Roman

by K. J. Dahlen

  “And where is this gun?”

  “It’s in my safe. Young Benny still had it when we met.” Yuri took a drink then informed him, “It’s also the gun Frankie was shot with and the gun he held on us this morning.”

  “Bay! This kid is a busy one isn’t he?” Nikoli almost smiled.

  Yuri shrugged. “He was protecting his sister.”

  “Admirable.”

  “So what do we do? How do we stop this war from happening and still protect our own city from any backlash?”

  “That, my friend, is a very good question. One I don’t have an answer for right now.” Nikoli finished his drink. “Perhaps I should meet these deti.”

  Yuri stood and led the way to his vehicle to introduce Nikoli to the children. Although the young woman was no child. He paused for a moment as they headed down in the elevator. He wondered how Roman felt about having a woman at his house and a child. Strange, probably.

  Roman heard the beep of his security system and glanced out the window to check his gate. When he saw Yuri’s car sitting there, he hit the open button and waited until the car stopped at his front door.

  Then he saw Nikoli get out of the car and walk to his front door.

  Roman closed his eyes. The head of the Bratva. He knew this would come sooner or later. He took a deep breath before he opened the door to greet him.

  Holding out his hand, Nikoli took it and greeted him, “Zdrah-stvooy, Roman. Well, this is a shit storm waiting to happen isn’t it?”

  Roman shrugged. “It is what it is.”

  “But how the hell do we stop this from happening?” Nikoli asked.

  “There might be one way,” a soft voice said from behind him.

  Roman turned and stared at the small figure leaning against the wall. She was draped in a blanket from the bed that covered her from head to toe. Her bare feet were sticking out from under the blanket and he could see one small hand holding the blanket around her shoulders. Her short black hair was sticking out in every direction and for the first time, he could see her brilliant green eyes. She had an elfin face that was marred by bruises and was a bit swollen from Frankie’s heavy hands, so Roman couldn’t really see it well but he liked what he could see right now.

  What he didn’t like was the haunted look in her eyes. He wished that haunted look wasn’t there but he understood why it was. When the blanket slipped from one shoulder and dipped low on her arm, he could see the creamy skin of her shoulder and the top of an abundant breast. “Should you be up yet?” Roman asked softly.

  Before she could speak, Benny came up behind her then reached out and drew the blanket back up around her shoulder. Then Benny stood straighter and faced the three men head to head. “Me and Stevie have been talking. Baton Rouge holds nothing but nightmares for us and a lot of other people that have been abused by the system that is now in place but we can change all that if we try.” He looked down at the floor for a moment then raised his head again. His eyes narrowed as he didn’t look away from Roman’s gaze. “I would have turned my back on everything we left behind, just walked away and never looked back but Stevie told me we couldn’t do that. We had to protect the people who lived there because not everyone was as slimy as Caulder and his brothers or as wicked as Mrs. Harris and her crew. She said there were good people living in the city and we have to protect those people.” He shrugged. “She said she’s met some pretty awesome people living on the streets in the last four years. She said it’s those people we have to look out for.”

  The men in the room listened and waited for the kid to finish.

  Benny crossed his arms over his small chest and glared at Roman then switched over to Yuri. “You asked us to trust you this morning and now we need to know if you trust us?”

  “Yes, I trust you,” Roman answered the question.

  Stevie reached out and grabbed Benny’s hand. Grasping it, his arm came around her shoulders and he helped her get to the sofa.

  When Roman would have rushed forward, Yuri grabbed his shirt from behind to stop him.

  When she was sitting there and the blanket wrapped completely around, her she stared at the three men opposite her.

  All were sitting there waiting for her to speak.

  “The Kings Crew may be a lot of things, some good, some bad but they are a strong force in Baton Rouge. They kept their people in line and didn’t let the other gangs get unruly. Banger was a good leader but Caulder wouldn’t be. Caulder wanted his own army at his beck and call and wouldn’t be above using force and intimidation to get what he wanted.”

  “And what is that?” Yuri asked.

  Stevie stared at his face as he spoke. “Caulder wants complete control of the Kings to start building his own empire of corruption and greed.”

  “How do you know this?” Nikoli asked.

  Stevie shrugged. “Every city has people living on the streets. Most people ignore them or walk over top of them. They’re considered an eyesore and people go out of their way to not notice they are even there. But being part of that culture has taught me a lot in the last four years.”

  “Such as?” Yuri frowned.

  “Street people know what’s going on from the moment it happens and they’re like a subculture all their own.”

  “And this helps us how?” Nikoli raised a brow.

  “I have a friend living on the streets. I’ve known him for four years. He found me the second night I was out there. I was very sick from a bad infection. I should’ve still been in the hospital being treated but I was out on the streets, trying to hide from a man that would have used me for his own gain. Silas took me in and taught me what he knew about staying safe. He introduced me to his friends and in the end, he became my savior.” She looked down for a moment then raised her head again. “These people help one another out when they need it, they also go out of their way to protect each other. They are an underground pipeline and would do anything to keep their city safe and free of the scum like Caulder Briggs.”

  The men all stared at her.

  “Caulder has plans to use the street gang to run his guns and drugs, not only through the city but to points east and west using highway 10. He’s been working in secret to set up a distribution route using other gangs as couriers for his product. He’s already made contact with a cartel member, although I don’t think he has met the main man yet. But before he can do all that, he has to get the Kings under his control. He’s been working on Banger for over a year now but Banger didn’t want that poison in his city and he’d turned him down more than once.” She glanced over at her brother. “What Benny saw the other night was his final attempt at persuading Banger to go along with his plan. When Banger turned him down again, Caulder lost his mind and killed him.”

  The silence in the room stretched on.

  She raised her head and stared at Yuri. “Caulder always had a plan. If he couldn’t get Banger to agree with the plan, he had murder in his mind for Banger. He plans to drag Banger’s body over to the Advocates land and put the blame on them. He doesn’t want a bunch of ex-military men fouling up his plans.”

  “Your brother told us some of this hours ago,” Yuri informed her.

  Stevie nodded. “I know but what he didn’t tell you was Caulder’s plan B.”

  “Plan B?” Nikoli frowned. “Why would he have a plan B?”

  “Caulder always has a plan B.” She smirked.

  “Do you know what he has planned?” Yuri asked.

  Stevie nodded. “You need some of the Harris house history before you can understand Caulder’s plan B. Ten years ago, Mrs. Harris met her now husband, Eugene Harris. She was a mean woman then and even worse now, but back then, she couldn’t do much. She was just a citizen of the city and had to follow the laws just like everyone else. After she met Eugene, she used all her wiles to trap him into a marriage, I’m not sure he really wanted. I was already living in her house at the time and I hated it. Mostly, I just hated her but that’s another story.” Then Stevie dropped h
er bomb as she continued, “She was a miserable woman then and it only got worse after she married Eugene. What not many people remember is that her name before she married Harris was Briggs and the Briggs brothers are her sons from her first marriage.”

  “Now this could be interesting,” Nikoli commented under his breath.

  “Despite being a nasty character through and through, Mrs. Harris always kept meticulous records. She kept track of every penny she had and used for the children in her care. No one ever knew where she kept her account books or the money she skimmed off the top, not even her sons or they would have taken all she had a long time ago. Over the years, she’d managed to put aside a lot of the money she should have used for the kid’s wellbeing. After she married Eugene, she used what he knew about the bigwigs of the city to blackmail them into doing what she wanted. She no longer had to worry about not having enough. Over the next five years, she did what she wanted and if someone tried to stop her, she ruined their lives completely. Her enemies were left with nothing by the time she got done with them. With her husband as the Mayor’s right hand, she ran that city, not the Mayor.”

  Nikoli nodded as if he knew some of what she was saying.

  “Anyway about four years ago, she told me I could either work the streets like the other girls she was in charge of or she would sell me to Caulder to start his own line of girls. When I refused, Caulder gave her a dollar and she told me I no longer had a home with her.” Stevie took a deep breath and grabbing her brother’s hand she finished her story, “That night, me and Benny escaped. We got away before they had a chance to take me away. You see, we’d been planning our escape for some time. But before I left her house, I took something from the old witch. I took her books and most of her money. I hid it somewhere in the city and even when they dragged me back or grabbed Benny, I never would tell her where I hid her stuff.”

  “How did she take that?” Yuri asked with a slight smile on his face.

  “Not very well at all,” Stevie admitted. “Not very well at all. She knew if those books ever got out she would lose everything she had and she and her sons would all go to jail for a very long time. When I escaped the second time, I couldn’t get Benny out of the house and she’s held him hostage since then.”

  Benny cleared his throat and took up the story, “Mrs. Harris was getting desperate lately. She’d been looking for her books for so long, she didn’t think she had any chance of getting them back. Caulder promised her that he would find Stevie and get her to give back what she took and he wasn’t coming through for her, so she took matters into her own hands. She found a way to hurt Stevie and she knew Stevie would come out of hiding if there was a way to save me.”

  “What did she do?” Roman dared to ask.

  Benny hung his head. “She got the word out that she was going to sell me to a pedophile she knew. She said he was an older man who liked to break young boys and while I was older than he normally took on, she was sure she could get him to take me. The old bitch even showed me the agreement she had this old guy sign. She said this man would teach me proper manners.”

  “What was this man’s name?” Nikoli asked.

  “I only heard his first name, Rosco,” Benny replied.

  Roman stiffened and turned his head slowly to glare at Benny. “Rosco Pavel.”

  Benny shrugged. “It could have been. I really didn’t hear his last name.”

  Roman surged to his feet, stomped down the hall to his bedroom and slammed the door behind him.

  Nikoli stared for a moment then turned to Yuri. “What was that all about?”

  Yuri shrugged. “I’m not sure.” He turned to Stevie. “Do you still have her books?”

  Stevie nodded.

  “And Caulder’s plan B? Do you know what that is?” Nikoli asked.

  “Caulder has been working to build up his own army of followers. He has several sleeper followers in positions all over the city. They are in position to hold the city hostage if Caulder commands it. If Banger wouldn’t work with him, Caulder planned to do just that, hold the city hostage. He plans to wipe out whatever Kings Crew that won’t follow him and take over the streets. He would bring chaos and death into the hearts of the people who live there. Anyone who opposed him would be shot as a show of dominance and the cops wouldn’t be able to interfere because his mother had them under her thumb. The only problem was his mother no longer had the evidence he needed to be able to hold up his end. If anyone knew the evidence wasn’t there, Mrs. Harris has no hold over them anymore. She knows this, but no one else does. The Briggs brothers have been searching the entire city for the books and the evidence needed but they weren’t able to find it.”

  “Is it still safe?” Nikoli asked.

  Stevie nodded.

  “So how can this information keep the city safe?” Yuri asked. “Caulder still has the city under his control and he plans to break the city wide open with violence.”

  “Because with the evidence I have we can take back the city, don’t you see?” Stevie grew agitated.

  “How can you do that?” Nikoli frowned.

  “We need to bring in the state police to stop the blackmail and take the control back. Then we need to take the city streets back.”

  “And just how do we do that? If Caulder has his people all over town, how do we stop an army we can’t see?” Nikoli questioned.

  “You may not know who they are but we do. The street people are always watching over the city and they know everything that happens. Caulder only thinks he has his finger on the pulse of the city. He doesn’t know shit about the streets.”

  Yuri’s phone pinged and when he checked the message he received, he glanced over at Nikoli. “We have company from Baton Rouge.”

  Stevie was watching Yuri closely then turned to glance at Benny. Benny looked pale and she watched as he slid from the arm of the sofa to sit on the cushion next to her. Stevie poked her arm out of the blanket to wrap it around her brother. Turning to Yuri she asked, “Who is here?”

  “Apparently, when Pappy called the local MC to let them know about the situation, their President wanted more information about it. Both he and Pappy showed up at the hotel about twenty minutes ago for a discussion.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  When Nikoli and Yuri got back to the hotel, they went to Yuri’s office where several men were waiting for them. Pappy stepped forward and held out his hand to Yuri. Yuri shook it and stepped back to Nikoli.

  After Pappy greeted Nikoli, both men turned to the man at Pappy’s side.

  “Gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to the Devil’s Advocate President. He goes by the street name of Jackal.” Pappy looked around and motioned at the other men standing there. “You all might remember Bear and Calico but the others are Advocate men, Kimber and Slade.”

  “Gentlemen, please sit down.” Yuri motioned at the chairs around the room.

  When everyone was sitting, Jackal leaned forward and addressed Yuri, “When Pappy called me today I knew this was a bad situation. I had my men start checking the perimeter of our compound and we found Banger’s body after a long search. When we searched the infrared security tapes of the perimeter we could see the breach and the faces of the men who dumped the body.”

  “What did you do with the body?” Yuri asked.

  “We moved it to another location,” Jackal informed them. “We didn’t want anyone with authority to come looking for it and blaming us for the murder.”

  “Do you have the footage of the breach?” Nikoli asked. “We can use it to identify who the men are.”

  “One of them was Caulder Briggs. I know that much,” Slade claimed. “I’ve run into him before.”

  Nikoli nodded. “Well, I’m sure Pappy has told you that Briggs wants to put the blame for Banger’s murder on your shoulders in his bid to take over the city. He wants you and yours gone and he doesn’t care how he does it.”

  “The question is how do we prevent what we all know is coming?” Jackal asked.


  “Gentlemen, may I remind everyone here that these men are all ex-military personnel?” Pappy suggested.

  Nikoli grunted. “Is that a fact?” He looked over the few men sitting there. “That might just work to our advantage.”

  Jackal frowned and looked around the room. “What advantage?”

  “Our friend Stevie has a plan and now that I know you are ex-military men, her plan might just work,” Nikoli explained.

  “What plan might that be?” Pappy asked.

  “One of the reasons why you didn’t have a knock on the door this morning by the police is that Caulder lost the gun he shot Banger with. He felt the gun and Banger’s body would have been enough to start a street war. With everyone at each other’s throats, he hoped to slip into place a distribution point for a cartel drug and gun route into and through points east and west of Baton Rouge.”

  Jackal snorted. “And he knew we wouldn’t allow such a thing, not in our town.”

  “Da, I get that.” Nikoli nodded.

  “So is there any way we can stop it before it gets out of hand and there’s nowhere to go but to war?” Slade asked.

  “There might be,” Yuri spoke up. “This girl, Stevie came up with a plan that with your help, might just work. Providing you’re willing to work with street people she knows.”

  “Hell, all we want is a safe place to live and work,” Jackal stated. “Some of us have families but all of us live in Baton Rouge. No one messes with the clubhouse but we still have to go through town to get anywhere. We shop there and we party there at times. Our kids go to school there. We’ll do what we can and work with who we have to, to keep our town safe.”

  “What happened to the gun Caulder shot Banger with?” Slade asked.

  “I have the actual weapon,” Yuri admitted.

  “How the hell did you get it?” Jackal looked stunned.

  “It was used to shoot Frankie Briggs. Then the shooter got out of town, along with his sister. That’s how we came to be involved.” Yuri nodded. “The pair of them are now under our protection.”