Page 11 (1/2)

"This is ain, aware of Marty as she rose quickly to her feet and crossed to hie’s," she protested "You could only keep her confined for so long She lasted longer than either of us thought she would He would have been waiting, no matter the circumstances"

His aring inside hiht her holy, red-faced little piece of a thing, and I swore I would protect her" A dagger was digging into his soul "I swore she would not knohat my mother had known That she would not face that hell if I lived and breathed And now, he has her"

"Then Abralare up at him "Khalid, no matter what you believe about your brother, he will protect Paige You knoill"

"What I believe about aze "I believe Abraood e bothers ainst Azir until hell freezes over, and he’ll walk away from that land without a backward look, but he’s still a product of the desert and hoas raised"

"Khalid, you know Abrae"

He shook his head "But he’ll end up hurting her just the saet to her before Azir kills her"

And that was his nightmare

The en point Khalid had gone to one of the reigning princes and the Saudi a Azir’s sanity and Ayid and Aainst hiated Azir would know it as well He had his own spies within theinformation

Thank God Abram hadn’t officially defected after Ayid and Aman had been killed If he had, there would have been no one there to protect Paige

"It’s been about two hours since I found the door open and Paige gone," Daniel stated "We have all the airports covered and we’re checking all the private planes on the ground There are officers checking out the private landing strips as well"

Khalid shook his head "They were in the air within thirty one, Daniel"

And it was his fault

He looked down at Marty again, uilt raked sharpened talons across his heart

"I need to contact Abrahed "I can only do that from the house The satellite link we’ve established can only be made from one location and only at certain times of the day" He checked his watch as Martyher hand with his he looked around the rooain "It will be another two hours before I can send the et ahold of a few contacts I have in Saudi and see what can be done"

"Someone needs to tell yourinto DC tonight We should be there when they arrive"

His mother had been worried She had been certain Azir wouldn’t wait ht

God, this was going to kill her

Fragile, gentle, his delicate hter never returned home to her

He breathed out heavily

"We’ll e to Abraet back to the house" He turned to Daniel "Lock up the apart We may not be able to catch them, but hopefully we can track dohoever helped them They couldn’t have pulled this off without help"

Daniel nodded, then paused "I’m sorry, Khalid,"he said, his voice low "This happened on my watch, and it shouldn’t have I take full responsibility for it"

"As Marty said, he would have found an opportunity eventually," he stated, though a part of hiator/security consultant It had been his job to protect her and to ensure no gaps were open in her security

It was a no-win situation though Sooner or later, it would have happened, Khalid knew Everyone had to blink eventually

Holding Marty’s hand, Khalid turned and headed for the door He was alold on the floor

Stopping, he bent and picked up the delicate little hoop with its fragile, dangling chains attached to tiny gold feathers