Page 25 of Rescuing You

Right?

Except he’d somehow missed the alarm on Jasmine’s door. None of the other doors had shown signs of a security system. He’d checked, of course.

Yet that one door had been wired with a siren. Hidden wires, considering he hadn’t seen them and Leila’s sister hadn’t known about them. The alarm was intended to keep people in as much as to keep them out.

To alert the guards that someone was trying to escape.

And alert the escapee that she’d never get away.

Jasmine’s prison might’ve looked different from Leila’s, but it had been a prison, just the same.

Michael had run from the motorcycle because he’d feared Leila wouldn’t leave until she knew there was no other option.

After the women sped toward the highway, he crept back to the low, scrubby bushes and took cover beneath the tarp. He inched his way toward the river a good hundred yards in the distance. Slowly, slowly. So slowly that nobody would notice the lump of sand moving in the darkness.

Or so he prayed.

Shouts sounded from the compound. Michael imagined the men streaming out, guns drawn, searching the barren landscape.

The motorcycle engine had drawn them close. His only hope was to stay hidden until they gave up. He needed them to believe the sisters—and those who’d helped them—were long gone.

The roar of the motorcycle had faded a few moments earlier. There’d been no indication that the guards firing at them had hit their marks.

Please, let them be okay. Get them to Baghdad.

“The house is clear,” someone shouted.

“Which sister?” Another voice rose above the rest. He was closer, somewhere between Michael and the walls surrounding the property.

“Yasamin!” This voice came from farther away and belonged to an older man, if Michael’s guess was correct. “It was her alarm.”

Yasamin. Jasmine, obviously.

But another voice said, “Nawra’s gone too!”

Nawra. Not Leila. But of course she’d changed her name.

That information was greeted by silence—for a few beats—and then everybody was shouting.

Michael kept moving away from the noise, hoping he was going in the right direction but unable to make out landmarks through the thin tarp.

In the chaos, he couldn’t decipher all the Arabic words, but one was clear.

Motorcycle.

Of course they’d seen how the sisters had escaped.

With the men distracted, Michael risked lifting the tarp the tiniest bit. Ahead, scrubby trees indicated water nearby. He moved a little faster, ignoring the jab of rocks and the hard desert floor.

Another shout from behind. “Why are you not following!” An older man, though not the same as the last who’d yelled. Definitely someone in charge.

The man who answered explained what Michael already knew.

The tires in every car in the garage had been slashed. Michael had done that before he’d found Leila. If he hadn’t, he might’ve considered stealing one. The motorcycle had been a great escape—for two.

The good news was that the guards weren’t going anywhere. Did they have people on the outside who’d do their dirty work? Was someone, even now, calling for help to search for two women on a motorcycle?

Leila and Jasmine needed to get to Baghdad as fast as possible—and try to do so without being stopped. The roads would be quiet this late at night, and two women on a motorcycle would certainly capture attention.