This Amira-Ami-was more vulnerable, softer, with no idea how to function in his world. And he had failed to protect her. Leaving her helpless to defend herself and a perfect target for those who would seek to bring him down.

The door opened and the physician waved him inside. His feet moving him forward, Michal’s heart shuddered to a near stop as his gaze fell upon her once more.

She sat on the examination table, her ribs wrapped tightly beneath her torn blouse. Another blast of fury thundered through him. The blood had been cleansed from her skin and her hair had been combed. His gaze flitted to the nurse standing next to her. The nurse’s doing, he imagined. The entire staff of the small clinic had been terrified by his volatile emotions. He was certain they wanted to appease him in any way possible in hopes of surviving this encounter.

“She will be fine,” the physician told him in stilted English. “She must take care for a time until the rib is healed properly. There is no concussion despite the lump on her head. There is nothing more I can do.”

Michal nodded. “Good.” He knew he should at least glance at the doctor and thank him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Ami. She sat so very still, her eyes glazed and empty.

“We can go now?” he asked, finally sparing the physician a glance.

“Yes.”

Michal stepped closer to her, but she made no move to reach out to him or to even stand. She simply sat there, staring at nothing. The nurse scurried to the other side of the room as far away from Michal as possible.

He reached an arm around Ami’s shoulders and she flinched. A blade of hurt skewered him as if he’d been run through with a sword. “We can go now,” he murmured as reassuringly as the emotion clogging his throat would allow. She made no response. Worry thudded in his temples. “You are sure she will be fine?” he asked, suddenly certain the physician had missed some aspect of her injury.

“The shock,” he offered. “It will take time to recover from the shock.”

Satisfied with that diagnosis, Michal gently urged Ami toward the edge of the table until she scooted off the rest of the way on her own. Once on her feet, she wobbled for a moment, but he steadied her against him. He didn’t bother saying anything else as he led Ami from the room. His man, Thomas, would generously reward the physician and his nurse. No other discussion was necessary.

Outside, he helped Ami into the back of the car and slid in next to her. She leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes as if too weary to do otherwise. Thomas and the Spaniard climbed into the front, Thomas behind the wheel.

“I’m taking you home,” Michal told her softly, again hoping she would respond to his words. “You’ll be safe there.”

A cellular telephone buzzed and Thomas quickly silenced it by answering the call. He pulled out onto the street as he listened. Michal only half listened until Thomas demanded to know the address, then his instincts soared to a higher state of alert. Carlos had found something. He was sure of it.

Thomas ended the call and glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “Carlos found him. He’s holding him at the house where they took her. The other two men have not been found.”

“Take me there,” Michal ordered, his fury burning bloodred, clouding his vision.

Ami tensed in his arms. “Don’t worry,” he soothed, his voice still gruff despite his best efforts. “You will be safe. I swear it.”

The ride took only five minutes. Ami prayed every second of those few minutes that she could keep up the pretense. Tears burned behind her eyes, but it was the fear that pounded in her chest that made her weak…made her want to run. If Michal found out what really happened.

She would be dead. If you betray me again I will kill you. His words as he’d made love to her that first time echoed inside her skull.

The car bumped over a rut in the road and she had to close her eyes against the pain that seared through her sides. Her whole body ached, her lower lip felt raw from the split there.

She tried to block the memory of that jerk coming at her, slapping her repeatedly with the back of his hand, shoving her against the wall and then to the floor where he’d kicked her. Had Tanner not interceded, things could have gotten a lot worse. The jerk had been extremely pissed at her. She’d sobbed harder with each blow, hadn’t wanted to, but the pain had been overwhelming. She’d been certain that the extent of the beating wasn’t necessary-that the guy had been out for revenge rather than simply following orders. She tried to think now if Tanner could have stopped him sooner. Maybe not. Maybe he’d done the right thing.

She was definitely thankful for the indisputable evidence of her innocence the brutal beating provided. If Tanner wasn’t going to get her out of this, and he likely wasn’t, she definitely didn’t want Michal suspicious of her.

She pushed away the thought of what Tanner expected her to do. She couldn’t think about that right now. She only wanted out of this godforsaken country. Her thoughts were too fragmented, too scattered to analyze the situation.

She would do what she had to.

A single tear rolled down her cheek at the reality of exactly what that entailed. She pushed it away again, determined not to let it into her thoughts until she could think more clearly.

Her heart lurched when the car stopped in front of the crumbling building where Tanner’s people had held her last night. Where she’d been beaten to within an inch of her life or what felt like it. What if they’d forgotten something? Something that could link her to the CIA?

“I don’t want to go in there,” she said, pulling away from Michal’s hold. Wanting desperately to crawl out the passenger-side door and run like hell. She wasn’t cut out for this cloak-and-dagger stuff. “Please.” Her gaze shot to Michal’s. “I can’t.”

His eyes turned even darker with some raw, savage emotion that went way beyond rage. He took her by the arm, less gently than before. “You must. It is necessary.”

Terror clawing at her, she slid across the seat and allowed him to help her from the car. Every move she made sent pain radiating across her nerve endings. Outside the contusion and the fractured rib, most of her injuries were superficial. Why did she have to come back here? Why was vengeance necessary? Why did it matter who did it? She just wanted to leave.

She shivered as she recalled Tanner saying that he would plant evidence. She didn’t know what kind or about whom; she didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to be here. She stalled at the entryway, but Michal prodded her into forward motion. He wasn’t going to leave it alone. She might as well face facts. She doubted he would even consider leaving the country until he’d exhausted all his resources.

Inside the gloomy structure that smelled of urine and disuse, it was evident the place had been ransacked. She remembered distinctly that the front room, the one she now stood in, had been vacant. The room where she’d awakened had been furnished with only a cot, a chair and a rickety old armoire.

She surveyed the room once more as they moved through it. The overturned furniture and shattered crockery had definitely been added since she left. Papers were scattered over the floor. She didn’t remember those, either, from before. Part of the evidence, she presumed.

As they approached the room where she’d awakened, she balked, couldn’t make her feet take the final steps. “Please, can’t we just leave,” she pleaded once more.

Ignoring her plea, Michal turned to Thomas. “Stay with her,” he ordered.

She watched, her heart racing, as Michal shoved the door inward and entered the room. Thomas stood a few feet away as if fearing, like Raoul, she might cost him his life, as well, if he got too close.

The seconds turned into minutes and still she gleaned nothing from the hushed conversation in the room. Ami prayed with every ounce of strength she possessed that they hadn’t found something in the room that would contradict her story. Surely Tanner would not be so careless.