Page 38 of Her Tempting Protector

Carys’ throat clenched. She didn’t like how this was starting. She sucked in air in a small sip, then blew it out. He’d said she was fine. That was the important thing.

“Okay. She’s good. Got it. What happened?”

“One of the rebel forces got to her. Raiden figured out that her dad is high up with the rebels. Somehow, they got word that his family was taken to the hospital by Americans. They tried to take her, but a nurse caused an uproar, so Leila got away, but not before she gave him some information about us.”

“How high up?”

“All Leila could do was describe his uniform and tell my team how people referred to him. By the sounds of it, he’s the right hand to the colonel of the rebel Rapid Support Forces. That’s the man who used to report up to one of the many generals that have been in power. Who knows which one that is these days. The colonel is still out there coordinating things.”

“What’s the father’s name?”

“Kafeel Mubarek. He and the Colonel are both wanted for war crimes. It’s bad stuff, Carys.”

“Hell, all I have to do is look at what he’s done to his wife and children to know what the bastard is capable of,” she said bitterly. “How does Raiden think he’ll be able to find us?”

“One good thing is that the RSF isn’t using helos, so we’re good that way. But they have some fast trucks and Jeeps. He expects that they are close to his house now. The one thing we have going for us is that we didn’t go the way they expected. They will have thought that we went the straight way back to Khartoum. Instead, we headed east.”

“And here I’d been thinking you were nuts.”

His head swiveled. “Really?”

She smiled. “No. I figured whatever you were doing must be the right thing. I trust you implicitly to keep us safe.”

“Good, because I’ve got more bad news.” He again glanced over at her, gauging her response. When he saw her nod, Cullen blew out a stream of air through his teeth. “You and your team have been targeted by the RSF—they’re trying to make the new prime minister look bad.”

“How do you know we’ve been targeted? Are you sure?”

He didn’t say anything as he avoided a huge pothole.

“Cullen, are you sure?” They were speaking in English, but her worry must have come through because Shada asked if everything was okay.

“Yes, Shada,” Carys assured her in Arabic. “He’s telling me about some friends. Everything is fine.” She gripped her fingers together until the knuckles were white. “Has something happened?” she asked in English. She kept her voice even.

“Look, I don’t have names, but things got out of hand. I just know that some of the people involved with the Doctors Without Borders contingent have been killed.”

Her hand shot out and she gripped his thigh. Her nails dug in. “How many?”

“Four.” He hesitated. “But two more are missing. The C.I.A. found your name, I’m assuming with some others, on a list that they got from the rebels.”

“I don’t care about that,” Carys tried to keep the tears and anguish out of her voice so as not to upset Shada. “I care about my friends. Were they Americans?”

“I don’t know.”

“You need to stop the truck.”

“No Carys, I really don’t.”

“Yes, you do. I need to get to my phone, and it’s in my backpack in the bed of the truck. I need to find out who was killed. I have to talk to Jamal.”

“You’re not getting it, Carys. Those men we just left behind could have called to someone else. We could still be in the shit. As long as we’re on this road, we are not stopping for any reason.”

Her stomach clenched. Dead was one thing, missing was something else entirely. She didn’t think she could ever handle that again.

As if he read her mind, he picked her hand up off his thigh. “You said you trusted me implicitly, is that true?”

“There are situations that are too much for anyone.”

“Carys, I might have told them that you were the one with the gun, but that was just a diversionary tactic. It was the way to get out of there with the least amount of suspicion. I could have killed them just as easily.”