He turned back to Jafar, the warning in the other man’s eyes suddenly shooting through him.
The warning was like a shiver of death racing over him.
He knew his cousin.
He did know him.
And he knew how he worked.
How the f**k had he managed to forget over the years?
He’d messed up, Abram admitted. He’d messed up so damned badly when he had immediately assumed Jafar was exactly what he had claimed to be when he returned, after Ayid’s and Aman’s deaths.
He should have known better.
“Let’s go.” Jafar jerked his head toward the door as Abram finished lacing his boots.
“We take the girl.” Azir didn’t move. “She goes with us.”
“No.”
Everyone stared back at Abram as the word came from him, the sound of it sharp, filled with determined fury and murderous intent.
“She goes.” Azir’s smile was cold, calculating. “I will have her as well.”
“The hell you will,” Abram growled.
“We go now.” The other man moved between Azir and the bed, the command in his tone unmistakable now. “The girl is a liability now. We will come back for her if we must.” The last sentence was uttered, intended to be audible only to Azir, but Abram had always had damned sharp ears. The instinct honed over the years as he moved secretively through the fortress castle.
“Did they promise you Paige for your cooperation?” Abram asked him then. “Is that why you accepted the deaths of your sons so easily, Azir? Because you believed you would have Marilyn’s daughter?”
“She was created for me.” Azir breathed out almost reverently. “Born to come to me.” He turned back to Abram. “And you thought you could steal her from me, as they stole her mother from me.”
He was even more crazed than Abram had believed.
“We have to go,” Jafar hissed. “Dawn is too close and there’s no way we’ll get past the security agents if we don’t move.”
“Azir.” The lieutenant’s voice was filled with dangerous warning. “Now.”
“Not without her,” Azir refused, his tone grating.
“You’ll have to kill us both then. Tonight,” Abram warned them all. “If you try to take her, then I won’t go two steps from this house with you. I’d rather see her dead than see her suffer beneath your hands.”
It would be a horrible choice to make. A choice Abram knew he couldn’t make. It wasn’t possible.
“We don’t have time for this.” Jafar’s voice was imperative now, as though he were losing patience as well as courage.
Another piece of the puzzle came together. Jafar never lost patience.
It was all a game.
His gaze sliced to his cousin. Jafar was how aiming his rifle more toward Azir and the lieutenant than at Paige. The lieutenant’s back was to the bed, and Azir had no weapon at all.
“You lie!” Azir turned to Abram furiously. “You would bleed forher. You would die for her. You would never have the strength to steal her life from her.”
“I would kill her before I allowed you to take her,” Abram promised him. “Because her death at your hands would be far worse.”
Azir’s expression twisted furiously. “She would resign herself to her fate.”