“Dax.” I shake my head with a sigh. “When we get back, he and I are going to have a serious talk about work-life balance.”
“Like you’re much better.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? I leave the office by six most nights.”
“And do what? Go home? Watch baseball? Read a book?” He shoots me a pointed look. “When’s the last time you got laid?”
“This is the conversation you want to have right now?”
“Yes.” His tone turns grave. “Because we’re about to go try to rescue a woman you haven’t seen in twenty years, and every time one of us says her name, the look on your face? You’re still in love with her. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“I can’t.” Transferring the reins to one hand, I scrub the other over my eyes for a brief moment. “I’ve loved Joey all my life. Tried to date on and off. Never lasted longer than a month. None of them measured up.” As I dig my heels into the horse’s sides and urge him to pick up the pace, I admit the truth to Trevor—and maybe to myself. “Joey was it for me. Is it for me. I have to tell her, Trev. Whatever happens after that…she needs to know I never stopped loving her.”
By the time we tie the reins to a post behind an abandoned barn at the bottom of the hill, my legs are on fire and my ass is numb. “I really don’t like horses,” I mutter as we drop our rucksacks.
The sun starts to brighten the sky, silhouetting the wall and the four stories of stone and clay that make up Faruk’s compound. Nomar obsessively checks and rechecks the gun strapped to his side under his tunic. I don’t like this plan, but it’s all we have. I can’t just waltz up to Faruk’s front gate and ask him to hand over the woman he kidnapped.
The village hasn’t stirred, the only sounds the goats and chickens wandering the paths between small houses. Roads would be too generous of a term. There isn’t a single vehicle in sight, only horses tied to posts, a few of them neighing quietly, but most still sleeping.
Nomar rummages in his sack, pulls out a headscarf and an AK-47, checks his pistol one last time, and starts toward the compound’s gate.
The comms unit in my ear clicks once, and then his voice whispers over the connection. “There’s a small camera hidden in one of the buttons on this getup. But the range sucks. You’ll have to be close. Make your way to the back of the compound, and for fuck’s sake, stay out of sight. I’ll get in, find out where they’re holding her, and get out. Do not engage unless there’s no other way. Got it?”
“Got it,” I say. Meeting Trevor’s gaze, I offer a silent prayer Nomar will find her alive, then follow the spook to the outskirts of the village, climb the hill towards the back of the compound, and wait.
Joey
Jerking awake from yet another nightmare, I reach for the ring hidden under my tunic. I’m so tired, but I can’t relax. Can’t manage to sleep for more than half an hour at a time. Mateen is a bright, kind boy. Every day after I take his blood and give him the various supplements and medications that will prepare his body for the final cocktail, he tells me about some famous soccer player he wants to meet or challenges me to a match on his little gaming system.
But his father…his father will soon turn him into a monster. I see the fear in Lisette’s eyes every time Faruk comes to check on the boy. When he was finished with his treatment yesterday, Mateen wanted to stay with his mother, but Faruk refused to allow it.
At least then, I was left alone in the makeshift lab. More or less. The camera watches me incessantly, and Zaman often hovers in the doorway. And tonight…I’ll have to tell Faruk the first component of the cocktail is done. How long until he forces me to start a treatment I know will kill my patient? Days? A week at most. And then…I’ll be dead too. I can’t harm that little boy. If I can’t figure a way out of this, I’ll use the cocktail on myself. Die on my own terms and let Mateen live—for as long as his disease allows.
Pulling the tiny needle I stole out of the hem of my tunic, I open a small cut on my inner arm. The pain eases the fear I’ll implode and lets me breathe again.
Lying with my back against the door, fully dressed, save for my headscarf and slippers, I try to call up a single happy memory. Anything to hold on to.
“Oh, crap. I’m so sorry,” I cry as my soda tumbles down the shirt of the most delicious, handsome man I’ve ever seen. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.” Turning back to the counter, I grab wads and wads of napkins, then try to soak up the icy liquid from a strong chest until I realize what I’m doing. My hands are all over him.
With flushed cheeks, I step back, staring down at the floor. “Can I…um…buy you…another… Oh, I hope you weren’t on your way somewhere important.”
“Just lunch. Alone,” he says. “Though I was hoping to drink soda rather than wear it.”
The smile in his voice encourages me enough to meet his gaze, and…wow. Hazel eyes flecked with green. Strong cheekbones. A little bit of a light brown scruff dusting his chin. And that grin. That full bottom lip.
“Coca-Cola brown is a good color on you.”
The man laughs, and my God if that doesn’t make him even more handsome. “Ford,” he says, holding out his hand.
As our fingers brush, a spark races up my arm, quickening my heartbeat. “Josephine. Joey.”
Playing the memory like a movie on repeat, I close my eyes, run my fingers over the ring I never could force myself to send back to him, and pray this time when I drift off, I’ll dream of a time I felt…normal.
The door swings open, and Zaman’s boot connects with my back a moment before he falls, landing on his hands and knees, his big body pressing down on me. I scream, the last vestiges of my nightmare melding with my reality, and start to thrash and claw at him.
“Get off me! Get off! Oh, God. Please!”
Zaman grunts and pushes to his feet. “Up. Now. You are needed.”
