She doesn’t answer.
Fear wraps around my heart, squeezing so hard, I can’t breathe.
I lower her so I can see her face. She’s so pale. Bruises mar her jaw. Her cheeks. Dark circles swell under her eyes. The sticky warmth of blood soaks through my sleeve.
Mateen throws himself down next to her. “Maman? Did you see my kick?”
Lisette’s weak smile is the most beautiful thing in this world. “Yes,mon bébé.You…were so…brave.”
“Time to go!” Austin calls. “The house is clear, but we’ve got two vehicles approaching at high speed from the south.”
“What about the van? Zephyr said it was toast.” Griff staggers over to us, rubbing his left shoulder. Behind him, Leo wipes blood from his cheek and slams a fresh magazine into his pistol.
Shapur chuckles over comms. “We will travel in style, my friends. Come to the garage and see what I have prepared for you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Lisette
The elevator jerks to a stop,and I bury my face against Nomar’s neck to stop from crying out. He cradles me carefully. One arm under my knees, the other pressing to the middle of my back.
I tried to walk on my own, but my legs would not support me. Mateen holds Griff’s hand. In front of us, Austin, Leo, and another man I do not know stand ready to fight.
The doors slide open. The scent of blood, harsh and metallic, fills my nose. Griff turns Mateen to face him. “I’m going to carry you, kiddo. Close your eyes until I tell you to open them. Okay?”
“With your robot arm?”
Griff chuckles. “Yep. Hold onto me.” He picks my son up and totes him down the hall, stepping over bodies every few feet.
Nomar follows Griff—with me still in his arms. He tries to be gentle, but each step is pure agony on my abused back.
So many of Raziq’s men. Most still clutch their automatic weapons, even in death.
The enormity of what Nomar and his friends have done washes over me. They risked their lives for me. For Mateen. And they won. Raziq is dead. Along with most—if not all—of his men.
“Come, come, my friends!” a man with a local accent calls. I stiffen.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. Shapur’s with us,” Nomar says.
Shapur. I know that name. The man he worked for when he left Boston. The man who sold women.
“What…is he…doing here?” I manage.
Nomar peers down at me. His eyes hold so many emotions. Pain. Worry. Love. “He saved our lives. Broke us out of the house in Kabul minutes before Raziq blew it up. And he got out of the flesh trade. Hell, he’s practically legit now.”
“Excuse me,” the man next to Austin says. “Did I donothingfor you? May I remind you who called Shapur in the first place?”
“Darius, you need anything—ever—the Rescue Operations Group is at your disposal,” Austin says.
With every passing minute, less and less of what is happening around me makes sense. Darius called Shapur. Shapur saved Nomar’s life.
“You can open your eyes now.” Griff sets Mateen on his feet inside a large garage. Wide doors at the far end of the space open to reveal a road stretching toward the city.
“Whoa!” Mateen’s gaze sweeps over a dozen different vehicles. A large HumVee smolders to my left. Several trucks with shattered windows do not look drivable.
Shapur waves us over to the largest SUV I have ever seen. “Is that astretchEscalade?” I ask. The man chuckles.
“We’re not outrunninganyonein that thing,” Nomar says.
