“And you would protect her?
“Yes.”That’s a lie.I can feel it in my gut.
“My friend,” I say softly, my voice cracking slightly, “was nearly killed because Maryam’s husband wants her back. He will not stop. I will do whatever I have to do to make sure she stays safe.”
Abrahim turns back to me, anger finally cracking through his composed exterior. “It is not your right to keep her from her family. Shebelongswith her family.”
“You mean her husband?” I clarify. “Back with the man shebelongsto.”
“Yes, you fucking bitch,” Abrahim snarls, fury tearing free from his restraint as he lunges at me. He is on me in an instant. My breath rips out of me in a strangled gasp as his hands close around my throat before I can react. His face is twisted with ire, and he digs his fingers into my flesh until I can’t breathe, shouting, “Where is my fucking sister?”
I claw at his hands, panicking when I am unable to fill my lungs with the air they are desperately screaming for. My vision blurs at the edges, and I expect it to go black when Abrahim is torn from me. I scatter backward, coughing, grabbing my throat, and violently sucking in a much-needed breath as Jagger puts his body between Abrahim and me without hesitation.
Jagger slams him into the floor with brutal efficiency, his fist landing against his jaw with a crunch that causes me to cringe. “You don’t touch her,” Jagger growls, landing blow after blow with powerful strength. By the time he stands, he is breathless. Blood splatters across his shirt and face, more of it dripping from his battered knuckles. “I’ll let you live,” Jagger pauses to spit on the limp man at his feet, “so youcan tell the others that any man who touches her won’t be walking away.
Jagger turns to me immediately, his face tender and hands gentle as he cups my face. “Blake. Look at me. Are you okay?”
I nod, still coughing, my throat burning. “I had to know,” I rasp.I had to… I needed to know if she’d be safe.
He pulls me into his chest, holding me like he’s daring the world to try again.
And in that moment, despite the fear and fallout still to come, I know one thing with terrifying clarity: Maryam cannot go back to her family.Ever.
Chaos still crackles through the room when Hawk steps forward. His jaw is set, and his eyes are cold as they flit from Abrahim on the floor to Jagger’s body shielding mine and back to Abrahim.
Stepping over to the bleeding man, his expression stripped of diplomacy, he gruffs. “Our contract with you is over. Effective immediately.”
Abrahim jerks against the men restraining him. “You don’t get to decide that?—”
“I do,” Hawk replies coldly. “And I just did.”
I pull back enough to look at Hawk, my throat still on fire and pulse hammering in my ears.
“You asked us to find your sister,” Hawk continues. “You did not tell us she was being beaten or that your solution to domestic violence was silence and sending her back.”
Abrahim’s face darkens. “She belongs with her family.”
Hawk’s mouth twists with something like disgust. “If this is how your family treats women”—he gestures sharply toward me, still shaking in Jagger’s arms—“then, no. We will not put her back in that situation. Not now. Not ever. Aegis is not in the business of reuniting battered women with their abusers.”
Hawk finally looks at me,reallylooks at me, and something in his gaze softens before he addresses Jagger and Gunnar, “We’re done here.”
Jagger’s arm tightens around my shoulders, and he leads me outside. In the Jeep, I lean into him to steady myself with the resolve of his strength.
Pressing his lips to the top of my head, Jaggers angrily whispers, “That was fucking foolish, Doc.”
I know it was…
“That was fucking foolish, Doc.” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them, low and rough, hanging in the cramped backseat. It isn’t what she needs to hear. I know right now she needs my comfort, but…Fuck, that was foolish.None of us would have agreed to her meeting with Abrahim if we had even remotely fathomed what she was planning to do.
Blake doesn’t look at me. She’s sitting beside me, legs curled underneath her, and the rest of her body tucked firmly under my arm. Her jaw is set in that way I have already learned all too well. She’s thinking and preparing to dig her heels in. When she does, nothing short of an earthquake is going to move her.
Up front, Hawk drives with both hands on the wheel, his gaze simultaneously fixed on the road before us and the rearview mirror, on alert for any possible threats. Gunnar is in the passenger seat, phone glowing faintly, scrolling through something he’s definitely not reading. For someone who usually hasa lotof opinions when it comesto me, he’s pretending to be busy.Or trying desperately to keep the peace.
Blake finally exhales through her nose. “Noted,” she says calmly, which somehow pisses me off more than if she’d snapped back at me. It’s the calm dismissal of a woman who believes her judgment is infallible.The same judgment that almost got her fucking killed today.
I wrap my arm over her shoulder and pull her into me, maybe a little too tightly. “You don’t lead us into a situation like that blind,” I huff. What she did was frivolous. Gambling with her life because she thought she knew what she was doing, and that she could read people. “You don’t get to risk your life like that.” My voice drops into a low, dangerous rumble meant only for her. The guys up front are pointedly ignoring us, eyes fixed on the city streets. They know this isn’t for them. This is for her.
Her body tenses, and she cranes her neck to look at me with a flash of fire in her eyes. “I had it under control.”
