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One of the men he had left here lay on the floor, a smear of blood already staining the tile. He was dead.
Shiraz sank to his knees as he approached another doorway. He'd learned from his brothers that you never stood at normal height and looked around a corner. You always got smaller. And if you could lie down on the floor and do it, all the better. No sense risking getting your head blown off.
With one eye, Shiraz peeked around the corner.
The living room that led back to the foyer was dark. But a shape lay on the Persian carpet. And Shiraz knew that it was the other man they had brought with them.
With two of his men killed and Hassan nowhere to be seen, Shiraz wished he had known these men. They'd served him well. The least he could do was know their names.
Perhaps another time, he thought.
He slid into the living room, keeping the pistol ready to bring up if a target presented itself. He thought he heard a noise behind him and pivoted easily, raising the gun and taking aim.
He very nearly fired, too. But then froze.
No.
Not there.
They'd made the noise to make him think that was where the threat was going to come from. But no--
He pivoted again and squeezed off a single round.
And watched as it punched directly into the sternum of Hassan.
"No!"
Hassan's face showed shock as he dropped to his knees. He looked down at his chest. The wood-tipped bullet had torn his heart open and the wooden fragments in his blood were already killing him.
Hassan might well have cried out in pain.
But he couldn't.
His mouth was secured with duct tape. He stayed upright on his knees for another moment before falling forward on his face. Shiraz saw now that Hassan's hands had been bound behind his back using more of the same tape.
Shiraz blinked. What had just happened?
A small object bounced into the room directly between him and Hassan and even as Shiraz started to bring his gun up to fire again, the object exploded in a brilliant flash of light and sound.
The effect was instantaneous. Shiraz lost his eyesight and hearing. His head swam. He tried to breathe. Tried to blink. Tried to get his head right.
But to no avail.
And then he felt his weapon being fleeced away, his wrist turned back in as a painful joint lock pinned him down on the ground. His vision started to clear but even as it did, he saw a large object coming straight for his head.
It impacted with such force that Shiraz felt his teeth rattle.
And then everything went black.
"Welcome back."
Everything was still black. There was a blindfold around his eyes. He quickly took stock of himself. His head thundered from a serious bruise to his skull. He tasted copper in his mouth, which meant that he'd been bleeding. His arms were pinned behind him and he sat in some sort of chair. He couldn't move his feet, either. He guessed that he'd been immobilized with the same duct tape that they used on Hassan.
Bastards.
Shiraz frowned and resolved to kill whoever had done this.
"Would you like some water? Perhaps it will help clear out that bad taste in your mouth. After all, it can't feel very good to be where you are right now."
