Free The Housewife Assassin's Hostage Hosting Tips (Housewife Assassin Series Book 9) by Josie Brown Page B

contacts made since she left Club Dread.
    There is also a video feed of her Club Dread stay.
    It ain’t pretty. Her initial torture, which was carried out by Abu, gave her orthodontic surgery without anesthesia–the most pain, leading to quick gain–if they don’t have a heart attack first.
    Several teeth later, she still hadn’t broken down. On the upside, she won’t be smiling for quite some time.
    Jack’s turn up to bat gives her a blood-striped back to go along with her jack-o-lantern grin. I wince with each slash of the cat-o-nine-tails. On the other hand, Tatyana seems to enjoy it. Why am I not surprised?
    However, when he hits her kidney with his fist, she coughs up blood. Thank goodness the video is soundless, so that I don’t have to hear his jeers and taunts, or her screams and pleas.  
    I have to close my eyes when, with one twist, his pliers break the first bone in her pinky finger.  
    I can read his lips: That one was for Donna.
    Not as romantic as the casket charm and bonbons, but it’s certainly comforting to know how far he’ll go to defend me. I’ll have to show my appreciation to him later tonight–only no S&M roleplaying.  
    If he hadn’t let her go in order to track her, her latest accessory would be a nine-millimeter bullet, which she’d be wearing somewhere deep in the gray matter of her cerebral cortex.  
    There are better fashion statements.
    I’ve got to face it. Honeypots are part of the business. I know this, firsthand. But as far as Jack is concerned, if she goes after me or anyone else he loves, he’ll treat her just like any other enemy.
    Talk about true love.

    Also in the report is a hyperlink of a map. When I click on it, I see that it is live, and in real time.  
    The object being tracked is initialed TZ . By its coordinates, I pinpoint her location as Mosul, Iraq. If so, it means she is meeting with ISIL’s leaders.
    The Intelligence Community can’t decide which is the bigger terrorist threat to the United States, ISIL or Al Qaeda. But ISIL is certainly in the lead, what with impressive military tactical planning. Currently, it controls of half of Syria, two-thirds of Iraq, and enough of the rolling desert within Lebanon and Yemen to make the rest of the Middle East quake in fear.
    Worst of all, it’s got very deep pockets, thanks to the very lucrative resources located in the lands it now controls. The region’s oil fields gush out forty-thousand-barrels-each day–at least two million dollars.
    If you think any of it will go toward the care and feeding of the region’s eight million citizens, you truly are living in a fantasy world. This money is used to recruit those with a deep hatred of Western culture–a hate cultivated during a life spent in a country occupied by Western armies whose leaders care less about the blood spilled on the parched earth than about the oil flowing under it.
    Oil creates money. Money is power. Control the oil and you have the power.
    The big question: Is ISIL the threat facing my mission team at Acme?
    As I stare at the computer screen’s glow, I envision Tatyana’s smug smile. According to its coordinates, she’s been in the same location now for the past sixteen hours. That doesn’t seem right. If she was running a mission that takes place on U.S. soil, she’d be here, not there. Even if she’s only acting as a carrier or cutout, she’d be on the move within a few hours of touching base.
    I’ve just run after Emma in order to point this out when I hear the back door open.  
    For the life of him, Arnie doesn’t know how to make a graceful entrance. Today his excuse is that his arms are filled with five bags of disposable diapers, which fall out of his arms in his attempt to juggle them while, at the same time, closing the door behind him.
    When he sees me, he does a double-take. “Donna! What are you doing here?” The guilty look on his face proves he knows that Jack never told me Emma was part of the team, and that he