CHAPTER30
Rafe
Cursing, I eyed the crowd that was standing at the entrance of the city warily. It was made up of dozens of men. The man who’d run into the alley while Colby had worked was standing at the forefront.
“Wait here,” I told the others in a low voice and stepped forward to meet them.
The man’s eyes strayed back to Colby. She was still dressed in her thwab, but it was clear with us standing out in the open that she was very much a woman.
“She saved us,” he said in Arabic.
I nodded and my muscles relaxed the barest hint. If they were going to kill us they’d have attacked already.
“Inshallah,” he murmured. The prayer floated through the silence before the men behind him echoed it. “We are grateful to you and your woman. We’ve put together something to show our thanks.” He stepped aside and the crowd behind him parted, showing bags of supplies. Mostly food and wares that they sold here in the marketplace.
Colby’s gasp sounded behind me. Arsen was likely translating for her. She stepped forward, but stayed behind me. It wasn’t for safety, but because she wanted to be respectful to the men’s customs. “We can’t take their things,” she whispered low enough that only I could hear.
I bowed my head in a gesture of gratitude to the men. “We take your offerings with many thanks, friends.”
Colby’s hand smacked my back, but I ignored it. The men moved to the side, allowing us to pass by. Sig handed over the container he held to Colby so he could help me carry the heavier bags.
“It would’ve been a sign of disrespect not to take their gifts,” I told her as soon as we were out of earshot of the group. “If they didn’t think you deserved it, they wouldn’t have offered.”
“Oh, right,” she responded with a sigh. “I just wish we could pay them for everything.”
“You did, Gorgeous,” Sig told her with a smile. “By saving their families’ lives. You rescued their most valuable possessions. These things hold little value to them compared to what they could have lost.”
Colby’s eyes softened and she nodded in understanding. We made our way out of the city and loaded up the camels. We couldn’t be here when Roj’s men showed up. The men of the city would be ready to defend it—with their lives if necessary. It was all we could do for now.
The need to go back to that compound and strangle Roj with my bare hands was hard to resist, but I pointed Ayad north. We needed a place to bunker down for the night. I was done with this cat and mouse shit with him, tonight we’d come up with a plan and take out Roj once and for all. After that we’d have to see whether The Holy Order was going to cause trouble. If they did, we’d decimate them, too. No one was going to escape our ire.
“Where are we going?” Colby asked as Bilal came up alongside Ayad.
“Baiji,” I responded, eyes scanning the desert around us for any sign that Roj was on our tail.
“That’s a city northwest of here,” Arsen told her.
“Why are we going there?” she asked.
“Safe house,” was all I said before kicking Ayad into a gallop. I wasn’t in the mood to answer Colby’s questions. I was already drawing up plans for how to confront Roj. I needed the silence that a long ride would give.
We rode the camels and mule hard and came upon Baiji after a few hours. Releasing our mounts to wander the desert outside the city we carried our supplies through the streets.
We waited in the shadows of an alleyway while Arsen found a place that would house and feed Mulligan for us while we were here.
Sig set his bags down, and tugged Colby to him. He adjusted her scarf to fully cover her hair and as much of her face as it could. “Keep your head down, Gorgeous. Who knows how many spies Roj may have here. Better everyone thinks we’re a band of men, it’d be less likely to get back to him.”
Arsen came back not long after and we waited while Sig picked his things back up. Colby dutifully kept her face downcast and we rushed toward the safe house I had here.
Opening the door, I ushered everyone in, and looked around the street one last time. No one seemed to be paying us any attention. I shut and locked the door, turning on lights as I moved through to clear the house.
Arsen and Sig were already busy putting things away by the time I got back. It wasn’t a big home, but it would do for the night. I had various safe houses secured across the country, but we hardly ever used them. That was the point I suppose. They were only for emergencies. Today counted as such.
“What are we going to do with that?” Sig asked, eyeing the glass container that Colby was working with.
“We could burn it.” Arsen suggested. “Isn’t that how they destroy these things?”
“Not that easy.” Colby said. “You would need an incinerator and extreme temperatures. We can’t build anything like that out here.”