Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
July 12 th
1:29 P.M.
Damn.
This was the last thing they needed.
Cooper had weighed the odds, knowing that whatever road he chose came with risks. In the end, he’d decided that Tarek Mahmoud would be using all his contacts to watch airports and airfields, expecting that he would take Willow and immediately flee the country, they’d do the opposite.
Which seemed to have backfired on them.
Because now he was alone with Willow at the Step Pyramids of Saqqara, and they were being followed.
If it was just him on his own, he’d just take them out the first opportunity he got and then disappear. But Willow was injured, weak, tough yes, but the physical toll her ordeal had taken on her wasn't something they could just magically overcome.
“What do we do?” Willow asked, and he loved that she skipped right over panic and went straight to logic. It made things so much easier. Not that she wasn't well and truly deserving of a meltdown, she’d been through hell, but right now, it gave them a better chance of surviving if Willow could hold it together.
“Right now, we do nothing,” he told her, guiding her along with him as they headed closer to the pyramid. For now, there was the safety of numbers. If they stuck with the crowd, then it would be harder for whoever Mahmoud had sent after them to make any sort of move.
“Nothing?” Willow repeated, but she followed his lead and kept walking so it didn't look like he was dragging her along with him.
“Yep, our best bet for the moment is to just blend in.” If they were caught there was every chance that Mahmoud would try to get him thrown in prison. Sure, Cooper knew he’d get out, he’d done nothing wrong, and Prey and Eagle Oswald’s reach far outweighed that of Tarek Mahmoud. But in that time the professor would ensure Willow was killed.
They were on Mahmoud’s home turf, and Willow was a walking advertisement that someone had been beating on her. There was every chance Mahmoud would use the injuries he inflicted to his advantage. Willow would no doubt tell anyone who would listen who had hurt her, but Mahmoud’s reach was long, and Cooper was positive he’d have her declared incompetent.
Again, all it took was separating them for the professor to get his hands on Willow.
Not going to happen.
Not as long as he was standing.
Whatever it took, he was going to keep this woman safe.
“I won't let him hurt you again,” he promised. It wasn't wise to make vows. Especially when he didn't have the upper hand. Unarmed but for a few knives that would do the job but only if he got close enough to the men following them, his weapon was out of ammo and he didn't have time to get more, he didn't have a good idea of the layout of the area, he had no backup, and he had an injured woman who was his responsibility.
But he’d worked with less.
Whatever it took .
“I know you won't,” she said softly, resting her head against his shoulder.
Something warm shifted inside him at the simple touch. This woman got to him in the weirdest ways. It confused the hell out of him, but he wasn't going to fight against it. He was going to do what he had to do to make sure Willow got home safe and took down the professor, and then he’d see what happened.
No use worrying about it right now.
Now all that mattered was keeping her alive.
“I know you're strong, Willow. You’re the bravest person I've ever met, but I need to know that you're going to do everything I ask you to do immediately and without complaint.” He would do whatever it took, but he had to know that Willow wasn't going to be fighting against him. For them to stand a chance, he had to be confident that if he asked Willow to do something, she’d just do it.
“I won't be a liability,” Willow said fiercely.
“Never thought you would be. But this is what I do, Willow. It’s been my job my entire life. I might not be able to explain why I need you to do something, I might have to ask you to do something you're uncomfortable with. There can't be any arguing, even a couple of seconds delay can make the difference between life and death.” It wasn't like he wanted to scare her more than she already was, but he also needed to ensure she realized the stakes.
“You don’t have to worry. I know this is your thing, not mine. I promise I’ll do whatever you need me to do without questioning you,” Willow solemnly agreed.
“That’s all I needed to hear. And, hey,” he caught her fingers and squeezed them, “when I help you with your article, you can totally boss me around.”
She gave a small chuckle, but when he tangled their fingers together, he could feel the tension radiating off her.
Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about that.
If he could wave a magic wand, erase the bruises littering her body, wipe away the terror and fear she’d experienced, transport her back home where she would be safe, and put Tarek Mahmoud in a prison cell he absolutely would .
But he couldn’t.
All he could do was work with what he had at the moment. Even if it wasn't a lot.
“You're really going to help me with my article?” Willow asked as they followed the other tourists along a wooden plank and through a narrow door.
They walked through the covered colonnade, Cooper hyper-aware of everything around them. With the time of year and the heat of summer in Egypt, more people were there than he would have thought, which both helped and made things harder.
What he needed was a quiet place to circle around and take down the men following them from behind. He could not do that when there were too many witnesses. While he wouldn't hesitate to kill anyone who was a threat to Willow, and he was confident Eagle could get him out of any mess, he didn't enjoy leaving a trail of bodies in his wake.
Until he got that opportunity, he’d just stick with the crowd. Not a great plan, but again, the best he had right now.
“Not walking away, Willow,” he told her. Something inside him urged him to add a qualifier. Not walking away until. Only … he wasn't sure what the until was. The sensible thing to do would be to say he wasn't walking away until she was safe, and Tarek Mahmoud was sitting in a prison cell.
But that didn't feel right.
There was something between them, he liked her, respected her, and wanted to get to know more about her. Crazy given they’d spent less than twenty-four hours in one another’s company, but that was how he felt.
At the back of his mind—not that he’d ever given it a lot of conscious thought—was that if he was ever going to fall in love, he’d know it was that person when he met them. While, of course, he wasn't implying he loved Willow, he didn't even really know her, it was just that what he did know about her was enough to know that she could be someone he could fall in love with.
Which was not what he should be thinking about right now.
“I know we’re being followed, but wow,” Willow said, gazing at the pyramid across a sandy open space from where they were standing. “It really is amazing. I know we said that already, but standing in front of something like that makes you feel small, but not in a bad way.”
Willow was right, seeing the pyramids was an awe-inspiring experience, and he wanted it to be only one of many that she got to experience over her life. He wanted her to be able to go up to Lapland, visit Santa, go on a reindeer-pulled sled ride through a snowy winter wonderland, and see the glory of the northern lights. To make all her dreams come true.
To do that he had to get her out of this alive.
His gaze scanned about as they continued to stroll along with the other tourists. Below them was a sandy maze of paths and rooms leading to small underground chambers. There had to be a spot down there he could separate from the crowd, get Willow hidden, and make a move.
“You ready to do this?” he whispered to Willow as he guided her over to the steps leading down.
“More than ready,” she said, fierce bravery ringing in her tone.
“Plan is to head down, break away from the group, you hide, and I show the professor that he’s messing with the wrong people.”
In theory, it sounded easy, but as he knew all too well, all it took was one wrong move for everything to fall apart.
July 12 th
1:42 P.M
Her heart raced and her palms were clammy.
Willow prayed that whatever Cooper had planned worked out. Because if it didn't, neither of them would leave Egypt alive.
As she huddled in the sand, hidden behind a stone wall, she wished they’d come up with a different plan. Cooper had told her he believed them pretending to be tourists for a few days would give them a better chance at getting out of the country alive. She’d agreed. He’d also told her he believed that if he called for his team—made up of his three brothers and two stepbrothers—to fly out there they could make Professor Mahmoud believe Prey was coming after him, guns blazing.
Which put the two of them in more danger since they were there in the country.
At the time, she’d agreed with that decision, too. She knew the professor and had been watching him for almost a year, gathering intel, verifying sources, finding informants, and building her case so she could dismantle his plans before he built enough of an army to change the world as they knew it.
Now she wished they’d thrown caution to the wind and just tried to leave the country last night or had his brothers fly in to back them up.
Because she couldn’t keep living with this rock of anxiety sitting heavily in her stomach.
It was supposed to be over now. She’d been rescued, she was supposed to be recuperating and working on her article because she was more determined than ever to destroy Tarek Mahmoud. What she wasn't supposed to be doing was hiding from men who no doubt were connected to the professor, terrified that she was going to be captured all over again.
There was no way she could survive that again.
Well, it wasn't so much that she couldn’t mentally handle it again, she’d darn well do whatever she had to in order to fulfill the promises she made to her dad, but Tarek wouldn't be stupid enough to let her live. She was too big a threat and he knew that she actually possessed enough information on him to destroy him. Possibly even enough to get him jailed. Definitely enough for his fellow Allah’s Warriors members to see him as more of a liability than an asset and take care of him themselves.
A soft thud had her straightening.
Fingers curled into fists, her chipped nails dug into the soft skin of her palms.
She really ought to have done something about them, she thought absently as she itched to sneak out of her hiding place and help somehow.
Sitting like this felt cowardly.
It wasn't her .
But she’d promised Cooper she’d do whatever he asked her to do without arguing, and what he’d asked of her was for her to hide and wait for him.
As much as she hated it, she’d do it unless she had no other options.
Just because she agreed that in this situation Cooper was the one with the skills and training to eliminate the men following them so they could get safely away didn't mean she’d sit there and let anything happen to him.
He had risked everything for her. Come back for her when he didn't have to, put his own goals on hold to help her take down the professor.
If it came down to it, she would absolutely disobey his orders if he needed her help.
There was no other sound but the ominous thud, and Willow subconsciously rocked backward and forward.
Maybe the thud was nothing?
Plenty of tourists were around even if this area seemed deserted. There were also a lot of stray dogs about. Most of them were sleeping in the shade, doing their best to avoid the hot early afternoon sun.
Most likely what she’d heard was nothing.
It was possible she could have convinced herself of that if she hadn't then heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps.
Quickly followed by a curse and then muted muttering.
The voices were too quiet for her to make out any of the words, but she could differentiate two distinct ones, so there were at least two people close by plus another who was more than likely the cause of the thud she’d heard.
According to Cooper, he’d identified five young men following them. From what he could see without making it obvious that he was onto them, they looked similar to the man who had followed him the day he’d confronted the professor about it. If she had to guess, she’d say that the men here today were young college guys that Professor Mahmoud had indoctrinated to his cause.
Where were the other two men?
Had Cooper already eliminated them?
Ideally, they’d love to take one alive to get answers, and even knowing who they were and what they did Willow would prefer to simply incapacitate the men rather than kill them, but she also understood they were fighting for their lives. Whatever they had to do to escape she wanted Cooper to do.
She hadn't allowed herself to think about it yet, but there was a chance she’d killed a man last night.
Again, if the man shooting at them when they climbed the fence and ran to Cooper’s car was dead, it was because they were in a fight for their lives, but still, nausea swelled in her stomach at the thought that she might be a killer now.
Of all the things she’d suffered over the last couple of weeks, it felt like that was what would leave the deepest scars.
It fundamentally changed who she was as a person.
In ways that could never be completely erased.
The voices continued to murmur to one another and then she heard the sound of receding footsteps.
Letting out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, Willow sagged in relief that they hadn't come this way. If they did, they would have seen her for sure. She wasn't really in a hiding place, more just tucked into a corner, totally visible depending on which way you approached the area.
Seconds ticked by.
Turning into minutes.
Sweat rolled down her back, and she wished she could remove the heavy jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt and replace them with a light, floaty sundress. But she had to cover up as much as possible to hide her bruises so she didn't stand out like a sore thumb.
Fear for Cooper grew with each passing moment.
It wasn't that she didn't trust him, or think he had the skills to take on five young men and win, it was just that she liked him, a lot, more than should be possible for how long they’d known each other, and she didn't want anything to happen to him.
If he died because of her …
Willow couldn’t even allow herself to think that.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the little runaway journalist.”
The words had her head jerking up and she saw a man standing atop the wall where she was hiding, looking down at her with a smirk .
There was no conscious decision on her part, Willow just scrambled away from him. If ever there was a time to disobey Cooper’s rules, this was it.
The sound of feet hitting the ground behind her spurred or on, but a hand snapped around her ankle and dragged her back.
She fought.
Kicking with her free foot, swinging out with her arms.
It didn't do any good.
Knees clamped around her hips, and a hand closed around her throat, which was already still sore from Darius the previous night.
“Boss said whoever caught you could have some fun with you before we hand you over to him,” the young man, who couldn’t be more than twenty tops, sneered down at her.
The look in his eyes told her exactly what was going to happen to her.
It would forever be seared into her mind.
Greedy hands grabbed at her breasts, squeezing them painfully before moving to the zipper of her pants.
He was going to do it there?
Where some random tourist could stumble upon them.
Willow was torn between screaming for Cooper to help, and fear that if she did, the remaining men would use it as an opportunity to ambush him.
Yanking her pants open enough that his hand could slip inside, Willow did her best to clench her thighs together, but it didn't do any good. A finger prodded at her entrance, forcing its way inside her.
Bucking him off didn't do any good, and he swatted away her hands like they were nothing more than annoying pests each time she tried to hit him. Willow knew it was do something now or be raped at the world’s oldest pyramid.
Instead of trying to brute force her way out of this, Willow reached out to grab a handful of sand, then threw it directly at the man’s eyes.
He howled and pulled back, allowing her to scramble backward and put a little distance between them.
A snarl that sounded more animal than human was her first warning.
Then Cooper seemed to drop down from the sky like an avenging angel, even though she knew in reality he’d jumped off the same wall her attacker had. A single swipe of his knife across the man’s neck ended his life.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, kneeling in front of her.
Shaking her head was automatic, in reality, she had no idea if she was or wasn't.
“We have to get out of here. I got all the others.”
This time she nodded but made no attempt to move.
For now, she’d lost all control of her body.
“Come on, honey, you got this,” Cooper whispered softly as he rezipped her jeans, then gently took her hands and pulled her to her feet. “We have to get out of here in case there are more of them around. If nothing else, we don’t want anyone spotting us with a trail of dead bodies.”
That she could agree with no matter how much shock was muddling her thoughts.
But it was already too late.
Before they could move more men appeared.
These ones weren't as young, and they had the air of seasoned soldiers.
Their chance of escape vanished like a puff of smoke.