Page 46 of Deceptive Lies

With a snarl, the man grabbed the finger he’d just broken and twisted it viciously. Willow sucked in a pained breath, and even from where he was, Cooper could see tears of pain shimmering in her eyes, but somehow, she managed to stop them from falling.

“I told my boss to go ahead and publish what I already have if he doesn’t hear from me in a week. It’s already over,” Willow said, triumph in her voice.

Cooper had no idea if that was true or if she was just playing their captors. He had lent her his phone, and she had contacted her boss after she’d told him what she knew about the professor and how he was radicalizing students at his university. Maybe she had told her boss that, or maybe she was bluffing, either way, Willow was right, it was already over for Professor Mahmoud. There was nothing to be gained by abducting them. Even if Willow was dead, it wouldn't stop the story from being published, and he had no doubt she knew enough to make the man’s life hell.

“You may as well let us go, it won't change anything, and I don’t care about you. You're just mercenaries, I don’t even know if you’ve worked for the professor before. Maybe this is your only job for him, or maybe you're part of Allah’s Warriors along with him. Either way, he’s the head of the snake and the one I'm after. You don’t have to go down with him, you can walk away now, let us go, and put as much distance as you can between yourselves and the professor so you don’t go down with him. Doesn’t matter how many contacts he has, he's not getting out of this.”

Willow spoke so confidently, and that she could do it while in pain, spoke only of her strength. She believed in this fight, and she was going to keep fighting until she took her final breath.

He just had to figure out how to ensure that didn't happen today.

So far, there were no opportunities he could use. Given enough time, he could probably get free from the zip ties binding him to the chair, but to do that, he’d need them to be left alone long enough. If he could get free and get his hands on a weapon, he could get them out of there.

Ifhe could.

But right now, he couldn’t.

Which meant he had no choice but to watch as the enraged man standing before Willow clamped a hand around her neck, squeezing as he let out a string of what Cooper assumed from his limited Arabic were curses.

“You have ruined everything, woman,” the man snarled at Willow, getting right in her face as it turned red, her body lacking the oxygen it needed.

“Can't kill her now,” one of the other men said, stepping up and resting a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Boss wants that honor himself.”

While hearing that made his blood turn to ice, at least Cooper knew they had a little time for him to try to figure something out. Professor Mahmoud was likely already on his way, but he wasn't there yet, and that meant they at least stood a chance.

However small a chance he’d take it.

At least it was something.

Breathing hard, the man stepped away from Willow, looking down at her with furious disdain. “You think you're so smart.”

“I'm smart enough to figure out what your boss was doing and gather proof,” Willow said, voice raspy from a man’s hand around her throat for the third time in less than twenty-four hours.

“Proof that my boss can make disappear,” the man countered.

“I don’t think so. Not this time. Not with me disappearing while in Egypt following him. That’s too big a coincidence to ignore. There’s no way to paint me as incompetent, or as having some sort of grudge, or even just crazy if I'm nowhere to be found.”

Willow was right.

Unfortunately, Tarek Mahmoud was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. If he killed her, it only gave credence to Willow’s claims. But if he didn't and he let her go, she would back up everything she had to say with the fact that only a guilty man would abduct her and try to kill her.

The man knew it too because he cursed again and then his fist flew toward Willow’s head, connecting with her temple. Her head snapped to the side, and her eyes rolled back in her head as she passed out.

“You should have left it alone,” the man told him. “Because now you're going to suffer the same fate as her.”

With a final snarl in Willow’s direction, the man turned and stomped away across the room, no doubt to call his boss and deliver the bad news that life as they knew it was already over, they were just waiting for the clock to countdown and their world to implode.

Looking at Willow’s still form, slumped forward, held in place only by the cuffs on her wrists and ankles, Cooper couldn’t have disagreed more. If this was how his life ended, he knew he would have made both his parents proud. Helping an innocent in need was who his mom and dad had been, and they would both have adored Willow.

With her determination to do what was right regardless of the danger it put her in, and her strength in the face of fear, she was everything anyone could want.

Which was why he had to find a way to get her out of this alive.

She’d tried to protect him, lied to try to save his life, he would give her no less in return.

Whatever it took, he was going to find a way to get her back home to her life even if it meant he died in Egypt.

July 13th

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