Defender Read Online Free PDF

her clothes, unzipped his pants, and straddled her in the dank storage room behind her father’s tavern. She’d learned how to defend herself after watching her family for years. She’d taken a corkscrew and jammed it into the bastard’s back, pushing, twisting until she found his heart.
    Quite symbolic, now that she thought of it, teasing her breasts against the soldier’s chest. Didn’t the American military men who frequented her bars call “the act” screwing? Uncle Radko had been trying to screw her, and she simply got to him first.
    Dimly registering the American’s hands sliding to her hips, she eyed the blue-tiled entrance to her newest pub on Istanbul’s Nevizade Street. This crossroad of world cultures offered the perfect place to expand her international network. The boy keeping step until sweat sheened his face might be here for pleasure, but for her, it was always about business.
    The door opened, and her senses tightened. Two familiar men pushed through the haze of unfiltered cigarette smoke that perpetually hovered in the air, returning to give the report she’d been anticipating. She made eye contact. Stop. Wait.
    Music faded, a slower Turkish folk tune spinning up. She eased free of her dance partner.
    “Thank you for a lovely time. Your drinks will be on the house this evening, so stay, party. It is early still,” Marta offered up to soothe any rejected feelings. These boys always cheered over free alcohol. “I hope you enjoy your temporary leave.”
    Weaving around couples and tables already packed with locals and tourists even before sunset, she strode toward the duo waiting by the bar. She nodded, and Baris and Erol followed. Both were strong, ambitious, and best of all, amoral.
    Her high-heeled Manolos clicked along the wood floor as the hallway narrowed in the renovated old building. Sconces on the walls vibrated from the music up front.
    She selected the key on her charm bracelet and unlocked her office. “Come in and close the door behind you.”
    After the door snicked shut, Baris passed her a video-disc labeled only with a number. “It’s done.”
    “Of course it is.” She never doubted her orders would be followed. She evoked that sort of quiet fear. But she understood the wisdom of stroking their male egos. “I only hire the best.”
    Since Uncle Radko, she had taken more lives. Of course now she rarely wielded the corkscrew, gun, drugs, garrote, or whatever weapon the occasion warranted. She paid others. Not because of a lack of stomach for the task, but rather because she could afford it.
    Marta sidestepped an oversized chaise covered with gold tasseled pillows on her way to the minibar and opened the false bottom of a cigar box. She thumbed the disc in her hand one last time before storing it away with the others. The captured image stayed imprinted on her mind as well as the DVD, since she’d been there when they taped beating the American soldier.
    Now his lifeless body lay in a back alley.
    The soldier hadn’t proven as helpful as others they’d taken, and certainly not as valuable as another she still held. What world-altering secrets a tangle of gray matter could carry.
    Baris pressed deeper into the room, his partner holding back. “We placed an empty condom wrapper with his fingerprints inside his wallet as you ordered, and a woman’s strand of hair on his uniform.”
    “Perfect. We held him such a short time, they probably haven’t even reported him missing yet.” She’d quickly determined he would be worthless. She locked away the discs, positioning the wooden box precisely beside the brass cigar clippers. “That should provide a timeline for the missing hours between when he left his drinking friends and his death hours later.”
    Authorities would conclude he picked up a woman or prostitute, then met with muggers on his way back through the bustling Nevizade Street, narrow and crowded with pubs. Tables spilled out onto the stone road, pickpockets were