Aaron caught her, wrapping his arms around his daughter and falling to his knees. Sam watched as the man stroked her hair, holding her as tight as possible. Although Sam would never hold his own son again, he felt no envy for Aaron’s reunion.
He felt proud.
Proud that he had ripped the city apart to find the littlest details to get her back, to save her from a terrifying future. As he watched Aaron and Jasmine hold each other, he smiled, wishing them the very best and hopeful that she would be able to recover from her ordeal.
Jasmine had been through hell and come out the other side. She had a father who was willing to run head first into the abyss for her.
Sam smiled once more before sweeping his scope once more to the container. Four of the armed officers stood guard, as the others rushed in with foil blankets, wrapping them around the shoulders of the malnourished girls they were escorting out. While they were not greeted by their fathers, Sam knew the police would return them to their families and do whatever they could to ensure it never happened again.
As the pain from his injuries flared, and he gritted his teeth, he swore he would do the same.
Watching Andrei writhing in agony on the floor as two paramedics tended to his missing arm, Sam knew he was just the delivery man.
Sam needed the head of the snake.
Knowing his work was far from finished, Sam pushed himself to his feet and lifted his sports bag. Before he put his trusty rifle back in its case and disappeared, he allowed his curiosity to get the better of him.
He lifted the rifle once more, placed his eye to the scope, and focused in on DI Amara Singh.
As the circle frame of the scope settled on her, he could see her standing, back straight, chin up as her superior officer clearly read her the riot act. As the rain tirelessly splashed against her pretty face, Sam smiled.
In another life, perhaps?
Singh reached into her back pocket and handed her badge to her boss, a clear punishment for her actions. But Sam couldn’t help but feel proud of her, she’d done exactly what he had done. She had raced into a war zone to find Jasmine.
Whether or not she had an ulterior motive to bring him in, it didn’t matter.
She had done the right thing.
He observed Singh looking at Aaron and his daughter, the two of them wrapped in a foil blanket and he watched a beautiful smile crack across her face.
He hoped he would see her again.
At that very moment, Singh looked up at the tower, as if she was looking directly at him. Slowly, she raised a middle finger, causing Sam to chuckle.
It was his permission to leave. To disappear.
Because the hunt for him would only intensify and Sam knew then that his life would never allow him to go back.
Within a few moments, the radio tower was empty.
Sam Pope was gone.
Chapter Thirty
Amara Singh awoke the following morning, her head still ringing from the harsh blows she’d taken in the heat of battle. She groaned as she lifted herself from her bed, the Egyptian cotton sheets sliding from her, mocking her decision to leave with their extreme comfort. She made her way to the bathroom and inspected herself in the mirror.
A dark, purple bruise lined her toned stomach and her back ached. A bandage was wrapped across her breasts, the pain of a cracked rib causing each step to be questioned. As she brushed her teeth, she felt something dislodge, and spat a large mouthful of blood into the white, porcelain bowl.
A tooth rattled around and she plucked it from the water, inspecting it with a shake of the head.
She felt like shit, but it had been worth it. All the girls were returned to their families, the immediate reports confirming that while they were suffering from malnutrition and some signs of physical abuse, none of them had been violated or sexually assaulted.
Singh had saved them.
Begrudgingly, she had to credit Sam Pope as well.
Thinking of Sam sent a strange feeling through her body and she gently made her way to the kitchen, clicking the button on her Tassimo coffee machine and watching as the glass filled up with the warm, welcoming brown liquid and the accompanying smell of luxury. As adamant as she was with catching Sam, he had saved her life.
He had risked everything to save an innocent girl from a life not worth living.
She could never find it in herself to call him a hero, but there was much about his stance against the evil in the world to be admired. What bothered her most, despite the myriad of ‘decent men’ who desired her courtship and the countless number of crimes he had committed, Singh found herself attracted to him.
In another life, perhaps?
With a disappointed sigh, she took a sip of her coffee and wondered how she would spend the first day of her two-week suspension. It had been such a long time since she’d taken time off that she didn’t know how to relax. Maybe she would go to the cinema and see which comic book hero was being force fed to the nation? Maybe she would book into a spa and put her broken body through some well-deserved pampering?
Singh would have loved to have been excited by any of them.
But she knew what she had to do.
While her punishment was well deserved, she knew that the review committee would look favourably on her thanks to her past record and the fact that she did save four teenage girls from a lifetime of sex slavery. To restore her reputation, she needed to get back on the horse.
She needed to catch Sam Pope.
As she booted up her MacBook, she lowered herself onto one of the breakfast stools that lined her kitchen. She clicked
