Mateo Lopes sensed that something was wrong even before he was fully awake. The room was still dark and he felt something cold and hard pressed against his forehead. Panicking, he reached across the bed and was relieved to feel the warm body of his wife Marcia. He heard the click of a switch and bright light suddenly flooded the room. He squinted at the figure above him and was about to shout out when he realized that the object pressing against his skull was the barrel of a gun.
“Any noise and you and your pretty little wife are dead!” Shakil said harshly. “Do you understand?”
Mateo nodded his head carefully before looking over at Marcia. She had taken a sleeping tablet the night before and was still dead to the world. He noticed that her bedside clock indicated that it was 4:53 AM. Mat
