Julian remains silent, glaring at Majid with murderous hatred, while I take small, shallow breaths to cope with my terror. My eyes are watering from the pain in my scalp, and the fear pulsing through me feels almost like a living thing. With my hands restrained behind my back, there’s nothing I can do to prevent Majid from hurting me. I have no idea how long it’s going to take Peter to arrive, but there’s every chance he might not make it in time. I can see the rust-colored stains on the blade hanging loosely from Majid’s belt, and nausea rises in my throat as I realize that it’s Julian’s blood.

If we’re not rescued soon, it will be my blood, too.

To my horror, Majid reaches for that blade, still holding my hair in that painful grip. “Oh, yes,” he whispers, pressing the flat edge against my neck, “I think her head will make a nice little trophy—after I cut it up a bit, of course…” He pushes the knife upward, and I freeze in terror as I feel the blade cutting into the soft skin under my chin, followed by the stomach-churning sensation of warm liquid trickling down my neck.

The growl that emanates from Julian doesn’t resemble anything human. Before I can do more than gasp, he surges forward, using the balls of his feet to propel himself and the chair off the floor. His action is so sudden and violent that the two men standing next to him don’t react in time. Julian literally crashes into one of them, bringing the armed terrorist down to the floor, and, with one twist of his body, drives the metal leg of the chair into the man’s throat.

The next few seconds are a blur of blood and screams in Arabic. Majid releases his hold on me and yells out some orders, galvanizing the others into action as he springs into the fray himself.

Still tied to the chair, Julian is dragged off the injured man’s body, and I watch in horrified fascination as the man Julian attacked writhes on the floor, clutching his throat as rattling, gurgling sounds escape from his mouth. He’s dying—I can see it in the weakening spurts of blood coming from the ragged wound in his neck—yet his agony doesn’t seem to touch me. It’s as though I’m watching a movie instead of observing a human being bleeding to death in front of my eyes.

Majid and the other terrorists rush to his aid, trying to staunch the flow of blood, but it’s too late. The man’s frantic grip on his throat eases, his eyes glazing over, and the stench of death—of evacuated bowels and violence—fills the room.

He’s dead.

Julian killed him.

I should be disgusted and appalled, but I’m not. Maybe those emotions will hit me later, but for now, all I feel is a strange mixture of gladness and pride: gladness that one of these murderers is dead, and pride that Julian was the one to kill him. Even tied up and weakened by torture, my husband managed to take down one of his enemies—an armed man who was stupid enough to stand within Julian’s lethal reach.