Echo of Redemption Read Online Free PDF Page A

soul patch. He’s pierced his cheek dimples, filling the natural indentations with pointed silver studs. His ears too are pierced, four hoops of various caliber and design through each lobe.
    From our past encounter, I know he wears a wide metal spider stud through his tongue and bars through his nipples. Until tonight I wasn’t certain if he was pierced anywhere else on his body. Post surgery I know he has a four bar frenum ladder, a ring at the base of his shaft, and two rings decorating his glans.
    Then there is his tattoo, a horimono design. My brother’s body has become a canvas of color, wrist to ankle and all the parts between. There is a pale strip of flesh down the front of his chest so that when the top two buttons of a dress shirt are parted, the ink doesn’t show. Likewise his face and neck are free of ink, but the rest swims with color. A panorama of samurai, geisha, demons, koi and dragons, rolling into and out of each other, both connected and separated by smoky gray clouds or crashing waves. The art covering my brother is both masterpiece and tragedy. That he would go to such lengths to ensure we are never confused one for the other...
    I watch the passing scenery through the window. Night has come and gone, dawn too passed. Somehow we managed to miss rush hour and the drive to George’s house has been easy. Still, I take a close look at every car we pass, every pedestrian, looking for trouble I hope doesn’t come. A ridiculous dream on my part. If my brother’s enemies discover he isn’t dead, things could turn ugly quickly.
    In his sleep, he moans. My gaze again meets George’s in the mirror. Both friends and adversaries over the years, we’re close enough that I don’t care that he sees my eyes fill with tears. “I can’t lose him.”
    “I know.”
    George turns into his gated community. Top of the line security. I feel no safer than I did at Garrett’s. The security systems that protect the wealthy and famous in this suburb would be nothing to bypass for the kind of men who would come looking for Nikos. I won’t take any chances and immediately start making a mental list of what I will need to fortify his manse as he drives the car into his driveway. He presses his automatic door opener and parks the car inside the garage.
    I feel they will be safe enough here today, but I’ll feel better once I go pick up a few things. The last thing I want to do is put George in danger.
    Hell, I don’t know how Nikos found me. Unless…
    Henri.
    I mull that thought over while George and I carry Nikos into his house through the garage’s interior entrance. George starts to turn on the lights, but I stop him. “I assume you know your way to the basement of your house well enough that you don’t need light.”
    He keeps walking without flipping the switch. I do my best to not bang my almost dead brother’s head on anything. Some light is filtering through the shaded windows, but everything appears gray. Reaching the staircase to the basement, George pauses. “Can we risk light in the lower level?”
    “Once we’re at the bottom of the stairs.”
    “Fuck.”
    I take Nikos’s full weight, allowing George to descend the staircase unimpeded. Still, he hits a switch as soon as he is at the foot of the stairs. “No windows. It won’t be obvious from the outside that anyone is down here.”
    He leads me forward. As many years as I’ve known George I’ve never been in his home. Finding myself in his basement, I am left envious at very first glance. “You have a rubber room?”
    He splits a grin, seeing the direction of my look.
    “Authentic. From Agnews.”
    Leave it to the good doctor to import an entire padded cell from an abandoned asylum. I keep walking, traversing the length of a medieval dungeon complete with iron cages. I don’t doubt that the implements of torture on display are the originals. It is a museum quality collection.
    I am led to a state-of-the-art medical facility. He answers the