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He ran through a useless list of agencies and abbreviations, none of which mattered right now.
“NATO,” Reid told him, revealing himself as a spy for the first time to a man who had considered him to be nothing but an enemy. He tried to explain, but there wasn’t the time forit. Judging by the look on Thom’s face, he didn’t believe him, anyway.
“How the hell does Avery know about any of this?” Thom snapped.
“When I copped a feel on your girl,”—Reid grinned—“I planted a microdot with the coordinates to this place and all the data Markoff needs to hang Fariq from a crane in the nearest marketplace.”
“Oh my God!” Shoving out of bed, Thom grabbed his shoes. “I don’t know who to spank first, her or you!”
You ain’t big enough, my friend, was right on the tip of Reid’s tongue when the fortress shuddered and rocked to the distant explosion of the first missile hitting the old bailey walls.
“I believe that would be your rescue, party of one,” Reid said, watching the dust crumbling down from the ceiling.
“Oh,” Thom laughed, unamused. “I am definitely starting with you!”
“No time.” Sneaking a quick peek out the door to make sure the coast was still clear, Reid pointed the way to his escape route. “She’ll be waiting for you on the balcony.” He had someone else waiting on him, and the itch to hurry and get to her was starting to crawl in his skin. “Tell…” He stopped, knowing how completely inadequate it would sound, and for the life of him, not sure why he felt the need to say it, other than she might never otherwise know how often he truly did think of her. “Tell Finn I’m sorry.”
Apologies and mea culpas were useless in situations like this. He knew better… so did Thom.
“Tell her yourself. Come with me. Whatever information you got, we’ll get it to Markoff together.”
“I can’t.” Not without Aliya. “Not yet.”
Thom stared at him, again that flicker of suspicion and disbelief darkening his eyes.
“Fine,” he said, giving in. “We’ll come back for you.”
‘I won’t be here’ was on the tip of Reid’s tongue, but he never got the chance to say it. Thom threw the vicious roundhouse punch, his fist connecting with his chin, snapping his head back, and knocking him out cold.
Aliya…
He came to slowly, his chin aching, blood in his mouth, but with the fortress still shaking from the blasts of Avery’s military-grade chopper. How long he’d been out for, he didn’t know, but thanks to Thom’s fond ‘goodbye,’ he had even less time than before.
Once he and Avery were gone, so too would Reid’s chance to get Aliya out while there was still enough confusion for them to pass unnoticed. And, of course, for him to kill Fariq on their way out. If what that man in the security room had told him was true, if there was so much as one brutal mark on her, he wasn’t leaving here while that man still breathed.
Chapter
Thirteen
When the shuddering jolt rattled her bed, Aliya snapped from one nightmare into another, certain Fariq was back to hurt her again. The sheet on her back, rough as sandpaper on the welts, covered her nudity from the three men assigned to keep her in the room… and everyone else out.
“What is this?” Fariq had demanded, ripping the blanket right off her bed and all but rubbing the section stained by that telltale smear of Christian’s cum in her face. How he’d even seen it, she didn’t know. Even after he’d shown it to her, she could barely see it.
“I can smell the sex in here,” he’d railed at her. “Who was here? Who did you take between your legs? Do you know what you’ve cost me? All the years I spent training and educating you. Do you have any idea what those invited to the auction would have paid for you?”
Never in a million years would she have thought she’d be strong enough not to tell him. Especially after he took his belt off and ordered her stripped naked and tied to the bed.
It had hurt. Oh, had it hurt, but Christian was her secret. He was the only thing she’d ever had that was all her own, not given to her by her brother. She refused to let Fariq take him away.
Three times Fariq had come back, his belt in his hand, the same demanding question on his lips. “Who, my darling? Whisper it to me or scream it, I don’t care.”
She’d bit her arm once and bloodied her own lip during the worst of it.
The ropes were eating into her flesh at her wrists and her ankles. Every part of her ached, but her secret was still hers.
But for how much longer? The last time he had come to her, he’d climbed on top of her, unzipped his pants, and rubbed himself furiously against her buttocks, finally spraying her with his cum.
“If he dared to mark you as his, before I carve his balls from his body, he will see you have been marked as mine.”
