remembered them on TV.

  “To what?” His hand dropped from the door handle as he stared at her.

  A tiny blush rose up her cheeks, but she kept her voice steady. “Do you fancy a bit of the other?”

  “You mean sex?” He blinked. From the way she was strutting, he was going to guess so, but only bloody tea-drinkers would come up with a euphemism that absurd.

  She nodded, bringing her creamy chin up, then down. “Do you want to?”

  “Do you want to?”

  “Yes.” Her voice possessed a lilting grace, like Elizabeth Bennet come to life in ISIS territory. Yes, ISIS territory! This was like some weird computer game come to life.

  Rather than giving him time to respond, she unhooked her bra. Then pressed her naked body in his face.

  Kaleb stepped back against the door. The girl advanced.

  Russians used naked spies too. Handy and all for intelligence gathering. Guess ISIS had gone to the Russians for inspiration. He was way too smart to fall for the naked spy trick.

  Moving her bare arms up around his neck, she kissed his mouth. Hesitation lingered in her movements, even as she added U.K. determination to France’s version of kissing.

  If she was a spy, she was a skilled one. Kaleb looked down at her. The taste of summer lingered on her lips as her hair fell down in tendrils around her pale shoulders.

  She ran her hands across him, a delicateness to her movements. As she dropped her hands, his entire shirt parted, each button undone by those fingers. She sashayed back a step away from him. Each time she shifted her bare legs, it showed the curve of her hips and her waist.

  Grabbing his hand, she tugged him toward the quilt on the floor. His knee touched the frayed patchwork as she drew him over her, the entire thing surreal. This was not how he’d envisioned a terrorist camp.

  Forget Russian spy tricks and resisting the enemy. If she was going for this, who was he to tell her nay?

  He touched her leg, her skin so soft beneath his fingers. The silky feel of lingerie slid beneath his hand. “How the #### did you find a Victoria’s Secret in ISIS territory?”

  She smiled at him, arching her full lips, which glistened underneath her dark lashes. “The recruiters tell the foreign girls to pack lingerie.”

  Recruiters? He jolted away from her. His back slammed against the plaster wall. She knelt on the quilt, her bare knees indenting the stained cloth.

  Instead of the girl’s lovely red hair, which flowed over each exquisitely naked curve, he saw his sister. He saw Ava’s brown hair tugged back into a narrow pony tail and her knees skinned from basketball practice.

  Was that bastard terrorist acting just like this with his sister right now? Oh, to aim an M16 at the pedophile’s head.

  The girl touched his chest and moved her bare body on top of him.

  He flung the girl off of him with less gentleness than he probably should have used. “Get dressed.”

  “Have I displeased you, husband?” Her chin quivered. Her eyes were as big as jewels, but he didn’t look into them.

  “Put some clothes on already, okay?” He yanked his shirt back on.

  Her eyelashes drooped as she picked up her abandoned jeans. “Where should I sleep?

  “Not here.” He yanked his rotting patchwork quilt closer to the wall and turned his back to her. Last thing he needed was an exploited girl intent on selling her body snuggled up next to him all night.

  Beep. His cell phone dinged. Group texts of Koran verses popped on his phone, some in gibberish, some in English. The Muslim rabbi person sent out a rules list too called fatwas. The fatwas quoted Koranic texts and told you how to live your life down to the most minute detail.

  With a groan, Kaleb threw himself on the rotting quilt. He did not need some deity telling him how to live his life.

  The door opened and shut again with a little puff of air as the girl left. Jessica, that’s what she’d said her name was. As nighttime brought chill desert breezes through the cracks in the house’s foundation, Kaleb yanked the quilt over his body.

  Had Ava been as intent on welcoming her pedophile’s advances as the deluded woman in his home who obviously fancied having sex with a terrorist this night? He couldn’t even bear to answer that question in his head.

  Sweat poured down Kamal’s forehead. The barrel of his rifle still felt hot to the touch from police duty. Other holy warriors lounged in this warehouse, the coolest place in the city right now. Still a half hour left until sunset when he could quench his thirst. Kamal tugged out a prayer rug to pray and connect with Allah during the blessed month of Ramadan.

  Omar kicked the water drum next to him. The blue plastic jostled against the concrete floor. “Jessica was my reward. First, the emir delays the wedding for weeks, and now he gives her to this bootlicker?”

  “The man spared the emir pain. He’s a doctor. That’s his job. He’s not risking his life like the rest of us.” Kamal dropped onto the fifty-gallon drum. As much as he delighted in serving Allah in Islamic State, he was beginning to feel unappreciated. The first few months after he joined a jihadist group, his entire family blew up his phone with messages, alternately cursing at him and begging him to come home.

  Today was his nineteenth birthday, and he hadn’t received a single text from his family for good or ill. Had they forgotten he existed? Taking off his spectacles, Kamal rubbed at the smudges on the glass with the edge of his nylon T-shirt.

  Lowering his voice, Omar leaned so close to Kamal that his black beard scratched Kamal’s cheek. “I want Kaleb Schlensky dead and I want Jessica as my wife.”

  “We are brothers in Islamic State.” Kamal shoved the man’s shoulder. “You should not covet your brother’s wife.”

  Omar cursed. “The emir promised me if Kaleb divorces Jessica, then I can have her. The Western men are always divorcing their wives.”

  Across the room, Raja laughed. “Perhaps we can learn something from Western men.” He clicked the touchpad on his laptop. From the sound of the snorts and curse words emanating from the three men huddled beside him, they were looking at porn.

  Kamal scowled. He’d seen all too many mujahideen view porn since he joined ISIS. Unlike the evil West, ISIS respected their wives and daughters and would never allow them to be degraded by a photograph of even their uncovered face, let alone their naked body.

  Kamal jumped to his feet. “You should not be watching that.” He slammed Raja’s laptop shut.

  “Hey.” Raja yanked his laptop out of Kamal’s hands. �
�The emir himself gave this DVD to me.”

  “We obey Allah’s divine law, not the emir’s.” Kamal jerked the laptop’s cord out of the outlet. “We will not turn into the wicked West where pornographic films overtake the Great Satan’s TV sets both day and night.”

  “This is different.” Raja tilted his head as he looked up from his seat on a wooden box. “We would never allow the TVs to stream this material to civilians, but this is halal allowed because we are holy warriors for Allah. Whatever keeps our morale up, that Allah will allow to us because we do his holy work.”

  Could that be true? Kamal fell one step back. He clenched his fingers over the rounds on the bandolier circling his shoulder.

  Reopening the laptop, Raja turned the screen toward him. Kamal’s heart stopped as he saw the most engrossingly mind-gripping image of nakedness, beauty, and power that he’d ever laid eyes on. He felt his pupils widen as the overwhelming urge to click the Next button and see what other images the computer held overtook him.

  “It is halal allowed, I promise you, my brother. I asked the imam myself. Here, you try it.” Raja extended a clear thin case with a DVD inside it.

  Sounded good to him. Kamal closed his hand on the porn DVD.

  CHAPTER 11

  The darkness before dawn still enshrouded the house as Jessica put the coffee pot to boil. Another half hour where they could eat and drink before the sun rose and the Ramadan fast began. She needed to get as much food and liquid into the children as possible. She dished beans into a bowl for Fatima and unscrewed the lid to a plastic water bottle, the last liquid that would pass the girl’s lips for sixteen hours, per ISIS’s rules.

  Fatima took the bowl. Hot steam rose across her pale face. Her thin shoulders trembled as tears trickled down her hollow cheeks. “I want my mama.”

  “I know, little one.” Jessica pressed her down onto a wooden chair at the dining room table. A little boy ran into the room, bare feet sliding on the carpet. Jessica smiled at the child and held out a bowl of food for him.