TWENTY-SEVEN
If she slipped a blade out of her wrist sheath, she could reach up and sever his Achilles tendon. Both of them, if she was quick. Throw a handful of sand in his eyes as she jumped to her feet, and run. Anahita's instincts urged her to do just that, but she knew she could not. Not yet. For if half the marketplace gossip about this man was true...she could not risk leaving him alive.
Running could wait until after the deed was done. Until then, cold calculation would occupy her mind, as it always did. Haidar and Asad had taught her well.
In the meantime, she allowed herself the small fantasy of choking him with the very shoe he'd balanced on the back of her neck. Watching his face grow red, then purple, then blue as he gasped for air that would never again reach his lungs..
