by Dale Mayer
One down here, Diesel replied.
Any idea how many more?
No. But there has to be several.
Just as Shane was thinking about returning to the woods again, a shot rang out close to the house. He swore silently because he hadn’t left any weapons with Shelly and Aleah. And that he couldn’t stand. He studied the countryside, slipped back toward the trees, and, just as a verbal exchange broke out again between the two men, still fighting for control, Shane slipped up behind the house.
Moving silently and below window height, he slipped in through a downstairs window. Once inside, he stood, gun at the ready, and didn’t even see the blow that came out of nowhere. He dropped to his knees, as the pain made his skull feel like a ratchet had been used on him. But he bounced back up as fast as he could and took on his attacker. The fight was hard, furious, and completely in darkness.
He was amazed when he landed the few punches he did, but, once he had the man in a headlock, he didn’t stop until his adversary sagged in his arms, completely unconscious. Pulling his phone back out, he checked his victim with the Flashlight mode and sent a snapshot to Diesel. Stripping his captive of his weapons, Shane tied up the man and left him under the window.
Then he sent a text back to Diesel. Headed for the stairs. Keeping low, he quickly made his way through to Aleah’s room. It was empty. He headed to Shelly’s room and found the two women huddled on the floor of the closet. They both started when they saw him. He held a finger to his lips. Shelly scrambled toward him. He gave her a quick hug and whispered, “Go back and sit with her again.”
He noted that the baby was tucked up in blankets and that they were half in the closet. He motioned for them to get farther back into the closet, and he partially closed the door and then pulled the mattress off the bed and put it up in front of them. With any luck, errant bullets would get lodged or at least deflected before going any farther. With that, he did a quick sweep of the house but found nobody else inside. He stayed low when he heard the men outside arguing again. He left the bedroom and headed for the front door.
Chapter 14
Shelly wanted to race behind Shane, and, even as she shifted, Aleah grabbed her arm and whispered, “Stay here.”
Shelly looked at Aleah, the baby tucked up close to her, and the fear in Aleah’s eyes. Shelly settled back and nodded. “He’s good,” she said. “We can trust him.”
“I don’t know how to trust,” Aleah said quietly, “when they lie, and they cheat, and they steal.”
“Not all of them,” she said.
Aleah nodded. “All of them.”
“Even the father of your child?”
“Well, no,” she said, stopping, looking confused. “But he’s young.”
“He doesn’t have to turn out that way either,” Shelly said. “Not all men are like your father or this asshole out here who bought you.”
“It’s often the way in my country,” she said. “This arrangement they spoke of would help to explain why my father rose so high up, becoming what he is.”
“He had a lot of backing, I presume.”
“Yes. It’s all making sense to me now. My family has royal heritage,” she said, “but no money to speak of, no real standing. This man had money and power but lacked the lineage. That is what he was buying me for, … access to the lineage. In the meantime, over all these years, my father used the dowry to become an even more terrible man than he was.”
“And now you’ve messed it all up by having a child,” she said.
“I didn’t even know about this arrangement of theirs,” she said, “and I wouldn’t have cared.”
“No, I get that,” Shelly said, “because I’d be the same way. But the bottom line is that he won’t treat you very nicely because you’ve already had another man’s child.”
Aleah’s eyes widened. “No,” she said, “he won’t. He isn’t a nice man anyway, and this has just made it all worse.”
“But would he still marry you and force having his children on you if he gets a chance?”
“Absolutely. Then he’ll take his children from me, and I’ll be an accidental death somewhere in the not-too-distant future.”
“And I presume your father won’t care either way?”
“No. He’s got his money out of me already.”
“In that case, why do you think he’s trying to rescue you now?”
“I don’t know that he is. It may be a matter of making sure I comply,” she said quietly. “When he found out I was pregnant, he was absolutely livid.”
“The baby’s father, do you think his life is in danger?”
At that, Aleah gasped, stared at her, and asked, “Do you think so?”
“Well, he’s the one who led you astray, in their minds, so to speak. Sorry to use such an old-fashioned phrase.”
“I think my father just wanted me as collateral again, to hold over the man he sold me to and to exploit the lineage of my baby’s father.”
“Could your father be trying to stop that man in any way?”
“Well, they could renegotiate a deal maybe? One that would get my father off the hook because, above all else, my arranged husband wants the lineage. He doesn’t so much care beyond that.”
“So even though you’ve given birth to another man’s child, he’ll forgive that?”
“Well, he says he will. But, once I’m married to him,” she said, “there’s absolutely nothing anyone can do to stop his abuse.”
“Maybe he won’t though.”
“He already has,” she said. “He was livid when he found out I was pregnant and hit me several times. At the time, I thought he wanted to sell me into the sex trade. So I worried that he would kill my child, to sell me sooner. But I made it very clear that, if he killed my baby, I would kill myself. Little did I know he wanted me himself.”
“Either way, he would never get what he wanted.”
She shook her head.
“I’m so sorry, Aleah. These past six months must have been even more horrible with all that hanging over your head. So, what’s the deal with your father?”
“That I still don’t quite understand, except maybe he feels that, as long as he saves me, he can take my baby, his grandchild, and maybe use that to his own gain. I don’t know.” She shrugged. “And it doesn’t matter. As much as anything I think he knows that I need to become this man’s wife to get himself off the hook.”
“And yet,” she said, “he didn’t wait until you were married to the man to get you out. That says something good, right?”
“There would be no point then because, if we were married, I would be deemed his property. No,” she said, “in our culture, it would shame him to marry a pregnant woman. He wants our lineage and the people’s respect. So he had to wait for the birth of the baby. Maybe that is what my father and he are arguing about? For he had me and my baby in a real sense, whether I had given birth yet or not. He was probably auctioning off my child to my father. Oh my. I didn’t think it could be worse than I already thought.” Aleah stared in horror, as Shelly patted her hand.
“My father must have realized, without even telling me about this arrangement, that I would never marry any man over some archaic dowry deal. He’s probably been stalling for years, but then my intended finally put his foot down and kidnapped me, hoping to marry, not knowing of my pregnancy. That’s why he held me for so long. Meanwhile, my father’s desperate to find some angle, some deal that he can make out of it that saves him and grants him possession of his grandchild.”
“I don’t think anybody’ll get saved out of this mess,” she said. “Your father may have planned to save you for whatever reason, but I don’t know if it was for your best interests or his.”
“His,” she said immediately. “It’s always about his.”
“In which case, either he’ll save himself or get something out of this deal.”
“That’s right. He’s bled the guy as much as he can, and that’s blowing up in his face. So
now he’s discovered that my baby has wealth via her father’s lineage, so he’ll probably get me back, so I can have more children with Renault.”
“Wow, that all sounds worse and worse,” she muttered, “and I don’t see either of the two men outside stopping. We need to get rid of these guys.”
She gave a broken laugh. “And how am I to do that?”
Shelly asked, “What’s your father’s name?”
“Aziz,” she said.
Shelly lifted her voice. “Aziz, your daughter doesn’t want to go back. She doesn’t want to marry the guy you sold her to, and she doesn’t want to live with you.” There was silence.
“What she wants does not matter,” he said, his voice coming closer.
“How is it you feel you can ruin your daughter’s life? How old was your little girl when you sold her future to this evil man?”
“She’s my daughter. She’s my property. I will make the decisions.”
“You already made a decision. Then this man kidnapped her.”
“Yes, she is to marry him.”
“Then why would you even try to get her back again? Why go through that ridiculous testing process to make sure Shane was good enough to rescue your daughter, if her kidnapper is the man who’s to marry her anyway?”
“Because they must be married,” he said. “That is a given. However, at this point I also need to obtain some assurances on my life, on my grandchild. Because Aleah has defied me and defiled herself by getting pregnant, the deal will be different.”
“Ah, now she’s secondhand goods, is that it?”
“Yes, as you Americans would say it. Exactly.”
“Well, that won’t work out for me,” Shelly said. She lifted her head and peered around the corner of the closet door and mattress. “I don’t know where the guys are,” she whispered to Aleah, “but they need to grab Aziz fast. I can only distract him for so long.”
Aleah looked at her in surprise. “You say these things to upset my father, and what good will that do?”
“Maybe he’ll give away his position. Maybe somebody will take out one of them. I don’t know,” she said. “What I do know is that, if he comes in here, I’m dead. He’ll try to send you off to get married, but he’ll shoot me on the spot.”
At that, Aleah nodded slowly. “Yes, that’s true. My father will kill you.”
“So, at this point, anything I do,” Shelly said in a hard voice, “is to help my situation and yours.”
“You are confusing,” she said, “and I don’t see how antagonizing him can help.”
Well, Shelly didn’t really either. But it made her feel good, so, if antagonizing this asshole was the last thing she did in this world, well, so be it. She sent out a quiet prayer to Shane. I hope you know what you’re doing because I need to get out of here. But then this wasn’t the tightest or the worst situation she’d been in before, and Shane had been the one who had rescued her then as well. Besides, they had a whole new life ahead of them. She wouldn’t condone or support anything that took what could be a very bright future away from her. She looked around, then looked back at Aleah. “Wait here.”
She quietly slipped out of the closet and around the mattress to the door that was open and crawled out into the hallway. There she watched as Shane, standing up against the common room wall, slowly cut a circle of glass out of the window, then raised his weapon. She watched in amazement as he took a slow deep breath and pulled the trigger.
The man’s head exploded.
Shane quickly withdrew his rifle as gunfire rapidly returned in his direction. A second shot rang out, and then there was nothing but silence. He twisted to see Shelly, who he’d heard creeping along the carpet. He held a finger to his lips. She nodded. He knew she was struggling to stay put and out of the way, but he had hoped she would have lasted a little bit longer. But then that was expecting too much.
At the sound of a weird bird call, her eyes widened, but Shane just shook his head and answered it. Immediately there was another call. She crawled toward Shane, and, when she got to where he stood, he gave her a hand up, putting her back against the wall.
She whispered, “What was that?”
“Diesel.”
“Is he giving you an all clear?”
“Well, we’re hoping so. We’ll have to figure out how many men are left.”
“Who did you shoot?”
He took a look at her and said, “Her father.”
She winced and nodded. “Good,” she said. “That other asshole needs to die too.”
“It seems like the two men have been after each other for a long time. Half-friends, half-enemies,” he said. “The research we found on them was very convoluted. They have been a strange combination of business partners, enemies, and friends for a very long time. But now, with the arranged marriage disclosure, it makes more sense.”
“Well, you shot and killed Aziz. Now what will the intended groom do?”
“He plans to kill us all,” Shane said. At Shelly’s worried look, he said, “Except possibly Aleah. And I won’t be so easy to kill.”
“And so he’ll kill me?” Shelly asked.
Shane closed his eyes and whispered, “You’re right. We still have one asshole.”
“Now,” the gunman yelled, “I want the three of you to get out of that house before I blow it up.”
“What about Aleah?” Shane asked aloud, then whispered to Shelly, “Take Aleah and the baby, leave through the back door, and run, fast.”
The gunman yelled once more, “What about her? If I can’t have her, I’ll find another one,” he said. “She’s secondhand goods anyway. Now I’ll let you count to ten, and, by then, you better have that front door open and be coming out,” he said, “or I’ll set off the bomb.”
Diesel called out, “He’s holding a detonator in his hand.”
“Absolutely I am,” he said.
“Who was the mole who told you where we were?”
“An MI6 informant,” he said. “Even though he was discovered and suspended from duty, they hadn’t removed his access from everything, so we were still tapped in to his plans. But he’s dead now too. I couldn’t afford to leave him as a loose end. Once I’m gone from here, I’m gone,” he said.
The dead MI6 agent in the grass here. “And you’ll kill Aleah too then?”
“If she doesn’t come out, she dies,” he said. “I’ve invested enough time and money in this.”
Aleah. Immediately Shane dashed down the stairs toward the back door. He met up with the women, pushed them as fast as he could to the kitchen door, and, as soon as he opened it, he ordered them to head straight into the brush and to run as fast as they could.
“There could be shooters out there,” he said, “so dodge, move to the side, do whatever you have to, but get into hiding and stay there.” He took the baby from Aleah and said, “Let me carry this one.” And, with that, he raced behind them. They barely made it past the far corner, when the house exploded with a loud boom.
Chapter 15
They settled into the brush away from the house. Shelly stared at Shane in shock. Aleah was huddled up against her, still not recovered from giving birth, still in pain and still sore, but clutching her baby tightly against her. “Jesus,” Shelly said, “these people need to stop.”
“They will,” Shane said, “after one last hurrah. You stay here and don’t move. “Keep the baby quiet and don’t make a sound.” Then he looked at Shelly and added, “I mean it this time.” Then he turned and raced away.
“He knows you well, doesn’t he?” Aleah muttered.
“Apparently.” She sat down beside her and said, “We need to make sure that they can’t find us.”
“The house fire will make it hard for us to hide,” Aleah said. “I’ll bet our faces show up easily.”
“Good point.” Shelly carefully disguised the baby with her blanket and their faces with a shield of branches. “There. That’s better. Now we stay here and try not to move,” she whi
spered. They heard gunfire and sounds of fighting. It all made her heart run cold. Aleah reached over, grabbed her hand, and hung on. Shelly squeezed her hand back and whispered, “Hold tight. This will be over soon.”
“It will be, but who will be the winner?” Aleah whispered.
“Shane,” Shelly said, “it will be Shane.”
And, at that, a man almost beside them said, “You’re right. It’s over. But Shane winning? Not happening.”
She gasped and tightened her grip on Aleah. The branches were pulled back, and she stared up at a Middle Eastern man with a rifle pointed at them. Shelly looked up at him and said, “Hi, apparently you’re the one who wanted this woman for your wife.”
He snorted, then looked at Aleah and back to Shelly in disgust. “Women. Too much trouble.”
As he raised the rifle in their direction, Shelly immediately bolted forward, hitting the barrel of the rifle up high into the air, as it fired harmlessly again and again. The gunman smacked her hard across the side of her face, and she cried out from the blow. She fell haphazardly to her knees and then turned to see him holding the rifle on Aleah. She was terrified, as she held the tiny baby close against her chest. When the baby cried, Shelly reached out, put her hand against him. “Don’t. They don’t deserve this.”
He glared at her. “You all die now.”
She shook her head, seeing Shane coming up on the side, his weapon drawn. She looked at him and recognized he was discreetly motioning, telling her to step away.
Smiling up at the gunman, she said, “You’re wrong. But don’t believe me.” With that, she threw herself down in front of Aleah, and immediately a shot rang out. She turned to see the gunman standing there, a shocked look on his face, as he stared down at the women, then slowly sank to his knees and fell over sideways. Aleah burst into tears, and Shelly could only hold her tight, the baby crying in her arms.
