Wade by Jennifer Blake Page A

She began to fall like a marionette whose strings have been severed. Ismael caught her, stumbling to his knees as he eased her to the floor. A terrible cry left him as he covered his wife’s hands with his own, pressing, trying to hold back the liquid red flow. It could not be done.
    Treena caught his wrist as she gazed up at him. She spoke in a mouthing of words without sound.
    â€œOur daughters, yes,” Ismael said with strained comprehension in his voice. “To my mother. It will be done.”
    Treena tried again to speak.
    â€œYes, this day, my heart, my adored one. His reprisal shall not touch them. I promise it.”
    Treena didn’t hear the vow in her husband’s voice, or the love. Her valiant features went slack and her eyes began to glaze.
    Ismael groaned, weaving where he knelt as he covered her eyes with his blood-red hand, smoothed down her slim shape to press his hand to her abdomen with its slight swell. Then he turned his head toward Ahmad. “You killed her,” he whispered. Then he said again as wild sorrow infiltrated his voice. “You killed my wife, your sister. You killed my son, your nephew. What kind of honor, what vengeance, is this?”
    Ahmad did not answer, didn’t appear to hear for long seconds. He stood white-faced and slack-mouthed, staring at his sister on the floor with empty eyes. Then he whispered, almost to himself, “Her daughters. They are tainted as well.”
    Wade spoke then, his voice like iron as he pointed the handgun at Ahmad. “Hands up. Now. Where I can see them.”
    Ahmad shook his head like a boxer recovering from a knockout punch. As he looked at the American, recognition of his position came into his face, tightening the skin across the heavy bones. Slowly heobeyed the order, but the enmity in his face was frightening to see.
    â€œGood. Now back up, nice and easy, until you’re inside the room behind you.”
    It was a storeroom, and a good choice, Chloe thought as she fought the black horror that gripped her. The lock on her own room was broken, the largest chamber that Ahmad had taken as his own was more likely to have a weapon stashed away somewhere inside, and he could not be allowed near Treena’s daughters. With a dazed glance at Wade, she said, “The key…”
    â€œGet it.”
    Ahmad had it, of course, since he enjoyed control of all the rooms and their contents. She could smell his acrid sweat, nauseating and animalistic, as she moved closer to him. Fearful that he would try to grab her, she was careful not to block the firing path. She reached out from as far away as possible to snag the metal key ring from his belt, then waited until Wade motioned him into the storeroom.
    â€œFor this, you will surely die,” Ahmad said as he obeyed the gesture. “You cannot escape your fate, just as my sister could not escape hers. I will finish you and all your tribe.”
    â€œYou can try.”
    Wade moved close enough to catch the door and slam it shut, keeping his shoulder against it. Chloe inserted the key in the old-fashioned lock and turnedit. Then she stepped back as if her stepbrother might be able to reach through the solid wood.
    â€œGo,” Wade said in low command as he nodded toward the doorway that led back into the hajra. “Move it.”
    It was necessary; she could see that. Still, she couldn’t prevent herself from turning toward where Ismael still sat rocking his wife’s lifeless body as if nothing else existed in his world. Then she looked toward the far bedroom where the children still cried without end.
    â€œYou can’t help her,” Wade said, his voice rough with something that had the sound of understanding. “You can’t help any of them.”
    She glanced at him, noting almost unconsciously the pale line around his mouth and the haunted pain that darkened his eyes. “I know,” she whispered, her own unbearable grief apparent in