Of course, if she accepted that he didn’t know Brianna, that meant that he hadn’t done anything to harm her. She rubbed her forehead, not sure what to think anymore.
“Look, the last time I heard from her was about ten days ago on Thursday. She sent me an e-mail with your family crest on it and the text of the letter sounded like you were doing something illegal. Rich people always think they can get away with whatever they want. If you’re actually doing something like price fixing or manipulating markets, then fine. I don’t care.” She hesitated, then corrected herself. “Well, I actually do care but I can’t do anything to stop you. But I won’t let anyone harm Brianna. She’s a sweet, gentle kind person who is way too trusting.”
“Unlike you, correct?’
She shifted in her chair, her mind shuttering at the stupid things she’d done when she’d trusted someone other than Brianna or Rachel. “No. I don’t trust many people.”
“Including me.”
“Especially you.”
He chuckled, still not offended. “Fair enough. You don’t know me well enough to accept that I wouldn’t do anything to harm your friend. So here’s what I propose…”
She sat up in her chair, excited by what he might say. “You’re going to release Brianna and we can go back home?” she asked hopefully.
“Why don’t you tell me why you think I harmed your friend?”
Nikki sighed. “I need my cell phone.”
At that same moment, a knock sounded at the door. After Nazar called out a sudden, “Enter!” a man walked in with her purse and her suitcase in tow.
She stared at the bags as if they were now foreign objects. “I didn’t even give you my room number!”
The man disappeared and they were once again left alone with Nikki staring at him suspiciously.
“You have to understand that this is not The United States. I am ruler here, my lovely. I don’t need a search warrant to enter a room. I don’t even need cause.”
She gasped and pulled back. “That’s horrible!”
“It is,” he agreed. “And at times in the past, that power has been abused. But in my case, I don’t abuse the power of my office.” With that, he reached into her purse and extracted her cell phone. “Now that you have your device, perhaps you could show me the evidence against me?”
Nikki took the phone, glaring at him the whole time while she unlocked the screen then scrolled through her messages. When she came to the one that Brianna had sent, she turned it around and showed it to him. “This is it.”
Nazar looked at the screen, thinking he would just see a message about her friend going out on the town or something similarly endearing. But when his eyes focused on the message, he was no longer amused. In fact, he swore under his breath, his mind working in ten different ways to figure out how to contain the problem.
He stood up abruptly, sliding her phone into his pocket. “I have to make some calls,” he said. “Why don’t you get some rest?” With that, he walked out of the room, leaving Nikki to
“His Highness has gone to his office. An urgent business matter has come up stare after him as if he’d lost his mind. And then it hit her. He’d taken her cell phone!
She started walking out of the suite but there were two burly men standing sentry outside. “Where did he go?” she asked angrily, trying to focus her anger on the man in question and not these two guards who probably had no idea what was going on. She could empathize!
“His Highness has gone to his office. An urgent business matter has come up.”
She blinked, not really understanding what that meant except that he had disappeared. “I need to speak with him.”
The man on the right spoke into what was most likely a microphone, waited a moment, then nodded his head. “His Highness is making a phone call. He will be with you shortly. He asked that you remain here and he will give you news as soon as he has anything.”
Nikki thought about that for a moment, not sure if she should trust the man or run screaming from the building. Although, she wasn’t really sure she would be allowed to run anywhere. She’d gotten into the palace, but she suspected that she wouldn’t be allowed to leave. At least, not without some stealthy moves on her part.
“Fine,” she said but with ill-humor. She didn’t really have a choice, she thought, and huffed as she went back into the suite. She sat down on the soft sofa, trying to figure out what she should do. She pictured Brianna trapped somewhere in this palace, scared and lonely, trying to figure out how to get herself out of a mess.
As she paced through the suite, something about the soothing colors drained her anxiety away. Or maybe it was the fact that she hadn’t really slept in the past few days, or perhaps it was the release of her anxiety over actually getting into the palace being eliminated. But whatever the reason, her fatigue was not something she could ignore any longer. By rights, she should be scared out of her mind because she was now in a more precarious position than she’d been in yesterday after sneaking into the country. But she didn’t feel worried for some reason.
After prowling around the suite, she stopped in front of the enormous bed covered in luxurious, dark coverings. The bed looked amazingly inviting and she sat down on the massive space, trying to figure out what her next move should be. She didn’t want to stay here, mostly because she was terrified of Nazar’s intentions and what might happen to her next. But also because she didn’t trust him to help her. He might have taken her cell phone, but that didn’t mean she was going to get anything from him. He’d already admitted that he had powers beyond what she was used to. He could do just about anything he wanted and no one would question him. Good grief, no one would even know!
It suddenly occurred to her that she was in the exact same position as Brianna. She might be in a nicer dungeon but she was still trapped, not sure what to do or how to get out of the pickle she’d gotten herself into.
She slipped onto the bed, leaning only slightly against the ultra-soft pillows. She didn’t want to fall asleep, but the stress of the past few days plus the lack of sleep caused her to become drowsy against her will. “Just a few minutes,” she told the silence of the room. Then she’d get up and find a way out of this latest little dilemma and find Brianna. Surely, a ten or fifteen minute nap wouldn’t hurt, would it?