by K. J. Dahlen
Sazon turned to her and pulled her into his arms. But Ana didn’t want that. She struggled to get free and then the dog growled at Sazon.
Before she could say anything, the man they called Bear was pulling her away from Sazon.
Sazon went a little crazy and threw a punch at the man and all hell broke loose.
Ana was pushed to the side and when she went down, all she could see and hear was men fighting.
Dutcher came to her side and refused to let her move.
Then Ana fought to get to her feet and she put two fingers in her mouth and let lose a shrill whistle. At once, the fighting stopped and every one turned to look at her. “Stop this right now. I don’t need a bunch of men mucking up my mission. You all just need to leave me be and go home!”
She grabbed hold of her bag and glared at Sazon. “I want my blade right now. I will do this on my own.”
Sazon crossed his arms over his chest and gave her glare for glare. “No you won’t do this on your own. I will take care of this. You’re mine now and I will protect you.”
“You are crazy. You do not even know me! I belong to no one but me,” Ana announced then went to the door and walked out.
CHAPTER FIVE
For a full minute, no one moved then Sazon charged after her. Yuri and the others glared at one another and then began putting the office back to rights. Even when they were finished, no one said a word.
A long time passed before Sazon came back but when he did, he was alone.
“Where is she?” Yuri demanded.
“I don’t know,” Sazon admitted in a low tone. “She got away from me. She just got into her car and left. I don’t even know where she’s going.”
“She’s going to Michael’s place,” Roman, his Bravta brother pointed out. “That’s been her objective all along.”
“Dammit, that’s why she looked at the envelope in his locker. She needed an address.” Sazon swore out loud.
“Why would she go there?” Dewey asked. “He’s not home at the moment. Our men found him in Houston last night. They’re keeping an eye on him while he’s there.”
“Michael took something from her family after he killed her grandfather and she wants to get it back,” Yuri gave a quick explanation.
“Is it something valuable?” Bear asked.
“It’s priceless and part of the reason she came here,” Yuri answered.
The huge biker, Bear whistled softly. “Well then, we’d better go to Michael’s too, don’t you think?”
Sazon went to his desk and grabbed a file from the bottom drawer. Opening it, he took note of the address Michael had on file. He looked up at Yuri and rattled off an address.
Yuri got on the phone and called in his security men to meet them at the address he gave them.
Then they all left the office.
Pappy and his men headed over to their bikes and started their engines.
Yuri, Sazon, Roman and Kosta went over to Yuri’s town car. Kosta got behind the wheel while the others got in the backseat. Moments later, the vehicles left the parking lot and made their way across town to Michael’s address.
When they got there, they found the security team already in place. Yuri spotted three of his men in positions in obscure areas, yet looking over the entire street without being seen themselves.
Sazon looked around for Ana’s car but didn’t see it yet.
Roman came to stand beside him and offered his comment, “She doesn’t know this city as well as we do. She might not be here yet.”
Sazon nodded. “But if she sees all of us here, she may not stop at all.” Running his fingers through his hair, he looked at his brother and said, “I can’t lose her.”
Roman shrugged. “Then don’t. When you find her again and I know you will, hang on to her.”
Sazon thought for a long moment. “Do you know that one moment when you’ve found something you can’t bear to lose? Something like the other half of your soul? Well, that’s what I found with her. I may not know her all that well but I know she’s the one I’ve been waiting for all my life. When I held her in my arms I found heaven.”
Roman smiled wistfully. “Then my friend you are indeed a fortunate man. I hope one day to find my woman, if she’s out there at all. Not all of us are that lucky, you know.”
Sazon slapped his brother on the shoulder. “She is out there looking for you the same as you are looking for her. I hope that day comes soon for you. But my woman is here right now and I can’t find her. How can I protect her if I can’t find her?”
Roman turned his head and smiled as he nodded toward the car coming their way. “Is that her?”
Sazon snapped his head around and saw the vehicle. Then he stepped out into the street and marched toward the land rover. When he was at the door, he wrenched it open and pulled her from the car. “Don’t you ever run away from me again,” he yelled at her. “How the hell am I supposed to protect you if you aren’t with me?” Then he brought his mouth down on hers and refused to let her go.
Ana moaned and wrapped her arms around his neck. She’d known almost from the moment she walked out the door this morning, she’d made a mistake, but she didn’t know how to tell him. When she’d seen him standing there on the street she was almost glad he was there.
When they broke away, they were both breathing heavily. Sazon lowered his forehead to hers and asked, “Are you ok?”
Ana nodded then looked around. “Is this where he lives?”
Roman had pulled her car over to the side of the road and shut off the engine. Ana snapped her fingers and when Dutcher joined them the four of them made their way inside the apartment building.
They went up to the third floor and found everyone standing around door number six. The door was open and while some of the men were standing in the hall Ana, Sazon and Roman joined the ones inside the apartment. Yuri, Kosta, Pappy, Dewey and Bear were looking around the messy apartment.
Yuri looked up at Sazon and seemed happy to see Ana with him. Glancing over at her he asked, “What exactly should we be looking for? Are the daggers in a box like yours or what?”
She nodded and glanced around the room in dismay. Clothes, empty food boxes and empty beer bottles littered surface. “God, what a slob.” She exclaimed. Making her way into the other room she noted Michael didn’t make his bed. Dirty, grimy sheets and blankets half on the floor along with more clothes on the floor told her so much more about the man than anything else. The whole room smelled like dirty, sweaty socks and it wasn’t a pleasant smell.
Looking around, she noticed an old wardrobe along the opposite wall. She walked over to the heavy wooden closet and opened the heavy doors. Inside the old wardrobe, she found a full size gun safe. Checking the door she found it tightly closed and locked. “Damn.” She swore. Yuri and Sazon joined her and stared at the safe.
“You wouldn’t happen to know a locksmith would you?” she asked Yuri.
“Let me look once,” Yuri suggested as he bent down to observe the safe.
She stepped back and watched, as he looked things over.
When he was done, he glanced up at her. “I don’t think we’ll need a locksmith.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t think Michael ever got into the safe to begin with. There are marks on the door that suggest someone’s been trying to get inside without any luck.”
“Maybe, maybe not but I’d rather be sure.” Ana glanced around the messy apartment in despair. “Then where are the daggers and his sword? This place is a pigsty, where would he hide something in here?”
Yuri moved off to make the call to a locksmith.
“Most likely where he knew no one would ever look.” Sazon scowled. “How anyone can live like this is beyond me.”
Ana went back to the wardrobe and stared at the safe then she lifted her eyes to the wardrobe itself. Taking a step back, she looked at the construction of the unit closely. That’s when she noticed the top of the wardrobe. She
dragged a chair over from the corner of the room and stood on it peeking over the top of the wardrobe. Then she smiled.
Hidden behind the molding at the top was a hidden shelf. There on the shelf was the box containing the daggers along with a box she recognized. It was one of her grandfather’s boxes and as she lifted the cover, she revealed a sword inside the box. She recognized the blade as the one her grandfather had forged for Michael.
She looked around the room and caught Sazon’s eyes. “I found them.”
Sazon and Yuri rushed over to her and she passed down the sword box first. Yuri took the weapon from her and stepped back as she grabbed the box with the daggers and stepped off the chair. She placed her hand on the top of the box reverently.
Pappy and the others joined them in the bedroom and stared at the box in her hands.
“That’s what we came all this way for?” Bear growled. “An old box?” He didn’t look impressed at all.
Ana snapped her head up at his comment. Her eyes narrowed as she glared at the man. “No, we came here for what’s in this old box. Would you like to see the war daggers of old Russia?”
Bear just stared at her for a moment then looked away. A pink color tinged his cheeks.
“Hells bells girl, open the damn box.” Calico, another Mc Member shrugged. “I’d like to see them.”
Everyone gathered around as Ana walked over to the bed and laid the box down on the mattress. Then she opened the box and showed them what was inside.
A beautiful set of jeweled daggers. When the light hit the jewels, they sparkled and the gleam of the blades almost blinded them. The blades were shaped like a lightning bolt with a wicked curve on the end. The steel still gleamed after a hundred years and the jewels were still bright in the light of the late morning. The edge of the blades looked wicked sharp.
“Holy hell,” Calico whispered.
Yuri leaned in closer but didn’t touch the blades. Lifting the lid of the box in his hand, he compared the two blades. While the sword in his hand was beautiful on its own, he could see a difference between the two. “Why are those blades so different than this blade?”
“These blades were specially crafted by mixing titanium with the steel he used. He folded the mixture over a hundred times to make sure the blades would be strong and would endure a lifetime. My great grandfather used the method from an old Chinese blacksmith he’d read about. He only used this method one time and this was it.” She ran her fingers along the edge of one of the blades carefully. “These blades are over a hundred years old and have never been sharpened but they will cut a piece of paper to shreds.”
“Are those jewels real?” Bear asked. “If they are, those truly are the daggers of a king.”
Ana nodded. “They were given to my great grandfather from the Tzarina herself. She wanted Nikolas to have something extraordinarily beautiful and unique.”
“Well, if he’d ever gotten them he would have,” Yuri commented.
“So pretty lady,” Pappy asked her. “What are you going to do with them now?”
Sazon snapped his head around to glare at the older man.
Pappy held up his hands in a surrender position and wiggled his wedding band at the other man. “No offence man, I just asked a question.”
“My grandfather wanted me to find Nikolas’s heir and give him the daggers. They really belong to his family. We’ve just been holding them in sort of a trust for a very long time.”
“How did this Michael guy even know you had them?” Calico asked.
Ana shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I think I do,” Yuri quipped. “There have been rumors about these blades floating around for years. The rumors were around for a while and everyone talked about them. Then there is much speculation about whether they ever existed in the first place, then they’re all but forgotten for a long time. It’s a vicious cycle with something like this. The last time the rumors were rampant was about a year ago when everyone was speculating about who was brave enough to forge them. There was only one man during the time that they felt could do the job. I believe I heard the name of a man being bantered around at the time and he would be the one to forge the blades worthy of the Tzar.”
“What name did this man go by?” Dewey frowned.
“Vladimir Coucovic was the only man who could have done this fine a job,” Yuri admitted. “But no one seemed to know where he lived. When the KGB began looking for him, they couldn’t find him.”
Ana nodded. “Vlad did indeed forge these blades and the reason they couldn’t find him was because he came to this country. He fled Russia at the urging of his Tzarina. He came here and changed his name to protect not only himself but his future family as well.”
“But why now, man? How did this guy know where they would be at this time?” Pappy wondered out loud.
“We’ll have to ask him when he gets here.” Roman shrugged. “For now, I think we should get the daggers and the sword in a more secure location.” He glanced around the room and shook his head. “This is disgusting. How can a grown man live like this? Has he no pride?”
“Da, we should get them back to the hotel,” Yuri agreed. Checking his watch he announced, “We still have a couple of hours before anyone else gets here.”
Another man entered the room and Yuri glanced his way then motioned for him to come over to where he was standing. The other man joined them and Yuri introduced him to the others. “This is my locksmith, Paulo.” Glancing over at Ana he asked, “Do you still want the safe open?”
Ana nodded. “I have a feeling there is more this Michael is hiding. Why he didn’t put these in there is anyone’s guess.”
Bear scoffed. “He knew that was the first place we or anyone intent on robbing him would look, if we came looking.” He motioned at the chair. “Probably never thought you’d look on top the wardrobe.”
Yuri moved to the side and bid his locksmith get started on the safe.
When Paulo went to work everyone else moved back into the living room area. While they were there, another man came to the door.
This man was huge and he had muscles rippling all over his body. He was dressed in a tight black t shirt and a pair of sweatpants and both were drenched in sweat as if he’d been out running. His bald head was covered in a knitted beanie. His dark skin gleamed in the daylight streaming through Michael’s dirty windows. His dark eyes took in the group and then they spotted the small box in Ana’s hands and the sword Yuri still held. Then he glanced over at Sazon and nodded. “What’s going on here, boss?” he asked Sazon.
Sazon stared at the other man. “I didn’t know you knew Michael Tabrone, Grey.”
The man Grey Killian was a fighter in Sazon’s gym. He nodded. “Yeah me and Michael go back a number of years. We’ve been talking off and on for a couple of years now and he knew I was training to be a fighter for MMA. Then he contacted me a couple of months ago and asked where he could train to fight and I told him the best place was your gym.”
Sazon cocked his head to one side. “Has he always wanted to be a MMA fighter?”
Grey chuckled. “No Michael has always been one for taking the easy way out, doing as little as possible for the most amount of money he could get. When I told him about your gym I didn’t think he’d actually come here. The first day he was here, he came to the gym and for the first time in his life since I’ve known him, he was interested in something he would have to work for.” Grey looked around the room at the different men standing there. “I probably shouldn’t ask this but is something going on here? Something Michael needs to know about?”
Ana sneered. “This is something Michael already knows about. I’m just taking something back he stole from my family.”
“Is he is some kind of trouble?” Grey asked. “The reason I ask is because when he first got here he said something about going underground for a while. He never would say why only just that he needed to disappear for a while and this seemed to be one way he could do that. He said
no one would think to look for him here.” Grey shrugged. “I thought he was running from somebody’s husband or something like that.”
“Is this typical of how the man lives?” Roman asked as he motioned to the mess the room was in.
Grey glanced around and nodded. “Yeah, I believe it is. The guy is a real slob.”
“I would appreciate if you didn’t tell him we were here,” Yuri advised the other man.
Grey stared at the man for a moment then asked, “Now why would I do that? I was never here and saw nothing if you get my meaning. I just don’t want to be involved in this, whatever this is.”
Yuri nodded at the other man. He and the others watched as Grey turned and walked away from the apartment.
Yuri looked over at Kosta and gave his orders, “I want one man here at all times. We should get word when he leaves Texas but I don’t want anyone else coming in here and taking anything out. When Michael gets back, I want everything exactly the way it was when he left, except for the sword and the daggers of course. He may yet have more secrets we need to know somewhere under this mess.”
Paulo stepped into the doorway and motioned at Yuri.
Yuri joined him and together, they disappeared for a few minutes.
When Yuri reappeared, he wore a frown of rage on his face. Sazon and Roman knew immediately that whatever he found wasn’t pleasant, they grew alert to the danger of his mood.
“What did you find?” Roman dared to ask.
“We can discuss it when we get back to the hotel. Paulo will bag everything up and bring it there,” Yuri replied tersely. Catching Kosta’s eye, he nodded at the locksmith. “Stay with him and accompany him back to the hotel.”
Kosta acknowledged the order while Yuri urged the others to leave Michael’s apartment. Roman rode with him back to the hotel while Sazon and Ana drove her vehicle there. Pappy and his boys rode their bikes following both other vehicles.
Roman looked over at his brother and had to ask, “So what was in the safe that got you all riled up?”