“What am I supposed to tell him they did to me?”
She trembled and he had to restrain the need to reach out to her. Every instinct told him this wasn’t right. But, like her, he had no choice.
“You tell him that they tried to beat information about his whereabouts out of you, but that you didn’t know anything. Tell him that you managed to escape when one of the men tried to…to rape you.”
She blinked but didn’t clear the confusion totally from her gaze. “What if he doesn’t believe me?”
This part was almost more than Jack could live with and yet it was the most crucial element…her survival depended upon it. “We have to make him believe it.”
“How?”
Jack stepped to the door and gestured to the man waiting outside. When he entered the room, Ami gasped, obviously recognizing him from the claw marks on his forearms and cheeks as well as the swollen nose. She’d worked the guy over pretty good in her efforts to escape.
When her frightened gaze swung to his, regret pierced Jack like a dagger straight through the heart. “I wish there was another way.”
He turned away from the shock and confusion in her eyes before the first blow landed, unable to watch the brutality necessary to make her cover story real.
The story that would ultimately save her life.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AMI LAY PRONE in the dusty street, her face turned to one side, her eyes unblinking. She stared, seeing nothing. Her mind as well as her body was numb.
She felt nothing.
People gathered around her. She sensed more than heard or saw them.
She wondered briefly if she was dead.
Something ached through the numbness.
Her son. She would never see her baby again.
Arms lifted her and she did not resist.
They turned her over with a great deal of care.
She didn’t recognize the voices or the faces around her.
She no longer cared where she was.
Darkness tugged at her.
A bolt of pain erupted, screamed through her, awakening the other senses her mind had shut down hours ago. She groaned, unable to do more. Her tongue slid forward, to dampen her dry, cracked lips and fire rushed through her once more.
Finally she did the only thing she could, she closed her eyes and surrendered to the blessed oblivion.
MICHAL PACED the outer room of the tiny clinic, rage churning inside him. Someone would pay for this. His jaw hardened. Someone would pay dearly.
Anguish squeezed his heart each time he thought of how badly she’d been beaten…of what could have happened had she not escaped the imbeciles who had taken her hostage. To get at him, he knew for a certainty. He’d grown complacent when it came to this city. Felt untouchable. He was respected and feared here. Obviously not feared enough.
That would change.
Carlos and four of his men were scouring Tripoli at that very moment to determine how this had happened. A physician Michal trusted was doing all he could to make Amira comfortable as he tended her injuries. He’d insisted Michal leave the room since his presence appeared to upset the patient. The few patients in the clinic when he and his men arrived had chosen to come back later.
Michal kicked the closest object. The chair skidded across the floor and crashed into the wall. The Spaniard and Thomas moved yet again to avoid his path as he began to pace once more. He kept seeing her lying on that shop floor, crumpled and broken-looking. The owner and his wife had seen her stagger into the street and fall facedown. They had thought her dead the way she’d lain so still and with her eyes wide open, unblinking. Michal could not banish the images their words evoked. The shop owner had called the authorities who had reported her whereabouts directly to Michal.
She was bruised badly, her arms, upper torso, and even her legs. Her left cheek was swollen and discolored, as well. One cracked rib.
His mind went black for several seconds before he could again regain control of the consuming rage.
Thank God she had not been raped.
This was bad enough.
She had told him that she’d barely escaped the man. There had been three, but only one had been with her when she’d managed to break free.
Michal’s fingers curled into fists. This man would die. As would the others.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. She should have been safe, here of all places.
Word had come swiftly to him. The mission had been accomplished, but this necessity had required that he leave earlier than planned. And still it had taken what felt like a lifetime to reach her.
Michal’s gaze moved back to the door that stood between them. He would see that this never happened again. He closed his eyes and fought the urge to roar like a lion with the emotions twisting inside him.
He should have protected her. He had failed.
The fear she must have suffered at the hands of those brutes haunted him. Made him sick with disgust.
This was no life for her. He inhaled sharply, his chest heavy with too many regrets. She was different now. Before she had seemed to enjoy the thrill of living on the edge, the dangerous lure of how he lived. He remembered well when she’d first sought him out. Michal had been certain he had never met a woman more like himself-utterly fearless.
In no time she had worked her way into his heart, and then she had demanded to know his price for killing her father. Shocked at first, Michal had played off her suggestion. But Amira had been insistent. Then the word had come down that Peres was to be added to his list. Michal had not questioned the coincidence at the time, his only concern had been keeping Amira pleased with him. He wanted to make her father suffer for the hurt and neglect she had suffered because of him.
He frowned and stared at the door as if he could see through it, see what the physician was doing now, by sheer force of will. Her continued assertion since her return that she was not Amira Peres nagged at him. Could she have fooled him, as well as Yael Peres? Michal could only assume that her amnesia was so complete that even the most remote aspect of her past was now gone forever. The only other conclusion would be that she was not Amira Peres. He shook his head in protest of that reasoning. That was not possible.
Still, she was quite different now. Whatever bitterness that lurked in her soul two years ago had disappeared along with her memory. She was not the same. But on every other level she felt the same.
This Amira-Ami-was more vulnerable, softer, with no idea how to function in his world. And he had failed to protect her. Leaving her helpless to defend herself and a perfect target for those who would seek to bring him down.
The door opened and the physician waved him inside. His feet moving him forward, Michal’s heart shuddered to a near stop as his gaze fell upon her once more.
She sat on the examination table, her ribs wrapped tightly beneath her torn blouse. Another blast of fury thundered through him. The blood had been cleansed from her skin and her hair had been combed. His gaze flitted to the nurse standing next to her. The nurse’s doing, he imagined. The entire staff of the small clinic had been terrified by his volatile emotions. He was certain they wanted to appease him in any way possible in hopes of surviving this encounter.
“She will be fine,” the physician told him in stilted English. “She must take care for a time until the rib is healed properly. There is no concussion despite the lump on her head. There is nothing more I can do.”
Michal nodded. “Good.” He knew he should at least glance at the doctor and thank him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Ami. She sat so very still, her eyes glazed and empty.