She would have run to him, he realized in bemusement. Even knowing there was nothing she could do, and that there was a high chance she could have been harmed, still, she would have run to him.
“Jafar, please, don’t do this,” she cried out in horror. Abram felt the knife begin to bite into his flesh.
“I won’t go back,” Abram warned him softly, knowing the game his cousin was playing. “I can’t go back, Jafar. You know this.”
“Return or die,” Jafar snarled. “I cannot afford to allow you to leave at this time, Abram. You know this.”
“You have no choice. Accept it,” Abram answered quietly. “I won’t go back, Jafar, and I won’t give that vow. You and Azir have lost this game.”
“Perhaps I’ll put the blade to your lover’s throat, Jafar suggested mockingly. “Then would you do as I need you to do?”
Abram almost paused at the way the other man phrased his words.
Almost.
“You would have to kill me first,” he warned him. “I won’t let you touch her as long as I live.”
“Easily done.” His arm tensed as the blade pressed harder.
“You owe me, Jafar,” Paige screamed out furiously, her voice raw and hoarse as Tariq was forced to hold her back.
She strained against his hold, her expression twisting with rage.
“Damn you, Jafar, you owe me,” she screamed again. Abram felt a trickle of blood at his neck and yet he still stood silently, too curious about the path his cousin would take to attempt to break his hold just yet.
Jafar paused.
“You owe me,” Paige repeated as the tears rolled down her face. “You still owe me.”
And just what the hell would Jafar owe her?
“She is a beautiful woman,” Jafar sighed, his hold against the side of Abram’s head tightening. “And yes, I owe her much. Without her, perhaps I would be dead.”
Surprised, Abram wondered what the hell had been going on over the years that he was unaware of.
“And this is how you repay your debts?” Abram asked him. “With blood?”
Behind him, he felt Jafar breathe in slowly, deeply, as though preparing himself. As his body tightened, Abram tensed as well, covering his own anticipation within Jafar’s.
“I’m sorry, cousin,” Jafar said. “But I cannot afford your escape or theirs.”
As the words left his mouth the viperous red lines of the laser rifles’ sights cut through the night, pinpointing Jafar and each of his men as black ropes and army rangers slid soundlessly into position.
They surrounded Jafar’s team of men as Abram let his gaze move to Paige once again.
Something in him tightened each time he allowed his eyes to meet the grief in hers and to acknowledge the fear that filled her face as Jafar kept that knife at his throat.
“Release him, Jafar,” the commanding voice of the black-masked ranger closest to him ordered.
“I cannot do this.” The lazy amusement in Jafar’s voice was at odds with the tension in his body.
“Don’t make us start picking off your men,” he advised when Jafar refused to move. “We will.”
“We are called martyrs for a reason.” Jafar mocked them though the knife never moved.
It wasn’t going to move. What f**king game was his cousin playing? If Jafar was going to cut his throat, then he would have already done so.
Abram found it a little too easy to slam his elbow into his cousin’s diaphragm as he caught the wrist holding the knife at the same time.