by K. J. Dahlen
Sawyer reached out and ran her hand up and down her mother’s arms. “Max has bothered her for years. Is it possible that at some time she touched the stand and it meant nothing?”
Deke leaned against the wall as he’d come in shortly after Leon started his conversation with them. He looked very troubled. His father, Sam stood next to him, his expression reflecting the same. Both men remained silent.
Leon shook his head. “The stand was located in his safe. Max would have kept the Hand in there as well. He shouldn’t have shown it to anyone. It is a symbol of strength and is most certainly supposed to be a secret. How do you explain that? The only way your mother’s prints would have been on the stand was if she actually saw the Hand. Max never would have allowed that, or at least he shouldn’t have.” Leon frowned. “But knowing Max had an obsession with this woman, I believe he did show her the Hand and I believe he explained its importance to her as well.” His frown deepened. “No one was supposed to know about the Hand, outside of the Council and the Family heads.”
Jolene looked as if she was about to burst into tears. She glanced over at Calico while wringing her hands. “I don’t remember anything like that. I had an accident that took my memories”
“We know,” Leon agreed. “But that brings up a problem we just discovered.”
“And what would that be?” Calico asked, wrapping his arms around Jolene as he pulled her into a comforting embrace.
“We also found evidence that Max hired someone known to get information out of unwilling people. A specialist. He’s a dangerous man and no one knows what he looks like.”
~* * * *~
“Do you think he’s coming after my mother?” Sawyer asked.
Leon shook his head. “That would be counterproductive. The family and Council checked out her medical records. We know she can’t remember her own name. This specialist would know that as well.”
“Then who is he coming after?” Calico asked.
Leon paused then looked back over at Sawyer. “We think he might be after you.”
Sawyer gasped. Her mind flashed back to the warehouse when John and Jack kidnapped her. She remembered seeing a flash of icy blue eyes in the shadows. For a moment, she could almost hear him breathing. But that memory was a year old. He wouldn’t have been after her that long ago, would he? Then the flash of memory was gone and she was back facing Leon. She shivered in fear as she felt her body go cold. “Why would he be after me? I don’t know anything about this relic.”
Leon shrugged. “He may think you know something without realizing it. If Max was protecting Jolene, this man would go after you.”
“When did the payments originate?” Sawyer asked.
“More than a year ago,” Leon replied.
Sawyer sucked her breath in. She got to her feet and went over to the window to gaze outside. Thinking back to the warehouse…what she thought she’d seen could have been real. There was a man standing in the shadows. There had been a bigger threat than just John and Jack. But if he’d been there why had he allowed them to beat her? Had the two of them been working with this man? Were they supposed to soften her up before the real questioning began?
Jordan came over to his sister and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “He won’t get you,” he whispered in her ear. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
“You can’t stop him,” Sawyer stated in a shaky voice.
“So, who is this guy?” Calico asked,
“He’s called The Priest. According to the information we have on this man, he’s the best in his field. Bane tells us his work is worldwide and he’s the best there is. Once he has his sights on his target, he never misses.”
“And just what type of work does this man do?” Calico asked.
“He uncovers secrets,” Leon admitted. “Using various methods he gets the information he’s asked to retrieve.”
“What kind of methods?” Sawyer whispered.
Leon didn’t want to answer that question. He didn’t want to frighten the girl any more than necessary. He shrugged but didn’t say anything.
“My sister asked you a question. The least you could do is be honest with us,” Jordan replied.
Deke let out a sigh and met Leon’s gaze.
Sam merely shook his head as if he too, knew the answers and they weren’t pretty.
~* * * *~
Leon turned and glared at the boy. “Do you really want the truth? Fine, I’ll answer the question. He uses various methods of torture to get his answers. No one knows for sure because his victims often do not live through what he does to them.”
Sawyer paled as she stared at him. “What the hell does he think I can tell him?”
Leon shrugged. “No one really knows except for Max and The Priest. And with Max dead, only this man knows for sure.”
“But wouldn’t the fact Max is dead negate the contract?” Calico asked.
Leon shook his head. “Not necessarily… The Priest may think he can sell the information he was hired to collect.”
“Who would he sell it too?” Calico glared at him.
Leon looked him in the eye and replied with a single word, “Me.”
“The Black Hand?” Calico asked. “He thinks Sawyer knows what her mother did with the Black Hand? That is if she took it in the first place?”
Leon nodded. “I’m not saying she did take it but if she did, she could have used the theft to protect her from Max’s pursuit. That scenario makes the most sense.”
“But my mother isn’t a thief,” Sawyer protested. “She wouldn’t have taken something that didn’t belong to her.”
Leon turned to look at the girl. “Maybe she felt she had no choice. Maybe she felt she was cornered with no way out of a situation she couldn’t control. Max had been told many times by me, Dominic and the Council to leave your mother alone and just do the business at hand. He didn’t listen, he didn’t comply with our demands. Maybe your mother felt she had no choice but to blackmail him into leaving her alone. She had you to protect and she couldn’t do that if she was under Max’s threat.”
Sawyer looked over at her mother.
Jolene had tears running down her cheeks. Calico had her wrapped in his arms but there was a look of loneliness in her eyes. She couldn’t meet Sawyer’s eyes, not because she was guilty of the theft but because she couldn’t remember it.
Sawyer’s gaze swung back over to Leon. “When you put it that way, it makes sense but when would Mom have done that? And what makes you think I would know anything about it?”
“We’re sure that is what The Priest was hired to find out.” Leon gazed into her eyes. “As for when it happened, it could have been any time over the last few years. Max finally stopped pestering her a number of years ago, that is as far as we know.” He paused then added, “We did find a notation in his records that both you and your mother visited him thirteen years ago. You would have been around nine years old. Do you remember the visit?”
Sawyer thought back. “I don’t know. That was a long time ago and you’re right, Max did leave her alone for a time but he always kept track of her. For a while, everything calmed down then it started up again.”
“When was this?” Leon cocked his head to one side.
“I was around nine I think. Yeah, that was around the same time she seemed to calm down again.” Glancing over at her mother, she noted her soft smile. “She became my mom again. She didn’t have to look over her shoulder or duck behind buildings to escape people following her. The three of us were a family again, and for a while we were happy.”
Leon thought about her words for a moment then asked, “Did you ever visit Max’s house?”
Sawyer shrugged. “Not that I know of but some things you forget when you’re a kid.”
“Is there any way you can contact this Priest character and tell him the contract is void?” Calico asked. “Tell him that Max is dead and there is no information to find out.”
Leon shook his head. “That wouldn�
��t work.”
“Why not?” Calico growled.
“Because the Hand is still missing and Sawyer might be the only one who knows where it is.”
Calico and Jordan rushed to their feet and moved over to surround her. “No one is going to get near her without going through me!” Calico growled.
“They’ll have to get through me too,” Jordan spat.
Deke and Sam although silent, didn’t have to speak as they both crossed their arms over their chests and stared daggers at Leon.
Leon held up his hand. “I’m not looking to antagonize anyone or stir up any trouble. I’m just stating the facts. An important part of our history is missing. It does need to be recovered.”
“And how far are you willing to go to get it back?” Calico narrowed his eyes at him.
“Not as far as Max was willing to take it,” he assured them. “But we do need to recover the item.”
“What does this man look like?” Sawyer asked after a brief moment of silence.
Leon shrugged. “No one really knows. He’s never been photographed.” Then he noticed something in her eyes. “Why do you ask?”
“Because when John and Jack held me in that damn warehouse a year ago, I thought I saw someone in the shadows. I remember a pair of icy blue eyes staring at me. I couldn’t see more than that. My eyes were swelling shut but I remember those eyes. They were there one moment and gone the next.”
“Did you see anything else?”
Sawyer shook her head. “No but for a moment, I thought I could hear him breathing. How weird is that?”
“Not so weird at all. If he was close enough to you for you to hear him breathing, you’re lucky to still be alive.” Leon raised a brow at her.
Sawyer glanced over at her brother and shook her head. “No I’m lucky to have Jordan as my brother. Just moments before the man in the shadows could get closer…Jordan and his boys broke in and got me the hell out of there.”
Jordan shook his head. “We didn’t run into anyone else in the warehouse. We knocked out John and Jack and got her out, but that’s all we did.”
Leon stared at Sawyer and Jordan for a long tense moment. “If he was there you two and your friends are very fortunate to still be alive. He doesn’t normally hurt anyone but his intended victim but he will protect his anonymity. If he was there and felt that you saw him, he would have taken you out of the program.”
“Or hidden himself until we were gone,” Jordan countered. “We weren’t after him, we just wanted to get my sister out of there.”
“That’s one scenario.” Leon nodded. “Another one could be he was watching you, taking notes as it were, in order to know who else to come after for what he wanted. If he can’t get to Sawyer directly, he might come after you in order to get her.”
“Then they’re both in danger?” Calico asked.
“I don’t know. The Priest is not above using a close friend or a relative in order to get to his mark.”
“Would it help to lock down the compound?” Deke finally asked. So far, he’d been listening but hadn’t broken in until now.
Leon shook his head. “I doubt it. From what I’m told, The Priest can get in and out of just about anywhere he wants to.”
“But to get her out he’d have to create a diversion,” Sam added.
Sawyer sat there in stunned disbelief. She knew someone was coming for her and there didn’t seem to be any way to stop him. Glancing over at her mother, she could see the distress on her face. The stress of this situation wasn’t helping her recovery at all.
She took a deep breath and went over to her mother. Kneeling beside her, she suggested, “Mom, maybe you should lay down for a while and get some rest.”
Jolene looked down at her daughter. “How can I rest when I put you into all this?”
“Mom, you didn’t do anything wrong,” Sawyer insisted.
“But I did.” She began wringing her hands. “I apparently took something that put you in danger.” She lifted her hands to her head and began rubbing her temples. “I wish I could remember. What happened to me? Was I really in a car accident like Max said or was it something else. Do I even own a car?”
“No Mom, you never owned a car.” Sawyer knew it was time her mother knew the truth. “You were badly beaten by Max’s nephew, Micah.”
“Why would Micah beat me up?” Jolene looked confused.
Sawyer felt tears run down her face. “Because Micah was trying to do to me what Max did to you all those years. He wanted me but I wanted nothing to do with him. I couldn’t stand the thought of being with him. He was a monster. He had his men hold Jordan and I…then his man, Gunner beat the hell out of you. We got you to the hospital but you weren’t in very good shape. Then you know what I told you before about us thinking you were dead. Max must have kept it that way, so we would never find out you were alive.
Calico took Jolene’s hand. “I was on the phone with the doctor for your case a little while ago. The Vincintis’…” He paused and nodded at Leon. “…Arranged it, so I would know what we were dealing with. The doctor told us your heart did stop for two whole minutes. They had taken you off the respirator when suddenly you began breathing on your own. Your heart appeared to stop, then after all that time it began beating again. The lack of oxygen in your brain caused it to seize. You were unconscious for another two weeks before you woke up again. We figured when your children were gone, Max came up with the story you were his wife. When he brought you home, he lied to you and locked you in that room. That was a little over a week ago.”
“Will I ever remember everything?” Jolene asked.
“Nobody knows for sure,” Calico replied. “Your doctor said the brain is still a mystery and admitted they know very little about it. You could remember everything or nothing at all. There is some brain damage but they don’t know for sure how bad it is. That’s something only time will tell.”
Jolene grabbed the cross she always wore and began rubbing the silver. It was something she’d always done when stress got to her.
To Sawyer it was a comforting action. Only she and Jordan understood its significance. They both knew she found comfort in her religion and while she might not go to church on a regular basis, she often went in the middle of the night just for the comfort she got from being there in the House of God. She always wore the silver cross with blue sapphires.
Calico took her mom to go and rest.
Jordan went to get something to eat.
For Sawyer, the tension kept building during the day. People came and went and the anxiety increased. She racked her brains trying to remember things from her childhood but she had no recollection of Max’s mansion or ever being there. Finally, by late afternoon, she couldn’t take the pressure of being inside anymore. Slipping out the back door, she began walking toward the tree line. She stopped and looked around. There were many mean patrolling the grounds. They were everywhere, watching everything, she felt she would be safe as she stared at the rifles some of the bikers carried.
She just needed a moment alone to think.
CHAPTER SIX
Michael sat down at the table with a cup of coffee and stared at the sister he didn’t know. His gaze rose to see the tiger mural on the wall, as it looked ready to attack. This reflected how he’d felt his whole life. On the edge, ready to attack.
Cricket was trying to avoid him but Michael wouldn’t let her. He wanted answers and he was determined to get them. “Tell me more about my mother,” he demanded.
Cricket turned her head and stared at him for a moment. “Okay, what do you want to know?”
Michael shrugged. “What kind of a woman was she? What did she like or dislike? Why would she give up her child?”
Cricket took a drink of her coffee while her mind raced. “My mother was a beautiful, caring woman. She loved to laugh and she would get a look of wonder in her eyes at the sight of nature’s beauty. She loved to build birdhouses and take care of the garden. She loved life and she onc
e told me every day was a new adventure. Or at least, it could be. She taught me how to love and give life everything I had. She told me she loved only one man and that was my father. She spoke of Bane only one time and that was the time she told Cordy and me about the night she and my father left him. She told us very little of how he treated her, other than to say there was a great need for her to leave him. I understood it as the fact Bane raped her after he beat Orrin to unconsciousness. That Bane was stifling to be around. He was so dark most of the time that she felt she couldn’t breathe around him. Then she met my father and for the first time, she fell in love. She told us she couldn’t believe the difference in the two brothers. Where Bane was dark, Orrin was light, where Bane was harsh, Orrin was not. Orrin showed her love and all she ever got from Bane was pain and coldness. She and my father found their happiness but it cost them dearly. She died too young but her memories will last me a life time.”
Michael sat there for a long time before he finally asked, “If she was so wonderful, why did she leave me behind? I was her child too.”
“She did tell us of a time of great sorrow for her. From what your father told me, when my mother told him she carried his child, he got angry with her. He told her he didn’t want the child and when he got back from his business trip he would take care of the problem. She knew then, if she wanted her child to be born, she would have to leave while he was away. She left him but when he came back, he hunted for her. He never loved her but she was his possession. He felt he owned her and he wasn’t going to allow her to leave him. He found her ten months later, only after he threatened her family. He took her home again, and she stayed there for three years before she met my father. Bane found them together and beat the hell out of both of them. After they escaped, they found their own life away from Bane….” Cricket looked away as if she was done talking.
“And later on?” he asked.
“My mother died a five years later from breast cancer. By then, they had my sister Cordelia and me. After Mom died, Orrin moved us to Maine and we stayed there until he died when I was fifteen. Then Cordy took care of me until she died a few months ago.”