Hakeem had lied to her this whole time.
If he wasn’t part of the TIDES team with Julian, then who was he working for? Was he taking her back to that maniac, Tubeec Hirad?
The phone call to Julian flickered through Mena’s mind.
Hakeem hadn’t been worried about alerting Tubeec’s men. He’d been afraid Julian would find them before he had a chance to deliver her to the terrorist. From the sound of the phone call he’d made, Mena suspected Tubeec was paying him one hundred thousand dollars for his trouble.
She’d been a fool, believing Hakeem was trying to help her.
Mena leaned back, closing her eyes, exhaling a shaky breath.
Think.She had one chance to make a move and she couldn’t afford to make the wrong one. She had to get away from Hakeem. Any move she made would need to be quick before he suspected what was happening.
Turning over, Mena lifted her hands above her head covering her body with the heavy cloth. She allowed her hands to linger near the door release, hoping the blanket would obscure her attempt to escape. Gripping the handle, Mena pulled it forward. The door didn’t budge.
“Child locks. You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?” Hakeem asked, his voice cold and menacing.
Mena looked up at the side of his face. His jaw clenched tight, he gripped the steering wheel with one hand and pointed a gun directly toward her with the other.
“You lied. You’re not taking me back to Nairobi. What are you going to do with me? Take me back to Tubeec?”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” Hakeem said.
“Do you even work for TIDES? Do you know Julian?” Mena asked, sitting up in the back seat.
Hakeem said, “I work for TIDES. Julian is fine. If things go as I plan, then you might get your happy ending after all. If not …”
“What if I pay you not to take me back? How much to pretend you never found me and drive me back to Nairobi? It would take a few days but I could pay you more than what Tubeec is offering,” Mena said, her voice shaking as she tried to calculate in her head how much money she and her family could liquidate in short order. She had her condo back in St. Basil and she was sure her Mom had excess funds that could be accessed. Mena could probably get two hundred, maybe three hundred thousand dollars to Hakeem within a month.
Hakeem raised an eyebrow as he looked at her, then shook his head. “This ain’t about money. Not for me.”
“Please don’t do this to me,” Mena barely choked out the words. She’d run out of time. Tears stung her eyes as panic gripped her.
“Save your tears,” Hakeem said without a hint of remorse.
Mena felt like the wind had been knocked out of her.
What was she going to do?
The dirt road stretched for miles ahead of them, dotted with a few trees and scrub brush. No structures for as far as the eye could see.
She couldn’t let Hakeem take her back.
They were approaching a cluster of trees.
But he wouldn’t kill her, would he?
Tubeec wanted her alive.
Not dead.
Hakeem wasn’t going to shoot her.
He couldn’t.
Heart thudding in her chest, Mena screamed and pushed through the opening between the front seats, fumbling her hands toward the steering wheel. She jerked it hard to the right, sending the Jeep careening into the trees lining the road.
Chapter Forty-Six
