All In (The Blackstone Affair 2)

Brynne,

“I do not know how elastic my spirit might be, what pleasure I might have in living here if the remembrance of you did not weigh so upon me. Ask yourself my love whether you are not very cruel to have so entrammeled me, so destroyed my freedom.

…All my thoughts, my unhappiest days and nights have, I find not at all cured me of my love of Beauty, but made it so intense that I am miserable that you are not with me…I cannot conceive of any beginning of such love I have for you but Beauty.” July 1819

I know you will recognize the words of Keats. I started reading the book you like. I can say I have an understanding now of what the man was trying to express to Miss Brawne about how she had captured his heart.

Like you’ve captured my heart, Brynne.

I miss you. Thoughts of you never leave me, and if I can say it once more and have you believe me, then I guess there is some comfort in that. I can only try to make you know what I feel.

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.

3

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—”

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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.