Obadiah had failed him by choosing a sinful woman. A stubborn one. She’d not confessed her crimes, not even when Nabera beat her. When he told Obadiah to kill her.

His men waited, and he could see their faith in the Prophet was unshaken.

“We’ll be back, and we’ll make these unbelievers regret what they did. But we’ll do it in our own time. At the best time.” Nabera gazed at the empty compound, and his teeth ground together. “And blood will flow.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

When the reptile brain takes over in battle, there’s no room for guilt. After combat is when the darkness hits. You gotta remember the faces of who you fought for. Your team, your woman, and the children. All the children. ~ First Sergeant Michael “Mako” Tyne

Cazzo, she hurt. In the quiet room, Frankie shifted in her chair, trying to find a position that didn’t hurt. Her face was all scraped up, her lower lip puffy from a punch. A scraped spot over her eyebrow burned where a branch had nailed her. Really, she was lucky it hadn’t put her eye out…and didn’t that sound like something Nonna would’ve said?

Her side ached with each breath. The emergency room doctor had said one of her ribs was cracked, but the body armor had kept her torso unperforated. A shame there wasn’t body armor for legs. Her calf had a hole right through the meat. Ow, ow, ow. There was no place on her body that wasn’t bruised.

Again, she glanced through the doorway and across the hall at the surgery department’s double doors. Somewhere in there, surgeons were doing their best to keep Kit alive and to repair the damage. Kit had been so very—

“Ms. Bocelli?”

Oh, oops. Someone had been talking to her… She shook her mind back to the moment and the two FBI agents who sat in front of her. A few minutes before, they’d brought her from the surgery waiting room to the adjacent “quiet” room. So, they could talk. “Sorry. I keep losing track of…” the conversation, the location, everything. She sighed.

It was like someone had opened the faucet to her energy and drained her empty.

“You just told us why you didn’t call us in when you got your friend’s letter or even later on.” In dark pants and a white button-up shirt, Special Agent Langford leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. “You made sense.”

His partner, Special Agent Acosta nodded, his brown eyes sympathetic.

They’d been exceedingly kind to her, considering that they could have intimidated the heck out of her if they’d wanted. Especially since she kept dodging some of their questions.

Like who’d helped during the rescue.