Page 61 of Brought By the Storm

Chapter Nineteen

Eric

I had just finished deleting the ‘naughty’ photos of me and Carrington, leaving just the pictures of him clothed and the one of him shirtless. I put my camera in a locked cabinet when I heard a vehicle pulling up outside. Mateo and Stefan must have been returning from their all-night escapade, and though I was sorry to lose my alone time with Carrington, I was eager to learn how things were progressing for my friend.

I raced upstairs and out to the side porch by the driveway, surprised to see a parked car with a pizza delivery sign on its roof. A beefy, blond man emerged from the vehicle, opened the rear door and pulled out a large pizza box. He smiled, but it was one that looked forced or perhaps the type I might have seen on a sadist when they were hurting someone.

“Good day,” he greeted in an indistinguishable accent.

“Hello,” I responded. “Um, I didn’t call for a pizza.”

“No? Are you Mr. Howard?” he inquired, seeming perturbed. “This is the address he gave to me.”

Carrington was using the alias of Carrington Howard, so it was possible he had put in the order. I was surprised he would have done so without first checking to see if I had started lunch. I didn’t want to be paranoid, but I thought it best not to acknowledge a Mr. Howard being present. “I’m not Mr. Howard. I think you may have the wrong address.”

He appeared impatient. “You are Mr. Turner, yes? Mr. Howard left instruction that you might accept pizza.”

I squinted, trying to fathom how else this man would know my name unless Carrington had called in the pizza. Maybe he thought it would be a nice gesture to save me from cooking again? But a pizza? Carrington was dairy intolerant and didn’t eat meat. Unless it was a Neapolitan pizza, it didn’t make sense. “What kind did he order?”

The man’s smile broadened. “Ah, so you are Mr. Turner. Yes, he ordered pizza. I’ll bring it in and put on table for you.”

Without waiting to hear my response, he walked past me and up to the screen door, ready to open it to enter. As he passed me, there was a strong smell of sausage or hamburger, or both. As he was reaching for the door handle, I raced for the plastic bat Carrington had dropped at the foot of the porch and raised it in a threatening a manner. “Who are you? Do not go into the house!”

The man looked surprised for a moment, then his face hardened as he shoved the pizza box at me. I almost toppled off the steps that rose to the screen door, but saved my balance at the last second. I swung the bat, but it hit the man’s shoulder instead of the aimed-for head. He looked at me like I was an annoying mosquito, nothing to be feared but necessary to snuff. He dove at me, hurling both of us to the ground, my back hitting the sidewalk and the back of my head slamming into the pizza pie that had fallen out of the box. Before I could stop him, he was straddling me. The breath rushed out of me, and he kept any air from re-entering by squeezing my throat with his hands. I tried to squirm away from him, but he was much larger and I was beginning to weaken.

With what strength I could muster, I raised my knee up into his groin while using both hands to poke him in his eyes. He let out a cry, reaching for his eyes, allowing my lungs to refill. I was gasping, trying to roll him off me, but he was too heavy. I tried connecting to his groin again, but he anticipated that, moving up my body so my knee hit open air. He pushed my hands to the ground so I couldn’t attack his now puffy red eyes—then brought his forehead down to mine with a loud cracking noise. I screamed in pain, dizzy from the blow and lack of oxygen.

“Eric!” It was Carrington, but I didn’t know from where the voice sounded. I tried to yell back, but the goon’s hands were back around my throat as he lifted and slammed my skull against the ground. Although the upper part of my body had shifted off the sidewalk to the grass, the force to my head was enough to make my teeth clatter.

My attacker must have sensed Carrington approaching behind him, as he released me and tried to vault to an erect position. He wasn’t fast enough, as Carrington lifted the bat and connected it with the goon’s head. It knocked him off balance, and Carrington used the moment to his advantage to continue driving blows to the man’s skull. The pizza guy from Hell dropped to the ground, giving Carrington a chance to sit on his throat. Carrington turned to me. “Get something to tie him up!”

I knew I had rope in the garage, which was a few feet away. I struggled to my feet and sprinted to the building, pulling rope from a shelf before running back to Carrington. The intruder was trying to punch or kick Carrington, but he was short of breath from the pressure on his neck, his legs were kicking at air and Carrington was able to hold back his hands.

I raced over to tie rope around one of the man’s wrists that Carrington was holding, then pulled his hand toward his other wrist so I could bind them together. “Make sure that’s tight enough while I get his feet,” I gasped out to Carrington.

I maneuvered to where the attacker’s legs were flailing, trying to grab one of his ankles. He still had enough strength to use one of them to kick me in the ribs.

“Are you okay?” Carrington shouted.

“Yeah,” I managed to breathe out. I grabbed the offending foot and wrapped rope around it—bringing it to his other foot and binding the ankles. I tied triple knots, worried that this walking weapon would still find a way to break free. I fell to the ground on my knees, panting, sweating and feeling like I’d collapse. The pizza guy started cursing and yelling something at Carrington in a foreign language. Carrington lifted the plastic bat and crashed it down once more on the guy’s head.

“Shut up!” Carrington ordered.

It was then that I turned to survey my surroundings to ensure there were no other threats, and saw my neighbor Marietta standing by the curb. I imagined she might have watched the whole incident with horror. “Oh, hi, Marietta,” I struggled to say.

Carrington shot me an incredulous expression, then looked at the still mortified Marietta. “He forgot the pepperoni!” he called to her, a snarl on his face. Marietta gasped, then hurried on her way. Carrington turned back to me and smirked. “You’re right. She’s annoying.”

* * * *

While the police were at the house, Stefan returned alone. I wasn’t sure if something bad had happened between him and Mateo, but with the cops milling about, it wasn’t the time to ask. The detective in charge, after a long line of questioning and connecting with an American-based Yastarusian diplomat, was convinced that Carrington and Stefan were who they claimed to be. My small-town police department had not been expecting to respond to the attempted assassination of a foreign president.

Carrington let the officers sit in on a conference call with other U.S. and Yastarusian politicians, formulating a plan of next steps and sharing with the local law enforcement what they could. They made it clear that it was in the best interests of Yastarus that the details were not made public, and that the police report identified the incident as a home invasion. The town’s detectives committed to taking the pizza guy into custody until he could be turned over to federal authorities, who would extradite him to Yastarus to stand trial.

The law enforcement officers shared with us that the delivery vehicle had been carjacked by our assailant, and the unsuspecting pizza employee had been knocked upside the head and left in the parking lot. We were glad to hear that he was going to be okay. Although the attacker refused to reveal his identity, Carrington explained to us that he was an individual named Boris Smirnoff who had infiltrated the Yastarus Intelligence Agency, and had eluded capture once his co-conspirators had been discovered.

After spending time with us, the police officers relaxed and even became a bit jovial, joking that this was going to be the highlight of their careers. One laughed about Marietta calling in the incident, reporting her ‘sicko neighbor’ had beaten and tied up a pizza delivery man for failing to put pepperoni on the pie. “What the hell gave her that crazy idea?” he snickered, causing the others to laugh as well. I shot Carrington a chastising look, but he just shrugged with the corner of his mouth uplifted.

Once everyone but Carrington and Stefan were gone, Carrington rushed to my side on the sofa. “Baby, are you okay? I wanted to check your injuries, but with them here…”