Barron

by KJ Dahlen

“Why wouldn’t anyone tell me this?” she whispered brokenly.

  Pavel shrugged. “I didn’t know you. I never knew your mother personally, but three years ago, I got a letter from your dad. He begged me if his secret ever came to life would I be willing to stand up for you?” Shaking his head he told her, “I had no clue what he was talking about. I was thrown in prison for what was essentially bullshit. Someone had seen me with Irena and they reported it to Vitya. The man was ashamed of reporting it but had no other choice. It was that or Vitya would kill his family. As I never knew where Gennedi was going, I couldn’t tell him anything. I don’t think I would have told him even if I did know. Everyone behind those walls knew what her fate would be. Vitya made no secret of what he was doing.” He shrugged. “I suppose he didn’t feel he had too as he never expected any of us to escape from his control. I spent ten years behind his walls and he made me watch when he put a bullet in my cousin’s head. He made us all watch his cruelty, as he wanted us to know what our own fate would be. Nikita never told him what he wanted to know and neither did I. I fully expected to die behind those cement walls, instead, Barron’s father showed me the way to escape. I managed to escape and hide until we all came over here.”

  Red clenched his jaw when he heard what his father had done for Pavel. “If he showed you the way out, why didn’t he take it himself?” he growled.

  Pavel looked over at his president. “You know I asked him about that, hell I even asked him to come with me but he just shook his head. He said he had family to protect, if he escaped his prison cell he knew Vitya or Boris would kill everyone he loved. Your father wouldn’t let that happen. He stayed behind because he wanted someone to live to tell the truth about what was happening there. He wanted someone to tell the right person, so they might have a chance to stop it.”

  “Did you know what Vitya and his father was doing?” Yuri asked.

  Pavel and Red both nodded.

  “Everyone knew he was trafficking humans. He never tried to hide it,” Pavel told him.

  “Why didn’t you come to us then?” Yuri growled.

  “Because he was paying off certain officials in the government as well as the Bratva,” Red answered this. “We never knew who we could trust. We are still wary of giving our full trust to anyone. I prayed I could trust the man Kosta was working for. I haven’t seen Kosta in so long, I didn’t know if he still had the same values he did as a child.”

  “And now?” Yuri asked. “Do you still doubt him or us?”

  Red stared into Yuri’s eyes. “No, I do not. But you need to know that I also trust Grace.”

  Yuri stared at him for a moment longer, then turned to look at Grace. “What else did you find in the second journal?”

  She shook her head but didn’t say anything.

  Yuri asked again, “Did you find anything else?” When she didn’t answer, he told her harshly, “I want to read the second journal, immediately.”

  “Can I read it first?” Grace growled, her eyes flashing her rage at his demands.

  Yuri shook his head. “Net, I need to know what I’m dealing with here. I have already told you we need all the information there is on this. We found some information in the first journal but we need to know everything we can before we can stop him dead in his tracks. There could be information in the journals about the trafficking ring.”

  Grace glared at him for a moment then got to her feet and walked down the hall. She returned with the book in her hand and when she got to the table, she threw the book at his head.

  Yuri caught it in midair, as if he’d expected the angry throw.

  Grace glared at him. “I want it back intact. That and their letters to me is all I’ll ever have of my mother and the man who raised me. I read some of it but not all of it. But you feel free to take that away from me. Maybe when you’re done ripping my life apart, you can just tell me what I need to know about my own fucking family.”

  She then turned on her heels and walked back to the bedroom slamming the door behind her.

  Yuri shook his head with a sigh. “Ona russkaya. She is Russian, this I can see for myself.”

  Red almost cracked a smile.

  Pavel snickered. “Yes, I see that she has that quality, despite being raised here.”

  Red shrugged. “Yey nuzhen etot ogon'...She needs that fire.” He looked at both men. “To survive this.” Yuri placed the journal carefully on the table between them. It was then he saw it was stuffed with letters. He pulled one or two out from between the pages and saw the writing on the envelopes. They were written in a feminine handwriting. Turning them over, he saw the letters were still sealed. He laid it carefully back in the book then looked up at Red. “I need to read these pages. YA s chest'yu. I am honor bound to do so. There is more going on here than we know about and I’m hoping to find anything that will give us more information we can follow up on.” Shrugging he said, “I’m sorry she can’t see that. “Red laid his hands flat on the table and glared at Yuri. “Davay, chuvak...She just found out her whole life has been nothing but a fucking lie. She saw the man in question shoot and kill who she thought was her father. Then she was wounded getting away from two men hell bent on killing her to keep a secret of what happened. She took a bullet in the shoulder getting away from the men chasing after her.”

  Yuri kept his expression cold as he stared at him.

  “Without knowing what was going on, she has cooperated with us one hundred percent. She gave us information she didn’t have to. She showed us what happened the night her father died, then she finds out her father isn’t even related to her and her mother is out there somewhere. Her uncle is a bastard and a murderer.” Red took a deep breath as his green eyes bore a hole into Yuri. “Chert pober! Now you’re taking everything away from her before she has a chance to find out who she really is for herself.”

  Yuri stood his ground. “Some of us will never have that opportunity, no matter what.”

  Red also would not back down on this. “Maybe that’s reason enough for you but she was raised in a different time and place. She was raised by someone who watched over her and kept her safe. You had your brothers to watch your back. Right now, she doesn’t have anyone except us.”

  Red then turned his back on Yuri and walked down the hall, entering into the bedroom Grace just entered.

  Yuri looked over at Pavel but the other man didn’t say anything to him. Instead, he got up and walked into the kitchen, leaving Yuri alone at the table.

  Yuri felt hollow as he sat there staring at the journal in front of him wishing things could have gone differently but knowing he would have done the same thing even if he could back down now. Then he hardened his heart. He was the leader of many men whom he had to answer for. Now, that included Red's men as well. YA s chest'yu. It was the only way....

  Chapter Eleven

  Yuri was still sitting at the table when Pavel came back. He looked up at the other man and asked, “You said you got a letter from your cousin three years ago, I thought he died a long time ago? How is that possible?”

  “He was murdered a long time ago but before he died he wrote his mother a letter and had it smuggled out of the prison and delivered to his mother. She was a woman who was afraid of her own shadow and didn’t do anything with it for many years. It was stuck into the pages of her bible and the letter showed wear as if she had held it over and over. Finally, she mailed it to me.” He shrugged. “I heard later it was the last thing she ever did. She was hit by a car and died a week later. As I had never met Irena, I never knew what happened to her or her child.” He shook his head. “I never expected anything to come of it, so I really never said anything about it to anyone.”

  “Did Gene ever contact you at all?”

  “Net. I had no idea he was so close.” Shaking his head he also said, “I had no idea that woman was my cousin’s child.”

  Just then, all hell broke out as Kosta and another of his security team rushed into the room and rushed toward Yuri, tak
ing him down to the ground. They hovered over him in a protective position.

  There were gunshots from outside and Yuri could hear his men shooting back.

  Footsteps came running down the hallway as the men gathered in the main room. Each of them were armed and they each took a stand at the windows. They were trying to find out what was going on out there.

  Anton rushed out of the Security room and yelled for them all to duck and cover as they had incoming.

  A moment later, an explosion blew the windows out. Glass scattered everywhere.

  Grace screamed and the men swore, some in English but most swore in their native language. More gun shots were heard and then silence. They got up slowly as they heard vehicles racing away from the scene.

  Everyone stood around for a moment then some of them rushed to the front door.

  Yuri looked over at Kosta and his other men. “What the fuck was all that?”

  “We found another breach in their security footage.” Anton glanced over at Red. “After the last screwup, when they backed out of view, I added more cameras to the outer edges of the compound so today when they went off, we could pinpoint where they were. When we looked closer, we saw it was Vitya and his men and we could see he was going to launch something at the clubhouse. I took a quick scan of the area nearby and recorded several vehicles near where they were standing. Just as they took aim, I sounded the alarm, the sound of that startled them enough to throw them off. While there is some damage outside it isn’t as bad as he hoped it would be.”

  Yuri looked like a thundercloud looking for a place to unleash its fury. “Bylad! Get out there and find him. I want to know where he is staying. I want his head mounted on my wall. YA khochu yego golovu. Do it, do it now!”

  “Sir,” Anton spoke up. When Yuri turned to glare at him, he handed the man a piece of paper. “This is where he’s staying.”

  “And you know this how?” Yuri growled.

  “I got the license plates from the car and ran them through the DMV. This is what turned up.”

  Yuri snatched the paper from his hand and glared at it. “Chert... Damn.” Then he passed it to Kosta. “Recon this address and find out if Konovic is indeed there. Find out who else might be hanging around and report back to me.” He looked over at Red. “Are you and vash-your people...are all right?’

  “We’ll be a whole lot better I think when Vitya Konovic is in custody.” Red growled.

  “Or better yet, dead,” Grace grumbled.

  “That isn’t up to you, is it?” Yuri said to her quietly. “That will be up to the High Council.”

  Grace just glared at him without saying a word then turned around and left the main room.

  Barron wanted to go after her but he knew he had things to do. He had to secure the compound and check his men. But what he really wanted to do was hold Grace. Instead, he nodded at Pavel, who took off after her to make sure she was guarded.

  Barron turned to Yuri and just stared at him, a moment passed, as he took a deep breath He then turned to go outside to see what the damage actually was. As soon as he stepped out the door, he could see the chaos. There were bits and pieces of their storage shed everywhere. The shed was closest to the clubhouse and had taken the brunt of the explosion. A few of the bikes were left mangled and blown apart by the blast. “Bylad... that sonofabitch.”

  His men were dazed but at least no one was bleeding that he could see.

  Anton came up behind him and shook his head as he looked around at the mess the bomb had left.

  Barron turned to his brother. “Did you see who he was working with?”

  “Da, he was with several members of the street gang here in town.”

  Barron turned around and stared at Anton. “The Vory V Zakone?”

  “Da.” The other man’s grim face confirmed it.

  The Vory V Zakone was another Russian group that had settled here in Red Wing. This particular group thought they owned the east side of the town and Barron and his men tried to stay as far away from them as possible. Net Chesti. No honor among therm. They were not good people. As long as they stayed on the other side of the city, they tried to live with them but this attack brought them over the line. This wouldn’t go without reprisals. The street gang was small enough to handle, but this was going to bring blood to the streets and that had been something Barron had been trying to avoid.

  He watched as his second in command walked over to him. Leonid shook his head and Barron could see the anger in his steps and in his body language. “How bad is it? Was anyone hurt?”

  “Net, chert,” Leonid swore. “We are all right. They got the shed and a few bikes is all but the Vory V Zakone have just declared war on us.”

  “Da, Anton just told me.” Barron looked around one more time. “Start the cleanup and call the rest of the brothers in. It is time to clean up this town.”

  He turned to walk back inside the clubhouse and when he did, he found Yuri and Kosta standing there.

  Yuri apparently, had been listening to everything they said. “There is a faction of the Vory here?”

  Barron nodded.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” he growled.

  “It wasn’t a problem before.” Barron raised a brow at him. “They have a compound not unlike this one on the east side of town. Now they have crossed the line as far as I am concerned. With this action they have declared war and it’s time we took them out.”

  Yuri looked around the compound. “You don’t have enough men for that.”

  “We are calling in more.”

  Yuri swung his gaze over to stare at Kosta for a moment then turned back to Barron. “You have more men?”

  Barron nodded.

  “How do you know they will all come to help?” Kosta asked.

  “Like the rest of us, they and their families have been victims of the Konovic reign of terror back home. The Konovic Voyna as we call it. They have all had to flee their homes in the middle of the night or end up in his prisons or worse yet dead. All they wanted to do was earn a good living, and take pride in their work. Good and honest work. Konovic wouldn’t let them. He wanted the people under his control to be his servants, to work their fingers to the bone and collect nothing. He took all they had until they barely had enough to feed their families. Those who couldn’t work were shot; those who wouldn’t work for him were thrown into his prisons until they broke. So in the dead of night, they gathered their belongings and they ran. They heard about us living here and they came to us begging for our protection. We set them up as citizens here. They work the land and are able to provide for their families but they are still proud men and women of Russia.”

  “If you have so many willing to fight why did you call us in?” Kosta wanted to know.

  “These men are farmers and such, not soldiers. Some have become brothers in the club but most just want to live without the worry of having an axe or gun at the back of their heads. I called you in because I needed someone in power to know the truth about this man. This piece of gadost...filth, can look you in the eye and lie right to your face. I needed someone to listen and hear the truth about what this man was doing to the people he was supposed to protect and nurture. His people, your people had suffered enough. We needed someone to listen and hear what we are saying before it was too late.”

  “Hold off calling anyone in,” Yuri ordered. Looking over at Kosta he said, “We need to get eyes on Konovic and his men until I can get more men here to deal with him. We will deal with this faction of the Vory at the same time.” He turned to Barron. “The Bratva is listening now. He has issued Ukaz. Sergi is taking action in our homelands.” He turned and walked back into the clubhouse.

  Barron, Anton, and Leonid looked at Kosta for an explanation.

  Kosta shrugged. “He’s probably calling New York and his own brothers in New Orleans. Both will send men enough to deal with this situation.”

  “Is he always so abrupt? So hateful?” Barron asked.

&nb
sp; Kosta glanced into the clubhouse then turned to his friend. “Yuri can be ochen' rezkiy, zhestkiy some see it as being hateful and hard. But if the situation calls for it, he will act accordingly. He gets things done, once he makes up his mind. He likes to test people’s reactions to get to the truth. I know you think he was hard on your girlfriend but he had a reason for that. He was after the truth, now he knows what that truth is and will act accordingly. He has no patience or time for niceties. He has been Bratva since he was a teen. Just be ready because things are going to get very hot, very quickly and Konovic won’t realize what hit him.”

  By midafternoon, the compound was cleaned up and they had their first batch of visitors arrive. Barron had sent some of his men on a roving patrol around the perimeter of the compound, just beyond the security cameras. He didn’t want any more surprise attacks.

  Yuri had sent four of his own team along with two of Barron’s men to watch the Vory V Zakone’s compound and make sure they had eyes on Konovic the whole time. He wasn’t taking the chance that Konovic would escape their net.

  When the first batch of soldiers came in, Yuri shook his head and smiled as two of his brothers joined them. As Barshan and Sazon walked into the clubhouse he stood and smiled holding out his hand. “What are you doing here?”

  Barshan laughed. “Why should you have all the fun?”

  Sazon grinned. “Indeed, we haven’t had a good fight for a long time. Now we can get down and dirty again.” He shrugged and told the group. “I’ve been asking questions and I do not like what I’ve been hearing about this man Konovic.”

  Sazon then turned and saw Barron and his men lining up behind them. “You must be Barron Valerian.” He held out his hand to the other man. “Eto chest' vstretit'sya s vami I have heard much about you and it’s all good.”

  Barron shook his hand and asked, “What have you heard about me?”

  “Some of the people you and your men have helped have made their way to our area in New Orleans. They speak very highly of all of you.”