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Suqut Brigade Safe House
Athens, Greece

 

It had been fifteen minutes, and Rafiq was growing impatient. Scratch that. He was already beyond impatient. He stared at the phone again, his mind playing tricks on him, certain he had sensed a vibration that was never there.

Zaman cleared his throat. “Umm, do we know if he got the message?”

Rafiq twisted his beard around his finger. “If it didn’t go through, the phone would have said so. It went through, though we don’t know if he’s actually seen it.”

“Then what are we going to do? They must know that we have no way of knowing, so maybe they’ll just ignore us and play dumb.”

The very notion had Rafiq on his feet, rage building. “Come with me.” He stormed down the hall, Zaman on his heels, and entered the woman’s room. He handed the phone to Zaman. “Record me.”

Zaman tapped the screen a few times, then held the phone out in front of him. Rafiq advanced on the woman, her eyes bulging with fear, and he punched her as hard as he could in the nose, the satisfying crunch of it breaking felt deep in his loins as the endorphins surged through his body—exactly as he imagined every moment of Jannah to be.

The woman cried out against her gag, tears and blood flowing down her cheeks as Rafiq stepped away, indicating for Zaman to get a closeup of her shattered face. Zaman nodded at him, the shot confirmed.

Rafiq grabbed the phone then forwarded the video with another text message.

I’m growing impatient. If you don’t respond, we’ll show you what we do to infidel women.