That further proved Scarlett was the person he’d always felt her to be, and that what she’d told him about her and Hiro was true. That revelation cleared away his last misconception about her.
But it still gave him no insight into her past.
Which meant there was one last option open to him.
Enlisting the combined investigative powers of his brothers.
He’d never before considered doing that. It had been the last thing he’d wanted—for them to find out about her, and about how close he’d come to unwittingly exposing them all.
But discovering the truth about her had become imperative. It now meant more to him than learning the truth about himself ever did.
Six
“So there’s a woman out there who knows everything about you. And you deem to tell us now? Five years after the fact?”
Raiden looked steadily across his executive desk at the three juggernauts who sat facing him in a semicircle, looking like a tribunal of demigods.
They were the three of his six brothers who’d been able to come for the face-to-face meeting. He’d just told them the short version of his history with Hannah/Scarlett.
The first one to talk after he’d finished was Numair, the leader of the Black Castle brotherhood. His leader.
Numair Al Aswad, or Phantom, the name he’d known him by for their twenty years in The Organization’s prison, had been the oldest among them and the one who’d been there longest. Each had found him already established as The Organization’s rising star when they’d come to the prison they’d eventually called Black Castle. Almost twenty-five of Numair’s forty years had been spent there, at first being trained, then later training others, starting with them. He had taught them his every stealthy and lethal method in espionage and execution.
He hadn’t only been the best operative in The Organization’s history, he’d also been the shrewdest, the one who’d chosen Raiden and his brothers out of hundreds of boys, judging them to be not only the best of the best but kindred spirits. Taking them on, making them his team, he’d guided them through the endless years of captivity. He was the one who’d forged their brotherhood and their blood oath to one day escape, amass wealth and power and bring down those who’d sold them as slaves and The Organization itself.
Numair had worked to that end since he’d been only ten. It had been his mind-bogglingly convoluted and long-term plan that had made it possible for them to finally escape, disappear and create their new identities. He and Richard, Rafael’s former handler, had also been the ones who’d led them into creating Black Castle Enterprises.
But like Raiden, Numair had remembered no specific details about his family before he’d been sold to The Organization. He’d only remembered a few names. One he’d ended up calling himself. The others he’d long realized were those of desert kingdoms. He’d searched, like Raiden, for his bloodline since their escape, and he’d recently found out that not only did he come from one of those kingdoms, but before his abduction, he’d been the heir to its throne.
But reclaiming his legacy wouldn’t be as easy as it was for Raiden. Numair’s return to his kingdom would turn his region upside down. It could even ignite a war.
Which was fine by Numair. Nothing would stop him from claiming what was his. And it wouldn’t be the first time he’d instigated armed conflicts.