Chokepoint by Candace Irving

Author:Candace Irving
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781952413353
Publisher: Blind Edge Press

15

Mira evaded the pity radiating down on her. She focused on those scarred fingers that were wrapped around her right arm instead. They were loose now, almost gentle. Supportive. That didn't matter. She wanted them gone.

So she could do the same.

The moment Riyad realized what she was looking at, he released her.

She was grateful. Loose or not, she wouldn't have been able to pull away from his grip on her own.

"Agent Ellis? Are you…okay?"

She couldn't open her mouth, either. Not even long enough to form a simple no. It was all she could do to let her lower body take over, to put one foot in front of the other. She edged a careful path around the SEAL, then deliberately bypassed the doors that led into the attached bedroom. Those panels were made of glass.

She needed privacy.

The inexplicable tears clogging up her throat had overtaken the countless questions screaming through her mind and heart. In another second, perhaps two, they would begin to fall. And that man, strangely rooted into place behind her, was not going to bear witness to her weakness.

Pushing through the door to the bathroom, she turned and managed to close it behind her. It wasn't until she went to flip on the lights and throw the lock that she realized she was holding her niqab, her abaya and the Qur'an.

She dropped the fabric at her feet and fumbled with the switches in the dark, accidentally engaging the lights and fan together. She left both on and toggled the lock to the door. The book and the bagged evidence ended up beside the sink. She sank down to the floor where she stood, her ass settling on the icy, marble tiles, her socked feet on top of that Saudi shroud of black as she pulled her knees to her chest and clung to the remaining shreds of sanity for all she was worth.

Her father was dead. Murdered.

While he'd been leaving the voicemail that she'd not only intentionally ignored but deleted.

Yes, she'd hated the man. Yes, he'd absolutely deserved that hatred. But she wouldn't have ignored the plea of a total stranger. Estranged or not, the man was still her father…or had been. He'd reached out to her with his dying breath.

And she'd done nothing.

What kind of a human being did that make her?

Oh, God. Dropping her forehead to her knees, she let the white noise of the fan overtake the shame and the guilt that blistered in, until the only thing left was the steady roar of the blower and the numbness that had come with it.

She welcomed the latter; it succeeded in obliterating the entire world. She had no idea how long she sat there. Seconds? Minutes?

Hours?

That last might be the most accurate guess, because the next sound that managed to cut through the fan and the fog it had nurtured was knocking.

And then a voice. "Mir? You okay in there?"

Ramsey.

"Hey, kiddo. Can you unlock the door for me?"

She still couldn't seem to speak, so she tried standing.

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