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“Yeah, I’m up,” I dismissed him as I moved to sit at the edge of the bed and picked up my cell. I had set the alarm the night before, but I must have knocked it off when I hit snooze.
“Aleks wants to know if you want a ride into the city? He’s heading into the office.”
“Nah. Tell him I’m good. I need to make a few calls before I head in,” I replied. Rush nodded and left the room closing the door behind him.
As soon as he was gone I laid back across my bed and exhaled deeply. The nightmares of our time in that shithole haunted me pretty regularly but it had been sometime since I had that particular nightmare. from when I first awoke after we were grabbed.
My hand automatically moved to the scars across my chest and up my neck as I fought not to let the flashbacks push their way in. I didn’t have time for that bullshit.
Sitting up I glanced to the two pictures that sat on the nightstand beside the bed. One was of the four of us – me and my brothers. We had taken it just weeks after we got back into the real world, during a hike in the mountains. It was the first time in months we all truly felt free and alive, and that reflected in our smiles. The second was taken the summer after high school. It’s a picture of Evie – my girlfriend at the time – and me on a Ferris wheel at Navy Pier. I have my arms around her and I’m grinning as she places a kiss on my cheek. It’s one of the last times I ever remembered feeling truly happy. I was a different person back then. I was a kid with no real knowledge of just how crappy life could be. I was in love with that innocent, bright, beautiful girl and I was planning a future filled with a happy home, an amazing wife, a ton of kids and everything else I had ever imagined for myself. I had so much hope then. I was so fucking naïve.
I jolted up and got to my feet. I had a shit load to get done before my meeting with some potential new clients at the office. All of the bullshit going on in my head would have to wait until I was asleep again.
I took a quick shower and pulled on jeans and a button up shirt. I refused to wear a fucking monkey suit, even if this meeting was a big one. I was done doing what was expected of me. Look where that fucking got me. Now I did what the fuck I wanted, when I wanted. The client didn’t like the way I looked; he could find someone else to handle the security of his clubs.
“Hey,” Aleks greeted me as I made my way down the stairs towards where he was pulling his coat on in the entrance way. “You sure you don’t want a ride?” he offered.
“Thanks man, but I’m good. I want to make a few calls and grab some food,” I told him.
“Nick made pancakes. I saved some for you.”
“Pancakes? What is he? Five?” I laughed.
“He had a bad night again. I think he just needed something to keep him busy. They’re good though,” Aleks assured me.
“Shit. Was he okay?” I asked with worry. Nick, Aleks, Rush, and I had all been held together after being captured by terrorists in Nigeria. Rush and I were part of a four man team, two of whom were killed in the attack when we were captured. Nick and Aleks were part of a marine team that were captured across the border. Several of their team had already been killed before Rush and I got there.
During the time we were held we formed a bond, depending on each other and keeping each other going long enough to survive and escape.
Once we were out we spent months together in the military hospital and in rehab. Then we were medically discharged and it just made sense for us all to stay together. We were fucked up with no idea what the fuck to do with our lives. It just seemed easier if we all faced it together. Over two years later and we were still living together and only slightly less fucked up.
“Yeah. He got called in, so he’ll be fine,” Aleks assured me. I nodded. Nick was fine when he had a case to work on. It was when he had nothing else to occupy his thoughts that he struggled. He had decided to take a role with the Denver police department when we moved to the area just over a year ago. He was a detective now, and while it wasn’t a career I could have gone into after what we’d been through, he seemed settled. The cases were like puzzles he needed to solve and they occupied his mind, which never seemed to stopped turning.
He was the only one of us to go into law enforcement. Aleks, Rush, and I co-owned a security company. Aleks was a computer genius and he offered I.T. security services in his side of the business. I handled physical security for bars and clubs, installing security systems and providing doormen and bouncers who worked the doors. It wasn’t my dream career, but it paid well and I was pretty good at it. Best of all I never really had to interact with clients much. I wasn’t much of a people person nowadays and I fucking knew it. Thankfully Rush was good with people, his naturally perky and annoying manner perfect for it, and he handled a lot of client interaction for me.
“I gotta go. See you at the office?” Aleks asked, pulling me from my thoughts.
“Yeah. I’ll be there in a couple of hours.” I gave him a nod, then turned and headed into the kitchen. I had gotten in late after an issue at one of the clubs the night before, so I hadn’t eaten in hours and I was starving.
The kitchen was immaculately tidy – one of Aleks’s techniques for handling his shit. He was anal about cleanliness and he spent most of the time he wasn’t staring at his laptop, furiously cleaning the house. Still it was more productive than my technique which was to go down to our home gym and hit things until my hands were numb, or Nick’s, which was getting to the bottom of a bottle of scotch each night before bed.
Truth was, we were all fucked up and in serious need of some kind of psychoanalysis or some bullshit like that, but none of us were willing to admit it. Instead we just kept going, throwing everything we had into our jobs and keeping each other going. It wasn’t the life any of us had planned, or even wanted, but it was a life and we knew we were lucky to have it.
I found the pancakes Aleks had set aside for me inside the refrigerator, along with a bowl of chopped up berries and some yoghurt. I pulled it all out and threw the berries and yoghurt over the pancakes. I knew I should heat them up but I was too fucking hungry.
Luckily there was coffee left in the pot, so I poured a cup and took it, along with my plate over to the breakfast counter. I pulled out my laptop to check my emails as I ate, then settled in.
The sun was reflecting off of the light dusting of snow we’d gotten over night and beaming in through the wall of glass doors that opened up into the yard at the back of the kitchen.
We designed this house together. We pooled the money to have it built and it was perfect for the four of us. It was big and spacious – things we all needed after being held in captivity for months. The windows were all wide and expansive allowing a ton of light into every room. The whole space on that floor was open plan, with sight lines from the front to back. Upstairs there were six bedrooms, six bathrooms and a home office. Downstairs in the basement we had a huge home gym filled with equipment for us all to work out our shit. Out front we had a large drive and four car garage, surrounded by iron fences. Electric gates and a top of the range security system kept the rest of the world out.
Out back the yard was enormous, and fenced in on all sides. We had a deck out there where we liked to grill in summer and a fire pit in case we needed to be outside in winter. Sometimes standing outside and feeling the breeze on your face was the only way to assure yourself you really were free.
I was halfway through the pancakes – which really were delicious - when the buzzer at the front gate sounded, startling me.
I cursed up a storm, not in the mood to deal with any bullshit that morning, as I pulled up the security feed on my cell. I had expected it to be a delivery driver, since they were the only people who ever ventured out into the middle of nowhere spot we had chosen to build our house, but it wasn’t. It was a crappy looking car and peering out of it and into the camera was a girl who looked like she needed a damned good meal.
“Can I help you?” I asked, speaking into my cell. “Are you lost?” I added, assuming that was her issue. People often got lost on the back roads on their way to Denver. Last winter the four of us had a guy at the gate who had got his car trapped in a snow drift a mile from our place.
