I stood under the hot spray of the showerhead, my thoughts such a jumble that I was unable to straighten them all out. I’d had an Uber pick me up two blocks from Harry’s, so drunk and lightheaded from the concussion I’d received earlier in the day that I couldn’t walk any farther. I shouldn’t be allowed out of the hotel for the rest of my life. I was a danger to everyone around me.

Clean and refreshed in a physical way—though I didn’t think I’d ever be clean in any other sense of the word—I fell onto the bed and sank into a deep sleep. It was never good to mix booze with a brain injury, and I knew that. But there was no accounting for betrayal and the sudden realization that you were no longer in control of your own destiny.

My dreams were a jumble. Kala came to me several times, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. And memories of Ariella became palpable dreams, those kinds of dreams when you feel as though you’re really there, when you lose track of what’s reality and what’s not. My father was there from time to time, too.

Heated dreams. Restless sleep.

I woke with a start, the sun heavy on my shoulders as it came through the partially uncovered windows.

Had I opened the curtains?

My head was pounding. I sat up and immediately regretted the decision, holding my head between both hands. My stomach suddenly decided it couldn’t take anymore, either. I got up and barely made it to the commode before last night’s liquid diet made a second appearance.

Nothing better than the smell of tequila and stomach acid first thing in the morning.

I stood at the sink for what felt like an hour, rinsing out my mouth and gargling with mouthwash. I caught sight of myself in the mirror once. I didn’t make that mistake twice.

“Hey, pretty boy!” a high-pitched voice outside the bathroom door called. “Why don’t you come join the party?”

I stepped out the door, naked as the day my mother pushed me from her body, to find Briggs Thomas and two of his henchmen waiting for me. Briggs smiled as his eyes moved slowly over the length of me, lingering on my flaccid manhood.

“I can see why she liked you,” he said, licking his lips like he was considering a particularly nice piece of steak. “You must have shown her a good time.”

“Don’t worry, Briggs, I’m sure you’ll get plenty of big boys like me when you go to prison.”

He reddened, anger flashing in his eyes. He jerked forward and slammed his gun against the side of my head. I went down like a ton of bricks, which, I supposed, was his intention.

What a bad fucking morning!

 

 

She walked toward me, this beautiful woman. Tall and dark, her skin like smooth milk chocolate in a candy maker’s double boiler. Her eyes were a golden brown that reminded me of stones in the abandoned quarry we once played in. Polish them, and their color was deeper and richer than anything I’d ever seen until I saw her eyes.

Kala.

“You have to wake up, Moshe,” she said softly, her hand brushing my jaw.

“Why?”

“Because she needs you.”

I leaned my face against her palm, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath of her familiar scent. “I’d rather stay here.”

“I know. But it’s not your time yet.”

I pulled her down beside me and slipped my leg over hers, holding her still against me. “Do you remember when we first kissed? Under that tree on your father’s property? The one he chopped down that summer and turned into a rocking chair?”

She laughed softly. “I do remember.”

“He must have seen us. I always thought that was why he did it.”

“He didn’t see us. You were just paranoid because you knew he didn’t approve of our match.”

“He wouldn’t have approved of anyone for you. You were always his favorite.”

“I know.”

I kissed her neck. “I was so looking forward to our wedding night. Did you know that?”

“I did know. But you didn’t have to wait like I did. You had all those other girls.”

I pulled back and looked down at her, pretending shock. “But you know that was for you. What kind of husband would I have been if I’d come to the wedding bed without experience? Without the knowledge to give you pleasure?”

“An honest husband.”

“A boring, unexciting husband.”

“It was Mossad. You always wanted to be one of them, always wanted to travel the world and learn to protect your country.”

“I wanted to protect you.”

“You learned more than you expected to.”

I rested my forehead against hers. “I did.”

“You learned how to avenge me.”

She was suddenly gone, and the air was cold against my skin. I looked around, found myself in the same field behind her father’s house where we’d first kissed. They’d called, told me what they were doing. I could hear her screams in the background. “Tawaquf! Tawaquf!” she screamed over and over.

It was stop in Arabic.

And then she wasn’t saying anything. She was just screaming.

I ran, my legs burning, my lungs on fire. I had to stop them, had to find her and make them stop. I had to make it all better for her. I couldn’t let this happen, couldn’t let them hurt her because of my stupidity. They’d yelled foul words at her, criticizing her for her political views. I tracked them down at a local restaurant that night, beat three of them singlehandedly before a fourth clocked me from behind.

My father had just died. It felt good to let out some of that emotion. I never imagined it would lead to this.

It was already over by the time I found her. I didn’t recognize her when I finally knelt by her side. She was naked, her precious, virginal body laid out bare for me for the first time, and it was broken, bleeding and bruised, her bones crushed, her face so swollen I couldn’t find a single recognizable millimeter of flesh. She couldn’t open her eyes. Her teeth were mostly gone. Her nose twisted into a shape that was not her normal beautiful button nose.

All I had to do was look at her to guess what they’d done. Even if I hadn’t heard it on the phone, I would have known exactly what they did, how they did it, and how many of them there were…but anger would come later. Now it was just pain.

Pain for the beauty that was gone. Pain for the innocence lost so brutally. Pain for the love that was still alive despite her own pain. Her hand, her fingernails torn off, her fingers broken, reached for me, tangling themselves in my shirtsleeve.

I covered her in my shirt, lifting her in my arms even as she cried out in pain. She buried her face against my shoulder, aware that she was safe, aware that I would never let anything more happen to her.

The doctors were aghast. Where would they start? What could they do? And the whole time, she clung to my hand.

She couldn’t open her eyes. She could barely speak. But I knew what she wanted without hearing it in her voice. Without seeing it in her eyes. I could feel it in the pain she still suffered despite the pain meds they gave her, felt it in the way her broken fingers gripped at my hand.

She didn’t want to live with this pain, with the memory of what they’d done. She was ashamed.

“I love you, Kala,” I whispered in her ear. “I love you now more than I loved you before. You are a survivor. You will never be a victim.”

But it was too much.

“It was a mercy,” her voice whispered in the back of my mind as I watched myself slip the syringe into her hand. “You offered me the peace I desperately sought.”

“I gave you the weapon with which you ended your life.”

“You showed me love that no one else would have done.”

“I killed you. It was my fault. If I hadn’t gone after those guys at the restaurant, if I hadn’t incited them…”

If I hadn’t left to return for a final operation with Mossad.

If I hadn’t left her alone.

If I’d gotten back to her in time.

If I hadn’t…

Too many ifs.

I was suddenly back in her arms, lying on a soft bed in a place we’d never lain together.

“I love you, Moshe,” she whispered softly against my lips. “But it’s time for you to wake. She needs you.”

“I don’t want her to need me.”

“You have no choice. That’s what love is all about.”

“I don’t love her. I don’t love anyone. It’s weakness.”

“You love Ariella.”

“And look where that’s gotten me. They’re going to kill her.”

“You love me.”

“And they killed you.”

“She’s still alive. They won’t kill her if you come to her, if you save her.”

“She doesn’t want me to save her.”

“She wants it more than you’ll ever know.”

I shook my head. “I want to stay here with you.”

“You can’t. Wake up. Wake up, Moshe.”

Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up…

 

 

I woke in a rush, my head pounding. My wrists hurt, my shoulders burned. I looked around, my vision dark for reasons I didn’t immediately understand. I could smell blood, and it took me a moment to realize it was my own. Blood was dried on the side of my face, heavy in its thickness. I moved my jaw, and it flaked away, sprinkling itself over the denim of my jeans.

I was dressed. I was dressed and tied to a chair.

I lifted my head, my eyes slowly adjusting to the dimness of the room where I sat. It was a fairly good-sized room, the floor carpeted, shelves built into the walls all around the room, low shelves and high shelves, some holding books and craft items: glue and paper and scissors. It smelled like that child’s clay stuff…Play-Doh.

A child’s craft room?

I tested the restraints that held my wrists. There was movement in them. Rope, maybe? If it was, I might be able to stretch it enough to pull myself free. If it was a plastic zip tie, though, there was little pliability in those. That’s why we used them at Stone Security.

I looked down at my clothing. I’d worn these jeans a few days ago. I shifted in my seat, wondering if I’d left anything useable in the pockets. I was generally good at emptying my pockets, but I’d been distracted these past few nights. But I couldn’t feel anything.

The shirt was a simple t-shirt. Nowhere to hide anything in that.

They’d been courteous enough to put shoes on me. I wiggled my toes, pretty sure they hadn’t bothered with socks. Nothing in a high-end pair of tennis shoes I could use, unless I could get free and take the laces.

I shifted, looking around the room. Scissors would be really helpful right now, but the chair was heavy. I wasn’t sure I could get across the room without alerting someone to my movements. Besides, I wasn’t sure I was going to need scissors. The rope was already looser.

I could get out of here.

The door behind me opened, and I instinctively dropped my head, pretending to still be unconscious. Light filled the room from the door’s opening, but I couldn’t tell if it was natural light or artificial. I thought artificial, but if it was late in the day…

“He’s been out for more than three hours.”

“That’s a long time. How hard did he hit him?”

“Pretty hard.”

A light came on somewhere overhead. I felt hands on my head, someone touching a sore spot just above my right ear. I flinched, and I was pretty sure whoever was looking at me couldn’t have missed it. I waited for someone to demand I open my eyes, but it didn’t come.

“He’s got a pretty good gash here. I should probably sew it up.”

“Briggs said you should do whatever you need to do.”

“If that’s the case, he needs to go to the hospital and have an MRI.”

“Not that much. He’s to stay here until Briggs is done with him.”

“Then what?”

There was a brief pause. “Hell if I know. He doesn’t tell the likes of me anything.”

“I’ll need more light than this.”

“I’ll go see what I can find.”

I could hear footsteps retreating. After a long moment of silence, the man examining my head leaned close and said, “He’s gone. You can sit up.”

I glanced at him. He was an older man, his hair white, but his eyes a clear, kind blue. He touched my forehead, tugging at my eyelids for a second.

“You don’t have a brain bleed. That’s good.”

“Where am I?”

“You’re in the basement of the church.”

“He’s going to kill me. You know that, right?”

Tension filled the man’s kind features, tightening his expression. “I don’t know that.”

“Do you see what he’s already done to me? That’s on top of a concussion I got yesterday when he blew up my boss’s office building and nearly killed twenty innocent people.”

“Stone Security? You’re with them?”

“I am. That’s why he brought me here. We’re an obstacle to his plans.”

“What plans?”

I was still working on that. I vaguely recalled that I’d had an idea of what it might be last night, but between the booze and the blow to the head, I couldn’t find it again.

The doctor turned his attention to the cut on the side of my head. “You’ll need stitches. Seven, at least.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll be dead before they heal.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Do I look like I’m free to go?”

The doctor looked back at the door and then knelt, slipping his hand against my jeans pocket. I could feel a long, slender object sliding inside the pocket, but I couldn’t be sure what it was.

“He’s coming back.”

I dropped my head again. A bright light burned through my eyelids a moment later, and then the soft pricks of a needle against the broken flesh of my scalp.

“Why bother with the pain killer if he’s out cold?”

“Because it reduces swelling. Move out of my light.”

It only took him five minutes to place the stitches. Nine. Then he cleaned up the area, and the side of my face, with a few alcohol pads before declaring his job done.

“If he doesn’t wake in the next hour or two, you’ll need to come get me again. He could have a brain bleed. If that’s the case—”

“I don’t think Briggs will care much. He wants to ask him questions, but he can probably get the answers elsewhere.”

“If he dies in the church, there will be a price to pay.”

“Briggs is above all that. Don’t you get it by now? Briggs only answers to one man and it’s no one here.”

The doctor made a low sound as he gathered his things. He clearly disagreed, but he wasn’t going to argue with this man. Their footsteps retreated, and I was once again left alone in the dark. I tugged at the ropes, pulling them hard against my wrists. I could feel my skin chafe, aware that I would regret this when it was all over. But if chafed wrists were my only problem a day, two days, from now, then it would be worth it.

I was less than a minute from pulling them loose—I could feel the give in the rope—when the lights suddenly burst on.

“Look who’s awake!”

I knew that voice. I’d never again forget it.

Briggs Thomas.