All In (The Blackstone Affair, Part 2) (4 page)

I am immensely sorry for keeping my
knowledge of your past and how I came to notice you a secret, but
you need to know something because it’s the brutal truth. I had no
intentions of taking the job. I planned to give your father the
name of another agency to secure you. I couldn’t do that though, as
soon as I met you. I wanted to tell you that night on the street
that your father was trying to arrange protection but when I saw
how you looked at me, Brynne, I felt something—a connection with
you. Things moved inside me and clicked into place. The missing
piece of my puzzle? I don’t know what it was, I just know it
happened to me the night we met. I tried to keep a distance and let
you slip away back into your life, but I couldn’t do it. I was
drawn to you from the first moment I saw your portrait. I had to
know you. And then to be with you. To have you look at me and
really see
me
. I know now that I fell in love. I fell in
love with a beautiful American girl. You, Brynne.

There were many times I wanted to say how I
came to find you that night at the gallery. I stopped myself every
time because I was afraid of hurting you. I could see how haunted
you were when you woke up with the nightmare. I could only guess as
to why, but I would do anything to keep you from being hurt. I knew
somehow that telling you your dad hired security to protect you
from powerful political enemies would scare the hell out of you. It
scares the hell out of me to think of anyone targeting you for
harm, emotional or otherwise. I know you said I was fired, but if
anything happens or somebody frightens you, I want you to call me
and I will come to you in a moment. I am deadly serious about this.
Call me.

You are someone so very special, Brynne. I
feel things with you—emotions and ideas and dreams; a deep
understanding that brings me to a place I never thought I’d find
with another person. But I have demons too. I am terrified of
facing them without you. I don’t know what I’m doing most of the
time but I do know how I feel about you. And even if you hate me
for what I did, I’ll still love you. If you won’t see me, I’ll
still love you. I’ll still love you because you are mine. Mine,
Brynne. In my heart you are, and nobody can take that away from me.
Not even you.

E

A week passed before I sent Brynne my
letter. Longest fucking week of my life.

Not exactly true, but I’d smoked enough
Djarum’s to either bankrupt me or give me cancer. I told the
florist purple flowers and to include the letter. It was Sunday
afternoon when I ordered them and the florist told me they would be
delivered on Monday. I had them sent to her at work instead of her
flat. I knew she’d been busy with school and wanted to wait until
her final exams were over and finished.

Brynne and I are not over and
finished.
This is the mantra I continued to tell myself during
those days because it was the only option I could accept.

They make you
believe
things that are not true. They tell you so many
times, you accept what they are telling you
is
the truth
rather than lies. You suffer for it like it’s the truth. The most
effective torture is not physical—it is mental of course. The mind
can imagine terrors far more horrific than you could ever
physically bear, just like the mind will tune out those physical
hurts when the pain surpasses what your body can endure.

The nerves in my back screamed like acid
had been poured onto the destroyed flesh. The pain took my breath
away it was so acute. I wondered how long till I passed out, and if
I did, would I wake again in this life. I doubted I could walk more
than a few yards. I could barely see from the blood in my eyes and
blows to the head. I would die here in this hellhole and probably
soon. I hoped it was soon. My dad and Hannah couldn’t see me like
this though. I hoped they never found out how I met my end. I
prayed there wouldn’t be a video of my execution.
Please,
Christ, no video of that—

Luck of the draw. I’d had no luck when they
ambushed our team. No luck when my weapon jammed. No luck when I
didn’t die trying to evade capture. These fuckers learned their
techniques from the Russians. They loved to get western prisoners.
And British SF? I was a fucking crown jewel. And totally expendable
to my country. Luck of the draw. A sacrifice for the greater good,
for democracy, for free will.

Fuck free will. I had none.

My tormentor this day loved to talk. He
never stopped talking about her. I really wish he would shut his
filthy hole.
They don’t know where she is…they don’t know how
to find her…they don’t even know her name.
I kept telling myself
these truths because it is all I have at my disposal to work
with.

The backhand to my face roused me. And then
another woke me fully.

“
We will make you watch when we take her.
She will scream like the whore she is. An American whore who does
naked photographs.” He spit in my face and jerked my head back by
the hair. “So disgusting your women…they deserve everything that
happens to them. To be used like a dirty whore.” He laughed at
me.

I stared at him and memorized his face. I
would never forget it and if the opportunity arose I would cut out
his tongue first, before I killed him. Even if the killing was
simply imagined in my mind. He did not like my reaction. Inside I
was frozen with fear. How could I stop her from being taken? I
wanted to beg but I didn’t. I just stared and felt my heart thump
inside my chest, verifying my status as alive. For now.

“
Every guard will have a turn between her
thighs. Then when their lust slackens she may watch when we take
your head. You know this will be the way you meet your end, don’t
you?” He held my neck back and dragged his finger across my throat.
“You will be begging for mercy like the pig you are…about to be
slaughtered. You won’t be proud then.” He laughed in my face, his
yellow teeth flashing under his beard. “And then we will kill your
American whore in the same way—”

I bolted up in my bed gasping, my hand on my
cock and dripping in sweat. I leaned against the headboard and took
stock of where I was…and thankfully where I wasn’t.
You aren’t
there anymore.
It was just a dream.
That was a long time
ago
.

My nightmare was the sort that takes all the
bad shit that ever happened to you and stirs it together into a
dreadful brew you must bathe in. I closed my eyes in relief. Brynne
was not a part of the horror from Afghanistan. She was of the here
and now. Brynne lived in London, working and taking her graduate
degree.
It was just your subconscious mixing together everything
that’s bad. Brynne is safe in town.

She just wasn’t with
me
anymore.

I looked down at my cock, hot and hard and
wrapped my fist around the shaft. I closed my eyes and started
stroking. If I kept them closed I could remember that day in my
office. I needed the release right now. I needed to come so I could
stop the bloody shakes invading from that fucked up nightmare.
Whatever worked. It’d be a temporary fix but would have to do.

I remembered. The first time she came to see
me. She had on red boots and a black skirt. I told her to sit on my
lap and made her come with my hand up her quim.
So fucking sexy
showing up in my office
. She looked beautiful falling apart in
my arms, from what I did to her, from what I made her feel.

Brynne had tried to pull away from me and I
didn’t want her to. I remember she had to tug herself off my lap.
But when she slid to her knees and touched me through my trousers,
I understood. She told me she wanted to suck me. I knew I loved her
in that moment. I knew because she is honest and generous with no
artifice. She is real and perfect and mine.

Not now she isn’t. She left you.

I kept my eyes closed and remembered the
vision of her beautiful lips closing over the bell end of my cock
and taking me in. How wet and warm and exquisite her mouth felt
that first time. How beautiful the moment when she swallowed and
looked up at me in that sexy, mysterious way she has. I never know
what she is thinking. She is a woman after all.

I remembered everything—the sounds she made,
her long hair all about her face, the slick slide against her warm
lips, the grip on the shaft as she twisted and pulled me deep into
her beautiful mouth.

I remembered that special time with Brynne
back then, as I jerked myself to an empty climax in my very
pathetic and lonely present. I had to remember or I wouldn’t have
got off. I cried out as the spunk shot out the top of my cock in a
near painful rush, all over the sheets on my bed, shiny white
against the black.
It should be her!
I panted against the
headboard and let the release spread throughout my body, angered
that I just wanked off to her image like some desperate freak.

I couldn’t care less about the mess. Sheets
can be washed. My mind cannot.

I can remember every time I was in her.

The emptiness invading me is something
almost cruel, and the climax definitely no substitute for the real
thing. Very hollow and utterly useless.

No possible way, Benny! He’s far too
beautiful to have to resort to his hand for an orgasm.

Yeah, right. I got up and stripped the
sheets from the bed and headed for my shower. Nothing but her will
ever be enough.

♥

She rang me that afternoon on my mobile. I
missed her call because of an idiot meeting. I wanted to hurt the
morons who’d taken my time but I hit voice mail instead.

“Ethan, I—I got your letter.” Her voice
sounded thready and the urge to go to her was so great I didn’t
know how I would manage to keep away. “Thanks for sending it. The
flowers are beautiful too. I—I just wanted you to know that I
talked to my dad and he told me some stuff—”

She lost her composure then. I could hear
the sounds of muffled crying. I knew she was, and it broke my heart
wide open. “I have to go...maybe later we could talk.” She
whispered the last. “Bye, Ethan.” And then she hung up.

I thought I would crack the glass in my
mobile punching buttons to redial, praying she picked up and would
speak to me. Time slowed down interminably while the call
connected. Once, twice, three rings. My heart pounded and the need
for air increased—

“Hi.” Just one little word. But it was her
voice and she was directing it to me. I could hear noises in the
background. Like traffic.

“Brynne…how are you? You sounded upset on
your message. I was in a meeting…” I trailed off realizing I’d
started rambling. I forced my mouth closed and desperately wished
for a lovely black clove cigarette.

She breathed heavy into the receiver.
“Ethan, you said to call if anything weird happened—”

“What happened? Are you all right? Where are
you right now?” I felt my blood run cold at her words and the sound
of her voice. “Are you outside?”

“I’m on a run at the moment. I had to get
out of my head for a bit and just take a break.”

“I’m coming to you. Tell me where you
are.”

She got quiet. I could hear the cars moving
around her and I hated being forced to endure the imagined
visualization of where she was at the moment. Alone on the street.
Vulnerable. Unprotected.

“Will you tell me, please? I have to see
you—we need to talk. And I want to hear what worried you enough to
ring me and leave that message earlier.” More silence. “Baby, I
can’t help if you won’t let me in.”

“Did you see it?” Her voice changed,
becoming harsh.

“See what?” I swear I only wanted to go to
her and get her in my arms. Her question didn’t register at first.
The cold silence on the other end helped me to figure it out real
quick though.

“Did you watch it, Ethan? Answer my
question.”

“The sex tape of you and Oakley?”

She made a sound of anguish.

“Fuck no! Brynne…” The fact she even asked
me such a thing pissed me off. “Why would I do that—”

“It’s hardly a sex tape!” she yelled into my
ear. My chest ached like a knife had been shoved in.

“Well, that’s what your dad told me it was!”
I yelled back at her, confused by her questioning and utterly at a
loss in this fucked up conversation we were having. If I could talk
to her in person, get close to her, make her look me in the eye and
listen, I might have a chance. But this fractured argument was
getting us nowhere fast. I tried again in a more reasonable tone.
“Brynne, please let me come to where you are.”

She was crying again. I could hear the soft
sound of her against the fainter sounds of traffic. I did not like
that she was out running alone either. Cars on the street speeding
by her, men looking at her, indigents bothering her for
handouts...

“What the hell did he tell you, Ethan? What
did my dad say about me?”

“I don’t want to do this on the
telephone—”

“Tell. Me.” And then silence.

I closed my eyes in dread, knowing she
wouldn’t accept anything but the brutal truth, hating like hell to
say it to her, but knowing I had to. How to start? I didn’t know
any other way than by just jumping in feet first. I sent up a
silent prayer to my mum for strength.

“He told me you and Oakley dated in school.
When you were seventeen Oakley made a sex video without your
knowledge and spread it around. You dropped out of school and had
trouble after that. The senator shipped his son off to Iraq and you
came here to study and start afresh. Now the senator is trying to
win an election as vice president and wants to make sure nobody
ever sees the video…or hears about it. Your dad told me one of
Oakley’s mates has died under an unusual circumstance and he’s
worried people connected to that video may be targeted...including
you. It concerned him enough that he contacted me and asked a
favour—that I look after you and watch for anyone who might
approach you.”