“Attend to his wounds,” she murmured, looking at Cosgrove. “Feed him and hydrate him. Those are my terms or I walk.”
“Women,” the agent muttered.
Viviana’s eyebrows rose. “You’re really pressing your luck with me, agent. I don’t need this low-paying ass job. I do it out of patriotism, I do it because my parents were killed in one of their suicide bombings, but your mouth is this close to ensuring I turn in my resignation. I never wanted to come back to this fucked up country anyway.”
“Fine.” Cosgrove stood up and walked to the door. He banged on it twice. “Just don’t get pissy with me if we’re here all night because you had to waste time on this filth!”
“Whatever,” she said to Cosgrove before looking back at the prisoner. “They are bringing in someone from medical to dress your wounds before we begin,” she told al-Raqqah in Arabic. “You will also be given food and water.”
“Shukran.”Thank you.
Viviana begrudgingly inclined her head. Her kindness to him would only extend so far and that limit had been reached. If this terrorist turned out to be the one responsible for the suicide bombing in Kenya that had killed her vacationing parents, God help them both. He wouldn’t need food, water, and medical care because she’d kill him with her bare hands.
She resumed reading the contents of the folder, but could feel his gaze homed in on her. It was disconcerting to sit this close to a sadistic mass-murderer. She’d never translated for a major player before. She decided she didn’t like it.
“I prefer the blue,” al-Raqqah muttered in Arabic. “See all that is mine.”
Viviana glanced up. One of her eyebrows rose. “Are you feeling all right?” The eye he could see out of never strayed from her. It would have been unnerving if she hadn’t known he was broaching hallucinatory. His nonsensical words underlined that fact.
“Naam.”Yes.
She nodded and resumed reading. That fucking Cosgrove needed to get a move on already.
* * * * *
It had been a long day. Viviana was relieved she’d showered before work because by the time she returned to the safe house and made dinner she was too exhausted to do anything beyond peel off her clothes and plop into bed. Wearing nothing but see-through lingerie, she laid down with a weary groan.
She didn’t know why she wore lingerie under her clothes every day in Afghanistan because she never bothered donning it for lovers, much less herself, back home. She supposed it was her small way of bucking the system of female oppression and expression that weighed down her soul whenever work required her presence in the region. There was power in symbolism—even if only she knew about it.
Viviana’s thoughts drifted back to Muhammad al-Jihad al-Raqqah. After he’d been cleaned up, fed, and hydrated, his wounds had looked less severe. Painful, no doubt, but not life-threatening. Regardless, she wasn’t looking forward to spending tomorrow translating between the interrogator and the terrorist yet again. There was something in al-Raqqah’s sharp gaze that sent chills down her spine. A knowing. A promise. A—
She sighed. She couldn’t put her finger on it. She only knew it didn’t set well with her.
“I prefer the blue. See all that is mine.”
Viviana realized he hadn’t been altogether with it when he’d uttered those cryptic words, but they haunted her nonetheless. Despite his injuries, that hawk-like gaze of his had never waned in its intensity. Nor had it strayed from her even once.
She absently looked at the ceiling as she blew out a breath. She did a double take. Curious, she turned on the light and squinted at the ceiling. There was something up there she hadn’t noticed before. She wouldn’t have noticed it tonight if a moonbeam hadn’t reflected on it in a weird way.
Viviana stilled. Her eyes widened and her pulse quickened. “It’s a camera,” she rasped.
She jumped out of bed and prepared to get dressed. Her image in the mirror stopped her cold.
“I prefer the blue. See all that is mine.”
Oh. My. God.
Her breathing labored as she stared at her reflection. Blue. Her lingerie, the only see-through pair she owned, was blue.
“This is so not good,” she unsteadily muttered to herself. She threw on a t-shirt and the closest pair of yoga pants. She had to get downstairs and alert everyonenow. She might have been a translator and not an agent, but it didn’t take a trained eye to realize their safe house had been compromised. It might never have been safe at all. “Shit, shit, shit!”
The sound of machine guns and screams shattered the tranquility of the night. Viviana’s heart slammed in her chest. Wild-eyed with terror, she didn’t know what to do. She could hear return fire coming from below, quickly followed by more machine guns. A sickly, eerie silence followed.
She covered her mouth to keep from screaming and slumped to the floor. Her teeth sank into one hand, the raid from three years past having auto-programmed that coping mechanism into her. She didn’t know which side had won, but clearly there was a victor. Her question would be answered all too soon.
“The sheikh wants her alive!” she heard a man shout in Arabic. “Take her, but look upon her only as much as necessary!”
Viviana’s hysteria mandated screaming, but she kept her teeth sunk into her hand to stop herself from giving into the urge. Who was the sheikh? Which of them did he want alive?Whydid he want any of the women here? What happened to the ones he didn’t want? Would it be like three years ago, all of them raped and executed?
Her bedroom door made a sickening cracking sound as it was kicked in. Her hands flew from her mouth to the floor as she instinctually scooted back. A man burst inside, wearing what appeared to be a gas mask. Viviana screamed. He rolled a smoking ball toward her. Her mind, broken from fear, wondered if it was a grenade, but she wasn’t given time to contemplate it.
Gas spewed out from the ball, forcing her to choke. She gasped for breath, but there was none to be had. Viviana could feel herself losing consciousness as she fell on her side. It was the last thought she’d ever have as a free woman.
