Black Keys (The Colorblind Trilogy #1) (17 page)

“Why are you taking your wife with you?” I questioned, with a shocked expression and burning heart.

He didn’t answer. He just held Janna closer to his chest and looked down. I still waited for an answer that I didn’t even want to hear.

“The wife belongs where her husband is, Princess,” the prince replied for him in a quiet voice.

“What about me?” I pleaded, stomach clenching and chest swelling.

Janna turned her head and looked at me, questions in her teary eyes and confusion on her forehead.

“Like your husband said, Marie, the wife belongs where her husband is,” Joseph replied.

My stomach dropped.

“You won’t come back,” I stated, eyes tearing and heart bleeding.

“Um, not that often, but I will come back with Janna on occasion.”

“On occasion? You’re going to leave me here, take your wife with you, take care of the company, and just live happily ever after? What on earth has happened to you? Who are you? Where is my brother? Where is Joseph?” I screamed my pain in my brother’s face.

He was taking everything away from me. I’d thought he was going to be here; he still had to take care of so many things here in the kingdom. There were so many things left to do for our business here. What happened now? Was he leaving to take care of the company while
I
took care of things here myself? Or was he going to cut me out of the company as well?

Would he really do that to me? Would he take everything I had worked for? My life, my job, along with my family and friends?

What did I
ever
do to him?

What?

Joseph’s eyes widened in a warning glare. He dared to warn me not to speak, obviously not wanting to deal with it, or with his wife knowing anything about it. I had no idea if he knew how much he was destroying me by the second, how much he was killing me slowly and draining my soul. I wondered if he even knew. Would he care at all?

“Mona!” the prince yelled. She’d left the room once Janna started begging her brother, for what I didn’t know. Once she was there, he ordered, “Take Janna out of here.”

“No,” Janna shouted. “What’s going on here?” she asked, taking a step back from my brother, so she was now standing between her husband and her brother, opposite me.

The prince squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head that was hanging in sorrow, lips pressed into a tight line.

He didn’t want her to know.

The heck if I cared. This was all because of her. She did this to me with her recklessness and her disrespect for her stupid rules. She destroyed my life. She deserved to suffer like I was suffering. I didn’t care if she knew what her husband had done to me. I didn’t care if it hurt her to learn that he had lied and betrayed me–his own sister.

Mona left when the prince said nothing. My eyes and Janna’s were on my brother, both of us waiting for his answer. He just stood there in silence, looking at the floor, not meeting our gazes. He, too, wasn’t happy that Janna was about to find out the truth behind all of those lies, of course.

“Yoseph?”

“Why the heck is she calling you Yoseph?” I asked in frustration. The mispronounced name was getting on my already-troubled nerves, especially since I knew that both of them–the prince and his sister–spoke English very well.

When Joseph wouldn’t reply after the long moments I stood there waiting for it, the prince replied for him again.

“Yoseph is the name he chose for himself after he converted,” the prince replied slowly, with a frown that told me he was surprised I didn’t know that.

Did I know anything at all?

“C-converted to what?” Voice shaking and head spinning.

“To Islam.”

I clutched the cross on my chest with one hand while the other I placed over my mouth and screamed into it, tears streaming down my face.

Merciful God!

I felt lightheaded, dizzy. I knew I was about to faint. I couldn’t control my breaths, couldn’t calm down even a tiny bit to get my heartbeat to slow, couldn’t heal the tightening in my throat or the wound in my heart.

God!

I was dying.

“Princess.” The prince’s hands found their way to my shoulders in an attempt to calm my panic. I shrugged them away.

“Don’t touch me!” I yelled. “Stay away from me!”

He backed away immediately, giving me the space I needed. My eyes wouldn’t leave Joseph. He was still looking down at the floor and not moving at all; you would’ve thought he wasn’t breathing at all.

“You became a MUSLIM?” I screamed at him, the words bitter on my tongue.

No answer.

“What. Is. Wrong with you?” I cried, all pained words and trembling lips.

“You didn’t know?” Janna asked with wide eyes that matched the prince’s.

“Of course, I didn’t know!” I yelled. “How could you do this? How could you, Joseph? How could you?”

“Yoseph?” Janna looked at him, waiting for an explanation.

“Uh…” was his only reply.

“Why would you leave our faith? How could you give up Jesus?” Venom laced my voice and fire filled my insides.

“I didn’t give up Jesus. I believe in him, still. Always will. Islam believes in Jesus,” Joseph said.

I didn’t believe him. How could I?

Lies.

Lies.

All lies.

“Why would you leave our parents’ and grandparents’ faith, Joseph? Just give me one reason why?”

“I wouldn’t be able to marry Janna if I was Christian, Marie. Muslim women only marry Muslims,” he replied in a low voice.

“Of course! It had to be Janna. Everything is about Janna, isn’t it?” I asked, not really wanting an answer–I already knew it. “You change your religion just for Janna. You change your name just for Janna. You drag me here just for Janna. I marry someone I don’t know and against my will just for Janna. What about me? Do I mean
anything
to you? Do you remember who I am? I’m your little sister, Joseph. I’m your family, your blood!” I cried, tears and pain staining my entire face.

“Yoseph! What is your sister saying?” Janna asked with a shaky voice. “What’s going on, Yoseph?”

“You need to get out of here, this is not good for the baby,” the prince said, though not looking at her.

“I’m not leaving this room until I know what’s going on!” Tears sparkled in her brown-chocolate eyes.

“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” I said.

“Princess, please,” the prince begged.

“You ask me please? She needs to know what kind of a man she just got married to, what kind of a
jerk
as you put it yesterday!” I told him.

“Marie, don’t,” Joseph pleaded.

“Your beloved husband brought me here for
his
wedding, only for me to discover later that it was my own wedding along with yours! I had no freaking clue!” I told her, my eyes never leaving Joseph’s.

“He tricked me, he betrayed me, he destroyed me, he killed me, killed my soul!” Tears laced my voice, and I sounded like someone who’d just lost a loved one for good.

But it was true: I was that person. I’d just lost a loved one, too. I’d just lost my brother. It would’ve been so much better if I was standing now at his funeral, for then he still would’ve been the good, kind, caring Joseph I’d known all of my life. The one who would give up his everything for my happiness–not the one who would take
my
everything, the one who would drown me in an angry ocean for his own peace and joy. The one who would leave his faith for his own selfish desires.

I’d rather he was dead.

I really did.

“You make it look like I threw you in hell! Look at you! They call you a princess. You have diamonds covering you from head to foot!”

“Are you serious? Are you listening to yourself right now? I don’t care, Joseph, I don’t care about any of it!” I yanked the crown I had on off of my head and threw it to the floor. “I just want to go home!”

“You won’t. You belong with your husband.”

His words hit me like a huge rock to my head. That was the end. Everything ended there. He had planned it all. He knew even before I came here that when I did, there would be no coming back from it.

The part of him that loved God and wished to always please him was gone. I couldn’t even work on that part, where I could’ve told him that he should help me get out of this, just for God’s sake and his forgiveness. But...he had already given him up–he gave up everything.

“Of course you gave up Jesus, no surprise there,” I chuckled bitterly after a moment. “You already gave up your own freaking sister!”

“Would you just shut up!” Joseph yelled his anger, and I heard a growl coming from beside me.

“Or what, Big Bro?” I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “You’ll put a gun to my head if I don’t, just like you did to force me into signing the papers?”

At the same second I finished my words, the prince was in front of my brother, taking him by the tie he was wearing and rolling it over his hand then pulling hard, choking him while the other fisted his hair.

My heart swelled at the sight. Ached. My hands wanted to grab the prince and move him away, force him to leave my brother alone. But my legs wouldn’t move. I just stood there and watched, fear consuming me. Fear for my brother and his life as I saw him struggling for a breath. But I stood still, watching with panicked and teary eyes, clutching my cross once again for protection and the feeling of safety I longed to feel.

“You put a gun to her head?” the prince asked through clenched teeth, his tone scary and his look frightening.

“Arghhh…” Joseph made strangled noises, not able to say a word.

“I dare you to
think
of lying.” The prince tightened his grip on the tie and pulled harder.

Joseph was barely able to nod.

“You lowlife scum!” Curses were yelled, filled with rage and hate. His hand that was fisting Joseph’s hair came up in the air, ready to be thrown to my brother’s face.

“Mazen,” Janna choked out through her gasps, making the prince turn to glance her way. A look of worry flashed in his eyes, which softened for only a second before he looked at my brother again.

“Get out of here before I blacken your other eye like I did the first,” he growled. “I’m not done with you.” He pushed him roughly, causing him to fall to the floor, right at the same second I heard a thud right beside me.

Janna had passed out.

“Are you fucking happy with yourself now?” Joseph…Yoseph, or whoever snarled, looking at me with blaming eyes.

He blamed
me
for his wife’s fainting. Like
I
had done all the wrong, caused all the hurt, all of the pain. Like
I
had knocked her up at the age of seventeen, knocked her up when she was one of the people who believed in no sex before marriage, knocked her up when she was one of the people who punished those who have sex outside of wedlock–by killing them off, I might add.

He should’ve only blamed himself. Everything was
his
fault, not mine. What I did wasn’t wrong, not at all. It was right. If I was married to someone who had destroyed others’ lives for his own happiness and well-being–I would’ve liked for someone to tell me, to let me know what kind of a person I’d married, and vowed to obey and please for the rest of my life. I would’ve liked to learn that the happiness I had–if any–was stolen from someone else, leaving them miserable and wretched.

I would’ve liked to know that my husband buried someone alive to bring
me
a life.

I had done nothing wrong in telling Janna the truth, and I didn’t regret it, not even the slightest bit.

“If you know what is good for you, you’ll keep that filthy mouth of yours shut,” the prince warned with a deadly glare, shutting Joseph up right that second, before focusing back on Janna in his arms.