The Soldier's Seduction. Jane Godman
She saw Bryce’s dark brown eyes soften slightly. “I’ll make coffee and toast while you get ready. Then we’ll talk.”
Standing under the lukewarm water, Steffi tried not to let the flashbacks get to her. It was useless. Ever since that day, she had lived with a constant series of images playing inside her head. Bright sunlight patterning the sidewalk as she jogged up to the entrance of Greg’s apartment building on that lazy Sunday morning. The man who exited the elevator as she stepped in. The strange feeling that had hit her in that instant. She tried to conjure up his image. His shades and the cap tilted low had disguised his looks. All she could recall was the tattoo on the back of his right hand where he gripped the gym bag he carried. The tattoo was an eye. A perfect, blue, bloodshot eye, gazing up at her from the back of his hand. An eye she had last seen when she was five years old.
It was the same sign the men who had killed her parents had on the back of their right hands. It wasn’t similar, or an imitation. It was the same tattoo. There was no way Steffi could be mistaken. Not when that symbol had featured in her nightmares for all these years. Not when, as a child, she had obsessively drawn that bloodshot orb over and over. Not when she could count the number of hours she had spent hunched over her laptop, searching the internet for gangs who used that mark.
The men who killed her parents had never been found, and the only information she had discovered about the tattoo was in connection with a Russian crime organization called the Sglaz, or Evil Eye, which had operated around the time of her parents’ death. Since the gang had disappeared from public record around the same time, Steffi had been unable to find out any more about them.
Exiting the elevator in a rush, she had fumbled her way into Greg’s apartment, calling out his name. Even then, she had known something was very wrong. When she walked into the den Greg had been seated in his favorite chair. He was naked and his legs were splayed. A girl knelt between them. A girl whose hair was a mass of brilliant gold corkscrew curls.
As soon as she saw the blood Steffi had run. So much blood. She had narrowly avoided stumbling over the two suitcases in the hall as she had tugged open the apartment door. The memories had come flooding back and she had just kept on running. She was six blocks away when she tugged her cell phone out of her purse and called 911. Stammering out the details, but withholding her name, she had fought a losing battle with her nausea. Doubling over, she had let nature have its way. When her stomach was finally empty, she had kept running, her only instinct to get away and stay away. Her rational self told her she should go to the police and tell them what she knew. Her flight instinct was stronger, overruling reason. What she knew was nothing. What she thought she knew sounded crazy.
Blood and that tattooed eye. They were the images that played on a loop in her mind. Keeping her awake at night and haunting her during the day. Twin memories. Her parents and now Greg. The thought made her close her eyes as feelings of love and loss welled up inside her. To have Greg taken from her like that in the same way her parents had been. Just as we had found each other.
The coffee and toast smelled good. The thought surprised her as she returned to the bedroom wrapped in a towel. For the first time in forever, she actually felt hungry. She dressed quickly in jeans, boots and a lightweight sweater, rubbing a towel over her hair. It had cost her a pang when she took a pair of scissors to her long locks that first night in a cheap motel room, but she was used to her short curls now.
As she pulled back the drapes, she felt a loosening of some of the tightness around her heart. Could she tell Bryce all of it? Could she trust someone for the first time in her life? She wouldn’t know until she tried. In recognizing her, Bryce had forced her into a situation where she would have to make the attempt. Maybe it would be comforting to finally talk to someone.
She was about to turn away from the window when she caught a glimpse of movement in the trees beyond the lawn. Her heartbeat stuttered and she narrowed her attention on that area. Was it a breeze stirring the trees? An animal? There it was again. Her heart gave a downward lurch. Someone was standing just within the cover of the trees, watching the cabin.
“Bryce?” Steffi was running for the door when the window shattered.
Bryce took a sip of his coffee and examined the surreal situation. He had been going over and over it in his mind since he first saw that picture in the magazine. Steffi was wanted for a double murder. It was hardly a minor thing. He should just get her into the car and take her downtown. Hand her over to his sister-in-law, Laurie, Cameron’s wife and the Stillwater Police Department Detective Division’s newest recruit, and let her deal with it. By not doing that, he was making himself into an accomplice.
So why was he standing here, waiting to hear her story, remembering the way her lip had trembled when she tried to be brave as she asked if she could have a shower before they talked? Damned if I know. But he was going to let her tell her side of it before he decided what to do. Although, at this moment in time, even though he was determined to uphold his promise to keep her safe, he couldn’t see any alternative to handing her over to the police.
He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. It was still early, but, picking up his cell phone, he sent Vincente a message, letting him know he wouldn’t be at work. Since Bryce never took a day off, it would no doubt cause his brother to raise those expressive dark brows of his. Bryce shrugged. Let Vincente speculate. The truth was a lot more far-fetched than anything that imaginative mind of his could come up with.
He heard Steffi moving around in the bedroom and poured another cup of coffee for her. His hand was poised in the act of refilling his own cup, when he heard Steffi call his name. Bryce had barely a moment to register the panic in her voice before there was an almighty crash.
“What the...?”
Bryce erupted from the kitchen in time to get a back view of a man forcing Steffi out of the bedroom and down the short hall toward the front door. One hand was clamped over her mouth and although she was making a wild attempt to fight him, he had his other arm around her waist. Bryce took a moment to register what was happening. The intruder was huge, shaped like a barrel, with thighs like tree trunks and fists like hams. Towering over Steffi, he was able to ignore her struggles and propel her along with him.
Bryce launched himself at the man. Even in the urgency of the moment, a thought flashed through his mind. Not even a second’s hesitation. Nice work. Starting in a crouch, Bryce barreled into the intruder’s midsection, knocking him off his feet. Steffi went down as well, but, lithe as a cat, she broke free of her captor’s hold, rolling to one side. As the two men hit the floor, they came together in a tangled mass of limbs.
A blur of fists flashed back and forth. The intruder might have been bigger than Bryce, but Bryce was faster. Years of mixed martial arts training in addition to the strict exercise regime of the army meant he had endurance and discipline on his side. They switched places repeatedly. Eventually, Bryce pinned the other man down, straddling him and holding on to his shirt as he pounded his right fist into his face. Then, with a sudden surge of enormous strength, the intruder let out a bellow of rage and threw Bryce off. Reversing their positions, he forced Bryce into the floor and drove his fists into his rib cage, one after the other. It felt like twin sledgehammers were slamming into him over and over. The breath was being systematically driven out of his lungs, until Bryce struggled to draw in even a gasp of air.
Just as he thought he was about to pass out, Bryce heard Steffi call out his name in a warning. Looking up, he saw her standing over them. As he ducked his head out of the way, she brought a vase of flowers crashing down onto the top of the intruder’s skull. Although the other man remained conscious, the blow slowed him down long enough for Bryce to land a powerful, uppercut punch to his jaw. He followed this up immediately with two more slugs and the man toppled over. He hit the floor, his head bouncing off the wooden boards with a dull thud that signaled he wouldn’t be getting up again for some time.
Grimacing and clutching his ribs as he rose to his feet, Bryce leaned against the wall as he caught his breath.
“How