CHAPTER 56
Brynn
Slovakia to Messini, Greece
Days Thirty-Eight to Forty-One Off Grid
I drove until I nearly missed a turn.
The tires caught gravel at the shoulder, and the car lurched hard enough to snap me out of whatever version of shock had been keeping my hands on the wheel.
I dragged it back into the lane.
The phone Whitaker had given me sat on the passenger seat.
I rolled down the window and threw it into the trees.
Jameson was alive.
He had to be.
Whitaker had promised.
No.
Whitaker had threatened.
There was a difference, and I couldn’t afford to forget it.
I stopped at the first petrol station I found, bought a prepaid phone with Whitaker’s contaminated cash, and called the one number I had never needed to write down.
Beckett answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
My throat closed.
“Hello?” he repeated, harsher this time.
“It’s me.”
Silence.
Then his voice dropped. “Brynn?”
“Yeah.”
“Where are you?” he asked.
“Slovakia. I think.”
“You think?” Beckett asked.
“I bought this phone at a gas station off some rural road. That’s as specific as I can get.”
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“Not physically.”
“Where is Mercer?” Beckett asked.
The question cracked something open.
“I had to leave him.”
“What does that mean?” Beckett asked. “What happened? Did he hurt you?”
I looked through the windshield at the faded building and the trucks idling beside the pumps.
I couldn’t tell him everything.
Not Whitaker. Not where Jameson had been taken. Not enough to make Beckett decide this was something he could fix by charging straight at it.
“No. Jameson would never hurt me.” My throat tightened. “I dug too deep, and it caught up to us. I had to leave before it got him killed.”
Beckett went quiet.
“I need somewhere to go,” I continued. “Not San Diego. Not West Virginia. Nowhere connected to me, you, Isabel, or anyone who would be obvious.”
“I’m coming to get you,” Beckett said.
“No.”
“Brynn,” he warned.
“No airports. No hotels. No family property. Nothing connected to us.”
“I’m not leaving you alone in another country,” he said.
I closed my eyes. “Well, there’s a chance I’m pregnant.”
Beckett exhaled slowly.
“I don’t know for sure,” I said. “But I recently discovered the pharmacy gave me the wrong prescription.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay?”
“That’s all I’m giving you while you’re driving and half out of your mind.”
“I’m not half out of my mind.”
“You called me from a gas station in a country you only think you’re in,” Beckett said.
Fair.
“Beckett, please. I need somewhere no one will look,” I said.
Beckett was quiet for several seconds.
Then he said, “Head south. Stay off the main roads when you can. Call me back in an hour.”
“Where am I going?”
“I don’t know yet,” he said. “I’ll find somewhere.”
“That’s comforting.”
“Call me in an hour,” he said. “And Brynn?”
“What?”
“It’ll be okay,” he said. “We’ve got this.”
My eyes burned.
The line disconnected.
I sat with the phone in my hand and the ring cold against my finger.
Then I put the car into gear.
***
Beckett found Messini before the day was over.
Isabel knew a family there.
That was all I was told.
They had a small cottage on private land, unregistered as a rental and unconnected to any of us.
By Day Forty-One, distance had stopped feeling measurable.
It was only another road.
Another name.
Another version of me crossing through somewhere Jameson couldn’t follow.
The Mediterranean air smelled like sage, dust, and sea salt.
Messini was quiet but unmistakably alive. Olive trees stretched across the hills, their leaves flashing silver whenever the wind moved through them. Insects hummed beneath the sun. White houses sat scattered between the groves.
My cottage stood near the edge of the property, its white stone walls and blue shutters softened by age beneath a weathered tile roof.
A man waited beside the gate. He looked to be in his late thirties, with dark hair, sun-browned skin, and the sleeves of his faded button-down rolled to his forearms. His posture was relaxed, but his attention wasn’t.
“Leo.” He gave me a careful smile. “You must be Brynn.”
I nodded.
He reached for the largest bag but stopped before touching it. “May I?”
The question caught me off guard.
“Yeah. Thank you.”
He took it easily.
Considering it contained half the portable remains of Jameson’s life, that was probably for the best.
Inside, the cottage opened into a compact room with a bed, a table, and open shelves set against thick stone walls that kept the heat outside. The air smelled faintly of thyme, lemon, and sun-warmed wood.
It was beautiful.
I wished I had come here for a different reason. A vacation, maybe. Something ordinary enough to let me appreciate it.
Leo set the bag beside the bed. “It’s quiet here. People will ask questions, but only among themselves.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning everyone will know you’re here by tomorrow.” He shrugged. “But once my family says you belong with us, no one outside this town will learn anything we don’t want them to.”
I studied him.
“That’s your version of privacy?”
“It’s the only kind that works here,” he said.
“Speaking of my family, my parents’ house is up the hill,” he continued. “We eat together most nights. You’re welcome, but no one will be offended if you want to be alone.”
“Thank you.”
He nodded toward the kitchen. “There’s food here, and clothes in the dresser. Isa said you arrived with very little.”
I looked at the bags stacked near the bed.
“I arrived with more than I wanted.”
Leo’s gaze flicked toward them, but he didn’t ask. “Dinner is around seven. Come up if you feel like it.”
“I might not make it.”
“That’s fine,” he said. “Just don’t go hungry to avoid the crowd. Let me know, and I’ll bring you a plate.”
“I appreciate that.”
“I’ll let you settle,” he said.
He left without trying to convince me.
I locked the door behind him.
Then I checked the windows.
The back entrance.
The cabinets.
Under the bed.
The bathroom was hidden behind a worn blue door with a sticky hinge. Small, clean, and stocked with the kind of care that felt almost aggressive after weeks of surviving with whatever we could carry.
There was a tub.
I turned on the water and watched steam collect along the mirror.
The woman staring back at me looked thinner than the one who had left the mountain.
Older too.
The shadows beneath my eyes looked permanent.
I undressed and lowered myself into the water.
The heat made me gasp.
Then the silence reached me. No tires outside. No gunfire. No Jameson moving through the next room. No one asking me to run, explain, decide, or survive the next five minutes.
I curled one arm around my stomach.
The tears came without warning.
Silent at first.
Then harder.
I pressed my hand over my mouth and let them.
Because Jameson was alive.
Because he might not be.
Because I had left him bleeding on a screen and driven across half of Europe wearing the ring he had never gotten the chance to give me.
Because safety without him felt too much like grief.
***
The water had gone cold by the time I climbed out.
I found linen pants and a loose shirt in the dresser. I braided my damp hair, rolled the sleeves to my elbows, and stood with my hand on the cottage door.
Laughter drifted from somewhere up the hill.
Warm. Uncomplicated.
Get it together, Brynn.
I had sat across from corrupt executives, cartel lieutenants, and diplomats who smiled while lying through their teeth.
I could survive dinner.
The main house was larger than the cottage but carried the same white walls and blue trim. Vines crawled around the open doorway. Ceramic pots of herbs crowded the steps.
Four people looked up when I entered.
Leo stood. “Brynn. Come in.”
His mother crossed the room before I could prepare for her and kissed both my cheeks.
I went still.
She either didn’t notice or chose not to.
A younger woman introduced herself as Marina and, from what I could piece together, explained that she was Leo’s cousin. Before I had fully sat down, she pressed a piece of bread into my hand.
No one asked where I came from.
No one asked why Isabel had sent me.
They passed bowls of roasted vegetables, fish, salad, and something made with chickpeas that I ate without knowing its name.
Leo sat beside me.
“Long journey?” he asked.
“Long year.”
The answer slipped out before I could stop it.
He nodded as if that made sense.
Conversation moved around me, mostly in Greek. I understood none of it, but no one seemed bothered by my silence.
They translated when it mattered.
Let the rest pass when it didn’t.
For an hour, I ate like a person.
Like a woman who hadn’t left the man she loved in another country.
Like someone who wasn’t waiting for a stranger’s promise to become a death sentence.
Like survival might eventually become something other than movement.
When dinner ended, Leo walked me back toward the cottage.
“My mother said Isa thought you might want work,” he said. “Not immediately.”
“What kind?”
“We have a shop in Kalamata,” he said. “Honey, olive oil, soaps. Mostly things tourists buy because the labels look prettier in Greece.”
Despite myself, I almost smiled.
“We need help with inventory and packaging,” he continued. “You wouldn’t have to speak to anyone.”
“A job where I don’t have to talk to people?”
“I was told you might appreciate that,” he said.
“Isabel knows me too well.”
“I’ll tell Mama you’re interested,” Leo said.
We reached the cottage.
I held the key between my fingers but didn’t unlock the door.
“There’s something else.”
Leo waited.
“I need a doctor.” I looked down at the key. “Or a midwife. Someone quiet.”
His brows lifted.
“I can’t use my real name.”
The surprise disappeared almost immediately.
“I’ll ask Mama,” he said. “She knows people who won’t require paperwork.”
My chest loosened by half a breath. “Thank you.”
He shrugged one shoulder as if it were nothing.
But it wasn’t. Not to me.
Leo started back toward the path.
I unlocked the cottage, stepped inside, and closed the door.
For now, this was where I would stay.
I set my hand over my stomach.
And waited to find out how many of us had survived.