Shay Savage - Bastian’s Storm

Alex.

I had to win. There was no question about it. I couldn’t even entertain the possibility of another outcome. To win, I was going to have to know exactly what I was up against. I had to know each and every one of my opponents, what they were capable of, their weaknesses, and exactly what I needed to do to defeat every last one of them.

I needed to do some research.

The decision was made. At least for now, I had to prepare myself to fight.

I woke early in my usual position: my arms wrapped tightly around Raine with my body partially on top of hers. I had one leg tossed over both of hers as well, and her head was tucked securely against my shoulder. There were fading thoughts of dreams in my head, but I couldn’t remember their nature.

Looking down on Raine’s face, the anger, fear, and passion from the night before had transformed to an unusual sense of peace.

Pushing a little strand of hair off her forehead, I stared at her closed eyes and thought about her list of reasons she loved me. She always listed my strength first. I planned to keep her safe through my physical strength and my skills as a fighter, but I knew I needed more. I needed the strength of mind to overcome what was happening.

I needed to plan, which wasn’t exactly my strong point. I usually acted more impulsively, responding to the situation as it unfolded as opposed to setting the stage to ensure the outcome I chose. Offing a major crime lord wasn’t going to be something that happened without a precise plan, and I knew that. I was going to have to devise a way to give me access to Franks long enough to kill him and get myself back out alive.

Raine would have to be kept in the dark about all of it. There was no way I was going to let her in on my plan to kill Franks. I didn’t want her to be even more worried than she already was, and I was afraid of giving her too much information about what was going to happen. She already knew enough, and she hated what the inescapable future held. My Raine valued people’s lives in a way I wasn’t accustomed to, and she wouldn’t like the idea of me taking any additional lives to ensure the continued safety of her and my son.

I still wasn’t sure what to do about Landon, but that was secondary. I would prefer to find some way out of it all without having to kill him, but I wasn’t sure if that was going to be possible. Ultimately, he was still the father I never had.

I’m a father.

Every time I thought about Alex, I tried to create some kind of picture in my head of what he might look like. I wondered if he looked like I did at the same age, and that reminded me that I didn’t even have a picture of myself from when I was a kid.

Raine stirred a little, and as I glanced back at her, I wondered how it would sound if she added “you’re a good father” to my list of positive traits. The thought warmed me, and I held her a little closer as her eyes fluttered open.

Like most mornings when there wasn’t an immediate need to get out of bed, we spent time just looking at each other. I pushed her hair away from her face and stroked her cheek softly, and Raine smiled up at me, closed her eyes to my touch, and sighed.

“You’re beautiful,” I said quietly.

“I doubt that,” Raine snickered. “I’m always a mess in the morning.”

I had to correct her.

“A beautiful mess.”

Raine smiled. I was about to kiss her, but my phone buzzed with a text from John Paul.

Wakey wakey! Eggs and fuckin bakey!

I rolled my eyes.

“Who is that?” Raine asked.

“JP,” I said. “I have to get up.”

I took a quick shower. When I was done, I found fresh coffee waiting for me in the kitchen. Raine had her own cup in her hand, and she held onto it tightly without drinking.

“What happens now?” Raine asked. The tension in her voice was plain.

“I’m going to train with JP,” I said. “That will be for the next few days. After that, Landon said three weeks of training.”

“Where will you go for that?”

“I don’t know for sure,” I said. “Landon’s being in Miami makes me wonder if the tournament will take place somewhere around here, which would mean we stay close—in the same atmosphere. It’s best to train in the type of environment where you’re going to fight.”

“Where will I be?” Raine asked quietly.

Fuck. So much for my planning skills.

“I haven’t gotten that far,” I admitted. “I’ll talk to John Paul.”

“I could stay with Nick and Lindsay,” Raine suggested.

“No,” I said. “They can’t protect you.”

“We could go on a trip or something,” she said. “Stay out of the way?”

I shook my head.

“I want to know exactly where you are,” I replied. “If you’re not where I expect you to be, I won’t know if you’re safe or not.”

I was teetering on scaring her, which I didn’t want to do, but I wasn’t going to let her far from my sight if it could be helped. I moved closer and wrapped my arms around her. Raine placed her head on my shoulder and sighed.

“I hate this,” she whispered.

“I know,” I said. “I hate it, too. This time next month it will all be over, and you, me and Alex…well, we have to figure that part out.”

A thought occurred to me, and I leaned back and placed my palm on her cheek.

“I need you to help me figure that shit out,” I said. “I need you to get whatever the hell we’re gonna need with a kid around. I don’t know anything about that shit.”

“You think I do?”

I think you need to focus on something that isn’t about me killing people.

“I think you have a better chance of understanding it than I do. If you can put up with my childish ass, you can probably deal with a six-year-old as well.”

Raine gave me a tight lipped smile as another text from John Paul told me to come and meet him at the front door.

“I’ll be gone a while,” I told Raine, “just to the gym upstairs. Keep your phone close, and don’t open the fucking door for anyone, even if you think you know who it is.”

“Okay,” she said as she bit down on her lip.

“I’ve got you,” I said again, and she nodded.

I kissed her softly before we parted, and I went downstairs to meet John Paul at the entrance to our building. We headed up to the gym and started working out.

“Funny how old patterns fall back into place,” John Paul remarked as he watched me do leg presses on the machine. “It’s just like old times, isn’t it?”

“You knew about this the other day, didn’t you?” I accused.

“Maybe,” John Paul said as he winked at me. “Couldn’t say anything, but glad you took my advice anyway.”

“I thought it was an order,” I muttered. I pushed out another set of leg presses and then switched to dumbbells.

I kept it up until sweat was pouring off of me, and every muscle in my body ached. I was glad I had been spending some time at the gym lately because John Paul was ruthless on the weight training. I could keep up, but only barely.

I wasn’t about to let him know that, though.

So I pushed myself as much as humanly possible. It was territory I knew—push beyond your limits and never stop, never let go. I ached, I sweated, and I burned through sets like a maniac just to show John Paul that I could.

He knew exactly what I was doing.

“Is that all you got?” John Paul snorted. “You’re a wuss.”

“Fuck you,” I said as I slammed the weights down to the floor. “I don’t see you pushing out this many reps.”

“Not my training, bro.”

I extended my middle finger toward him as I completed another set of curls. At least I hadn’t lost much strength in my biceps, but I’d neglected leg workouts, and even I had to admit my gut was a little flabby from lack of ab work. I never should have let myself go so much. Now that Raine had to count on my strength, I wasn’t at my best.

I had to rectify that.

I also had to make sure she was safe even when I wasn’t around.

“I need Raine protected,” I said to John Paul as I shifted my weight on the bench and switched arms. “I want someone I trust around her all the time when I’m not.”

“Not sure who that would be,” John Paul said. “Is there anyone you trust?”

“You,” I said simply.

“You want me looking after your chick?”

“Who else?”

John Paul scratched his arm, looked up at the ceiling, and considered for a moment.

“Can I fuck her?”

I stood up, dropped the dumbbell to the floor, and punched him in the face.

He stumbled backward from the blow but righted himself quickly as he laughed and rubbed at his chin.

“I guess that’s a no.”

“Fucking right it’s a no,” I said as I glared at him. “Don’t you fucking touch her.”

“Duly noted.” He laughed again.

We finished our session, and John Paul came with me back to the condo. Raine had her school books spread out on the couch and coffee table, but I could tell she wasn’t getting any actual work done. I sat down beside her and tossed my arm over her shoulder, pulling her close, as John Paul helped himself to a bottle of water.

“Ugh!” Raine groaned as she placed her hands on my chest and pushed me away. “You stink.”

“You should have smelled him back in the day of booze and whores,” John Paul said.

Like I really needed him to bring that shit up.

“Don’t make me fucking beat you in front of her,” I snapped. “I bet I can find some other meathead around here to train with me.”

“Won’t be as pretty as I am,” John Paul said. He emptied the water bottle and tossed it into the bin. “I’m out. See you bright and early tomorrow.”

* * *

I trained with John Paul for four days—weights, endurance, and hand-to-hand fighting. I was sore, bruised, and tired on the fifth day when he came to the door and told me we weren’t training that morning.

“Meeting time,” he said simply.

We met Landon a few blocks away in a hotel room. He looked uncharacteristically tired and a little on edge. We sat down at a small, round table and waited for him to start.

“Your competition,” Landon said. He pushed a folder to me across the table, and I opened it. There were five sets of documents inside with names and pictures. “Study them. See what you can learn about them, and make sure you know how to take each and every one of them out.”

I scanned the documents, stopping immediately when I saw a familiar face.

Fuck me.

Even without the sunglasses, I recognized the picture as the dude on the beach with the ridiculous, fucking tongue twister, only now it didn’t seem so ridiculous. Now I saw it as the threat it clearly represented.

“You’re the pheasant.”

Evan Arden. He was listed as Rinaldo Moretti’s key hit man. The picture showed him at a shooting range with a high caliber rifle in his hands.

“I believe I may have mentioned that he’s your primary concern.”

“I’ve met him,” I said quietly.

Landon eyed me.

“When?”

“A couple weeks ago,” I said. “He talked to me on the beach when I was out for a run.”

“Recon is a specialty of his,” Landon said. “He’s probably been on a rooftop with his sniper rifle pointed at you already.”

“He’s a sniper?” John Paul said.

“Former Marine,” Landon informed us. “One of the best shooters they’ve ever seen. I knew of him through my military contacts before he got himself involved with Rinaldo Moretti. He’s taken out hundreds of Moretti’s enemies over the years, but he disappeared shortly after the war broke out.”

“Seems like a weird time to take off,” John Paul remarked.

“I couldn’t get a lot of detail,” Landon said, “but I got the idea he might have been at the crux of the issue that started this war in the first place.”

“You think he had sights on me but didn’t shoot me?”

“Arden knows the rules.” Landon stood up and walked over to the window to look out at the ocean. “Taking out a player once the tournament has been announced would inflame the war, not end it. He’s military, and following orders is in his blood. He’s also probably the next in line to run that organization if something happened to Moretti. Moretti’s only other options are his daughter Luisa, who might very well do it, or an illegitimate son he barely recognizes. Ending the feud is in Arden’s best interest.”

“But Arden hasn’t been involved in the war recently?” John Paul asked.