Eagle's Heart (27 page)

“If you really wanted to help them, you could have turned Bardhyn in,” Salomeh said.

Linda hardened then, any emotion she felt hidden behind the invisible walls she erected to protect herself. The change in her demeanor was frightening, like seeing a warm-blooded person transform into a mannequin.

“You’re right,” she said. “Maybe I just enjoy it. Much like how I’m going to enjoy killing you before my brother’s eyes.”

A loud bang exploded somewhere in the corridor, followed by the sound of shouts and gunfire.

Linda smiled at Salomeh, her eyes glittering with anticipation. “Sounds like the family reunion has begun.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Julian hadn’t known what would happen when he actually came face-to-face with Bardhyn after all these years. In his head he had envisioned an epic clash. Instead, in the first moment of recognition, he and Bardhyn simply stared at each other as the two groups of men waited for their cue, unsure of what was actually happening after Bardhyn’s welcoming words to Julian.

And for a moment, Julian felt something that bordered on relief at seeing the man.

Wasn’t expecting that, he thought. And then he heard Nichols shift restlessly behind him, which was enough to remind him of his sense of purpose.

Julian kept his gun on Bardhyn as he took a step forward. “I’m Agent Julian Tamali, representing the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. This is a raid. Put down all your weapons, and things won’t get ugly. You have the right to remain silent—”

A movement caught his attention, and his body acted on instinct, turning to catch one of the potential jihadist’s bodyguards pulling an AR-15 semiautomatic from the pile in front of him.

“
Qiff
!” Julian shouted, switching into Arabic, the language he had built his career on. “
Alqi silahak
!”

But the man didn’t drop his weapon. Instead a grimace of determination hardened his face. In the split second before the man would have him in his crosshairs, Julian fired twice.

The man crumpled, no longer a threat, but that was when all hell broke loose. Shouting in Albanian, Arabic, and English filled the air.

“Take cover.” Aimes grunted as he dropped behind a chair, just as a bullet ripped through the door casing behind him. Julian and Nichols followed him. Nichols briefly popped up from behind a couch to return fire, unleashing a hail of bullets.

Julian crawled over to Aimes.

“Brilliant idea to raid a fucking arms deal,” the agent said drily before popping off a few shots at the heavily armed bad guys.

“Sorry,” Julian said, trying to figure out where Bardhyn was in this melee. He couldn’t let him escape now, after coming so close.

Julian peeked around the edge of the couch and saw Alexi pushing Bardhyn out the office’s front door. “No,” he growled, taking a shot at the fleeing man. He missed Bardhyn, but Alexi’s left leg buckled under him as the goon collapsed, still fulfilling his duty by slamming the door behind Bardhyn.

Aimes and Nichols got off a volley of shots that sent the jihadists ducking for cover, and Julian rose to follow Bardhyn. A hail of ammunition flew in his direction and sent him diving back behind the couch.

Fucking Alexi, Julian thought. Still covering Bardhyn’s ass even as the man left him to die. He wished he had just shot him on sight when he had seen him dragging Salomeh into the club.

Just then the door flew open, cracking into Alexi’s head.

Yates stormed into the room like an Amazon, her face calm and collected even as she dropped and rolled to avoid the bullets flying her way.

Alexi swung his gun in Yates’s direction, and she pumped two bullets into him without hesitation, a clean double-tap if ever Julian had seen one.

I guess I can mark that off my to-do list, Julian thought, impressed.

Her team of men followed, and within a moment, the sound of bullets had died out, leaving Julian’s ears ringing in their aftermath. The agents swarmed over the remaining thugs like ants, cuffing them and searching them for additional weapons.

Julian brushed past Yates on his way out the door.

“Bardhyn ran out a minute ago. I’m going after him,” he said. He didn’t wait for a response but heard her bark out an order and follow behind him. He ran up a flight of stairs, reasoning that Bardhyn would have had to pass Yates to get out the front. When he got to the landing he turned to her.

“I’ll start checking the rooms on the right at the end of the hall,” he said, choosing his direction on his gut instinct and hoping he was correct. “Do you want to grab one of the guys and start at the other end?”

“You don’t seem to need one of ‘the guys’ to help you, and neither do I, chauvinist,” she said with a smirk and took off.

Julian had to admit, the fact that Yates could hand him his ass in the middle of a raid and not even slow down made him respect her even more, but accolades would have to wait. He had to find Bardhyn, and more importantly he had to find Salomeh. If anything had happened to her…

“Get off of me!” Salomeh’s voice rang out from behind one of the doors ahead of him. She sounded angry instead of scared, which heartened Julian. An angry Salomeh was a healthy Salomeh.

I’m coming, zemer, he thought as he raced toward her voice.

He reached the door and opened it carefully, hoping to have the element of surprise as he walked in on the struggle. However, it was Julian who received the shock of his life like a blow to the gut. Before him was a scene straight out of a nightmare: Salomeh, grappling for a gun with a woman who looked too familiar to be true.

“No,” he said, ruining any chance of surprise as both women whipped their heads in his direction. The woman was tall, far too thin, with short black hair and a face obscured by too much makeup, but it couldn’t be anyone else.

“Ryli?” he croaked, his heart feeling as if it would tear in two at the sight of her.

She took advantage of the distraction to move the gun out of Salomeh’s reach before knocking her to the ground. She scrambled behind Salomeh to grab her by the hair and pull her up onto her knees.

Julian’s mind whirled as he took in the scene, one that should have been impossible. Ryli was dead, and even if she wasn’t, she had been kind and loving, not the cruel woman smiling as she tugged Salomeh to and fro. Panic flashed in Salomeh’s eyes, and she reached behind her, trying to free herself. Ryli tugged roughly at her hair and shoved a knee into her back, pushing the gun against Salomeh’s skull.

This has to be a trick, Julian thought. A twisted, soul-destroying trick. There’s no way this could be real after all these years of suffering and guilt.

As if reading his mind, his sister let out a cruel laugh. In all the times he had remembered her sweet laughter ringing in his ears, he’d never imagined it could sound like that.

Her eyes were wide and dilated as she stared at him, a vicious smile marring her face. “Did you finally remember you left something behind?” she purred in an ice-cold voice. “Or am I just interrupting your search for
her
?”

She nudged at Salomeh’s head with the gun.

“I didn’t know you were alive, Ryli,” he said. “How could I have? The house was burned to the ground, and they said you were dead—”

“And you couldn’t be bothered to come back to find out?” she shouted. “It took you only a couple of hours to find this teacher, but you never came for me! You aren’t even here for me now!”

She looked deranged, but he couldn’t blame her. The sight of his sister after all these years, knowing she had been with Bardhyn all this time… He was feeling deranged himself.

“I didn’t know you were here,” he said, feeling the agony of a million different emotions tugging at him at once.

“Well, now you do. And now that we’ve been reunited, we’re going to play a little game, just like old times,” she said with a grim smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

No, Julian thought.

“Kush mendoni ju zgjidhni, vëlla?”
Her voice tore through his heart, the childhood game that had already haunted him taking an even more macabre turn. “Who will you choose, brother?”

He shook his head. “I won’t play that game with you again,” he said. “It won’t change what happened. Salomeh has nothing to do with this.”

“I asked you to choose!” she yelled. “Her or me, brother? Who deserves to live?”

He looked at Salomeh. Tears streamed down her face, and she shook with sobs.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked plaintively. He had thought seeing his family burn had been the worst moment of his life, but a new low had been reached. Seeing this husk of his sister and the pain in her eyes as she glared at him. He couldn’t imagine what she had experienced at Bardhyn’s hands over all this time.

“I suppose she learned it from me,” a voice said from behind him.

Shit.

He felt the muzzle of Bardhyn’s gun against his back.

“Thank you for the distraction, Linda. You’ve done well, as always.”

Chapter Thirty

“So, who is it going to be, Julian? Do tell,” Bardhyn said, obviously relishing the agony Julian and his sister were experiencing.

Salomeh tried to gather her thoughts as the ghoulish battle of wills played itself out around her. Old friend versus old friend, sister versus brother, and Linda versus Bardhyn in trying to see who could inflict the most pain. Once again Salomeh found herself in the middle of a fight that had nothing to do with her.

But then her eyes locked with Julian’s. His were desolate. Gone were the glinting mischief, the heated passion, and even the dark frustration she had come to know so well. His body was still large and strong and tensed to pounce, but it seemed his soul had deflated, was hunkered down in some hidden recess where this new betrayal couldn’t reach it.

Salomeh knew that place. And she realized then that this fight had something to do with her—had everything to do with her.

She swallowed her fear and found her voice.

“I’m not volunteering, in case you were wondering,” she said. She kept her gaze fixed on Julian’s. “I think I’ve already gone above and beyond my job description.”

Something
flashed in those green depths. He had heard her.

Unfortunately, she had also garnered Bardhyn’s attention.

“Ah, she speaks!” he said, gazing at her intently from behind Julian’s shoulder. “How was your reunion with Yelena? I trust you weren’t too disappointed with our hospitality.”

His gaze was unnerving. He didn’t blink as he waited for her response.

“I wouldn’t call drugging and imprisoning a young girl hospitality, but maybe this is just one of those wacky cultural misunderstandings,” she said. “I’d offer you a cup of tea, you’d tie me up and sell my body for money.”

He grinned at her, a shark’s grin. “You’re different than I imagined you’d be,” he said. “I had planned on killing you quickly, assuming you would be boring, but it would have been much more fun to break you.”

Salomeh had thought him cold when his ice-blue gaze had first raked over her from the backseat of the sedan. Even now there was no passion in his tone. But his eyes danced with mirth and something else: enjoyment. The bastard was enjoying this.

“Enough,” Julian said with authority. “Your meeting is busted, and soon this place will be crawling with more feds than a Quantico happy hour. Save the empty threats, put down your weapon, and maybe we can work out some kind of deal.”

Bardhyn laughed, and Salomeh shuddered at the sound.

“I don’t need you to make a deal, you spineless dog,” he spat. “I have Henderson by the balls. So why don’t we talk about something more interesting. How does it feel to know that Ryli has been with me this entire time? That while you were on your self-serving mission for justice, I’ve subjected her to every degradation possible?”

Julian’s jaw was tight, and beneath his mussed hair, a vein throbbed on his forehead. Salomeh felt a slight movement in Linda’s hold and flinched, expecting the worst until she realized what it actually was. Linda was shaking. A droplet of liquid hit her arm and rolled down. A tear, cooled during its descent. The tears of a woman who had experienced what it was to be broken by a man like Bardhyn instead of given the mercy of death.

“This is ridiculous!” Julian shouted. “All this pain, all this destruction because I didn’t want to be under your thumb anymore?”

“A Besa is a Besa,” Bardhyn said simply. “You broke the blood promise to be loyal to me always.”

“Ryli had nothing to do with it. My parents had nothing to do with it. You made me think she was dead and kept her all these years…and you think that isn’t breaking the Besa? You’re demented.”

Salomeh felt the grip on her hair loosening, a tingling rush of sensation in her scalp as Linda’s arm dropped limply to her side. She risked a glance up and saw Linda taking in the scene with glazed eyes.

“You—” the woman started and then faltered. “You said that Julian sold my family out to pay a debt.”

“He did,” Bardhyn said at the same time Julian roared, “I would never!”

“You said my parents died because of him, and I owed my life to you,” she said, her voice slowly regaining the controlled malice that had chilled Salomeh even over the phone.

“Ryli.” Julian’s years of tortured guilt seemed to be encapsulated in those two simple syllables. “I have always loved you. I have always regretted not being able to save you that night. But now I can, if you’d let me.”

Tears welled in his eyes, and his face contorted with grief, making the resemblance between him and Linda even more apparent.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and Salomeh felt her own tears start again. The pain in the room was almost palpable.

Linda lowered the gun away from Salomeh’s head, and Bardhyn’s eyes narrowed.

“Bitch,” he growled, displaying the first sign of true emotion Salomeh had seen. “What did you say the other day before you sucked my dick like the whore you are? You said you’d kill the teacher in a heartbeat. I should have let you burn with your pathetic parents. The word of a Tamali is meaningless!”

He had worked himself up, and as he shouted the last words, Julian wheeled and kneed him in the stomach. Bardhyn jumped back, moving with Julian’s leg so the blow didn’t completely wind him.