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“The hell you will,” Abram growled.
“We go now.” The other man moved between Azir and the bed, the command in his tone unmistakable now. “The girl is a liability now. We will come back for her if we must.” The last sentence was uttered, intended to be audible only to Azir, but Abram had always had damned sharp ears. The instinct honed over the years as he moved secretively through the fortress castle.
“Did they promise you Paige for your cooperation?” Abram asked him then. “Is that why you accepted the deaths of your sons so easily, Azir? Because you believed you would have Marilyn’s daughter?”
“She was created for me.” Azir breathed out almost reverently. “Born to come to me.” He turned back to Abram. “And you thought you could steal her from me, as they stole her mother from me.”
He was even more crazed than Abram had believed.
“We have to go,” Jafar hissed. “Dawn is too close and there’s no way we’ll get past the security agents if we don’t move.”
“Azir.” The lieutenant’s voice was filled with dangerous warning. “Now.”
“Not without her,” Azir refused, his tone grating.
“You’ll have to kill us both then. Tonight,” Abram warned them all. “If you try to take her, then I won’t go two steps from this house with you. I’d rather see her dead than see her suffer beneath your hands.”
It would be a horrible choice to make. A choice Abram knew he couldn’t make. It wasn’t possible.
“We don’t have time for this.” Jafar’s voice was imperative now, as though he were losing patience as well as courage.
Another piece of the puzzle came together. Jafar never lost patience.
It was all a game.
His gaze sliced to his cousin. Jafar was how aiming his rifle more toward Azir and the lieutenant than at Paige. The lieutenant’s back was to the bed, and Azir had no weapon at all.
“You lie!” Azir turned to Abram furiously. “You would bleed forher. You would die for her. You would never have the strength to steal her life from her.”
“I would kill her before I allowed you to take her,” Abram promised him. “Because her death at your hands would be far worse.”
Azir’s expression twisted furiously. “She would resign herself to her fate.”
“As her mother did?” Abram sneered back, setting his hatred and rage free as he fought to keep his voice lowered. “As my mother did? Did you think I would not remember how you killed my mother before my eyes, you old bastard?” he snarled. “That I wouldn’t always carry the image of your hands around her neck, squeezing the life from her body?”
Azir blinked back at him as he obviously fought to remember the event.
“We go now,” the lieutenant, no, the commander said. “Now, Azir. We can’t take the girl with us.”
Every man on the property had been hired to give his life to keep Paige from being taken. They would never allow anyone, especially Azir, to escape with her.
“Yes, Azir. Go,” Abram hissed back. “Because I will die before she leaves this property. What good will she do you if the king takes the province because I’m too damned dead to give my vow? You won’t have a shack to keep her in, let alone a well-secured fortress.”
Azir’s black eyes glowed in rage. Demented rage.
Abram tensed. If he had once known Jafar, then he knew Azir even better, as well as his insanity. He wasn’t going anywhere without Paige. Which meant he wasn’t going anywhere but to hell. And Abram swore to himself that he would send Azir to hell.
When Azir moved to grip the sheet and jerk it from her body, Abram moved.
He didn’t jump for Azir. He prayed like hell that his cousin would take control of Azir. Abram jumped for the commander even as he realized Paige was awake and moving.
Her screams shattered the night as she began to call for the guards, jumping from the bed, the sheet whipping around her body as she moved with the lithe, quick grace she had always displayed.
And Jafar had control of Azir.
The rifle to his head, his expression cold as Abram took the commander to the floor as he grabbed the gun and flung it across the room.
A fist rammed into his jaw as he moved to jump back to deliver his own punch.
The man had a fist like f**king marble.
Hell, he was an enraged bull.
Lowering his head, the other man rammed into Abram’s midsection, throwing him into the wall. Abram wrapped his arms around the terrorist’s shoulders, lifted his fists, and buried them in the man’s lungs.
It didn’t seem to faze him.
A fist cracked into Abram’s ribs, drawing a grunt of pain. Abram managed to get an arm lowered between their bodies, pulled back, and delivered a hard blow to the diaphragm.
That at least drew a reaction and a lessening of the pressure that kept Abram locked to the wall and his gun hand from reaching for the weapon whose grip was secured just outside the pocket.
The dimness of the room had kept it hidden, but now, he was free.
Abram wrapped his hand around the weapon, jerking it free. In a heartbeat, he had it leveled against the terrorist’s head.
“Lieutenant,” he sneered. “Do you want to meet your virgins today?”
Muddy brown eyes narrowed on him.
“Commander?” Abram questioned mockingly. “Or are terrorists using rank this month?”
“We are soldiers of Allah,” the commander rasped. “What would a demon such as you know of it?”
“That you’re insane,” Abram accused him icily. “And this game is over. Have fun when the FBI interrogation team gets hold of you. I’m certain they’ll enjoy your and Azir’s company for quite a long time before you ever see the inside of a courtroom. If you ever see one.”
They would simply disappear, Abram would see to it.
“Paige, open the door,” Abram ordered as he heard the sound of shouting, muffled by the door, coming up the stairs.
Paige moved quickly, once again dressed in nothing but a sheet.
Damn, she looked good in it too.
He kept his gaze on the terrorist, though, as the other man tensed.
“No!” Azir screamed in rage as Paige raced past him, too far away for him to reach. “Marilyn.”
And all hell broke loose.
Azir jumped for her, and the sound of the weapon Jafar held exploded through the night.
