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Ajza knew about the shahidka
They’d been given the name because their husbands had been killed fighting the Russian army. Some said that the shahidka were cursed, born into trouble and bad luck, and death to any man who took their hand in marriage.
Of course, there was no way anyone could tell if a woman was shahidka. There was no test, and they weren’t marked by God until after they’d lost their husbands.
Women in Chechnya married young, sometimes as early as thirteen or fourteen. The men they married weren’t much older, and they became soldiers the instant someone thrust a rifle into their hands.
Unable to afford mercy to the young troops, the Russian military often killed them. Those deaths doomed the women as well. In their culture, a woman belonged to a man. When a woman’s husband died, she became the property of her husband’s family. She could be separated from her children, have her house taken and be left out on the street—or sold to another.
Or she could end up a Black Widow.
Black Widow
Cliff Ryder
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Mel Odom for his contribution to this work.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
Moscow
“I don’t want you to die because of me,” he pleaded.
Maaret looked at her husband through tears as they stood in the cold wind that whipped through Patriarshiye Ponds. His plea touched her heart and she saw the pain in his blue eyes. He was so young, so full of life and joy despite the darkness and fear that stained his soul. She didn’t know how she had missed seeing those other things. But she’d been so much in love with him that she had only seen the good.
The thing that hurt the most was how much she still loved him.
He wasn’t Russian except by blood, but he should have been. In addition to the light eyes, he had soft blond hair that always managed to look unkempt. More than the looks, though, guilt and despair filled him. Those things made him truly Russian.
As she looked at him, her cheeks numb in the freezing temperature, Maaret wondered if his soul had been as tortured before he had come to her country, lied to her and fathered their child.
Unconsciously Maaret ran a hand over her swollen stomach. That the child should die was the most hurtful thing of all. She had created her baby with the love she had for her husband.
“Please, Maaret,” he whispered just strongly enough to be heard above the wind. “Please forget this madness and come away with me.”
She smiled sadly and touched his lips with her cold fingers. Even with her glove off, she no longer felt his flesh beneath her. The distance she felt from him scared her, and that distance grew with each gray breath.
“No,” she said simply. “It is too late.”
“It isn’t too late.” His stubbornness overrode the fear. “I can save you from this.” His hand touched her stomach, then slid to the belt of explosives she wore around her hips.
“It is too late,” she insisted. She took his hand in hers. “They watch us even now.”
He shook his head. At times, he was so like a child. She thought, even then as she faced her death, that he would have made a wonderful father.
If he had stayed.
And if he had stayed and been found out, he would have been killed.
People passed them as they stood there. Older couples gave them knowing smiles, undoubtedly thinking that this was a spat between a young husband and wife. Those people didn’t have many concerns. They lived in an affluent part of Moscow where the night was held back by bright lights and fences protected the pond and the tall apartment buildings. Snow dusted the boughs of the mighty pine and spruce trees, and swirled between the naked branches of tall oaks.
In addition to wealthy Russians, Americans and Europeans lived there, as well. That was why the area had been targeted.
“I…I…” Her husband’s voice broke, and his obvious pain and confusion and desperation fueled her own. “I can fix this, Maaret. I swear.”
She knew, though, that his promise was hollow. He had masters and allegiances just as she had. Neither of them could escape their fates.
“You can’t,” she told him.
“There must be a way.”
“No.” She shook her head. “They have found you out, my love. They know what you truly are.”
The tears that tracked his face glistened like diamonds in the streetlights. Like a child, he wiped them away with his sleeve. Then he glared across the walkway that wound through the residential area. A few of the nearby windows held Christmas ornaments and lights.