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“No!” She raked a hand through her hair. “I need that satchel.” Jasmine pushed away from Ace and started running back the way they’d come, then stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Which way did they go?”
He tipped his head in the direction the men had gone.
When Jasmine turned in that direction, Ace stepped in front of her and gripped her arms. “They’re gone. You won’t catch up to them now.”
“Why didn’t you stop them? They stole my satchel!” She tried to shake off his grip on her arms.
His lips pressed together, and his grip tightened. “What was in the satchel, Jasmine?”
“Something important. I have to get it back. Please, let go of me.”
“Was the copper scroll in your bag?” he asked quietly so only she could hear his words.
Her gaze locked with his. For a moment, she hesitated, as if deciding whether or not to trust him. Then she nodded. “I had to take it. If I don’t get it back, someone I care about will die.”
Chapter 2
“Please,” Jasmine begged. “You have to let go of me.”
Ace, the man she’d dreamed about for the past four years, shook his head. “I can’t let you go. You stole the copper scroll from the museum. To do the right thing, I should turn you over to the Jordanian police.”
She held her hands out, palms up. “But I don’t have the scroll. How will you prove it? The thieves are getting away as we stand here. We have to go after them.”
He shook his head. “I’m taking you back to the museum, where you’ll tell them what you’ve done.”
Jasmine’s heart twisted in her chest. “If I do that, they’ll put me in jail. I won’t get out in time to stop what will happen. Did you not hear what I said? I have to get the scroll back and hand it over to them in the next forty-eight hours, or they’ll kill him.”
“Kill who?” Ace asked.
“Eli.” She swallowed hard on the lump forming in her throat, her eyes burning with unshed tears. “They’ll kill Eli!”
Ace frowned. “Who’s Eli? Your boyfriend?”
Jasmine shook her head, afraid to tell him but more afraid of losing Eli if she didn’t. “Eli is someone I love more than life itself.”
Ace’s eyebrows dipped lower on his forehead.
“Please.” She touched a hand to his arm and stared into his dark eyes. “You have to help me.”
“Is he being held hostage?” Ace asked.
She nodded.
“By who?”
“I have no idea,” she said. “All I know is that they have Eli.”
Ace crossed his arms over his chest. “Start from the beginning.”
She looked past him in the direction the assailants had gone, her shoulders sagging. Her gaze came back to him. “A week ago, while I was away with ...work... three men broke into my home and took Eli.”
“Didn’t you see who they were?”
She shook her head. “I was away on a job. My housekeeper contacted me immediately, but it was too late.”
“Did she call the police?”
Jasmine shook her head. “The note they left with her said that if anyone contacted the police, Eli would die. With the note, they left a burner cell phone. I was to wait until they called with instructions regarding what I had to do to get Eli back alive.”
