That Time in Bangkok

THAT TIME IN BANGKOK BOOK 7 OF THE WOLFGANG PIERCE SERIES LOGAN RYLES CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Wolfgang returns in… About the Author Also by Logan Ryles End Page Copyright © 2023 by Logan Ryles. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. THAT TIME IN BANGKOK is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Published by Ryker Morgan Publishing. For Abby and Naomi Thanks for keeping me inspired. * * * “Bangkok is infamously mired in lurid contradiction.” — Lawrence Osborne * * * 1 “Megan!” Wolfgang’s voice echoed back to him in the enclosed space, reverberating in his eardrums like a mockery of his own inevitable failure. Metal cut his hands, and blood flowed freely. His knees hit the ground, and he thrashed over broken glass and toppled electrical cabinets. He felt stuck in mud, sucked down and held back by invisible claws. Every step required monumental effort while failing to bring him any closer to the clock on the wall. One minute, forty-two seconds. Red numerals, slowly flashing, counting down to the end of time. “Megan!” Wolfgang flung himself forward. The clock blinded him. The room around him shifted and shook, the broken glass dancing on the floor under the force of an earthquake, overwhelming his senses and flooding his mind. But he still heard the scream. Distant but shrill, matched by the steady pop of a handgun. “Wolf! Help me!” The invisible claws dragged at his pants. Long bloody scratches opened on his legs, and blinding pain surged through his mind as the clock struck sixty seconds. He dug his fingers into busted concrete and reached forward. As his body shook to the irregular wrath of the earthquake, more electrical cabinets fell and glass exploded. He saw Megan on the catwalk, stretched out and bleeding. Gunshots still popping, her fingers reached for the weapon. The sadistic voice of Nigel cackled through the darkness, triggering the earthquake and drowning out Megan’s screams. Wolfgang reached out—tears flowing, heart thundering. The floor opened beneath him, and all at once, the darkness swallowed him whole. * * * Wolfgang sat bolt upright in bed, currents of sweat running down his bare chest as he heaved like a free-diver reaching the surface—only seconds away from drowning. He scrubbed perspiration from his face and tried not to choke. He still saw the numerals of the clock, frozen at two seconds. Megan’s fingers were wrapped around a tangle of torn wires, her free hand wrapped in his. Wolfgang pressed his face into the damp folds of the blanket. It took minutes to calm his heart rate and remember where he was. Who he was. But even then, the nightmare didn’t fade. He snapped the covers back and pivoted, dropping bare feet onto a greasy linoleum floor. The travel trailer was barely fifteen feet long, with a cheap mattress on one end next to a cramped shower. The floor creaked and groaned under his body weight as he crossed through a kitchen cluttered with dirty dishes and empty soup cans, then he reached an aluminum door bolted closed with a makeshift latch. His fingers automatically found the grip of a Beretta Px4 Storm, and he tucked it into the waistband of his sweatpants as he slipped into his rubber boots. It was chilly outside. Midnight mist blanketed the Upstate New York hardwoods, glistening on damp green leaves. Spring foliage had driven back the gray of this place, but the property still felt bleak. It still felt like a prison of his own mind. Dead leaves crunched, and Wolfgang’s breath clouded in front of his face. He followed a worn trail that led from the trailer, between the trees, and toward a meadow. The track was beaten by his own footprints, the grass matted and torn as he reached the meadow. It was a full moon. People say a full moon can disrupt a person’s sleep patterns, but the nightmares that joined Wolfgang inside that trailer defied any natural rhythm or restriction. They came regularly, sometimes seven nights a week, lasting for hours before he finally awoke in a surge of raw desperation. The sweat had dried on Wolfgang’s chest by the time he reached the first plot in the line of graves. It belonged to Kevin. The one next to it was marked for Edric. Two good men, murdered in the prime of their lives. Avenged, and not forgotten. But they were still no more than rotting bones in a desolate, private graveyard, their memories kept alive by Wolfgang alone. Crunching cold grass collapsed beneath his boots as he slowed. The last grave lay ten feet beyond the first three, marked by a taller and more ornate headstone that Wolfgang couldn’t quite see from his angle. He always approached this way, waiting to read that name until the last moment, putting off the punch to the gut as long as he could while also accepting the inevitability of it all. Fresh flowers adorned the base of the headstone, visible as they poked to either side of it. Planted, not placed, watered regularly and groomed to perfection. And still failing to reflect even a fraction of Megan’s beauty. Wolfgang circled to face the marker and swallowed hard. Megan’s name was written in elegant script, a depiction of Tokyo Tower engraved above it, a birth and death date written below. But no epitaph. Only an empty space