BY: An asshole. I thought I knew what evil looked like...but that man...we all did our best to avoid him, and Safiya...she was scared of him.
ZC: Did she believe he would hurt her?
BY: He would rape her first before anything. The way he sometimes stared at her, when he knew the sheikh wasn't there to see him...it would make anyone's skin crawl. And it got worse after...
(BY stops speaking.)
ZC: Are you alright, Ms. Yildiz?
BY: There was this girl. Saul abducted...and raped her.
(ZC presents several photos to BY.)
ZC: Are any of these girls the—-
(BY points to the photo of Malina Atwan.)
BY: T-That's her.
ZC: You saw her in the sheikh's estate?
(BY slowly nods.)
BY: None of us knew her name. The first and only time most of us saw her was when Saul dragged her kicking and screaming to the dungeons. She would've died...if not for...
ZC: Someone rescued her?
BY: It was the princess. She was the only one with the courage to risk Saul's wrath by helping the girl escape.
ZC: Did Saul find out about the princess' involvement?
BY: No. But he suspected.
ZC: What would Saul have done if he found out the princess was behind the girl's escape?
BY: At that time, Urwa and I thought he was biding his time to turn the sheikh against his own daughter. And if that happens...he would've...he could've done a lot of things. Things that would've made the princess wish she were dead instead. But because he couldn't prove it, he made her watch instead.
ZC: Watch what?
BY: There was this little boy. Safiya was fond of him. He was the cook's son. And Saul...he had the boy taken from his home and made Safiya watch as his men...oh God, the child almost died that night. Saul wanted the princess to know that if she ever defied him, it would be others who'd pay the price, and...
(BY starts to cry.)
BY: He broke her that night. She changed. She wasn't the same. She never smiled again. And I was so terrified. If I thought there was a chance Urwa and I could take her away, or even speak to Sheikh Mahmud about Saul, we would have. But there was none. Saul had everyone terrified of him, and no one - not even the princess herself - could get to Mahmud without Saul being there.
ZC: This change that you noticed in the princess' behavior...is she still the same today?
(BY shakes her head.)
BY: Sheikh Altair changed that.
ZC: When they became betrothed?
BY: No. Before that.
ZC: When they first met in the palace?
BY: That wasn't the first time she saw him. That was the second time.
ZC: But Princess Safiya has never left Farigha before the day her father took her to the royal palace.
BY: Sheikh Altair visited Farigha once. When the Sand Wars ended, and people from every sheikhdom was clamoring for him.
ZC: Then this was...the year after Malina Atwan's escape?
BY: She was still withdrawn at that time, but when news broke out of the sheikh coming to Farigha, and people around us started excitedly sharing stories about the sheikh...it was the first time I saw a spark of life in her. It made Urwa and I so happy, so relieved we had a chance to get the old Safiya back, that we did everything to get our hands on anything about the sheikh. Every newspaper and magazine, everything that had the sheikh in it, we gave it to her...
ZC: Was her interest in the sheikh romantic in nature?
BY: A little, I think. Urwa was convinced it was so. But I wasn't. I think at that time she simply wanted to believe that someone good and brave...could also be strong. Enough to win over evil.
ZC: And when they finally met?
BY: They didn't.
ZC: But you said...
BY: I said it wasn't the first time for the princess to see Sheikh Altair. The first time was when the sheikh came to Farigha, and we helped Safiya to disguise herself and slip out.
ZC: So she saw him but didn't meet him.
BY: Exactly.
ZC: And you mentioned earlier that this was what caused her to change?
BY: When she returned to us, she was crying, and we were worried at first, until we realized, no...it was when we saw her eyes, and they were shining.
(BY starts crying again.)
BY: I still remember how she described him. A guardian angel. That was how perfect he had been to her. And yet—-
(BY turns to the two-way mirror.)
BY: You're there, aren't you? You heard everything, haven't you? Damn you. Goddamn you. How could you, damn you? She loved you. And yet you hurt her.
Three Years Ago
Chapter One
A pair of palace guards quietly shut the door as soon as the Emir Sheikh and all of his vassals were inside the war room. The five Al-Atassi sheikhs were the most powerful men in the kingdom, and together they made Ramil what the media liked to refer to as one of the world's "modern superpowers".
The meeting began with a quick recap, the king and his cousins going over the details of the recently concluded elections. Its results had been more than what they had allowed themselves to hope, with the council voting 120-0 in favor of Khalil remaining as Emir Sheikh. And as the laws of their land went, no council member from hereon would have the power to impeach Khalil and force him out of the throne.
One battle won, Khalil thought, but the war had just begun, and everyone in this room knew it. He glanced at Altair, who served as the kingdom's security adviser and highest-ranking military officer as commander of the Ramilian army. "I believe you have something for us?"
"Nem." Yes. "It's about Mahmud."
At Altair's nod, the female lieutenant standing behind him began handing out case folders to the sheikhs. Altair waited as his cousins went through the security report, and judging by the way their expressions simultaneously hardened, he knew the other sheikhs had come into the same conclusions as he had.
"The evidence against Sheikh Mahmud..." The first to speak was Rayyan, the blue-eyed Al-Atassi sheikh who headed the kingdom's finance department. "It's sufficient to establish an indefensible link between him and the coup, isn't it?"
"Nem." Altair's voice was underlined with cold contempt.
"What do you propose we do next?" Altair's younger brother, Malik, asked quietly.
"If it were up to me," Tarif drawled, "I'd have the bastard locked in the dungeons and throw away the key. Let him rot in there until his death." Such words coming from the kingdom's notorious playboy sheikh would've come as a shock to many, but to the four other men inside the room, the cold-blooded suggestion did not come as a surprise. Tarif's mastery of the art of deception had fooled the world into dismissing him as a lazy, ne'er do well prince...when the truth was the opposite.
"I'd normally second that," Khalil said with a humorless smile, "if not for the fact that we have yet to uncover the true masterminds behind the coup."
"Then you're thinking we should use Mahmud to flush them out," Rayyan murmured.
"If Altair thinks it best," Khalil answered. "I'm sure he has not called this meeting without a plan in mind."
Altair inclined his head in agreement. "As a matter of fact, there is one course of action I'd like to take." He paused. "And it will require an engagement ring." He saw his brothers stiffen and raised his hand mid-air to forestall their protests. "Hear me out first. Offspring of individuals like Mahmud are usually one of two types," Altair stated. "They've either been groomed to follow in their parents' footsteps from the onset...or they've been made to lead sheltered lives, for one reason or another."