Page 43 of Grant’s Blaze

“The guy said I don’t have a TBI.”

“Traumatic brain injury,” Elijah supplied.

“I’m aware of what it is, Wolfgang Puck.” He looked back to me with another totally new expression. Holy shit. It was full-throttle concern. “What then?”

“Residual damage from repeated concussions. More or less.”

“How did that happen?” Bas asked.

“Repeated blows to the head,” I supplied. “Mostly pistol whippings, if that’s what you call it when it’s a rifle or a shotgun and not an actual pistol. I don’t know. But there’s stuff that happened on that boat that I haven’t told anyone. I just…well, I don’t like thinking about it or remembering it, but now… I don’t have a choice.”

“What do you mean?” Sebastian pressed.

“You don’t have a choice?” Elijah finished the second part of the question.

Bas thumbed in Elijah’s direction and said, “Yes. That.”

“I’ve been having a lot of—shit—I don’t know? Flashbacks? Nightmares, maybe? It’s hard to tell the difference.” I wrapped my hands around my coffee mug, trying not to fixate on my white knuckles. “What I mean is, it’s hard to tell if I’m remembering something that actually happened or if my brain is making shit up. Sometimes there will be things that I know happened. Like things with Rio from before I was taken. And that will be mixed in with bad shit, so then I get really confused if it’s real or not.”

Elijah released a soft whistle. “Dude.”

“How can we help you, Grant?” Sebastian asked in yet another mode. This side, I knew. It was his nerves-of-steel, take-no-shit CEO mode. And right now, it was everything I needed.

“I don’t know. But some of what I’m remembering is bad. Bad as in illegal bad.” I stopped, ensuring I had the full lock of his gaze so there would be no mistake about how serious he needed to take me right now. “And I’m pretty sure it involves you.”

He didn’t answer right away. I didn’t expect him to. The man hadn’t gotten to his place in life with kneejerk reactions to announcements and accusations that came flying at him on the daily. After his gaze darkened and his posture stiffened, he nodded tightly and finally spoke again.

“I think you’d better start from the beginning and tell us everything you know, my friend. Even if you aren’t sure if its real or a dream or whatever. Especially if you’re going to hurl statements like that.”

So for the next two hours, that was what I did. I gave my two lifelong friends the Reader’s Digest version of the events I could remember. I started right where Bas ordered me to, with being dragged off the boat where I had made so much progress with Rio. It was the night Kaisan was born. Actually, it was after midnight by the time we got on the pirates’ speedboat, so technically it was the next day, but it was a good reference point.

I glossed over the eight days afterward—about being held helpless and captive—despite how my friends attempted to hook more details out of me. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how important it all was.

How important I really didn’t want it to be, damn it.

Instead, I let them hear all about the ninth day.

That was when I had been dumped into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Santa Catalina Island and told to swim for shore or drown. Thank God I had been dealing with a boatful of idiots and not actual seamen. If they had been, they would’ve known when the tide was changing that day. They would’ve also known that during a changing tide, I would have had the best chance of surviving a two-mile swim in my weakened condition.

I had ridden the current most of the way to shore because I’d had very little energy to swim. By the grace of some former lover’s angel, I’d somehow stumbled up the sand on the back side of Avalon. I told them about the private resort on the far side of the island that most tourists never even see because they don’t get farther than the harbor where the tourist cruisers drop everyone. I scared some rich vacationers half to death, but they were kind enough to help me once they realized I wasn’t going to hurt them.

“How did they not call the authorities?” Elijah finally cut in. “Your luck was on a full tank that day.”

“They may have been foreigners?” I ventured. “I don’t have a clear memory of it, but I think so. Maybe German or Dutch.” I shook my head after thinking for a minute. “Yeah, I don’t know. One of them let me borrow a phone, and yours was the easiest to remember.”

“Sure.” Sebastian snort-laughed it. “His last four digits are six-nine-six-nine.”

He and I shared a hard chortle, but Elijah went on like we were still just sipping his foo-foo brew with its high-end sugar. “That explains why you were so dehydrated when I finally got to you.”

“Well, that swim was one part of it,” I muttered and then really did take a swig of my java. But before I could finish, both Bas and Elijah were all but down my throat again.

“Stop doing that, damn it. We’ve had enough with you trying to build suspense here, man. Just tell us the details.”

“Easy there, Betty Crocker. I was about to finish my sentence when you jumped my shit. How much of this caffeine have you gulped already?”

“He needs to get laid,” Bas interjected, resulting in my shock that he didn’t end up with the French press in the middle of his lap.

“I’m doing just fine in that department, thank you very much.”