Sayed and a dozen of his men surrounded them, weapons pointed directly at them.
“Drop the gun right now, or you both die this second.”
Shit.
Riley looked around. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to send Wildfire running while Riley fought them off.
Sayed stepped out of the shadows, head tilted, eyebrows raised as he looked at Riley’s gun. Riley eased his finger off the trigger, then set it on the ground. One of Sayed’s men came and took Riley’s other weapon out of its holster and stepped back.
“So, we meet again, Phoenix. Once again on the motocross course. I think this time perhaps I will be the winner.”
There was no sound from his comm unit. Riley didn’t know what that meant, perhaps that the team was too close to be able to talk safely.
But it could also mean that the team had been silently taken out.
“This was never personal for me, Sayed. Just a job. Business. You understand that, right?” He slid an arm around Wildfire and pushed her behind his back. It wouldn’t do much good, there were guys behind them too, but if Sayed decided to shoot him, he didn’t want the bullet to hit her.
“You got here much more quickly than I expected. You’re a tricky one. And, once I discovered you had links to these men from the company called Linear Tactical, I wasn’t expecting you to come alone. But skydiving was smart. Except, how did you plan to escape?”
“I was just taking it one step at a time, honestly. I figured I’d get us off your property first, then worry about the rest.”
Sayed had no idea Riley’s friends were here.
Sayed nodded, obviously trying to understand Riley’s plan. “You might have made it to Cairo, but that would be as far as you could go. I have eyes and ears everywhere in Cairo. That’s how I learned a plane had taken off from Quwaisna Airport with a single white man who wanted to skydive in the middle of the night. Sounded like someone I was familiar with.”
“Sayed, listen, I know you took it as a personal insult when I helped break out the people you were holding. But it was business.”
“Business or not, you insulted me and my household and my hospitality. That must be answered for. Not only you, but all those you work with. How does it feel knowing that you have unleashed the wrath of old? Not only on you, but on your associates and their families.”
He held up a file in his hand. “Zac McKay. Looks like he has a fiancée named Anne Griffin? Finn Bollinger. What a shame the death of his wife and children will be.”
“Goddammit, Sayed. This is between you and me. This medieval-revenge bullshit is out of control.”
“No, not medieval. Much, much earlier than medieval. Ancient revenge.” Sayed’s smile was pure evil. “You chose the wrong person to slight, to steal from. It is a matter of honor. Something you and your young country know nothing about. It is time for you to learn these actions will not be tolerated any longer.”
“Buy us two minutes,” Wyatt’s voice whispered in his ear. Riley had never been so happy to hear a voice.
But two minutes was an eternity in a situation like this.
“Sayed, be reasonable.” Riley held his hands out in front of him. He could feel Wildfire plastered against his back. “You’re talking about killing innocent women and children. They have nothing to do with anything that has happened here.”
“Oh, I know all too well that innocent women and children are sometimes collateral damage.”
Oh shit. This was way more than just spouting ancient-end-of-days bullshit. This was personal for Sayed.
And when Sayed lowered the file in his hands and raised a gun, Riley wasn’t even sure they had the last few seconds the team needed to get into place.
“Don’t worry, they will die quickly, which is more than my wife and children were given.”
“Sayed, look, man, I’m really sorry about your family.” He reached out and tucked Riley more firmly behind him. “I’ve got an idea. You and I can work together. Take revenge on the people who did this to your family. I have connections all over the world.”
Riley was just making shit up as he went, praying he was giving the team enough time.
Sayed gestured with his head, and two of his men began walking toward him and Riley.
“No. The loss of my family was a gift. It showed me that the modern way holds no honor, only the ancient way. Yes, I like my motocross course and the internet. But when it comes to what is inside a man”—Sayed tapped himself on the chest with his gun—“modern is useless. Your friends will die. Their families will die. Because I have learned the laws of the ancient. Mercy is for the weak.”
“It doesn’t need to be this way.”
“These men around me, they do what I tell them to because they know what will happen to their families if they do not. What I do to your friends and their families will just reinforce that in their minds.”
Sayed’s man ripped Wildfire from his grip.
There was nothing Riley could do. All he could do was trust that his friends—his family—would take care of them.
“Kill her. Shoot him in the knees and take him back to the cell.”
“No!” Girl Riley began to struggle against the man holding her.
This was it. They were out of time. The team was either about to make their move or they were going to be too late.
Riley turned his back on Sayed. “Wildfire, look at me.”
Those beautiful hazel eyes, wide and full of fear, turned to him. He didn’t want her to see what was about to happen. He yanked her from the man, into his arms, holding her face against his chest. “I love you. Should we go back to Bali for our honeymoon?”
A single shot rang out in the night, but Sayed and all of his men fell to the ground, including the ones closest to him and Wildfire.
Riley didn’t hesitate; he knew what had happened.
Sayed had signed his own death warrant as soon as he had mentioned harming the families of the Linear Tactical team. He didn’t know which one of them had made the kill shot, but it didn’t matter. Any of them could have, and would have, done it.
The rest of the men were merely unconscious, shot with tranquilizers. Whatever hold Sayed had had on them would be gone once they woke up.
He grabbed Riley’s hand and they ran for the closest section of the wall.
Chaos and shouting went up behind them, but they didn’t look back.
One by one the rest of the Linear team joined them, and they disappeared into the night.
It was time to go home.
Chapter 29
“I love you. You know that, right?”
Riley was perched on the countertop, watching the world-famous Phoenix load the dishwasher.
They’d been home from their very short stint in Egypt for a week and had barely gotten out of bed the entire time.
He shot her a look from the corner of his eye. “I’m already doing the dishes; you don’t have to butter me up.”
Her hands were stiff, and she was a little tired. MS stuff. Instead of making a big deal about it, he’d just set her up on the countertop and done the dishes himself.
And she did love him. To distraction. But there was something she needed to say.
“That stuff I said about getting married when we were in Egypt? We don’t have to do it. We were both under a shit ton of stress at Sayed’s compound.”