“Is that a-?”
The door to the house opens then, and a frail-looking, shawled old woman steps out. She peers at us, frowning slightly with a blank look, before suddenly, her whole face lights up with what looks like recognition; “Bry-see! Bry-see!” She’s smiling widely as she hobbles down the steps of her house towards us, and he’s grinning as he runs towards her and scoops her into a hug.
“You go so long!” She says in a thick accent, carefully choosing her English words. Tears frame her eyes as she pulls back and brings hand up to stroke the stubble of his cheek. She glances past him towards me, her eyes bright as they dart between us.
I can see the love and pride in his eyes as he turns and beckons me closer; “Peyton, this is Fairuza Kartal; büyükanne, this is Peyton Rivers.”
She beams at him then me, the look almost grandmotherly; “Ah, love?” She smiles at Bryce; “Love yes?”
I blush and she grins wider. Bryce looks at me and slowly nods.
“Oh good! Very good, Bry-see!” She wraps her arms around his waist and hugs him tightly.
Bryce suddenly looks around, frowning; “Where’s Arkados?”
Fairuza’s smile fades to sadness, and I watch as Bryce’s shoulders droop suddenly; “Oh, shit.”
*****
The gravestone is set back a ways from the house, up a small grassy slope of field under a tree. I hold Bryce’s hand, his other arm around Fairuza’s shoulder as he looks solemnly at the stone; “I’m so sorry; başınız sağolsun,” He says quietly to the woman next to him.
She nods, patting the hand draped over her shoulders; “He was…” She nods, finding her words; “There was no pain,” She says, turning to smile at Bryce; “He talk about you, all the time.”
Bryce grins as he nods; “He was a good man.”
“Yes. Very, very good man,” She says with a sad smile.
Later on, Fairuza brings us tea and we sit outside with her at a little table next to her small garden.
“The shop?” Bryce gestures towards the garage next to the house.
Fairuza smiles; “My cousin, he runs it now.”
“And you’re taken care of?”
Her face lights up; “Oh, Bry-see! I need tell you! I win!” Bryce grins a small smile; “Yes! I win the prize, the…the…I don’t know how to say.”
“Lottery?”
“Yes! I win the lottery; three years ago!”
Bryce just nods, smiling at her; “That’s wonderful, Fairuza.”
I turn to stare at him, suddenly realizing what’s going on here. I see the proud twinkle in his eye and the easy way he just takes in news like this, and I know suddenly exactly where that money came from.
“Yes, everything is paid for now, money is no problem.”
He grins, and looks back at the shop; “May I-?”
“Oh, please!” Fairuza gestures to the shop with her tea-cup, and Bryce takes my hand as he leads me over.
“This place- ” He shakes his head as we step into the shop; “I worked here.”
“Here?”
He nods; “Yeah, in Arkados’s garage. I mean, we had shit, Peyton, when we came through here. No money, no passports, no identities. I was strung out and desperate, and the cops busted me trying to boost a bike on the outskirts of Istanbul. I mean they were all over me, and ready to throw me into a cell or beat the shit out of me right there, but right then, Arkados happened to walk by. He told them I was his helper, that we were fixing the bike, not trying to lift it.”
Bryce shakes his head, his eyes drifting over the chrome pipes and the oiled engine parts around the garage, looking like he’s right at home; “They let it be, and after that, he took me here. Fed me, helped me out, and so I worked for him.”
“Is that a tank out back?”
He laughs; “Yeah, Arkados had a thing for World War Two junk. Fixing that thing up was our little side-project until the police got tired of us tearing up the fields outside of town with it. Never did get the gun working, but, eh,” He laughs and shrugs, his whole body loosening up and warming at the memory; “Who needs it. Man that thing could really move though.”
He turns to me; “He was a good man, Arkados; probably the best I’ve ever known outside of William Archer. We were only in Turkey for two months, until we could smuggle ourselves into Egypt, but it felt like I was here for a lifetime. He knew what I was doing, knew I was running from something, and knew I was addicted at that point.” Bryce shakes his head sadly and smiles; “He didn’t ask questions, and he didn’t lecture either. He just told me to keep going; ‘it gets better’, he said.”
*****
Later, we say our goodbyes to Fairuza; the grandmother Bryce never had. The woman that lost so much, but had even more, from the sounds of it.
“No trouble for him, OK?” She says as she leans in and hugs me tightly to her small frame before she kisses me on the cheek; “He’s a good boy.”
“He’s the best.”
She smiles at me before she turns and hugs Bryce one last time; “Come again, yes? And be good.”
“Goodbye, büyükanne.”
“Goodbye, Bry-see.”
"I don't like this."
The plaza on the outskirts of the Başakşehir district back in Istanbul where we’ve arranged to meet Sasha should be quiet, but not this quiet. Bryce nods slowly in reply to my words, his eyes darting around at the windows and ledges of the buildings around us. There’s no one here; no washerwoman hanging laundry from apartment balconies, and no kids in the background. You can barely hear the sound of traffic down the road, but besides that, the place is like a ghost town.
“Where is she?” I step closer to him, sliding my hand into his and hooking my fingers through his.
He squeezes back, shooting me a quick grin; “No idea.”
“Well if she’s going to ditch out on us, we could always go back to the inn and…” I blush as I look up into his eyes, tracing my finger over his jawline.
He grins widely at me; “Sorry, darlin,” He says with mock distress in his voice; “I’m just real bad at subtly today I guess. You wanted to go back to the inn and do what now?” He’s teasing me, trying to get me to blush.
Two can play that game.
I lean in close, my lips just brushing against his earlobe, my breath hot on his skin; “I said,” I whisper thickly; “I think you should take me back to the hotel room and fuck the shit out of me with that big cock of yours.”
Ok, even I blush at that level of directness, but I feel the thrill of it throb deep within me as I hear him growl at my words, his fingers tightening their grip on mine. He pulls me tight against him, his hand sliding down to grab my ass; “Careful there, darlin,” He whispers into my ear, his hand sliding deep down the curve of my ass between my thighs and making me gasp; “Keep talking like that we won’t even make it back to the inn.”
I’m moaning into his kiss when there’s a sudden sound somewhere close. We pull apart quickly, looking around.
“Sasha?” The plaza is still silent, almost even more-so now. I look up at Bryce, his eyes sharp and focused as the muscles in his shoulders tighten. He reaches back into the waist of his pants for the gun Sasha gave us before, pulling it out and quickly checking the chamber.
“Get behind me.”
I frown; “What is it?”
“Nothing- I mean,” He looks around, his eyes darting; “Just, stay behi-“
The wall right next to us erupts in plaster and rock as the shots ring out around us. I scream as Bryce shoves me down behind one of the potted planters in the square, before ducking behind the one next to it as bullets pepper the ground around us. I scream again, covering my head with my hands as I duck down, feeling the adrenaline roaring through my veins. Pottery explodes next to my face, sending me reeling to the ground.
There’s a ringing in my ears as I wince and look up to see Bryce screaming something at me from his spot behind the other planter. His face is red and his eyes are wild as he waves his ar
ms as he yells at me, as if shoving me away.
I don’t understand; what’s happening?
The ringing starts to fade into the sound of thundering gunshots, cracking glass, and shattering plaster walls; “Run!”
This time I do understand it, and my eyes go wide at him; “What?!”
“Run!” He’s screaming, his face tight as he glances a look over the planter and raises the gun in his hand to fire off a few shots backs; “Get out of here!”
“Are you crazy?!” I scream; “I’m not leaving you here!”
“Just g-“ A huge man in black comes crashing over the top of Bryce’s planter, tackling him to the ground. He’s got a bandage over his nose and clear signs of bruising around his eyes, and it takes me half a second to realize it’s fucking Anderson.
“Peyton!” Bryce is struggling with the bigger man, trading punches with him as they grapple on the ground; “Run!”
I can feel the fear then, the same gripping, arresting fear I felt once before; that night with Bill, in my mother’s trailer. And just like then, I’m paralyzed by it, frozen to the spot and just staring at Bryce as he screams at me.
“Go!”
“I’m not going to just le-“
“Get the fuck out of here! Get out so one of us can get Logan!”
I scream as two other men come charging around the size of the plaza and join the fray, holding Bryce down to the ground as he roars and struggles against them. And for a second, it looks like he’s winning. He bursts free of them, and in that second, he turns to me as he throws the gun at me. It’s clattering to my feet, and as I look up, it’s almost as if in slow motion as I meet his eyes; “Bryce-“
“Come back for me,” He says, and then I’m screaming as the men drag him back to ground.
And then I’m running. I’m screaming, and fighting back the tears, and I’m running.
One of us has to get Logan…Come back for me.
I don’t see the car until it practically hits me. I lunge out of the way as it comes screeching to a stop right in front of me, and it’s then that I look up with wild eyes and see the jet-black hair, and the blood-red lips of the woman behind the wheel.
Sasha.
She flings the drivers side door open and steps out, looking more afraid than I’ve yet to see in her always-cool demeanor; “Get in the car.”
The gun in my hand is cocked and held right out towards her in a flash. Red rage starts to cloud my vision as one singular thought thunders in my head.
She sold us out.
“You!” I’m bellowing at her; “You led us right into-“
But Sasha only rolls her eyes; “Get in the fucking car, Peyton.” Her eyes dart over my shoulder towards the plaza I’ve just come running out of; “And please, if I lead you into a trap, you won’t know until you’re dead.” She narrows her dark eyes at me; “You want to get him back?”
I tense my jaw, but slowly, I’m lowering the gun.
“Get in the damn car, Miss Rivers. I’m about to save your life, and then I’m going to help you save your brother and your boyfriend.”
This place is old.
The church, which is really more of a fortress than anything else, is easily a thousand years old; probably from the Crusades or something. And I’m sitting in the oldest part of it, down in the dungeons chained to a chair like some scene out of Braveheart. There’s a dim light that comes in through the window of the heavy wooden door, showing old wood beams in the ceiling, old crumbling plaster on the walls.
Like I said, ancient. Old architecture, old walls…
Old foes.
“Long time no see, Connors.” The overhead lights snaps on, making me wince and squint in the sudden brightness, however dim. Benson stands in the doorway, leaning against the frame and nodding slowly at me, as if appraising me sitting there shackled to the chair in the middle of the room; gloating at me.
“Long time,” I say, my voice leaden.
“Jesus, Connors, I mean you don’t call, you don’t write?” He makes a tsking sound and shakes his head as he steps into the room. The door stays open, but it’s an empty hope; not like I’m getting far with handcuffs securing my arms and legs to the metal-frame chair. Benson moves in front of me to lean against a table full of tools; tools that I know are there to scare me into wondering what they’re there for.
“You know, a guy could get to thinking you just don’t care, buddy.”
“What do you want, Benson.”
He sighs and rolls his eyes; “Jesus Christ, what, we can’t just catch up? I gotta Facebook you or some shit to make conversation? C’mon, Connors, you know that’s just not me. I’m not up on the tech stuff like you kids.”
I’m silent, my jaw tight as I just level my gaze at the man in front of me who I used to know. He’s older now of course, but he looks older than five years should have taken; goatee silvered, his stomach a bit rounder than it used to be.
But his eyes are still just as cagey and just as sharp as they always were.
He shrugs; “Alright, fine, let’s be uncivilized.” He reaches back and picks up a hammer, weighing it in his hand and turning it in his fingers as he grins at me; “So-“
“You need to lead with the questions first.”
He frowns; “Excuse me?”
“The questions, Benson; I mean when you’re trying to interrogate someone. You don’t just jump right into showing them the scary fucking tools; it puts them on edge and makes them clam up.”
His lips pull back in a wicked looking grin and he shakes his head at me; “I don’t know if I like this new sober ‘funny man’ Bryce. You know, I think I liked you better when you were that zombie junky you used to be.” When I don’t respond, he shrugs and drops the hammer back on the table with clang; “Alright you little prick, we’ll do questions first. Where the fuck are they?”
“Where the fuck are what.”
“Don’t be smart, kid. I was there, you little shit; we found them together.”
“The fuck do you need diamonds for, Benson? You guys are the like the largest DOD contractor in the system.”
“The heart wants, my little friend; the heart wants.”
“Excuse me?”
“I want bigger, and better.” He narrows his eyes at me; “I want a William Archer life; a charmed Bryce Conners life.”
“Trust me its not what it’s cracked up to be.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
We stare at each other like that for a moment; two soldiers, facing off; “So this is all for the money?”
Benson laughs; “Of course it is, the whole fucking world’s about money.”
Well, this sounds familiar.
He glares at me; “So where are they?”
I shrug, shaking my head; “I don’t know.”
Benson lets out a long a long sigh as he turns and picks what looks like an electric razor off the table; “Want to try that again, Brycey-boy?”
Roar (Military Bad Boy Billionaire Romance) (Soldiers of Fortune Book 4) Page 13
