Page 3 of Her Irresistible Sheik (Al-Sintra Family #9)
Lilly’s breath hitched.
She stared at the grainy photo on her monitor, pupils dilating as every nerve in her body lit up like a live wire. It was him.
The bastard in the background of the photo—half-shadowed—was unmistakably the same man who had shattered her world.
She’d spent the last three years chasing whispers, hacking into encrypted databases, bribing low-level servers for scraps of intel.
And now here he was. In broad daylight. Careless. Caught.
Her pulse hammered.
Lilly leaned closer to the screen, studying every visible inch of his face—the angle of his jaw, the barely-there scar beneath his left eye, the stooped-but-wary posture that had always unsettled her.
There weren’t many photos to compare—maybe two, one from a surveillance camera in Prague, another from a shaky hand-held clip in Nairobi—but her gut clenched with certainty.
It was him .
Her fists clenched on the edge of her keyboard, chipped black nail polish scraping against the worn aluminum.
Rage flared like acid in her veins. The same man who had murdered her husband—quiet, clever Thomas, who made her laugh and brewed her coffee just the way she liked—was alive and walking around like he didn’t carry death in his pockets.
And he was planning something again.
She knew that look. Focused. Methodical. It was the look of a man on a mission. A killer calculating his next move.
The windowless basement was cold, always cold, but she suddenly felt like ice was climbing up her spine. The hum of the machines, the tick of the wall clock, the soft thump of her boot tapping the floor—it all blurred under the thunder of blood rushing in her ears.
Her lip piercing pulsed with heat as she bit the inside of her cheek, eyes locked to the screen.
Law enforcement had called him a ghost —untraceable, uncatchable. When she’d presented what little evidence she had to the authorities, they’d listened for five whole minutes, then dismissed her with condescending sympathy. One detective even patted her on the shoulder.
"Don’t let this killer ruin your life," he’d said.
Too late.
The killer had already taken her life and ripped it in half.
And now, here he was again. Smirking in the shadows of someone else’s tragedy. Getting ready to destroy someone else's world.
Lilly’s flannel sleeves rustled as she shifted, knees pulled up to her chair, one thick boot propped against the metal desk leg. She ignored the ache in her shoulders, the permanent kink in her spine from too many sleepless nights down here.
Her dark hair was pulled into a messy bun, streaks of faded pink spilling down over her piercings. The scent of solder, energy drinks, and dust hung in the air, thick with the remnants of all-nighters. But she didn’t move. Not yet.
Because something else was in the photo.
She narrowed her eyes. The box.
He was carrying something—tucked under the assassin’s arm like it was nothing. But even in the low-res image, it looked... off. Too clean. Too deliberate. The symbols printed on the cardboard weren’t in any language she recognized. Not at first.
Lilly zoomed in, her fingers flying across her mechanical keyboard, tapping and scrolling as her dual monitors flickered with cross-referenced scans, language databases, and symbol recognition software. The search took less than two minutes. Her stomach dropped in two seconds flat.
The symbols translated to one word: Explosives.
Her breath caught. Her hands froze mid-keystroke.
Oh no!
Her mind went blank for a heartbeat. Then it came rushing back in—a tidal wave of nausea and rage. What was he planning? Who was he going to blow up now? A government building? A school? A family? Was someone else about to lose everything the way she had?
“No,” she whispered hoarsely, shaking her head. “Not again.”
She wouldn’t let him vanish. Not this time.
The law had failed. The world had moved on. But Lilly hadn't. She wouldn’t.
Her jaw clenched. Her heart was racing so fast it hurt.
She would stop him. If it was the last thing she did.
Because no one else was watching. But she was.