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Amir smiled. “So your FBI man has come up with new information?”
Walid felt the sharp sting of retribution. “No. He is working on it. But he has yet to uncover any leak in my organization.”
“Then what is there to discuss? As you know, my men are closing in on the informant’s digital trail and will have more in a day or so. There is nothing we can do until then.”
Furious, Walid had slammed his hand against the doorway of his brother’s room and stormed out. He picked up his wallet and motioned to his men—two Colombians as out of place in Jordan as giraffes on ice skates.
Aamir had followed, his eyes shrewdly evaluating Walid’s guards. He’d already told Walid they were not well trained and would need to be replaced. So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise, or a relief, when Aamir, as was his way, took control.
“No.” He’d pointed to each of Walid’s two guards. “You and you stay with me.” He waved at two of his own loyal guards. “You two go with him.”
Angry about being made second to a whore, Walid had refused to acknowledge his brother’s kindness. He let the guards trail him.
As he’d passed out of the hotel suite doors, he’d heard Aamir tell his men, “Protect my brother as you would protect me. For if his heart were to stop beating, mine would as well.”
How was it that Aamir could make him feel so unworthy of his love? And so childish?
Perhaps because he had been childish. Perhaps that’s why Aamir’s guards, seated at a different table, huddled together. Were they discussing him?
Walid sipped his white wine. Aamir was a man with very specific tastes and desires. He accepted it. Thought he’d accepted it. The way Aamir accepted Walid’s own rough needs.
Enough. He would eat this. He would not let guilt ruin his night.
One of Aamir’s guards, they were practically the same man—big and disappointed-looking with hooded eyes—came over to the table. “We have news.”
Walid tossed his pronged fork onto the plate. He couldn’t eat anyway. “Go on.”
“The men we sent after the digital warning located the source. A man. Late forties. Early fifties.”
Walid sat up. “Contact my brother.”
“We’ve already tried. No answer.” Aamir too involved with his child bride. But this was good news. Worth going back upstairs to discuss with his brother. “Have they found anything out from him?”
“He wasn’t in the apartment. They found a computer there. It was tracking a GPS signal. We believe the signal is the assassin.”
The assassin? “Why would you think that?”
“Because the signal is in Jordan. Here. At this hotel.”
Walid stood. “Contact my guards immediately.” He lurched forward and whisked through the tables, out of the hotel restaurant, and toward the elevators. His heart wailed like a siren in his chest.
Chapter 23
An angry buzzing—like an alarm waking you to a hangover—built in Justice’s head. It was thick with memories and pain and hatred.
“Care to join us?” Aamir grinned at Justice with his oh-so-slick smile, his can’t-be-stopped surety, his nothing-you-can-do-about-it cockiness seeping from the pores of his skin that mocked Hope’s life. Justice adjusted the sharp thread of metal.
Not for nothing, as Tony would say. She stepped forward. He spread his arms out. Another invitation? She had no idea. She slammed the sharp wire up and through Aamir’s ribs. It pierced him like a dart. He jerked taller, as if someone had just woken him the fuck up.
Not enough. She smashed the pod into his mouth. He spit it out. But that much concentrated poison caused an instant reaction. Foam spilled from his lips as he lurched backward and fell halfway between the bedroom and bathroom. His head thudded against the marble bathroom floor with a wet slap.
Justice carefully rolled off the gloves and shoved them into the sealed pocket inside her vest.
The girl screamed. In warning. Or fear. Either way, it served as warning.
Justice pivoted and snapped a roundhouse against the guard’s neck. He staggered right.
She stepped forward, fisted his shirt, and kneed him in the balls. He tucked tail, dropped to his knees. She bent and grabbed his sidearm. Silencer. Nice. His eyes widened, hands came up. She smashed the gun against his skull, hard enough to crack sanity. His eyes rolled back. His body gave out.
The girl screamed again.
Fuck.
Justice removed her prosthetic tongue with a jerk that made her teeth hurt. In Arabic, she instructed the girl to stop screaming.
No go.
The girl, all bony knees, elbows, and long, blond hair slick against a skeletal back ran screaming into the main living area. Justice followed.
The suite door opened. One of the two exterior guards came inside unhurriedly. Little girls screaming? Just another day at the office.
He didn’t draw his weapon until he came far enough into the room to see his boss’s body.
Too late. Justice shot him in the head. Crack. He dropped like a puppet whose strings had been cut. She ran over and pretended to be helping him, using his big body as cover. The second guard entered with weapon drawn. His eyes locked on her.
She shot. Hit him in the leg. He caught himself on the doorframe, kept his gun raised. There was a crack and the thuck of a bullet hitting the dead guard’s back, and a split-second later, the phone in dead guard’s pocket began to play Ritchie Valens’s “La Bamba.”
How typically inappropriate.
Justice crouched lower, sighted, squeezed the trigger again.
The bullet drove into the last guard’s chest. In almost a lazy, casual way—like a B-movie actor—the guard slumped against the door and slid to the floor.
Justice ran into Walid’s room, then slowly approached the girl. Since Justice’s Arabic sucked, a simple explanation would work best. “Women are fighting back. I am here to rescue you. I need you to get dressed. Fast.”
The girl swallowed. Her blue eyes filled with tears. She spoke English. “I’m Amal. I’m the one who prayed for you to come.”
* * *
With her throat tight with panic, Justice grasped the girl’s sweaty hand. Amal shook so hard the tremors in her hand felt like a mini earthquake. She squeezed tightly. Together, they moved out of the room and down the hallway.
The kid was as determined as she was scared. That made two of them. But the girl’s quick responses as she’d gotten ready and listened to the plan had given Justice a little more surety. Innocence was something only unused children got to keep.
At the end of the corridor, two hotel security guards waited by the elevators. They had their weapons out, but they were already looking past Justice. Amal did and said exactly what she was supposed to. She cried out for help, waved behind her. “The men are all dead. All dead.”
She began to sob. One of the hotel guards hustled Justice and the little girl behind them. He told her to stay and that others would come soon.
The two guards began down the hall. Justice knelt before Amal, blocked her from view, met her eyes. Justice hunched closer to the girl, tried to appear weak, small, a nonthreat to the reinforcements. The elevator dinged. Her mouth went dry. Her heart prepped for takeoff.
The elevator doors opened. She angled her head to see the men from the corner of her eye.
Not reinforcements.
Walid came out followed by two guards. The men spotted hotel security advancing and began to follow them down the hall.
They didn’t even register Justice and the girl. Or they had in some part of their brain that told them they were harmless.
Amal began to tremble. Her head and body leaned toward the open elevator.
Walid stood feet from them. Justice could shoot him. She could. Her gun was hidden. He was so close. But she’d risk Amal.
He followed his men down the hallway. The elevator began to close.
“Go.” Amal pushed Justice toward the closing elevator. “The elevator.”
Walid looked then. His eyes fell on Amal. His eyebrows rose. A few feet ahead of where he’d stopped, his guards turned too.
Justice yanked Amal by the arm and darted into the elevator, half dragging her.
The guards dove forward, dragged Walid down, covered him. One of them swung his gun toward Justice and shot. The elevator doors slid shut.
