Sweet Revenge

woman’s headdress with rubies dripping like blood was set beside a crown starred with diamonds. In a chest which Adrianne opened were uncut stones deep enough so that a man could reach in and bury his arm to the elbow.
    There was art as well, works by Rubens, Monet, Picasso. The kind of paintings Abdu would never display in the palace but that he would be wise enough to invest in. They caught Philip’s eye, taking his attention away from the flash of jewels. He stooped, playing his light over canvases and thinking.
    “The king’s treasure.” Adrianne’s voice echoed dully. “Some bought with oil, some with blood, some with love, some with treachery. All this, and my mother died with nothing but what I could steal for her.” He straightened and turned to her. “And the worst, the worst is that she died still loving him.”
    Gently, Philip ran his thumbs over her cheeks to dry the tears. “He isn’t worth it, Addy.”
    “No.” With a sigh she rid herself of the rest of the grief. “I’ll take what’s mine.”
    She turned her light on the opposite wall, skimming slowly. When she found it, The Sun and the Moon seemed to explode with life.
    “There.”
    She moved toward it. Or perhaps it pulled her. Now her hands did tremble, but not from fear, not from grief. From excitement. It was enclosed in glass, but the glass couldn’t dim the fire. Love and hate. Peace and war. Promise and betrayal. One had only to look at it to feel the passions and the pleasures.
    All jewels were personal, but none would ever be so personal as these.
    Philip played his light over the necklace, crossing and merging the beam of his with hers. “God, it’s more than I imagined. Nothing I’ve ever fantasized about taking compares to it. It’s yours.” He laid a hand on her shoulder. “Take it.”
    She lifted it out and held it. It was heavy. Somehow the weight surprised her. It looked like an illusion, as if it might pass through the hands of anyone who tried to claim it. But it hung heavy in hers, pulsing with life, glowing with promise. As the light ran over it, she could almost see the flow of blood that had washed it so many years before.
    “It might have been made for her.”
    “Perhaps it was.”
    That made her smile because she knew he understood. “I always wondered what it would be like to hold my destiny in my hands.”
    “And?”
    She turned to him, the necklace draped over her hands like a promise. “I can only remember how it sounded when she laughed. My one regret is that I can’t give it back to her.”
    “You’re doing more than that.” He thought of the rat-infested building in Manhattan that Adrianne was going to turn into an abuse clinic. “She’d be proud of you, Addy.”
    With a nod she took the roll of velvet out of her pouch and laid the necklace inside. “He’ll come for it.” She coveredthe diamond, covered the pearl. Her eyes were as passionate as the necklace. “You understand that.”
    “I understand that life with you won’t be boring.”
    She took a last sweep with her light. Some carving on the wall behind the empty case caught her eye. Moving over, she studied it. It was old but still clear enough. It might have been carved into the wall with a diamond.
    “What does it say?”
    “It’s a message from Berina. It says I die for love not shame.
Allahu Akbar’
” She reached for Philip’s hand. “Maybe now she can rest in peace as well.”

Chapter Twenty-Six
    It was going to hurt. Adrianne continued to pack as Yasmin wandered the room, stopping here to sniff at a bottle of perfume, pausing there to toy with the petals of a wilting flower. The sunlight streamed through the window and fell over the bright stripes on Yasmin’s dress, glinted on the gold she wore on her wrists, her fingers, and at her ears. Adrianne wished it had been the sun that made her eyes ache and tend to water. It had hurt when she’d left Jaquir before, but she’d survived it.
    This time she was taking the necklace with her. But she was leaving more behind than she’d ever thought possible.
    “You could stay longer, another day.” Yasmin watched Adrianne fold a long skirt into a suitcase. It didn’t seem fair that she should be given such a beautiful and fascinating sister only to lose her again so quickly. Her other sisters were boring, if for no other reason than she’d known them all of her life.
    “I’m sorry. I can’t.” It would have been easier if she hadn’t discovered how simple