Barshan (Bratva Blood Brothers Book 3)

by K. J. Dahlen

  “What a bunch of bastards,” Bull muttered.

  “That’s Paolo and his gang of Ratz,” Charlie agreed with a whisper.

  “BULL,” someone bellowed from the upper floor.

  Bull pulled away and frowned as he stared at the stairway. “I wonder what they found?”

  Charlie shrugged. “Maybe you should go and see. Me, I’ll stay here if you don’t mind.”

  Bull got up and walked heavily up the stairs. His footsteps echoed in the warehouse.

  Charlie sat there. She stared at the duffle bag but didn’t make any move to open it. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see its contents again. Some of it she’d read but there was some she hadn’t. Right now, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see everything again.

  Twenty minutes later, Bull came back down the steps. When he came into sight of her, he stopped and just stared at her for a moment.

  Charlie frowned and began to feel uncomfortable. She got to her feet.

  Bull sighed deeply. Holding out his hand he said, “I think you better come with me. We have some questions.”

  Charlie took a hesitate step toward him and stopped. “Do I want to know?” she whispered. “I told you I didn’t know what was on the flash drive. Hell, I don’t even know how to run one.”

  Bull heard her whispered words but he didn’t say anything, he just held his hand out to her.

  Charlie grabbed the bag off the table and went over to him. She didn’t take his hand. Taking a deep breath, she nodded toward the steps. “Why do I feel like I’m walking toward my own execution?” She walked up the steps alone and Bull followed close behind her. Neither of them said a word, not even when they reached the top and Charlie stopped to stare at the other five men in the room.

  None of the men seemed happy. She looked from face to face. Starting with Hawk, then to Tank and Mustang. From there she went to the one they called Wild Child. Then she came back to Bull. She refused to look at Judge at all.

  Then she walked over to the bed, dropped the duffle bag on the mattress and finally, turned to glare at Hawk. “Now what did I do wrong?” she whispered as she grasped her throat.

  Hawk glanced over at Judge before he addressed her question, “Do you have any idea what’s on this flash drive?”

  Charlie shook her head.

  “Are you sure you’ve never seen what’s on here?” Hawk had to ask.

  Charlie frowned. “I told you I didn’t. I have no clue how to even run a computer let alone use one of those things. Why what’s on there?”

  Hawk came forward and gave her some printed pages. Charlie searched his face for a clue as to what she would find. When she couldn’t find out anything, her gaze dropped to the pages and gasped. “What the hell is this?”

  Charlie sat down hard on the bed and studied the pages in her hand. The pages told her life story. She frowned as she read the snippets of her life. Bane had the run down on every foster home she’d ever lived in. Several pages fell to the floor as she flash read the pages. “Where did you get these?” she whispered hoarsely.

  “Bane had a file on you on the flash drive,” Hawk told her.

  “But why?” she frowned as her head snapped up to stare at the man. “I’ve never met the man in person, how the hell would he know who I am? Why the hell would he care?”

  “Suppose you tell us.” Judge growled.

  Charlie ignored him and continued to look at the pages. She laid them carefully down on the bed and reached for the duffle bag. Opening it, she reached inside and brought out a handful of papers bound by a rubber band. She handed them to Bull. “This is what I found when I was eighteen. I got police reports and social service reports. But what I found doesn’t compare to what Bane had. I’ve never seen half of those reports and I have no idea where he got them or why he would even have them.”

  Bull took the reports from her and began looking through them. She was right, this pitiful bunch of reports wasn’t near what they had found on Bane’s flash drive. What the hell was Bane doing with information on Charlie?

  Hawk handed her a second set of papers.

  Charlie looked up searching his face but she couldn’t read anything in his eyes. Then she glanced down at the papers he’d given her. She looked up in surprise at Bull before she went back to the papers in her hand. “This is my mother,” she whispered. “Why would he have information on my mom?” The more she read the file the more confused she became. The papers told her, her mother’s name was Joni Martin. She came from San Antonio, Texas where she’d grown up with her parents, Gloria and Gary Martin. A newspaper clipping reports a home invasion when Joni was seventeen. Her parents had been murdered and robbed during the break in. The break in had happened when Joni was away from home so she wasn’t injured but when it was all said and done Joni had been left alone. She had no other family. Then less than a year later Joni disappeared.

  The next little tidbit had her mother living in Sabine Pass, Texas for a few months before she finally came here to Mount Pleasant. One of the papers in the file was Charlie’s birth certificate. Her heart caught for a moment. This was one thing she’d never had before. When she was found at the age of two, it had been determined that her mother had been hiding under a false name. It wasn’t known why but no one could ever find out her real name. That meant she never knew her real name or real birthday.

  Now she had that information. Her real name was Charlie Martin and her birthday was July 4th, 1995. She was twenty two years old. Her eyes went to the place where the father’s name was usually listed but the place was left blank.

  When she looked at the next page, she saw a picture of her mother. Charlie caught her breath. Her mother had been beautiful. They shared the same heart shaped face and the same turquoise eye color. Her mother had curly strawberry blonde hair where Charlie’s was jet black and straight. She closed her eyes for a moment and a single tear rolled down her check. Slipping the photo out of the file, she held it out to Bull. “This is my mom,” she whispered.

  Bull took the photo and gazed at it for a moment. Then he sat down next to her on the bed. Tapping the file in her hands, he asked softly, “Why does Conrad Bane have a file of you and your dead mother on a flash drive?”

  Charlie shook her head. “I don’t have a clue. I told you I’ve never met the man in person. I’ve only watched him from a distance for the last couple of years but I’ve never met him. My mom was murdered twenty years ago. I don’t remember that day very well. I was barely two years old. There’s so much of that day I can’t remember at all. ”

  “What do you remember from that day?” Hawk asked.

  She glanced over her shoulder.

  Bull handed her the notebook. She wrote for a few minutes then handed it to him.

  “Like I said, not very much. I was told I was found sitting next to her body. I was crying trying to wake her up. I must have thought she was laying on the floor sleeping. A neighbor called the police because I was crying so hard. The police busted down the door to get inside. I do remember that much. Then a neighbor snatched me off the floor and took me out of the apartment. I never saw my mother again and Social Services wouldn’t tell me what happened until I turned eighteen. I had to go to the police department to get any information on the murder. It’s still an open case by the way. A cold case but not closed. The police never did find out who killed her.”

  “Why did the killer leave you alive?” Tank asked.

  Charlie shrugged again and wrote, “I don’t know. Maybe I was hiding or he thought I would be too young to remember him? I just don’t know. When I couldn’t answer the police, I think a doctor told them I blocked out the murder if I saw it at all. My mind accepted it as a trauma and shut down those memories for my own protection.”

  “And how do you remember that?” Judge asked snidely.

  “I don’t.” Charlie insisted as she turned to look at him and whispered, “That’s what I was told growing up. I spoke to the police a lot when I was a kid. They wanted to know if
I remembered the details of the day my mom was murdered but I never did. There was one detective that kept checking on me all these years. His name was Officer Dan McGruder.”

  “Is he still around asking questions?” Bull wanted to know.

  Charlie shook her head. “He was killed in the line of fire a little over a year ago.”

  Bull turned his head and shared a look with his friends. “And you’ve never remembered any more from the night your mom was killed?”

  Charlie thought for a moment, hesitating briefly because she had remembered something. She didn’t know what it meant and it was only a flash in the pan but the memory hadn’t stayed with her long enough to mean anything to her. Then she shook her head and wrote her answer out, “Not really. Sometimes I can almost remember something in my nightmare but I never really remember them so that doesn’t count. It’s like it’s almost there but I can’t quite grasp it. It drives me nuts sometimes.”

  “Been there, done that,” Bull muttered under his breath.

  Charlie chuckled lowly. “Yeah me too.”

  Hawk stepped over in front of her and Bull and squatted down in front of her. “Do you know of any reason why Bane would have all this info about you and your mom on his flash drive?”

  Charlie frowned and growled, “I told you I didn’t. Between now and then I still have no idea. I didn’t know he even knew my mom. Was there anything else on that damn flash drive or just this stuff?”

  Hawk rolled his eyes. “Oh, there was plenty more. We found his contact list for the cartel and the Ratz, shipping dates and times, even a local payoff list. And oh yeah, we found his hit list.”

  Charlie paled. “He had a hit list? That’s insane.” She turned to Bull. “Are you guys on his list?”

  Bull nodded.

  Her throat her so she wrote, “But that list is two years old already. How did he know about you guys?”

  Bull grasped her shoulders and held her steady. “Five years ago, we killed his brother Salim Malik is the sands of Iraq. We stumbled on his drug pipeline and took it out on our last mission.” He shrugged. “That’s where we lost two of our men and I got all shot up.”

  Hawk glared at Bull. “She didn’t need to know that. It’s classified.”

  “She already knew, we’ve been talking about it since you guys got here,” Bull pointed out.

  “Who am I gonna tell?” Charlie shrugged.

  “It’s still classified information.” Judge growled.

  Charlie stiffened slightly.

  Bull noted her reaction and glared at the other man.

  She looked over at Hawk and asked softly, “What about Ritcher? Is he mentioned in any of Bane’s files? Is he another crocked politician?”

  Hawk nodded slowly. “Oh yeah, he’s there too, on the hit list I mean. Also Bane has a separate file for payoffs. You were right, he’s got judges, lawyers and cops on his payroll.”

  Charlie shrugged. “That doesn’t surprise me. He thinks he runs this town.”

  “From what we found he pretty much does run it.” Hawk admitted.

  Tank clapped his hands together and commented, “And it’s up to us to take out the trash. God, I love my job.”

  Charlie shook her head. “That boy is gonna get himself killed if he’s not careful,” she muttered to herself.

  “That boy,” Hawk scoffed. “Is a highly trained Special Forces man. He knows how to fight.”

  Charlie sat and wrote out what she wanted to tell him and slid the notebook over as she laid her hand on Hawk’s shoulder. “He may know how to fight G.I. Joe style but he has no fucking clue how to fight the way the Ratz do or Bane will do. They fight dirty and hard. They don’t take aim and shoot, they just start shooting and if a few of their men get in the way, they are dead men and that doesn’t bother them a bit. They won’t hesitate to put a bullet between your eyes or gut you with a knife. You don’t matter to them, not one whit and they don’t stop because you’re a woman. If you get in their way you’ll be just as dead.”

  Hawk didn’t say anything but his glare got hard.

  Charlie stared back at the man. They live and die by street code and the street code says only the strong survive. They know how to survive.”

  “So do we.” So do we,” Hawk assured her.

  Charlie shook her head. “No you guys were trained to access your shots first then shoot. You guys have honor and live by a strong code, maybe even stronger than the street but then you guys are real men, those pukes are nothing but animals.”

  Hawk hung his head for a moment then raised his eyes to hers again. “Like you pointed out we have a code of honor we live by and that honor says we can’t walk away from this fight. We have to stay and fight the good fight. We can’t let the bad guys win.” He smiled. “That’s just the way we are honey.”

  Bull growled low in his throat at the endearment but didn’t say anything. Charlie heard it and laid her hand on his thigh. Bull reached over and tangled her fingers with his. Charlie stared at Hawk for a moment or two then nodded. “I know. I guess I’ve known what kind of men you are from the beginning. I just never knew I’d ever meet one of you in my lifetime.”

  “One of us?” Bull murmured.

  “A man with honor who can’t be bought. All I’ve ever known is the other kind of guy.”

  “Can we shuck the admiration society and get back to work now?” Judge asked harshly. “We have a lot of material to get through before we know anything for sure and time is running out.”

  Charlie stiffened at the rude words. Even Bull squared his shoulders and was turning around to blast the other man when Charlie tugged on his arm. When Bull looked down at her, she motioned toward the pages on her mother they had found. “Can I take these downstairs and read them? I’d like to finally know what happened that day.”

  Bull lifted his hand to cup her cheek, “Sure thing sweetness. One of us will be down shortly to fix a meal. But he won’t bother you.”

  Charlie smiled wanly as she rose to her feet. Grabbing the stack of papers, she went to the top of the steps and down one level.

  * * * *

  Bull turned to face the other men in his former group. Mustang held up his hand before Bull could speak, “Before you rip into us, you have to know this looks bad. Bad for your girl. What the hell is any information about her, especially what we found doing on Conrad Bane’s computer? Her or her mother? Do they have a connection to Bane? If so, what is it? This is something we need to know before we go into a situation we won’t come out of.”

  Bull exhaled deeply. “I know, believe me I know but if there is a connection she doesn’t know what it is. Of that, I’m very sure. You didn’t see her face when she saw these papers, or when she saw her mother’s info. She was devastated. She was only two when her mom was murdered. How much do you remember when you were two fuckin years old?”

  Mustang shook his head. “Hell, I can’t remember back that far.”

  “Yeah, well neither can she.” Bull growled. “There’s something from that night her mind doesn’t want her to remember. She can’t tell me what but I think she was there that night. I think she saw the murder go down. Maybe that’s why Bane has her file.” Rubbing his fingers through his hair, he went on, “Hell, I don’t know what I’m even talking about. What the hell would Conrad Bane care about some woman being murdered anyway?”

  “Unless he did the killing,” Hawk interjected into the conversation.

  When Bull snapped his head around to glare at the other man, Hawk raised his finger. “Now wait a minute, think about it before you blow up. The notion makes sense in an odd way.”

  Bull frowned. “But in what way? What’s the connection?”

  Hawk shrugged. “Hell, if I know.”

  Tank looked down at the photos of Joni Martin on his computer for a moment. Then his head snapped up and his eyes dazed at the thoughts running through his head. “You don’t think Charlie is his kid do you? Hell, he’s been living in this country long enough to have a kid
her age? Him and Joni could have gotten together at some point.”

  Bull shivered and closed his eyes. “God, I hope not. If they did, why would he kill her?”

  “Maybe she found out he was a murdering bastard,” Mustang commented. “Her parents died in a home invasion, what if they died at Bane’s own hands and she found out about it? She would have run which is exactly what she did do. She ran away from San Antoine. First, she went to Sabine Pass then she came here. Here is where Charlie was born. Bane must have found her when Charlie was two years old. He killed the mother before she could turn him over to the cops and left the kid alone without anyone to protect her.”

  “Why would he leave his daughter alive but on her own? That doesn’t make any sense?” Judge asked.

  “Maybe he couldn’t find her after killing her mother.” Tank shrugged. “This way the story makes sense anyway. We may never know what really happened. Charlie was too young to remember and Joni is long gone.” He smirked. “And we can’t exactly ask Bane now can we?”

  “Do you still trust her Bull?” Judge had to ask the hard question.

  Bull nodded without pause. “Yeah, I do. She has no love lost for Conrad Bane and even less for the River Ratz gang.” He turned to stare at his commander. “I trust her and I still want to protect her. If she is his kid, then she needs something good in her life. She’s never had that before. Not since her mom died anyway.”

  Judge watched him for a long moment then nodded. “Ok seems I can’t stop you but I think we should watch what we info we let her know about. She can’t tell anyone if she doesn’t know anything.”

  Bull tightened his lips in anger at Judge’s words.

  Before he could say anything, Hawk grabbed him from behind and held him back.

  Bull turned to glare at the other man then nodded. Jerking his arm away from Hawk, he stomped down the steps to the second floor and didn’t stop until he got to where Charlie was sitting.

  She was all curled up in the corner of the room. Sitting on the floor with the papers spread all around her she had her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around her legs. She was sobbing.