Turkish Delights Series (38 page)

He fell back against the wall, propped by what felt like tons of pillows, a blessed change from the moldy straw that had served that purpose for so long. He stared at the women, still lined up like birds on a wire, motionless. Images tumbled through his numb brain. He couldn’t block them. God knows he’d had years of practice blocking images, memories, of those he loved. But the sounds, smells, sights of his escape were too fresh. The women moved closer as he groaned, pulling his legs to this chest. Tried to squeeze the pain of recent memory out.

He’d gotten as far as the end of the long, dirty corridor of the empty warehouse after getting his fill of water. His heart had pounded, his starved body trying to fuel him with an adrenaline rush. He kept the gun in one hand, pointed straight ahead. When the first sound and shadow had crossed in front of him, he took aim and shot, the silencer she’d brought at his request giving him satisfaction. A soft grunt and thump told him he hadn’t lost his sniper training.

Swallowing hard, eyes blurry with pain and sweat, he tiptoed forward, stepped over the body of one of his torturers and pressed against the wall, trying to gauge how many of them were gathered around the corner. He heard them. Their guttural Kurdish enough like his own language to figure out that this father hadn’t responded to them. He’d apparently not even acknowledged the email or text of ransom demands. Tarkan had taken a deep breath and tried to figure out how he could reach an empty space where a window once resided directly across the hall without walking right in front of them.

His empty stomach kept cramping. His head pounded with dehydration. He shut his eyes, but opened them when all he saw was the tall blond man he’d left behind. Clenching his jaw against the vivid memories of his loved ones, he slowed his breathing. Listened to the assholes around the corner mumble, grumble, fart and burp. He waited. Finally there was a shout from the opposite end of the hallway. From his empty cell. Shit. Now or never. He took two long steps across the hall then leapt at the opening as the first gunshot rang out. He’d shot in the direction where the group had been, heard a curse, and chairs falling backwards.

A distinctly female scream halted him, made him turn as he was clambering out the opening. They had her. His beloved. They were harming her. He roared and jumped back into the fray, shooting straight ahead, at the men who had their filthy hands on her. One of them shoved her aside and pointed a semi-automatic straight at him. Tarkan dropped him with a single shot between the eyes. Then the other terrorist yanked his beloved up by her hair, and drew a huge knife across her neck. A red ribbon seemed to stretch out, dangle from her body.

“No!” He yelled so loud his throat caught. “No!” He shot once more, taking down the man with the knife. He’d caught her before she hit the ground. Her blood covered everything, all over him, his hands, his clothes. He couldn’t stop it. He had sobbed, his thin chest heaving with the effort. Her beautiful face had remained calm. She put a shaking hand on his face. “Wait. Please. Don’t leave me.” His voice broke as he begged, his throat ripped to shreds from rubber tubes, fear and lack of hydration.

“I must, my beloved. I go. Now please save yourself. Do it. Do it for me. For us.” Voices yelled from behind him. He sensed the danger on his neck instinctively as he’d been trained to do. She drew his hand to her body. He felt it then. The hard bump under her robe. “For us. Please.” Her eyes closed. There was a fluttering movement under his hand as if butterflies were beating their wings against her skin, and his.

Oh dear God. No
.

He’d kissed her cooling lips, keeping his hand on her until she stilled, and spoke no more. He had no idea how long he sat huddled over her. But eventually he pulled her scarf off, tucked it into the waistband of his makeshift trousers, grabbed the gun, and turned, prepared to massacre every last one of the men headed his way. The rest was a blur of rage, of pain and sheer terror as he blasted his way out of the compound and pounded sand as fast as he could. He collapsed at the edge of a narrow road. And then woke up here.

Tarkan let the women clean his wound and pour water into his mouth. He no longer cared about anything. All there was anymore was pain, and heat, and her. He heard someone moaning; then realized it was him as he passed into more blessed darkness.

Chapter Seven

The pollution-clogged ride from Ataturk International Airport was intolerably long. Caleb had forgotten the drawbacks of living in a second-world country. As he tried to fight the nausea from stress and gasoline fumes, the taxi made its perilous way along the highway at the usual breakneck, aggressive speeds he’d also forgotten. He white-knuckled it and clenched his jaw, sweat pouring off him in buckets.
Tarkan
. The name beat a tattooed rhythm in his brain.

Caleb took a deep breath. He’d not spoken to Adem since the bomb had detonated in his world with one phone call from his dead lover’s mother.

No. Not dead.

Kidnapped. Tortured. Escaped. Killed everyone on his way out. But still gone. Missing, and presumed dead—this time for real.

Caleb continued to stare out the window at the once familiar, once beloved, now despised Istanbul landscape. First the outer ring, with its slums, factories, flat expanses of nothing. Next, the edges of the city proper, larger mosques, the bend in the Bosporus that signaled the start of Galata, Pera, and the old city came into view. Then the glorious moment when the Blue Mosque, Aya Sofia and the entire golden crescent was laid out in front of him. He bit his already ragged lip at the sight of it, at the memories of the nearly six years of happiness it had afforded him. Then the memory of other visits: Emre and Elle’s wedding when he’d been introduced to the family for what he was—Tarkan’s lover. The last time he and Tarkan were here together, after the Blue Cruise, and that final departure to Ankara. And the horrific funeral. When they’d buried…what? Nothing. Why? Because tradition demanded it. He clenched his fists and held down the nearly irresistible urge to punch a hole in the window.

He’d talked to Emre, Elle, and finally Lale, whose breathy exhalations scared the shit out of him. The girl was not as tough as she seemed. Caleb knew that—Tarkan had known that. Elle had whispered to him that her sister-in-law was sporting a world-class diamond on her finger and toting a gigantic former football player from Las Vegas, apparently the result of her 1Night Stand. A guy with the last name Michos.

“Andreas Michos? No shit.” He’d put a hand over his eyes then, as he waited for his flight to board. Wasn’t that just the cherry on the fucking cake of his day? His adopted little sister was engaged to one of his favorite football players of all time. Who was first-generation Athenian. Hello? Irony? Thy name is love.

His phone buzzed. After registering that it was nearly eleven a.m. in his world but that Adem was still in France, four hours behind, he realized they had not communicated in nearly a day, longer than they ever went. He sighed and let the buzzing continue. What the hell could he possibly say to the man?

He’d talked once more with Emre, confirming plans for him to start the ball rolling on the search and rescue immediately. The one the military seemed reluctant to launch until they spoke with a male family member directly. Levent had been in and out of a drug-induced coma for the last two days. So it fell to him, Caleb, lover of the man in question, to force their hand.

“Caleb,” Emre had said at one point in the practical conversation that helped him focus, kept him from spinning apart into the atmosphere out of sheer anger and frustration at the turn this whole thing had taken.

“Yeah.” He’d been typing emails to his staff as he waited to board the plane, hoping he’d trained them half as well as he thought he had. He had no idea how long he and their boss would be gone. He had his stupid cyborg blue tooth thing in his ear justifying the dorkiness with necessity. But he stopped typing, thinking they’d gotten cut off, touched the earpiece. “Emre? You there?”

“Yes. I…I need you to know. You are like a brother to me. No matter what happens. No matter what we find at the end of this. You are our family.” His voice broke at the end.

Caleb had been bound and determined not to lose it in the airport, but he had to swallow hard and bite the inside of his lip until it hurt like a bitch to distract himself at that moment.

“I know. I feel the same way. Let’s see if we can’t find…something. Something to give us all some closure.” He snapped the laptop shut. “I’m on it, my brother. I’ll see you in a couple of days. You sure about bringing the whole family? Kids and all?”

“Yes. My mother…my father, they need to know we are with them. All of us. It’s a–”

“Turkish thing.” Caleb spoke the words with him. Then hung up before he had a nervous breakdown in front of an entire terminal full of people.

Sighing, Caleb noted another missed call from Adem as the taxi bumped along the seemingly oldest roads in the world, which lead to some of the most expensive real estate on the planet. The Deniz family occupied the top of one the largest buildings in the Etiler neighborhood, overlooking the Bosporus. Funny—all that money, and all this tragedy. No, not funny. Shitty. Utterly shitty.

Tarkan
.

His dark face appeared as if summoned, his mouth stretched into the impish grin he sported so often when he was up to some mischief or about to pull Caleb into a dark corner for a mind blowing kiss. Ah God! He pounded his knees.

His thoughts drifted to Adem. So like himself. High strung, quick tempered, organized to a fault, passionate. Caleb shut his eyes. Tarkan. His polar opposite. Calm, centered, quick to cool heated situations, a perfect negotiator. Tears pressed into the back of his eyes but he kept it together. He had work to do. Until Emre arrived, he was to meet with the military contingent who was spearheading the investigation, tracing the group that had grabbed Tarkan just prior to setting off the bombs. That had held him for nearly two years then had been completely decimated by him, single-handedly as he made his dramatic escape.

The phone buzzed again. A text. Adem. He stared at it, unable to register its simple collection of letters the first few times through.

“I heard. I’m on my way. I know someone high up in the military base there. I’ve already called him. Where are you staying?”

That tore it. He put his hands over his face and sobbed as the muezzins made the mid-day call to prayer for the faithful.

Chapter Eight

Emre couldn’t stop staring at the absurdly large man sitting at his kitchen table. The guy took up so much physical space; it was hard to imagine how anyone else could fit. The man who, apparently, was now engaged to his sister. Emre wiped a hand across his weary eyes and let Elle fill the empty space with conversation. They chattered away as if nothing had happened, while Elle moved around the kitchen preparing food, pouring them drinks. His eyes narrowed, taking in the other man’s gigantic hands—like fucking bear paws. His huge feet clad in cap toe dress shoes—like God damn skis. Emre slugged back another gulp of beer.

His shoulders seemed as wide as the bloody table. His wingspan had to be over seven feet. He didn’t have a thick neck or even a bulked-up look about him though. If anything, he was trim in his dark blue trousers and wrinkled white dress shirt. But he was a man used to dominating a room, and not just because he was absurdly tall or strong. It was his manner. Easygoing, calm in the eye of the shit storm he’d walked into today. Bringing something that Emre envied. A cool, in-control demeanor that he wished he could emulate. Emre shook his head at himself. Jesus. H. Christ. This behemoth had…with his sister…Oh hell.

He sprung up out his chair like a jack-in-the-box, interrupting the easy flow of conversation he had not even registered. Elle frowned at him and put down the knife she’d been using to cut tomatoes and cucumbers. Wiping her hands on a dishcloth, she came around the put her hands on his arms.

“Babe. You okay?”

Emre felt something snap. “Fuck, Elle. No. I am
not
okay. Jesus.” He sensed the huge man sitting behind him stir as if to move out of the room and leave them alone. He turned and motioned for Andreas the Greek to stay seated. “Stay. Sorry.” He leaned against the island and crossed his arms. His head pounded from lack of sleep and the emotional hairpin turns he’d endured for the past few hours. Just seeing his sister’s face had nearly made him lose it. But he kept control. He had to. People were depending on him.

She’d rushed into his arms as soon as the door opened, soaked his shirt with her tears as he stared at the man standing on the porch behind her. Elle had given him The Look, meaning “I’ll tell you later.” So he sat, held his sister, rocked her in his arms, crooned in Turkish, and kept his own emotions under tight control. When she’d been reduced to hiccups, he pushed her up, gave her a tissue, and motioned for Ayla to stop peeking around the corner at her beloved Auntie Tulip and come on out. She’d climbed into Lale’s lap, and the two had been ensconced in the rocking chair ever since, first just sitting, then singing, now reading a book.

He spent an hour or so securing flights for everyone, ignoring the hulking three-hundred-pound Greek Gorilla in his house as long as he could. When he’d emerged from his office, rubbing his eyes from exhaustion and stress, the man was camped out on his couch, sipping a beer, and reading
The Times
. When Emre had walked into the family room, he’d stood, stuck out that cartoonishly huge paw, and introduced himself. “Andreas Michos. From Las Vegas, before that Miami, before that Arizona, before that Athens.”

Emre had sighed and let his hand be enveloped. His grip was normal, thank God. Elle had stepped up, before Emre could get off any smart ass remarks about Greece. Good thing, too, since the guy could likely crush him with one hand while drinking a beer with the other.

Ayla had stared up at the man, one small hand stuck out. “Hello. Are you a giant?”