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“No,” I agreed. “It really wasn’t. But the river was deep and filled with dangerous undercurrents.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, ready for the explosions to come again. They always did, whenever I called these memories to mind.
But not this time. Not with Brynne still holding me in her arms.
“I was halfway across when I started sinking,” I told her. “I was pulled down, down, into the swirling depths. And if I’m being honest? I was prepared to let go. I was ready to just let the weight of my pack drag me down there, and allow the darkness to creep over me.”
It was uncanny how quickly the light disappeared the deeper you went, especially in a river like the Nile. Nobody really knew that. You’d have to experience it to know that.
“All of a sudden, two pairs of hands reached out and grabbed me,” I finished. “There was the flash of a knife, and my pack was cut free. Next thing you know I was being pulled to the surface by Silas and Cody. I must’ve coughed up a gallon of water.”
“And that’s how you met them?” Brynne asked.
The smile on her pretty face told me she already knew the answer. I nodded anyway.
“Those damned SEALs saved my life. They never once let me forget it, too.”
She chuckled. “I’ll bet.”
“Since then we’ve been through countless joint operations together. JSOC stuff that often put us in the same theater, same squad, same mission.”
I could go on, I knew. Tell her all about how the guys became brothers to me, and thus, family. I could tell her how we’d bonded in ways that could never be broken. How I’d learned to love someone again, even after having lost everyone I loved all at once.
For a long time Brynne just held me in the darkness, stroking my hair. Running her hands along the flesh of my bare arms, while letting the tips of her fingernails graze my skin.
“You’re here now,” she eventually said. “All three of you. You made it out, and you’re family.”
We did, I wanted to say.We did, and weare.
Instead I locked eyes with her, holding her prisoner through my gaze alone. She quivered adorably, as I reached out to touch her cheek.
“You’re family too.”
Forty-Four
BRYNNE
“And you’re saying the Ancellasknow?” Silas asked for the third time. “They know this for a fact?”
He threw two jabs, which Santiago blocked. The right however, caught the man on the chin hard enough to knock him back a step.
“As far as what they perceive to be the facts, yes,” Santiago growled. He bounced forward, ready to throw some offense of his own. “But when it comes to the truth they don’t know shit.”
The two men began exchanging blows, furiously and explosively, in the center of the ring. I spectated alongside Cody, who was leaning on the ropes. A bell rang somewhere behind us, and he held out a pair of water bottles.
“So you said they’re coming here?” Silas huffed.
Santiago nodded. “That’s what I’ve been told.”
Sweat poured down their naked chests, making their muscles pop and their tattoos glisten. In the morning light that streamed in through the overhead windows, they both looked absolutely delicious. In fact, it was making me hungry.
“If they’re coming to town, it’s pretty damn serious,” Cody noted.
“Yes.”
“So maybe we should get the hell out of here for a few days.”
Santiago shook his head and grunted. “Fuck no. That’s the last thing we’re doing.”
