Page 39 of Deceptive Lies

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 tosimply 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.

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