She shook her head.
“Call it now,” Faris snarled, “or I’ll shoot. I’ll count to three. One.”
Leila lowered the phone to her side and, still staring at the barrel of the gun, took a step back.
“Two.”
There was no time to think about what would come next. All she knew was that she wouldn’t dial that number.
“Three.”
She slid her eyelids shut and dropped the phone.
“Faris, stop!” Aisha’s voice rang out.
A deafening bang cracked across the island… then came a dull thud. But Leila felt nothing. Nothing had hit her, there was no pain. Only the sound of feet scuffling over the dry earth. She slowly opened her eyes.
Faris knelt on the ground, his gun discarded to the side as he held Aisha on his lap. A red stain spread across her chest, her mouth and eyes wide with shock.
The world spun. Faris’s screams for a doctor echoed, strangely distant. As the guards scrambled to get help, she couldn’t move. Her feet were glued to the spot. Aisha’s face paled, her eyes rolled shut, and her body went limp. Faris let out a low, loud wail.
Leila tore her gaze away. It couldn’t be real. It was just another lie. Her eyes landed on Faris’s gun, forgotten in the dirt. Without thinking, she picked it up, then turned back to Faris.
His shoulders shook with each sob, each one a hopeless plea, begging Aisha to forgive him. Begging her to come back. Could he fake such desperation? Could her mother fake such a realistic death?
It’s real.
This understanding seeped into her, draining her body of all warmth and strength. And yet, she felt no grief. She was completely numb, as if she were watching everything from a distance.
Trying to keep her breaths even, Leila looked around, even though it was probably too late for anyone to help Aisha. Several guards lingered somewhere beyond the ruins, giving them space. There was nothing they could do, anyway.
Faris’s sobs slowly dissipated and turned into groans of torment. He folded Aisha’s hands onto her chest, her skin pale.
A thrumming noise in the distance met her ears, drawing her gaze toward the sea. The sound gained volume—the distinct chop of a helicopter. Or two. Leila squinted. Three black dots raced toward the island. Could the guards have arranged a medic that quickly? It was unlikely.
Movement came at her left, and she tore her gaze from the approaching machines. To her surprise, Faris stood facing her. With red swollen cheeks, unkempt hair, and a dead look in his eyes, he seemed like a different man.
“Shoot me,” he said.
She took a step back. “What?”
“You heard what I said. Shoot me.”
Leila swallowed and lifted her chin. So, he wanted the coward’s way out of his devastation. “I’m not going to shoot you.”
“Then smash my head with a rock or something. I don’t care.” He closed his eyes. “Kill me. Just kill me.”
She studied the gun in her hand. It would be easy enough to do. She’d killed how many people now…? Three? What was one more? Especially if it was the man who’d made her life so miserable.
But would she stop there? Would that make her life any easier? Would that make her better than him? It didn’t make her better when she shot Amir. It didn’t make her better when she plunged a spear into David Weston’s chest. It didn’t make her better when she stabbed and shot Montu. Yet they had all been a threat, and she had no choice but to defend herself. Here, moments after losing the love of his life, moments before his arrest, Faris was no threat.
“I can’t do it,” she whispered. “I’m not going to be like you.”
“Will you just shoot me?” he said through gritted teeth. “It’s what you came here to do, isn’t it? Just get it over with.”
She shook her head.
The sound of the helicopters intensified—they were close, but Leila couldn’t bring herself to look.
Without a word, Faris brushed past her, walking toward the drop off. Her heart jolted when he came to a stop at the edge.
“Wait—”
He took a step, then he was gone.
With her breath caught in her throat, Leila took slow, uncertain steps toward the cliff. Keeping a short distance from the edge, she peered over, just enough to see the motionless black and white speck on the rocks below.
The chopping sounds enveloped the island as the machines circled overhead. She walked back to Aisha, stopping to pick up the phone, then knelt at her mother’s side. After failing to find a pulse on Aisha’s wrists, she pressed a hand against her cold cheek and brushed a strand of black hair from her face. Even though Leila didn’t know how she wanted to feel, a pang of sadness twisted in her chest. Did her mother deserve her grief? Leila had already grieved for her for years, only to be told all the pain inflicted on her had been on purpose.
She dropped Aisha’s hand and stood.
One helicopter slowed, hovering near the villa. Men in black dropped out of the machine. Leila swallowed, not ready for more rough treatment. First, she’d free Soliman, then they could present their evidence of innocence in this whole ordeal.
The guards had vanished from sight, so she entered the bunker without resistance. The cool dampness surrounded her, a welcome relief from the burning sun outside. Yet she hardly noticed as she took the stairs two at a time, descending into the dimly lit tunnels, her fingers wrapped around the keys still in her pocket.
An island full of stolen artifacts, a phone connected to a bomb in London, not to mention a handful of witnesses who had seen Faris with the phone and a gun pointed at her head. Her old friend Jones would have to believe her now.
CHAPTER 38
