Free Heir to a Dark Inheritance by Maisey Yates Page B

pockets?”
    “Hardly. But I was twelve and what he saw was the mind of a strategist. He was right. I had a gift for seeing all angles of a scenario, except, of course, in the instance where they caught me. I missed seeing that he had guards with him. That’s always bothered me.”
    “It has?”
    “No one likes to lose. Anyway, that was the start of my career in organized crime. They helped me hone my abilities and then they exploited them. Until I became too recognizable in Moscow. Until I got tired of playing the game. This was when I was maybe sixteen or so. But I left them with a lot of money in my pocket, though I have to say I’m not overly keen on wandering the streets in my hometown alone. I don’t trust how far that goodwill we parted with extends.”
    “Then what?” In spite of herself, she was fascinated. She should be scared, but she wasn’t. Not really.
    He started walking again and she jogged into place behindhim to keep up. “Then, I found out I had a reputation. A man found me when I was in Japan and asked me to do a job. To help a militia overthrow a very oppressive government.”
    “And you helped them.”
    “The price was right. I’m not a charity.”
    “But you did the job.”
    He nodded once. “I did. And I did it successfully. After that, word spread.”
    “And that’s what you did after that? Hired yourself out as a…weapon?”
    “For some years.”
    “And then?”
    “I had a mission here in Attar. To try and secure the borders. And for the first time, the mission went wrong. Sheikh Sayid was taken captive.” It was the first time she’d heard even a glimmer of true emotion in his voice. “And though I was offered another check, another job, I knew I couldn’t leave him there.”
    “You cared for him.”
    “I was the head of the mission—if it went wrong it was on me. When I take money to aid a certain faction then I am loyal to that faction until the job is done. The job wasn’t done.”
    “And you cared for him.”
    “Sayid is the most honorable man I have ever met, in a life spent surrounded by men who would sell their grandmothers for a chance at their version of glory. It was refreshing to meet someone who had nothing but loyalty to his family, to his country, no matter what he could achieve elsewhere. Sayid was taken into captivity because he deviated from the mission. Because he stopped a woman from being assaulted by two soldiers. I would not have done the same in his position, because at that time in my life, all I saw was the mission. The plan. And Sayid made me look past that for the first time.”
    Jada felt something shift around her heart. Dear heaven, she wasn’t starting to understand this man, was she? She’dgrown up in a comfortable, middle-class home in the U.S. Born to parents to who had risked everything, left their homeland, to build a better life for their children. How could she understand a man who had spent his life alone? A man who had witnessed, and very likely committed, terrible acts of violence? It made no sense.
    And yet, for some reason, she felt she did understand. She wasn’t sure why, or how…if it came back to hormones and the fact that he was just muscular enough to lull her into a stupor.
    Except, her hormones weren’t centered around her heart, and that was definitely where a good portion of the feelings were coming from. She felt for him. Sad, happy that he’d found Sayid. And the real danger lay in the fact that she wanted to know more. That she was curious about him. About what was beneath the layers of rock that he kept between himself and the world.
    Because there were layers. All shields were up with this man, no question. As he’d relayed the story of his desolate childhood, his life as a mercenary, there had been no emotion. Until the mention of Sayid.
    “And that’s how you ended up with a palace in the desert?”
    “That is the long version of the story, yes. The short version is, a sheikh gave me a palace. Women