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Whit was wrong. My mother had bought me tickets to help me out of the country. She wouldn’t want me to die, and no amount of money would change that. In my heart, I knew she cared enough about me to be a liability against her enemies.
I would bet my life on it.
CAPÍTULO TREINTA Y CUATRO
I arrived at the docks, the outline of the pyramids a dark smudge against the blackening sky. The hundreds of feluccas and dahabeeyahs gently swayed with the rhythm of the river. Behind me stood a stone-fronted building with a painted sign that had faded years before. Rats scrambled across the path as I drew closer to the lapping water. Locals chatted with tourists, advertising their services as pilots and navigators of the Nile.
I looked around uneasily. The warehouses lined the docks, a familiar stretch of buildings I remembered seeing from the last time I was in Bulaq. I had no way of knowing which one held my cousin. All of them appeared to be abandoned. Some even had broken windows. I walked toward the first in the line, nibbling on my lower lip. Because of the crowd, I felt relatively safe. Who was going to hurt me in front of all these people?
I tried not to imagine what Whit would say to that.
The door in front of the first warehouse was locked. I looked to the next entrance, and that one, too, had a long chain barring entry. I walked past three more entrances, rounding the corner and searching for a hint that my cousin might be hidden inside. Large stacks of empty crates and barrels littered my path, towering over me. The noise of the crowd by the docks fell to a soft hush as I drew farther away from the water. Each door I passed didn’t permit entry.
Then, from the corner of my eye, I spotted movement. There were two men dressed in trousers and double-breasted jackets roaming a stretch of ground in front of one of the buildings. They were brawny, and talking quietly, standing several feet away from me, but routinely looking around.
I was about to call out to them when a stranger’s hand clapped over my mouth. A strong hand wrapped around my waist and pulled me backward against a hard surface. I struggled, and aimed a kick backward. It connected to the man’s shin.
“For fuck’s sake, Inez,” Whit hissed in my ear.
I immediately stopped struggling as he ducked us both behind a large stack of shipping crates.
“You are the most annoying human being I’ve ever had the displeasure to meet,” Whit snarled. “I could strangle you myself.”
“I have to do this,” I said fiercely. “You didn’t have to follow me.”
“The hell I didn’t.” Whit took my hand, and attempted to drag me back the way I came, but I resisted.
“I’m not going!”
“What if I can’t save you?” Whit asked, his eyes wild and in full-blown panic. “Please don’t do this to me.”
“I can’t leave—”
“Let’s go before they see us. They have men patrolling—”
The click of a loaded pistol sounded like a cannon blast.
“Whit!”
An assailant had crept behind us and aimed the barrel of a gun at the back of Whit’s head. He smiled, blue eyes blazing, his teeth gleaming in the moonlight. Whit released me, and crouched, swinging his leg wide. The man tumbled to the ground and his gun went off, the sound reverberating in my ear. From far away, people screamed.
Whit leapt onto the man and threw a punch. The gun flew out of his hand, skittering against the floor. It landed with a loud clatter by my feet. I instinctively dropped to the soiled ground and grabbed it.
“Inez, run!” Whit yelled as the two men I’d seen earlier encircled him, their fists raised high. Whit ducked beneath the first jab, and blocked another with his forearm. He swung hard, hitting the side of one man’s head, rattling teeth. “Inez,” he shouted as he landed a kick at the second man, “I thought I told you”—Whit narrowly avoided the third man’s right hook—“to run!”
“Watch out!” I yelled in terror, and without thinking, I swung up my arm and fired the pistol straight into the air. Whit didn’t flinch but the otherattacker did and he took advantage of the distraction by throwing another punch.
The third man jumped to his feet and pulled out a dagger and flung it at Whit, who narrowly stepped aside. The momentum sent the knife somersaulting through the air, sinking into one of the barrels.
Whit whipped his revolver from out of the holster and shot at the third man, who narrowly missed a shot to his stomach. The sound of a loaded pistol echoed in my ear. From the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a tiny hole and the sharp glint of silver metal aimed at my temple.
“Drop it,” a man growled.
I dropped the weapon.
“Kick it away from you.”
I did as he demanded.
