Oh, shit.
Erin swallowed.
She would have never recognized the man.
The last time she’d seen Khalil, he’d been an angry, gangly teenager. He’d thrown a rock at her. It’d cut her arm. The security had wanted to go after him, but Erin had stopped them. After what he lost, he got to throw rocks at her.
“You know who I am?” Khalil reached behind him and drew a revolver.
“Y-yes.” Her throat tightened around that word.
The others who’d kidnapped her had been his friends and cousins. Mark was behind this. Once more he was twisting those hurt by NexGen to do his dirty work
“Do you know the pain you have caused me?”
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” Erin held up her bound hands. She’d been a junior project manager. By the time they’d brought her onto the project, they were already hurtling toward disaster. Nothing she said or did had stopped it.
“You don’t get to be sorry.” He lunged toward her, pressing the muzzle of the gun against her forehead. “My mother and father said you people would help us have a better life. Do you think this is what they meant?”
“No. No, it wasn’t supposed to be this way.” How did she explain it to him? Would it even help?
“You know what NexGen did for our family? Nothing. It was ruled an accident, so they weren’t liable to do anything for us.”
Tears trickled down Erin’s cheeks.
She knew, because she’d shown up to those meetings until her boss sent her back to the States to shut her up. By then, it’d been too late. Allied Security was fired, probably to placate her. Everything was done. No one cared what happened to the victims’ families. Even Erin had moved on. She’d failed them.
“I’m sorry.” It was her biggest regret. The one thing she wished she could go back and change.
“That’s not good enough.” He shoved her back against the pole and straightened.
Khalil stalked away from her. Sorrow and hate were twisting this young man. The choices he made here and now would change his life. Her words wouldn’t make this better, but there was something they could still do. He didn’t know it, but they were on the same side.
Khalil was going to kill her. That knowledge should scare her more. Death at the hands of the people outside Mosul had terrified her, and yet... She’d always thought she deserved to be punished for what happened to Khalil’s family. That she was responsible. She didn’t want to die, but if that was her sentence, something good should come out of it.
How had Khalil found her? Why was he here? Now? It was too coincidental.
Mark had given Khalil’s cousin’s guns and pointed them at her. Was it a stretch of the imagination to think that Mark was the reason Khalil was here now?
Erin swallowed. It wasn’t absurd that Mark would use the same tactics here.
“I know you hate me, and I’m sorry. I failed you, your family and your friends. I know that. If you have to kill me that’s what you have to do. Just—please? Tell me one thing? The laptop, do you have it?” If she could get him to see the video and understand that Mark wasn’t on Khalil’s side, they could still put a stop to this.
“Why? What is it to you?” Khalil turned toward her.
“One of my coworkers was murdered because he was trying to turn someone in. He had a video emailed to him that proved people were doing bad things to people like your family. Please, for the families who don’t know what happened to their loved ones, take the laptop to the police?”
“That’s a lie.”
“It’s not. I swear.” Erin swallowed. Was she willing to risk it? All or nothing. “Watch it and tell me.”
“This is a trick.”
“Kill me, then watch the video. I don’t care what order you do it in, just—please?”
Khalil stared at her his gaze narrowed.
She’d fucked up, but there was no reason Mark and his thugs couldn’t be brought to justice.
Khalil turned and strode into the shadows.
“Where are you going?” Erin might die, but she didn’t want to be left alone.
He didn’t answer her. Instead he bent and grabbed something off the floor.
The laptop bag.
Khalil brought the bag to the middle of the floor where the moon provided the most light.
“If you’re lying, I’m going to kill you slowly,” he said.
Erin stared at the guy. He was in his early twenties. He’d been, what? Sixteen back then? He was still a kid. She doubted he’d ever killed a person, but anger made people do unusual things. If it came down to shooting her, she wasn’t entirely positive he’d pull the trigger.
“Password?” Khalil asked.
“19Sabbagh81.”
Khalil frowned at her.
“My mother’s maiden name and the year my parents were married. My mother’s family was from Iraq.”
“And you came back to kill your people?”
“I wanted to help make things better.”
Khalil sat a few feet away from her, legs crossed, laptop balanced on his thighs.
“There’s a file on the desktop labeled Important. Inside is a document. It’s a copy of an email with a link. Click the link.” She leaned her head back against the pole and shut her eyes.
“Is that thing on?” a voice from the laptop asked
Erin drew her knees up and bowed her head.
“Yeah.”
“This is proof of job completion, invoice twenty-three ninety-four.”
She cringed, but nothing could brace her for the sound of that gunshot, or the one that followed it. Tears leaked out of her eyes.
If she’d have made time to go through everything, perhaps she’d have found this.
Khalil said nothing.
He clicked a few times and the video began again.
By the end, Erin couldn’t control her tears, but Khalil didn’t respond with so much as a curse. Instead, he kept clicking, never speaking.
THURSDAY. BEST WESTERN Hotel, Irving, Texas.
Mark checked his phone again, but there was no text, no call, nothing.
Where the fuck was Khalil?
Everything hinged on Khalil doing his part. It was too risky for Mark and his
