Lawyer & Liar

by T Wells Brown

  I smiled again, “Yes, you will.”

  “I know.” Terra hung up. I looked for another contact on my phone, and found Becca.

  “Hey.” Wow, almost a normal answer.

  “Hey Becs, I need your help, babe.”

  “You got whatever you need. I’m with a new rescue organization that’re taking two of my tripod pups. Can I call you back?” That explained the normalish greeting; she had an audience she was trying not to scare off. Hence; best behaviour, at least for Becca.

  “I’ll text you what I need and then when you have a chance call Susan. She’ll be your contact for your assignment.”

  “Ooohhhh you didn’t say I was getting an assignment! I’ll hurry!” and hung up.

  I had forgotten how much my friends liked helping me with my difficult cases. I used to have such a strong network of women. If you had the misfortune of going up against me, life turned bad for you, very quickly. Raquel was the best at getting information. She would have loved to help me with this.

  Since I wasn’t going to have her, I’d need to figure something out moving forward.

  “Susan, you are in charge of getting all of the details about every single one of the bodies; I want a separate file on each girl. I don’t care if it only has one sheet of paper, understand?”

  Susan nodded, she did in fact, understand, so I continued on.

  “You’re going to get Becca the locations on each dump site so she can scout them out. When she reports back to you with pictures, you fill in the files. You will be the central depository of information. Okay?”

  “Yes. I can sure as hell do that.”

  “Also, work up a time line. I want a map and all of the sites noted and any similarities noted as well.” I think this was a lot to unload on her, but I needed her to have enough to do so that she would feel useful, and we needed her to do this for our data collection in order to formulate a solid plan.

  “I am off to find Lucas and get the next steps going.”

  “Yeah girl. You go do you. I got work to do!” I loved rallying the troops.

  I found Lucas with the two U.S. Marshals; they stopped talking as I approached.

  “Hey guys, anything I need to know?” I asked, stopping at the man huddle.

  The two U.S. Marshals were serious enough looking, but standing next to Lucas, they looked average. I wondered if they knew that or if Lucas intimidated them in any way.

  “Ma’am, our plan is to finish out the cases we have in trial now, but won’t be sending any knew cases to Safe Haven until it’s threat level has been reassessed.”

  Damn. Well, I couldn’t blame them. We had to worry about the girls’ safety first.

  “I understand. Keep me posted will you?” I looked at Lucas, “Can I speak with you privately please?” Lucas looked like the last thing in the entire world he wanted to do was speak with me privately, and I am serious when I say his giant manly shoulders slouched when I indicated for him to follow me to the small office in the front of the house.

  I shut the door behind us and motioned for him to take a seat while I sat in the chair behind Susan’s desk.

  Lucas remained standing with hands clutched behind his back. He looked like a soldier who was about to receive the worst orders imaginable.

  I laughed. Lucas dropped his hands and scowled at me.

  I tilted my head and studied him for a few moments. I didn’t know what he was thinking, but I liked messing with his head a little. You have to find joy in the small things.

  Finally I said, “I need help.” He squinted at me and I took it as a sign to go on.

  “I need background on the Triple D case victims. Everything; where they went to school, who their friends were, parents, every tiny detail, down to what their favorite ice cream flavor was. I’m going to be looking for similarities.”

  Lucas relaxed his stance (honestly, what was his problem ?) and said, “Cabe,…”

  “No Cabe. He has his hands full with Isabella, and keeping her alive and walking this earth is much too important. I won’t be the reason he wasn’t paying attention, and something happened to her.”

  Lucas nodded his head like he understood where I was coming from, which apparently he did because he said, “How quickly?”

  “As quickly as possible. You’ll give the info to Susan. She is organizing the information as it’s brought in to her.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Yes. You don’t think you’re the only one working on this do you? I have several assignments issued to various individuals.” I looked up at him, I’m sure he knew those individuals were my wine tribe, but I didn’t care. Like Jenna always says: one of our best assets was being underestimated. “If they won’t protect the girls I sure as hell will.”

  Lucas stepped closer to the desk and leaned forward, “There she is.”

  “Who?”

  “The person Cabe swore was the bravest woman he’d ever met.”

  “Not brave. Protective.”

  “Same thing. Let me make some calls. I’ll have your info this afternoon.”

  “Thank you.” Now I had to make the hardest call.

  Once again I located the desired contact on my phone and placing the phone against my ear as it began ringing.

  “Angel,” I hope he still called me that after this call.

  “Hey, can you talk?”

  “Yeah, I’m in the car, where are you?” He asked.

  “Safe Haven, swing by and pick me up.”

  “I’ll be there in ten.”

  I stood waiting for Roman just inside the gate at Safe Haven. There weren’t a lot of press staking out Safe Haven but a few was more than enough and I didn’t want to talk to any of them. I was peering around the pillar when a large black sedan with tinted windows screeched to a stop on the street right in front of me.

  Two men exited the ominous looking car from the passenger side both front and back, walked straight for Safe Haven, and yanked open the gate I was standing behind. The gate was pulled so hard it came unhinged and fell lopsided off the now broken hinges.

  Before I could utter a word or make a move, one of the men reached past the threshold, grabbed my arm in such a vice grip I thought for sure he was going to crush the bones in my wrist. My head snapped back from the force as I was pulled out to the car and thrust inside, all of this took place in what seemed like less that a second. As the car sped off, I realized no one was going to know I was gone from the house until they watched the video. By then, I’d be long gone to who knows where with these men.

  Big, scary men.

  They were dressed in your stereotypical bad guy garb of black pants, and heavy black jackets (even though it was end of summer and way too warm for heavy jackets). This said to me the jackets were worn as armor, and to conceal weapons.

  I was in the back seat with the one who had grabbed and shoved me in the car. Thug number one, the driver, was a broad shouldered black haired guy with a crew cut and tattoos creeping up the back of the collar of his jacket and wrapped around his neck up to his jawline. Thug number two, the passenger, was a muddy brown haired guy and his hair was slicked back. He seemed to be shorter than the driver based on their head heights.

  I looked over at thug number three, who had grabbed me. He seemed to be the largest, not that it mattered, they were all larger than me. He was dark all over and scary as hell. He wasn’t looking at me or showing any emotion and no one was speaking.

  “I think there’s been a mistake,” I said, and pressed my body against the door, trying to put as much distance between me and him as I possibly could.

  “Stognafsky wishes to speak with you,” said thug three, who was sitting next to me, in a thick Russian accent.

  Chapter 18

  Bratva

  H e couldn’t be talking about Roman. Roman was already on his way to pick me up.

  “I’ll just give Roman a call and figure this out.” I reached in my purse and pulled out my phone only to have it and my purse, ripped a
way from me. My hand stung where the leather scraped against it.

  “You sit and do nothing until we get to Stognafsky,” was barked at me by thug number three, while he carelessly stuffed my vintage red patent leather stamped Louis Vuitton purse under his seat. I broke out in a sweat.

  “You scrape up my Louis Vuitton and you’ll be buying me another one. And that’s vintage,” I finished by pointing to the bag under his feet, and then scowled at the big oaf.

  He scowled back.

  I may or may not have snarled at him.

  He said something quickly that I didn’t understand. He was speaking Russian and I didn’t speak Russian. I spoke a little bit of several languages, but Russian was not one of them. Russians for the most part drank vodka, not wine, and the wine regions in Russia weren’t ones I’d ever worked with because they were always under dispute. The Crimea wine region was the largest, and it was dangerous to work with the wineries there. It was a mess I didn’t want anything to do with.

  Didn’t matter. I didn’t need translator to know thug three was talking crap about me.

  Oh, Lord Almighty! I was so siccing the tribe on him.

  I watched the houses and trees pass by and kept track where we were so I could get out if I needed to. The thugs didn’t seem worried that I knew where we were going.

  We headed towards the residential section of the deep water channel in Stockton. These were the really large homes that sat on the water and had docks of their own. These residents would be able to have access to the deep channel that fed out to sea. My stomach dropped and my skin began to crawl as we entered one of the most prominent neighborhoods in the city. The car didn’t slow down as we approached the guard shack, the large electronic gates opened allowing our car to pass through and closed immediately behind us.

  I turned around and watched out of the back window as we drove away from the last possible barrier between my potential escape and what these guys had in store for me. I did not, for one minute, believe that Roman sent these men for me.

  We didn’t go too far before we made another turn through another set of iron gates. Only these were at least ten feet tall and had such a heavy decorative detail work you couldn’t see anything through them.

  The drive after we passed through the gates was short and soon we were pulling around to the back of a very large modern white monstrosity of a house with large black windows. We parked and I was encouraged to exit the car by my door being yanked opened and me being dragged out by my arm without one word uttered to me. The way the big oaf was manhandling me; I was going to have bruises on both of my arms. I just knew it.

  “You could just have asked me to come with you!” I said and attempted to snatch my arm back without success.

  I was once more dragged, this time into the house through a side door, marched through several rooms until we reached a large library with rows and rows of old looking leather bound books of all shapes and sizes. Looking around, the inside of the house didn’t match the outside at all. The inside was like an old European Castle, nothing like the ugly white eyesore that it looked like from outside. Right away I noticed the pungent smell of stale cigars and dirty rugs. That almost mildew smell - but not quite mildew; it’s off, but not entirely unpleasant.

  There was so much dust in the air, I could literally see the air shimmering around us in the streams of light from the heavy thick glassed windows.

  “Wait,” thug number three barked, and pushed my arm towards me and shoved my beautiful red bag into my arms. The big oaf turned and marched out of the room. Thugs one and two stood at the doorway; one on each side, with their arms crossed. They looked like sentinels.

  I looked at them again. What was going on?

  Wouldn’t be long before I found out who I was supposed to meet.

  A very large, as in tall, wide, barrel chested bald man with tattoos on his head and hands entered the room. The only skin visible other than his face. From what I could tell his face was tattoo free. He wore a very nice, tailored grey suit and vest, with a crisp white heavily pressed shirt and dark red tie.

  “Welcome Miss Mathews, thank you for joining me. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Aleks Stognafsky, the Pakhan .” His accent was so thick I really had to pay attention to what he was saying. While he was talking he’d spread his arms wide in a welcoming gesture and smiled.

  It scared the crap out of me.

  “Do you know Roman Stognafsky?” I asked without moving.

  “Why don’t you have a seat and make yourself comfortable?” He gestured to a pair of heavily patterned love seats facing each other with a large coffee table in-between.

  “Roman is exactly why you’re here.” He seemed like he was friendly enough. I wasn’t stupid enough to think he was a good guy, but I didn’t feel like I was in eminent danger as long as I played along. I walked over to the love seat that faced the door and sat.

  Aleks waited for me to be seated before he sat down facing me on the opposite love seat. I felt him take stock of me and I knew he wasn’t missing one hair, wrinkle or freckle. I was really happy with what I’d chosen to wear that morning. I had on a black long sleeve double breasted jacket with four large gold buttons, and matching shorts with crease and cuff. The cuff hit mid-thigh and just below where the light weight jacket fell. Shiny red stiletto pumps that faded into black at the heel, and my red patent leather bag. With my trademark red lips and pearl studs, I felt confident it was a good look.

  I crossed my legs, folded my hands in my lap and said, “Why am I here?”

  Aleks leaned towards me and said, “Can I offer you anything to drink?”

  “I want to know why I’m here.” Outwardly I was trying to appear calm. Inwardly I was seriously on the verge of panic.

  After watching me for a moment, “I like you for him.” It was almost a whisper, meant just for the two of us; I’m sure the thugs at the door couldn’t hear it.

  “Wha…” I started before the whole house erupted in shouting, slamming and the sounds of things breaking . I shot to my feet an d a very pissed off Roman busted into the room where we were both now standing.

  “Roman!” I shouted and hurried to make my way around the coffee table to get as close to him as possible.

  Oh, Lord Almighty! I was so happy he was there!

  As soon as I reached his side, I grabbed his arm and the back of his shirt. I was hanging on for dear life. He wasn’t leaving here without me in tow.

  “Dyadya what do you think you’re doing?” Roman shouted at Aleks, pulling my hands free and tucking me under his shoulder.

  Oh yeah, I totally agreed to this move; I felt way safer.

  I looked up at Roman and realized he was speaking in Russian. One: I couldn’t understand what he was saying and two: I didn’t know he could speak Russian.

  “You never return my calls and I needed to see you,” Aleks said back speaking Russian too.

  I squinted at them both.

  “You do not take Sydney. EVER!” I recognized my name and the fact that Roman was shouting meant he was very unhappy.

  Good, I was unhappy too.

  “Plemyannik, the family misses you. The women complain nonstop of broken hearts over you. Please relieve my suffering and spend some time with your aunt and cousins.” This was from Aleks, but I couldn’t make out any of the words.

  “If I agree to spend time with them now, you’ll think you’ve won and this will turn into another tactic you think you can use to get my attention. I won’t let you use Sydney. I won’t allow you to drag her into your schemes.” I know I heard my name that time. Plus, while he was speaking he gestured to me. I didn’t like that they were having a discussion about me and I didn’t know what they were saying.

  “Is she the one Romanov?” I totally heard that; Roman’s Russian name. I looked up at his clenched jaw and decided I’d save my comments until later.

  “Yes, she’s the one. Don’t do this again, you won’t be happy with what I’ll do! ” I understood that
first part and it gave me butterflies.

  Roman looked down at me kissed the top of my forehead and said, “Let’s get you out of here.”

  “Romanov, you need to tell her about your family,” Aleks said before we left the room. and then shouted, “Tell her or I will.”

  Whatever Aleks shouted had Roman walking quicker to the door and moving us out to his car.

  When we made it out of the house I noticed Lucas was standing next to his car having a badass stare off with thugs number three and two. Even though he was wearing dark as night shades, I could feel his eyes taking inventory of my person.

  I pointed to thug number three and said, “You’re lucky my Louis wasn’t damaged you big oaf!” I’d gotten away with calling him that before so I used the term again, it seemed fitting.