Chapter 9
Nine
Omar lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. The adrenaline that had powered him through the chase, the fight, and the aftermath had finally drained away, leaving him hollow and exhausted.
His body cataloged its complaints: ribs that ached with each breath, knuckles that throbbed in time with his pulse, a bruise spreading across his back where Bashir had slammed him into the bench.
Luc had brought ice wrapped in kitchen towels, and Omar had dutifully held the makeshift ice packs against his hands until the cold became unbearable.
Now his knuckles were swollen and stiff.
But worse than the physical pain was the absence beside him.
Marielle and Hanna were bunking together in Marielle’s room.
It made sense—practical, even necessary.
Hanna shouldn’t be left alone, not after everything she’d been through.
Not when she was clearly still processing the trauma of being shot at, of narrowly escaping being snatched, of realizing that Idris’s reach extended even to this quiet village.
So Marielle had moved into Hanna’s room.
And he missed the warmth of her body in the bed. No, not missed. Craved. Needed.
He rolled onto his side and bit back a groan as his ribs protested.
The sheets smelled faintly of something floral he couldn’t identify.
Not Marielle’s scent. Not the warm spice-and-fruit notes of her perfume that he’d memorized during those nights on the yacht when they’d slept tangled together for the cameras.
For the cameras, he reminded himself. It had all been for cover.
Except it hadn’t felt like cover.
He replayed the night’s events, but his mind kept snagging on a single moment: Marielle standing at the train station platform, her gun steady in a two-handed grip, holding a third guard at bay while Omar fought Bashir. She’d been calm. Focused. Lethal.
And he’d been terrified for her.
Not the operational fear that came with the job—the tactical assessment of risk, the calculation of odds, the contingency planning. This was something else. Something raw and primal that had nothing to do with training or experience.
When he’d looked up from choking out Bashir and seen her moving to neutralize the third guard, his heart had stopped. What if the guard had a knife she hadn’t seen? What if he was faster than she anticipated? What if she made one small miscalculation and—
He’d pushed the thoughts away then, forced himself to focus on the immediate task. But now, in the darkness, they crowded back.
His feelings for her were detrimental to the mission.
He knew this. Jake had made it clear when he’d told them about Trent and Carla. Personal attachment compromised judgment. It made you hesitate at critical moments. Made you choose the person over the mission.
But knowing something and being able to change it were two different things.
He couldn’t deny his feelings anymore. Couldn’t pretend they were friends.
He was in love with Marielle Moreau.
And it was going to get them both killed.
He closed his eyes, willing sleep to come. His body was exhausted enough. But his mind kept spinning, kept returning to the train platform.
He must have finally dozed off, because the next thing he knew, bright lights flashed on outside, flooding the room with harsh white light that turned the darkness into day.
Omar sat up, instantly alert. His hand went to his hip—no gun.
The motion-detecting floodlights at the edge of the property blazed like search beams. He rolled out of bed, shirtless, grabbed the binoculars and the gun from his dry bag, and moved to the window, staying to the side to avoid being silhouetted.
He raised the binocs and peered out into the pitch dark beyond the lights.
A commando unit was approaching from the shore. Six figures in tactical gear, moving in formation. Night vision goggles. Professional spacing. Military precision.
The floodlights had temporarily blinded them. Omar could see them hesitating, adjusting. He knew from experience that it would take their eyes several minutes to readjust to darkness after that blast of light.
This was their window to escape.
He moved fast. Threw on the now-ruined clothes he’d worn earlier, shoved his feet into his shoes, and stuffed the binoculars into the bag.
He was halfway to Hanna’s room he nearly collided with Luc in the hallway.
Luc thrust a large, canvas rucksack at him. “Go bag,” he explained. “Food, flashlight, euros, meds.”
Omar took it, confused. “Why do you have a go bag?”
“I survived the Bataclan attack. It became habit after that.”
“Thanks, man.”
As Omar was wheeling around to grab the extra clothes from the bureau and stuff them in the bag, Hanna and Marielle rushed out into the hall, both fully dressed.
Marielle wore the sea foam blouse and linen pants.
Hanna had changed into dark jeans and a black t-shirt, another outfit from Luc’s fashion collection.
Luc handed them each a similar rucksack.
Marielle threw her arms around Luc and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Merci.”
In under ninety seconds, they’d gathered their belongs and were thundering down the stairs.
Luc tossed a set of keys, and Omar snagged them out of the air.
“My car is in the alley behind the flower shop. The blue Peugeot. It has a full tank of petrol. Another habit.”
“Luc, I’m sorry we brought trouble to your door. Then men outside are professional—probably from the U.S.” Marielle shook her head.
“Bof.” The shrug was pure Gallic indifference. “I’ll shake my fist and yell at them like any self-respecting Frenchman.”
“Hey, why the motion-detecting floodlights?” Hanna asked.
Luc’s expression shifted from determination to amused annoyance. “Teenage lovers kept sneaking up the stairs and trying to break into the fishing shed to make love. I understood—until they used an ankle-length silver cashmere shawl as their blanket.”
“Eww,” the women said in unison.
“Come on!” Omar herded them out the front door into the night.
The inn sat on the first terrace of streets above the shore—commandos behind them, the village ahead. They burst onto the cobblestones, turned right, and ran. Across the narrow street, past the florist’s darkened storefront, and into the alley where the blue Peugeot waited.