In Cold Blood (Bratva Brothers Book 2)
Page 15
Pepper scoffed. “Yeah well, the rest of his family is crazier than he was. The ones I’ve met anyway wouldn’t win any prizes.”
“Tell us what happened?” Yuri asked.
“McKenna Knight blamed me for the fact that her husband found himself a girlfriend,” she explained. “She told me I had no right to be alive.”
“That’s crazy!” Sazon exclaimed. “You didn’t ask to be born.”
“I tried to tell her that but she wouldn’t listen. I doubt she ever will. She won’t stop until I’m dead.”
“Then we stop her before she can strike again.” Yuri looked at the men around the room.
“What does that mean?’ Pepper asked.
“I’ve been asking around town,” Raven began. “McKenna Knight is not very well liked by too many people. Word is out that she’s a snob of the worst kind and if you slight her or she thinks you have she’ll ruin you.” Raven shook her head. “I really hate that sort of person, don’t you?”
Pepper grinned. “What do you have in mind?”
“I’ve been doing some checking this afternoon. She’s been moving her family money around, so it’s not linked with Leon’s wealth. All of his money is frozen at the moment. The FBI and Homeland Security are looking into his legal affairs and have found some interesting things. Leon has been a very naughty boy considering he wanted to run for attorney general.”
Raven rolled her eyes. “She never even bailed his ass out of jail this afternoon. She was on her way to do just that but she never got there.”
“Yeah, she stopped by the warehouse and found me and changed her mind about that,” Pepper admitted.
“After she left the warehouse, my people followed her to the courthouse. Apparently, she saw her husband and they had a terrible fight. She was almost arrested before police got her out the door. Then she went back to the warehouse. When she left the second time, she went to a bar and started drinking. God only knows what she’s going to do now.”
Pepper shivered and Mikial hauled her into his lap. Wrapping his arms around her, she laid her head on his chest. “I can’t go back to living in fear,” she whispered. “I just can’t.”
“You don’t have to,” Mikial assured her. “We’ll stop her.”
Pepper shook her head. “You can’t stop crazy and that’s what she is. This has put her over the edge and she won’t stop until I’m dead.”
Mikial growled and tightened his hold on her. Looking up, he caught Yuri’s eyes.
Yuri read the rage deep in the other man’s eyes and he knew what that rage was like. “We won’t allow that to happen. She’s going down.”
The next morning when Mikial and Pepper joined Yuri and Raven for breakfast, Raven smiled. “Phase one has begun.”
“Excuse me?” Pepper frowned.
“McKenna is going to learn a hard lesson today.”
“What kind of lesson?”
“She’s going to lose all her money when the bank opens this morning, then the schools are going to start calling about unpaid tuition. From what I’ve heard, she’ll be badly hung over too.” Raven grinned.
“How is this possible?”
“Well rumor has it certain papers from the warehouse linked McKenna to Timothy Flynn’s illegal business practices. That alone with the police finding his body along with several of his men called in gathering up the rest of his little gang. All the rest of his men are being questioned about the murders. Again, certain papers were found that showed Flynn was cheating his men and no one likes a cheater. Homeland and the FBI have frozen everything connected with Flynn and McKenna until they can sort it all out.”
“That’s too bad.” Pepper chuckled. “She won’t be able to go to lunch at the club today. Poor darling.”
Pepper’s phone rang and when she answered the call, it was Paul Windjue. “Hey Dad, what’s up?”
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine why?”
“Because the police were called to McKenna Knight’s home early this morning. The FBI found paperwork in a warehouse that linked this woman with a lowlife named Timothy Flynn. In the middle of the interview, she received a call from someone the police have linked to a series of murders. She acted like there was nothing wrong in setting up a murder in front of the police. Needless to say, they arrested her on the spot.” Paul hesitated then asked, “What connection do you have to McKenna or Leon Knight?”
“I just found out Leon Knight is the man who fathered me. And my mother is Jessie Carter.”
“Oh, I see.”
“No Daddy, you don’t see,” Pepper whispered. “You and Marie are my family. You and Marie took me in when I had nobody or nothing. Leon murdered my mother when she told him she wanted to get married. At the time she asked, he was already married with two kids. He never told her.” Her voice broke for a moment. “I saw him strangle her and he would have killed me too, except I escaped. You found me days later.”
“Have you had anything to do with what’s been happening to them the last few days?” Paul asked.
“No, but Timothy Flynn kidnapped me the other day. That’s when McKenna Knight found out I was her husband’s bastard child. She wasn’t happy about it.”
“Are the Russians involved in any way?”
“No. I got away on my own. Some men burst into the warehouse and while Flynn was busy I got the hell out of there,” Pepper lied as she met and kept her eyes on Yuri.
“Did you see who broke in?”
“No I didn’t. I wasn’t really looking to get shot at. I just escaped out the window. I didn’t look back.”
“Okay baby. Those two are going down and the minor children have other family to take care of them. Can you come in a few days and give us a statement?”
“Sure, I can do that.”
“Okay honey, I guess I’ll talk to you later. Take care.”
“I will.” Pepper ended the call.
“Why did you lie to him?” Mikial asked.
Pepper gazed at him. “You and your brothers took a risk to get me back. This is a lie I can live with easily. Plus, I’ve never lied to him before. They taught me to always tell the truth.” She looked at everyone and chuckled. “McKenna was so out of it she took a call from a contract killer in front of the FBI. Needless to say, she’ll be going to jail for her part. Paul told me the family will take the children in and care for them so everyone is okay.”
“Everyone but you,” Mikial reminded her. “You still can’t prove who you really are.”
Pepper turned to him and placed both her hands on either side of her face. Searching his eyes for a moment, she asked him, “Do you love me?”
Mikial nodded. “I do.”
“I love you too. Does any of the rest of it matter?” she asked. “The money is only paper, and I have a great name already, given to me when I was four years old. Paul and Marie shared so much with me, they were the ones there for me when I had nightmares in the middle of the night. Marie was the one who was at my side when I was sick. They are the ones who encouraged me to go find my dreams. I’m okay with them as my parents, if you are.”
Mikial smiled. “I like that idea. Of course, we’ll have to find some kind of birth certificate that you can use.”
“Why is that?” Pepper asked.
“You can’t marry me without one,” he whispered in her ear.
Pepper smiled as her heart warmed. “So maybe we’ll just live in sin instead.”
“Nope, I want the whole world to know you belong to me and the only way to do that is to marry you.”
“I guess I can live with that,” she whispered as he crushed her lips under his.
The End
The Bratva Blood Brothers Story continues in:
Book Three
BLOOD STAINED DIAMONDS
When Barshan takes the deed to a jewelry store in the place of a debt—he finds he’s been ripped off. The real owner, the beautiful Talli Janick, can prove the sale was fraudulent but even mor
e problems await Barshan. He wasn’t the only one who was cheated. When someone representing the Ukrainian mob comes to claim the jewelry store as their own, Barshan stands beside Talli.
Talli’s own stepfather, Russel Jerome sold the jewelry store twice to two separate men, both with ties to different mobs in the city. Then he comes back to steal her inventory. Now everyone is hunting him and Russel takes Talli hostage to get out of trouble.
Can Barshan find her before Russel gets out of town leaving her to pay the price for his crimes?
K.J. Dahlen
I live in a small town (population495) in Wisconsin. From my deck, I can see the Mississippi River on one side and the bluffs, where eagles live and nest on the other side. I live with my husband Dave and dog Buddy. My two children are grown and I have two grandchildren. I love to watch people and that has helped me with my writing. I often use people I watch as characters in my books and I always try to give my characters some of my own values and habits.
I love to create characters and put them in a troubling situation then sit back and let them do all the work. My characters surprise even me at times. At some point in the book, they take on a life of their own and the twists and turns they create becomes the story. Of all the stories, I could write I found I like mystery/thrillers the best. I like to keep my readers guessing until the very end of the book.
MY PREVIOUS BOOKS ARE:
SATAN’S SPAWN MC SERIES:
Spawn &Spitfire, Revenge And Retribution, Babies And Bastards.
The SIN’S BASTARDS SERIES: Silk & Bones, Karma’s Bitch, No Regrets, Hell’s Fury, Lies And Liars, Stone Cold.
HELL’S FIRE RIDERS MC SERIES;
Pappy’s Shadow BOOK ONE,
Betrayed BOOK TWO,
Trigger The Storm BOOK THREE:
Cold Vengeance BOOK FOUR
Bones, The Darkness Within, Meghan’s Legacy, Shadow Chaser, Witness, Secrets and Lies, Legacy of Murder, The Unknown Son, The Prophet, No One to Hear You
Scream, Bradbury Inn, Murderous Intent,
Wrong Number, Fall from Grace, The
House on Berkley Street, Cards Of Sin, Blood Memories, From Beyond Death and Words To Die For.
UPCOMING:
Blood Stained Diamonds, Phoenix Rising, A Murder in her Past, Words To Die For and From Beyond Death.
AUTHOR INFORMATION
AMAZON PAGE
Email: kjdahlen1@yahoo.com
Website: http://smarturl.it/KJDahlen
I am on Facebook and twitter as kjdahlen
My blog is on Facebook at K.J.’s blog. My publishers are:
www.roguephoenixpress.com