Page 146 of Sheltering You

Derrick dove to the side, expecting a gunshot in his ear. But it didn’t come.

The man tackled him. An arm came down, hard.

Pain exploded on Derrick’s temple. Then a second time.

Derrick’s face smacked on the hard wood deck. The world spun, his head pounded.

The man bent over him, his hot breath in Derrick’s face.

“Everything you have done, she will be punished for. I will let you live with that.” He stood, kicked Derrick in the back, forcing air from his lungs, then stepped into the house.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

“Go. I’m fine.”

A few minutes had passed since Jasmine had helped Camilla to a chair in front of the window. Now, she stood back from the room’s second window, watching. Though she couldn’t see him, Derrick was out there now, shooting terrorists.

In harm’s way.

“I will stay⁠—”

“You heard Grant,” Camilla said. “He wants you in the basement.”

He’d told her that through the walkie-talkie a moment before.

“I know but⁠—”

“I’m all right.” The older woman sounded exasperated. “You’re as bad as Zoë. Go, please.”

There hadn’t been another flash-bang, as Grant called them.

Jasmine didn’t want to leave, not while her friends were in danger, but she had promised to do what Grant said. “Be careful.” She headed to the hallway and down the stairs and was halfway to the door that led to the basement when she heard it.

The voice that turned her blood cold.

“I knew you wouldn’t come.”

Terror rose from her midsection and clogged in her throat, blocking a scream that tried to claw its way out.

Slowly, reluctantly, she turned toward him, the man she most dreaded. The man she despised.

Khalid.

He stalked toward her from the kitchen, then stopped a few feet away. He wore the garb of a soldier—camouflage pants, coat, and hat.

She’d always thought of him as an old man. Balding. Wrinkled. Weak.

But he seemed powerful now, as if strengthened by the prospect of all the evil he’d done. He aimed a gun at her.

“I knew you would tell the men who are protecting you where you were to meet me, and they would set a trap. And now, they are there. And I am here, with you.”

Voices carried up from the basement. Her sister and some of her friends were safe. She knew that much. If nothing else, if she left with Khalid, at least nobody else would get hurt.

“You will come with me,” Khalid said, “or I will direct my people to kill every single one of them. You understand?”

Could he, though? Were his people winning? She thought not. The Wrights were strong and capable, much more so than he’d anticipated. His men were being killed, one by one.

But Khalid wouldn’t care about that. He’d let them all die to get what he wanted.