Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
July 10 th
12:13 P.M.
The only way Cooper could describe how he felt as he lounged on the bed in his hotel room a couple of hours later was unsettled.
Nothing about this morning’s meeting felt right.
From the fear in Professor Mahmoud’s face when he had his hand around the man’s throat, to the information the man gave him, to the figure in black huddled in the corner.
None of it.
That the professor knew more than he was letting on was as clear to him as the sun shining brightly in the clear blue sky.
Of course, he’d expected to instill fear when he wrapped his fingers around the professor’s neck, that had been the entire point, he’d wanted the older man to know that he wasn't someone to be messed with. But there was more to it than that. Nothing specific that he could put his finger on, just a gut instinct.
There was something the professor didn't want to share, and Cooper would bet that whatever it was, it was the key to unraveling this entire mess and proving that his mother was no traitor and that whatever happened to cause his father’s team to be ambushed had nothing to do with her and her second husband.
At the back of his mind, there was always that tiny niggling bit of doubt.
A voice whispering what-if .
What if he and his siblings were wrong? What if they were grasping at straws because they couldn’t accept that the mother they adored would ever betray them all by conspiring to have their father killed? What if she really was a traitor and had gotten exactly what she deserved? What if she’d committed suicide because she was guilty and didn't want to live with the consequences of her actions?
Those questions had been a constant for almost twenty years. But every time they spread their insidious doubts through his mind, he focused on the facts. His parents loved each other. Sure, he might have only been thirteen at the time, but he knew what he’d seen, and he knew that their marriage was rock solid despite his dad’s unpredictable schedule. He also knew that his mom and stepdad had not shared a bed. They’d married for a reason other than love, and he believed it was because they knew they were being set up and were trying to stop it from happening.
Innocent.
Despite the whispers of doubts, he knew his mom was not guilty, and that determination to prove it only grew with each passing year.
When his phone began to ring, he saw his twin’s name on the screen and quickly accepted the call. After returning to his hotel room after his meeting with Tarek Mahmoud, he texted to tell them the meeting was over, and he’d been sitting there expecting their call.
As soon as Connor appeared on the screen, Cooper felt himself settle. He and his twin had always been close. Cade was only two years older than them, and Cole was two years younger, but he and Connor shared a bond. One that had only grown after their parents’ deaths. Thankfully, their grandparents had stepped up, moving into their house so they could remain in their home and not endure another trauma. They’d even fostered Jake and Jax who had no other family to take them in. So even though he was close with all three of his brothers, both stepbrothers, and his baby sister, nothing could come close to that twin bond.
“How’d it go?” Connor asked, shifting the phone slightly, and Cooper could see Cade, Cole, Jake, Jax, and Cassandra all come into view. They were all looking at him with expectant faces, and he hated that he had nothing concrete to give them. They’d all wanted to join him in Egypt, but they couldn’t all come over because together, they were an intimidating group, and there was no way they’d get anything out of the professor if they showed up together.
“I don’t know,” he said slowly.
“What does that mean?” Cade demanded. From the look of the man, you’d never guess that he could be an absolute marshmallow when it came to his four-year-old daughter. While he was big, almost six foot seven, with a muscled form and a dark expression that intimidated almost everyone he met, Cade never hesitated to get down on the floor and have makeup parties, teddy bear tea parties, or dress up as a fairy princess with the little girl he adored.
Cooper took a moment to consider his answer.
There was nothing concrete he could put his finger on. There was no one thing he could say about why he was feeling so unsettled, yet he wasn't going to discount his feelings. All they needed to do was a little more digging around, and once he had a better read on Professor Tarek Mahmoud, he’d take another crack at the man.
“Something wrong, Coop?” Cole asked. Of the four Charleston brothers, the youngest, Cole, was the most laidback. He was charming, calm, and relaxed, usually smiling, which didn't mean he wasn't just as deadly, but he was the one you wouldn't immediately pick as a former special forces operator.
“No, nothing wrong,” he confirmed. “I just … Professor Mahmoud explained why he recognized the photo of Mom, but …”
“But you think he’s lying?” Jake asked. Like Cade, he was an intimidating man, not quite as tall but every bit as broad. He had a temper that seemed to be always balancing on a knife’s edge, and the smallest of things could send him tumbling over it. But he was a good man, one Cooper respected and cared about, and considered a brother just as much as the ones he was related to .
“Yeah, he was lying, no doubt about it,” he confirmed.
“What did he tell you?” Jax asked. The younger Holloway brother was definitely similar to Cole, much more charming and outwardly likable than Jake, yet every bit as deadly.
“Said he recognized Mom from his wedding,” Cooper informed them.
“From his wedding?” Cassandra asked. Despite losing both her parents when she was young enough that she barely remembered them, despite the accusations thrown at their mother, and despite the fact that she had six overprotective big brothers, she was like a breath of fresh air. She was sunshine and roses in a world that was, more often than not, far too dark and depressing.
“Doesn’t sound likely,” Cade said. Of all of them, he was the only one who’d ever been in love and gotten married. Unfortunately, his wife had passed away almost two years ago, leaving him a single father to little Esther, who was utterly spoiled by all of them, much to her daddy’s annoyance. Given their unpredictable job hours with Prey, Cade had a nanny, Gabriella, who lived with them and was always there if he had to be called away.
“Exactly. He’s getting married and yet happens to remember the face of a woman he doesn’t know eighteen years later. Doesn’t sound believable,” he agreed. “The fact it was two decades ago, and he should have had other priorities that day tells me it’s a lie. Even if he wasn't invested in the marriage and wedding, I don’t think he’d notice Mom enough to remember her this many years later.”
“Mom has those green eyes that are hard to forget,” Cole suggested.
“He mentioned the eyes, and they were amazing, but I still find it hard to believe that they would stick in his mind that long that he could pick her out in a picture,” he said. “It was more than that, though, I can't put my finger on it, but there’s something else going on there. I rattled his cage, but he looked more fearful than he should have, considering he knew I believed him to have information I needed. I don’t know what, but he knows something, I'm sure of it.
“We’ll figure out what he knows,” Connor said confidently like it was already a foregone conclusion.
Right now, he needed his twin’s optimism because he was feeling pretty tapped out.
“Was there something else?” Jax asked.
“Nothing to do with Mahmoud. There was just this figure dressed all in black in the corner of his kitchen. I just … got a weird vibe about it.” When he’d been getting ready to leave, he’d sensed that whoever was in the corner had been going to say something, but they hadn't.
“Probably nothing,” Cade said, brushing it off. “They do things differently over there. I wouldn't worry about it, remember what you're there for.”
His big brother was right. Whoever the person was, whatever they were doing there, whatever was going on, it wasn't any of his business. If the person wasn't safe, he hated leaving them to their fate, but he had to focus on what was most important. Clearing his mother and stepfather’s names so they could all finally move on with their lives.
If he messed up this chance at getting intel, they might not get another.
July 10 th
6:24 P.M.
The sounds of the trapdoor being opened to her overheated prison told Willow that her time was up.
When the American had left Professor Mahmoud’s house this morning, she’d been prepared to take the beating she knew was coming. But she’d been given a reprieve. No sooner was the stranger out of the kitchen, the front door closing behind him, than the backdoor was opening, and a half dozen men she’d seen before had come barreling in, demanding to know what the American had wanted.
She knew what the professor had been afraid of.
Like her, he’d wondered if the American had come for her.
Just because he had connections in both the US and Egypt didn't mean that Tarek Mahmoud was completely above the law. He did his business quietly, hiding who he really was behind his enigmatic personality and love of his parents’ country.
But if you looked closely enough you saw the truth.
Like she had.
While it seemed on the surface like the American was here solely to learn answers about his mother and presumably what had happened to her, that didn't mean there weren't other reasons.
Please be other reasons .
Because if there weren't, if he really wasn't in Egypt to rescue her, or because he too knew what Professor Mahmoud was really doing, then it was as good as over for her.
Feet appeared in the hole and even though she knew it was pointless, instinct had Willow pressing her back against the concrete wall of her cell. There was no escape. From the coming beating, from her inevitable death at the hand of the man she had been attempting to bring down, from the likelihood that no one would ever recover her body.
That she’d just disappear, and in the end, nobody would truly grieve her.
Even though her father was proven innocent and the real killer brought to justice, it didn't undo the damage that had been done. Her ability to trust grown-ups had been shattered. Not only had those men been content to kill her father right in front of her, but her mother hadn't done anything to try to stop it from happening. She’d believed in her husband’s guilt.
Which had left lasting damage to her mother’s psyche when the truth came out.
Ostracized by the other children, no longer trusting anyone, and taking on the role of caretaker when her mother became too depressed to function, Willow had changed, too. No longer was she carefree and outgoing, now she held her cards close to her chest and struggled to make friends. At the back of her mind there was always a question of whether or not the person could be trusted regardless of their words or actions.
Luckily, she supposed, she didn't have that problem with Professor Mahmoud.
She already knew he couldn’t be trusted .
At least he wore his intentions on his sleeve. He was angry that she’d managed to see through his facade and had the audacity to actually take him on. He wanted to punish her, enjoyed her pain, and got off on her fear. It made him a sadistic psychopath, but at least she could read him easily. There was no guessing, which took away a little of the fear.
“You were going to disobey my orders this morning,” Professor Mahmoud said as his shoes became his whole body and he landed on the floor of her tiny cell just a couple of steps away from her.
Even though the air outside wasn't much cooler than the stifling air trapped in her musty little oven of a cell, it was still cooler, and for a moment Willow ignored the maniac standing before her and took a few gulps of it. Since the heat was pretty close to unbearable, there was a constant sheen of sweat on her skin, it made her skin slippery, and every movement had the cuff around her wrist slide around. At first, she’d thought that it could be a way to slip her hand right out of the cuff, get the drop on Mahmoud when he came for her, and find a way to escape.
Now she knew it was just another thing to cause her pain.
Now as she stood slowly, shakily, it banged against her already bruised and torn skin.
Every ounce of pain as she drew herself up straight, refusing to cower before this coward of a man, served as a reminder of how quickly her life was rushing to an end. It was like her body had been turned into an hourglass, each beating caused a little more sand to fall from one side to the other. When all the sand was gone …
Then she would be too.
But that didn't mean she would cower.
No way.
She knew she was doing something dangerous when she decided to follow Professor Mahmoud to Egypt. She’d weighed the risks against the gains and concluded that it was worth it.
If this was how she was going to die, she could at least hold her head up high and know that she’d done her best to take her father’s tragedy and turn it around, make it something good.
“I didn't speak a word, I followed your rules,” she told the professor, gaining a small rush of satisfaction at the annoyance that flared in his eyes.
This was the only bit of power she possessed in this situation. Her ability to stand her ground and not fold before the man who thought he had a right to do as he pleased and hurt whomever he chose.
All Willow could pray for was that she could hold onto that strength right until the end. That even as she took her final breath, she didn't give this psychopath the satisfaction of begging, pleading, or cowering.
“You were going to,” Professor Mahmoud snapped.
“But I didn't. And you have no way of proving otherwise.” That was kind of a silly comment to throw at him since proof meant nothing there. She wasn't being charged with a crime and wasn't standing before a judge in a court of law. There were no rules, there were just men who would do whatever it took to force their beliefs on the rest of the world.
“You are not very smart are you, Ms. Purcell?” Professor Mahmoud snarled as he stepped closer, snapping out a hand to wrap around her neck and shoving her back up against the wall just like the American had done to him several hours ago. “You do not seem to learn your lesson no matter how many times I teach you.”
That’s because the lesson he wanted to teach her wasn't one she was willing to learn.
She didn't believe, as he did, that women were nothing more than vessels to be used to provide the next generation of boys they could train to become just like them. Slaves to cook, clean, and cater to their every whim.
Nothing he could do would ever make her believe that.
It killed the professor that it was a woman who had been trying to bring him down, and while he was enjoying inflicting his punishments, it was infuriating to him that he couldn’t bend her to his will. Which was why it was so important that she stood firm.
Stay strong.
You can do this.
If you don’t believe in yourself nobody else will .
The pep talk was enough that she only grunted when his fist connected with her stomach, shoving the air from her lungs.
Another followed quickly after, and then a third.
Predictable as he was, Professor Mahmoud stepped back after that. When his hand left her throat, Willow sagged forward, dragging in breaths and doing her best to compartmentalize the throbbing pain in her stomach.
“I will break you,” he snapped as he pulled out a key and unlocked the cuff from around her wrist then threw her over his shoulder. Like always, he passed her up to one of his men standing above the trapdoor, then climbed up to join them.
Snatching her from his friend’s arms, the professor literally threw her onto the ground, her body bouncing from the force, then stood above her sneering down at her. With the bright blue sky surrounding them and the sun highlighting him from behind, making him appear more shadowlike than human, Willow felt she was looking directly at the devil.
This man was pure evil, there was no other way to describe him.
The only comfort she could take in her death was knowing that upon it, every scrap of evidence she’d managed to uncover would be sent directly to her boss, the cops, the university the professor worked for, and a government contact she had. Before getting on the plane, she’d left instructions with her lawyer that if no one heard from her in a month, he was to access her files and pass them along to the designated people.
If Professor Mahmoud thought killing her was going to solve all his problems, he was wrong. While she didn't have enough evidence yet to bring him down, she had enough for people to start asking questions, and add in her disappearance and likely death, and she was sure that in the end, she would be the one who came out victorious even if she was no longer alive to celebrate her victory.
“You are nothing,” Professor Mahmoud snarled as he slammed his foot into her body.
Instinctively, she curled in on herself, protecting her head and vital organs as best as she could as his foot continued to make contact with her body.
Like she always did, Willow mentally reached out to her father, who had suffered the same fate she currently was.
Help me, Daddy. Help me be strong like you were. Help me to hold on. Help me stand up for what's right and not cave no matter what.
Give me a miracle and send someone to save me.