Page 61 of Warlord’s Empire

She felt his lips move against the top of her head. “You already have, my angel.”

“Good…” The word came out on a sigh as she drifted into sleep.

When she woke, it was still dark in the room and Radik was no longer next to her, keeping her warm.

Blinking, she pushed herself up onto an elbow. “Muhammed?”

“I’m here.” He approached the bed and from the moonlight coming through the window, she could tell he was dressed in his full military gear.

She sat up quickly. “They’re here, aren’t they?”

“Not quite, but I will go out to meet them as they make their approach.”

“Promise you won’t hurt them.”

He cupped the side of her face and she tilted her head into his palm. “As harming them would also harm you, this is an easy promise for me to make. You have my word that no one on my side will harm your family.”

She breathed easier, then added, “Make sure they don’t shoot at you or anyone else on our side either.”

She saw his teeth flash in the darkness and knew he was smiling. “Our side,” he repeated, tenderness in his voice. “I will do my best to keep everyone from harm.”

“Thank you,” she said, pulling him down for a kiss, then snuggling into the blankets as he slipped noiselessly from the room.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“This is Leeza’s handiwork,” Havel said, bending over the body they’d found while tracking the women. The man’s neck had been sliced open in one stroke and he’d been left to bleed out on the ground.

How do you know? Jozef signed, his gun at the ready, his eyes scanning the area.

Demitri held a flashlight over the body while Havel looked it over in the darkness.

Havel pointed to the rust-coloured stain on the dead man’s shirt. “She cleaned her blade. I’ve tried to get her to stop disrespecting her opponents like that, but she insists on doing it anyway.”

My cousin is bloodthirsty, Jozef signed with a feral grin. You should encourage the behaviour.

Havel shook his head and signed, Bunch of savages in this family.

Jozef cracked a rare smile, the first Havel had seen since he found out his wife was missing, along with his cousin and one of his elite mercenaries. Of the three women, Shaun was the least able to take care of herself in the rough terrain of interior Africa.

Havel knew every time Jozef’s eyes scanned the ground, he was searching for his wife’s body.

“Shaun’s tougher than you think,” Havel said, rising from the corpse, which was beginning to stink. “She patched me up during a mafia war. If she can handle that, she can handle anything.” He pressed his hand over the long-healed injury to his shoulder. She’d saved his life that day.

Jozef nodded and waved for Havel and the others to follow him as he continued their trek.

Havel worried about Leeza too, but he knew she could take care of herself and that she’d rather die than let anything happen to the others. He trusted her to take care of the doctor, even if Jozef didn’t.

Several kilometers later, they were following a barely visible dirt road when a vehicle approached them at high speed. It was too late to hide, so they armed themselves and took defensive positions.

“Is that…?” Havel’s sentence trailed off as the beat-up truck came to an abrupt halt, the passenger side door opening to reveal Radik. It was such a shock to see the larger-than-life warlord without a contingent of mercenaries surrounding him, at first, no one moved.

Jozef, who held his weapon on Radik as he climbed from the vehicle, nodded at Havel to speak for him. Havel wasn’t a mind-reader, but he’d worked with Jozef long enough to guess what he’d say in a moment like this.

“What the fuck are you up to, Radik?” he snarled. “Where are your soldiers?” The back of Havel’s neck prickled as he imagined Radik’s people surrounding them.

“No soldiers,” Radik said in his deep booming voice. “It’s just me and my driver.”

“We’ve done our research,” Havel snapped, his gun trained on the driver through the windshield. “Nuani is your second-in-command, not your driver. He’s responsible for the Lui clan massacre in Taiwan.”