“Wait.”
His pulse pounding out his tension, Jack’s brow furrowed against the pressure as he waited for Fran to tell him what the hell was going on. He should have stayed. But when he’d learned Fowler was in Paris, he’d hoped to talk him into aborting the mission. He clenched his teeth against the rage that rose all over again when he considered what Fowler had done behind his back.
“They’re coming out.”
Jack stilled completely, even his heart seemed to stop beating, his nerves felt raw with frustration…with anticipation. He wanted this over. He wanted Ami safely reunited with her child and hidden away from harm.
“Arad’s alive.”
The two words deflated his hopes like a players strike right before baseball season. He muttered a curse.
“He looks like hell, if that makes you feel any better,” Fran added. “They’re loading into two cars. Patterson and I’ll be right behind them.”
The airport, Jack knew already. Arad would want to get back to his estate. The fortress he called home. The only place on the planet he felt truly safe.
And once he was back there, Jack could do nothing but wait.
Ami was on her own.
MICHAL DID NOT BREATHEeasy until he reached his home.
His shoulder hurt like hell, but he would live. The most important thing was that Ami was alive and safe for the moment. He downed his whiskey, numbing the pain a bit. How long would she be safe here? How could he allow the possibility of another incident such as the one that had taken place in Tripoli?
He could not. It was that simple.
She was soaking in the tub now, relaxing the soreness in her muscles where the bastard had beaten her.
Her reluctance to identify the man who had harmed her nagged at him. Whether it was the man Carlos had killed or another of his group, Michal did not care. They were complete scum. Anti-Israeli as well as anti-American. Still, because she was so upset, he had been willing to give the man his freedom, mainly, he admitted, so that he could take Michal’s warning back to his people, and the bastard had tried to kill her.
He poured himself another drink and downed half of it. He should have killed him and been done with it. But he had allowed emotion to get in the way. A nearly fatal mistake. His gaze tracked Carlos’s pacing. He had more to say on the subject, of that Michal was certain. But he restrained himself out of a respect that lessened each day.
“Speak your mind, my friend,” Michal told him, his pain nicely numbed with the heat of the liquor flowing in his blood.
Carlos pulled up short and glared at him. “You almost got yourself killed.” The muscles of his face worked with the rage simmering inside him. “Because ofher.I told you.” He took two steps toward Michal’s relaxed position in a wing chair. “She betrayed you once. How can you be sure this was not an elaborate setup?”
Michal shook his head. “You are wrong, my friend.”
Carlos flung his arms in the air as if beseeching a higher power for guidance. “They have never before made a move so bold,” he argued. “And this story of hers as to how she escaped. I do not believe this.” He moved his head side to side for emphasis. “She would not have escaped those animals. She is too helpless for such a fearless feat.”
That was the part that nagged at Michal the most. This Amira was far too vulnerable and terrified of his world. Still, in her desperation perhaps she had been merely lucky.
“She escaped.” Michal’s gaze latched onto Carlos’s. “That is all that matters.”
He threw up his hands again. “You are under a spell,” he shouted. “She is using you and you are too blind to see it.”
Michal set his empty glass aside and pushed to his feet. His shoulder throbbed in response. It was a damn good thing the bullet had gone straight through, missing anything important, including bone. There had been lots of blood and there would be plenty of pain, but nothing worse.
“You make many serious accusations,” Michal said quietly, his tone laced with a lethal quality for good measure. “Do you have evidence to support this assertion? And what is it she would hope to gain by using me or setting me up? She has asked for nothing.”
Carlos looked too smug. Michal’s instincts pushed through the haze of alcohol and stood at attention.
“We both know that she betrayed you before.”
Michal didn’t bother commenting. It was as Carlos said. But that was the past, this was now.
“I have been watching her closely.”
Tension slid through Michal. Carlos was no fool. But Michal did not like the idea of himwatchingher. “And what have you observed?”
