by K. J. Dahlen
Joel paused at this news and added, “So the old man is here then. That could be interesting.”
“Just to let you know if you achieved your goal, you would be hunted down and killed for what you did to one of our own. We protect Bratva and we know how to get revenge when someone harms us. So please don’t try anything against Vatali Anishin. I can guarantee you won’t make it out of the confrontation alive and I would really hate to kill you in front of your daughters.”
“I understand all that,” Joel admitted though his eyes still held intense anger. “It probably wouldn’t stop me from trying but I understand. The Galina I knew way back then was someone I will never forget. In fact, I never did forget her. A few months after we parted, I began searching for her. I just couldn’t stay away. I never found her of course, but I did look for her.”
“What stopped your search?” Viktor was curious, as he knew he would never quit looking for Frankie if the something happened with her.
“I got a phone call from the hospital the day my daughters were born.” Joel shook his head. “Their mother was a woman I barely knew. We hooked up one night and parted the next morning. I didn’t know she carried my babies. My life had to change then. I had two baby girls to raise on my own. It was tough to do but I did it.”
“Do you have any idea why Marchato took Galen?” Viktor asked.
“Not really, do you?” Joel looked very curious at this question.
“Da, we might. Maybe we should go inside, so we can discuss this with everyone.”
The two men joined the others and when everyone was sitting down, Viktor asked Galen again, to tell them what happened to her after she was taken.
When she was done with her story about the warehouse and the transporting of the other women, Judge said, “It almost sounds like they were filling an order for a specific type of woman.” He turned to Galen. “Were the other women in your group blonde like you, or were they all different coloring?”
Galen thought about it for a moment then answered, “They all had different coloring. But before he took my picture, he asked what my name was and when I told him, he gave me a funny look. He took my picture and sent it to someone on the phone. Then he got some sort of message back.” She looked down at her wrist at the faint scar she had. She covered it with her hand and began rubbing her skin. “After that, he hung a tag around my neck but he also did something else. I forgot about it until just now.”
“What did he do to you Baby Girl?” Joel asked as he stared intently at her rubbing her skin.
“He heated up a small branding iron with a cigarette lighter and pressed it into my wrist,” she whispered hoarsely.
“The hell he did!” Joel growled as he rose up, grabbed her wrist and turned it outward.
Everyone could see the mark the brand left.
Galen cried out when her dad’s fingers tightened on her arm.
Deter grabbed her father’s wrist and pried it off Galen’s.
Joel winced as Deter’s fingers almost crushed his bones. Finally, when Deter let him go, Joel glared at the man then turned to his daughter. “I’m so sorry Baby Girl. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“How did you know where the mark was?” Viktor asked after watching the scene play out.
“Because Tegan Averin marked Galina the same way but his brand was deeper, more pronounced. Hers wasn’t as deep but it’s still the same brand.”
Deter took Galen’s wrist gently in his hand and turned it so he could see the faint brand burned into her skin. It was half a Russian Red star. Deter raised his troubled gaze to Viktor and the others. They could see the brand and they all knew what such a mark meant. Deter stared into Viktor’s eyes and stated, “I will kill this bastard.”
Viktor nodded slowly. “Are you claiming her then?”
“Da, she is mine,” Deter stated.
Galen gasped and swung her confused gaze up to Deter’s face.
“Very well,” Viktor assured him as he raised a brow at Galen’s expression. He looked at the others and stated, “This Tegan will die by Deter’s hand.”
“Not if I find him first.” Joel snarled.
Viktor stared at the other man. He could read the resolution in Joel’s eyes. “You know what this mark means in our world?”
“It’s the mark of ownership,” Joel explained. “Galen was never supposed to be shipped out. She was meant to be waiting for him somewhere else or delivered to him. When she wasn’t, he had to backtrack to find her. That might be what Manuel was doing at the biker’s compound. He was tracking Galen down to take her back to Tegan.”
Viktor rubbed his jawline as he pondered this new facet. “That could have been his purpose for being there. Now we’ll never know because he is dead.”
“Are you sure he’s dead?” Judge asked.
“Da, we are sure.” Viktor nodded. “No one could escape that fire. We watched it burn until we could no longer hear their screams.”
“Did anyone get away?” Bull wanted to know.
“Nyet, there was one man left alive but he didn’t get away,” Ivan answered this one. “By now, the wolves or wild pigs have eaten what was left of him.”
Galen shivered and Deter drew her close to him. Wrapping his arms around her, he held her close, whispering in her ear, "You are safe Malyshka."
Viktor held his smile back at the Russian endearment.
“How did you know what the brand was all about back when you knew Galina?” Matvey asked Joel.
“Because I did my research after I took her away from the sonofabitch,” Joel explained.
“How did you meet this woman if Tegan had her anyway?” Grisha asked looking very curious as the part where they’d actually met wasn’t in the diaries.
Joel seemed to stare at the wall as he remembered the day he first saw Galina. “I was walking down a street when I saw this man come out of a house. Even back then, I’d been alert and aware of my surroundings. He made sure to lock the door behind him then he peered up to the second story window. So when I looked up, I saw her standing there. She was peering down at him to see he was smiling at her. When watched her, I could almost see the hatred in her eyes. I ducked behind a tree down the road from the house and waited until he left. Then I went to stand where she could see me and when our eyes met, we connected somehow. I came back every day and watched as he left the house then I would wait for her to come back to the window. I had to find out what was going on at this house, why he acted the way he did and why she looked so miserable. I should have walked away, but something had me coming back to her. One day, she managed to get a note out to me. The window didn’t open far enough for her to get away but she did get that piece of paper out.” Joel shook his head. “It floated to the ground and I scrambled for it...Two words... help me. I walked around the side of the house to the back and I found a way inside. I got her the hell out of there.” He glared at Viktor as he told them, “The fucker had her chained to the wall. She was covered in bruises and barely strong enough to walk out of there on her own power. The note she wrote was in her own blood for fuck’s sake. She didn’t even have to ask me to free her. I wanted to kill the bastard right then and there.”
“Where was this house?” Matvey asked.
“Near the river town of Kansas City. I told her I was headed for Fort Sam Houston in Texas and she begged me to take her with me. So I did,” Joel finished his story.
Viktor glanced at his men and nodded. The account of her running from Teagan with Joel was similar to the one she had written about.
“What happened after you took her away?” Grisha asked.
“We were together about three or four months when she came home one day scared to death. She told me she had to leave in a hurry. She thought she saw someone from Tegan’s group and she didn’t want to be taken again. We argued but there was no changing her mind. She even told me she would be better off alone because if Tegan found us together, his men would kill us both. We kept arguing about it and I even
thought she had come around to agreeing to stay with me. Then the next morning when I woke up, she was gone.”
“She may have been gone but you never forget her, did you Dad?” Galen whispered.
Joel shook his head. “How could I ever forget her?”
“Well, I don’t know about you guys.” Bull leaned back in his chair. Resting his arms over his belly, he smiled. “But I kind of like the Russian’s plans of taking everything Tegan’s got away from him, then hunting the little pissant down and making him beg for his own death. To me, that sounds like fun.”
“Only one problem with that,” Galen interjected. “He’s got the Mexican cartel as his partner. Manuel wasn’t the only cartel member I saw in that warehouse. There was another man there as well. He was older and had a scar running down the side of his face. He must have been higher up in the food chain than Manuel because he kept calling him El Capitan.”
Joel sat up in his chair and stared at his daughter. “Did he have white hair and dress in a nice suit? And carry a black cane?”
Galen nodded.
Joel turned to his team. “Jose Regardan. He’s a middleman for the Renoisa Cartel. He was at the compound last night. I saw him and Tegan having words then all hell broke out when Tegan got a phone call.”
Viktor smiled and looked over at his men. “So we take down Tegan’s holdings but we do it in a way, so he thinks the cartel is taking over his operations. We make him think the cartel no longer trusts him and if we do it right, they will put the blame on each other and rush to protect their own claims, leaving themselves wide open for us to destroy both of their interests.”
Judge leaned forward in is chair and asked, “And just how do you plan to do that?”
Viktor crossed his arms over his wide chest. “We follow the key players, see where they go, watch what they do then we move in and snatch the prize away from them. We let the other side know their prize is gone and when they check the surveillance tapes, they see the last one there was either Tegan or cartel. That should stir the pot a bit, making both sides not trust the other. Meanwhile, we take out as many of Tegan’s businesses as we can.”
“Making him think the cartel is doing it.” Bull nodded. “That just might work. Averin isn’t one to trust anyone he doesn’t have to. Our research has shown us he’s been betrayed a few times in the past and he’s not one that takes betrayal very well. If he begins to lose his business to the cartel, he’ll retaliate quickly and in in a manner to send a message to the cartel not to fuck with him.”
“In other words, he’ll destroy himself,” Judge voiced his opinion. “The cartel isn’t one that takes being crossed well either.”
“No they don’t.” Deter nodded. “But how many innocents are going to get caught in the crossfire?”
“None, if we can help it,” Viktor stated. “We can always get the women and the children out of harm’s way before we set the building to self-destruct.”
Frankie grabbed the notebook from earlier and began to write. When she finished, she passed it over to Viktor.
He read what she wrote and smiled. Passing the notebook over to Judge, he leaned toward her to kiss her deeply and passionately, Joel growled, causing Viktor to break the kiss and glare back at her father.
Judge read what Frankie wrote then glanced at the girl. “Where did you leave your notes?”
She grabbed the notebook and wrote something down then passed it back to Judge.
He looked down at it and smiled. “Bingo. She sent her notes to an email on a secure server. All we need to do is access them.”
“What notes?” Matvey asked.
Judge looked over at him, then at Viktor. “When she was looking for Galen, Frankie took notes of everything she saw and heard about Tegan’s operation. She had emailed us at that time to inform us. She’d thought the cartel took Galen, so she had pickups and drop offs noted that will link both groups. She thought she was tracking the cartel but then she found out the cartel was working with Tegan. She’d believed that some of the places were cartel only. But all the information she’d collected over the past three months before she was caught is waiting for her to go through it on a mail server. It will give us a starting point to put this plan into action.”
“Girl, do you realize how close you came to death?” Joel admonished her, as he looked upset. “If the cartel had caught you, they could have killed you.”
Frankie gazed at her dad as tears welled in her eyes. Grabbing the notebook, she wrote something down and passed it to him.
Joel shook his head when he read what she wrote, “I had to find my sister. I can’t be without her. Aww damnit all to hell, anyway.” He groaned as he rubbed his face with his hand.
Viktor gathered her in his arms and held her.
Galen smiled. “It’s all your fault anyways, Dad.”
He raised his puzzled gaze to her. “What?”
“We take after you. Someone took me and Frankie did what she knew to do. She came after me to get me back home.”
Joel sighed as he shook his head.
“Yep, that about sums it up there, Shadow,” Judge quipped as he grinned at Joel.
Frankie held out her hand to Galen and Galen took it, twining her fingers with her sister, the two of them held on tight, as Deter held tightly onto Galen... and Viktor held Frankie.
Brothers and Sisters... as one.
Chapter Ten
By the time Frankie pulled up her information on Viktor’s computer, the guys had decided to split into two groups. One group would go after the cartel while the other went after Tegan Averin.
“Perhaps we should take the women back to New Orleans under the protection of the Bratva,” Viktor suggested. “Tegan, nor the cartel would dare to come after them there.”
“Absolutely not!” Joel protested harshly. “I don’t want my daughters anywhere near Galina’s father.”
“Dad,” Galen protested.
Joel whirled around to glare at her. “No, just no. Do not argue with me on this. I don’t want to hear it.”
Judge shook his head. “Man, you have to let this go. Your feelings shouldn’t be an issue in this. Yes, I know that her father wasn’t the best, but that’s got nothing to do with right now. He made his mistakes twenty six years ago. We have a mission here to track down the bastard that took your woman. That’s what we have to concentrate on now. Not some bastard from the past.”
“I know, but I don’t want my girls there,” Joel admitted.
“They would be able to meet their sister, Sahara,” Bull suggested.
“And one or two of your men could be there to watch over them.” Viktor nodded. “I’m leaving Deter and Matvey there to assist Yuri’s men with tracking Tegan and his cartel friends down.”
“That might work better for us,” Judge agreed. “Mustang is our IT guy but Bull has lived in this area, so he knows the backroads and can tell us how to get to where we need to go.” Looking over at Viktor he asked, “Is this Yuri person going to be kosher with this? I mean our coming into his territory?”
“Let’s find out,” Viktor suggested as he reached for his phone. After a brief conversation, it was determined that Yuri was indeed on board with them bringing the women back to his city. He offered them his protection and any help he might need to give.
It didn’t take them long to pack and the trip back to the city was short. Within two hours, the men found their way back to New Orleans. They didn’t go back to the hotel but instead, met Yuri and his men at one of the many safe houses he had.
This safehouse was in the French Quarter near the water. From the outside, it looked like a boat repair shop and was equipped as such, but so much more was hidden from view. As they went through a security door, they found themselves in a secure IT room with several monitors lining the walls with views of different areas of the city on full screens.
Another doorway led them to a living area. It appeared to have several bedrooms, a living room and a small kitchen area.
/> Judge gazed around the area and nodded, as he looked impressed. “This will work quite nicely.” Looking over at Roman and Yuri, he nodded his thanks.
Yuri turned to Viktor. “What were you able to find?”
“We found his delivery system, at least one of the many he uses. He had an MC in the swamps. They would collect the women and get them to the boats in the Lake. Then the boats would transport the women out to the Gulf where they would be picked up by bigger boats and taken to various places for sale.”
Roman shook his head in disgust.
Yuri stared him and asked, “You shut that venue down didn’t you?”
“Da, we did.” Viktor raised a brow at him.
“Good, that’s one less problem.” He looked over at Frankie and Galen and smiled. “And these two? Who are they?”
“The girls are Frankie and Galen Beck.” Viktor nodded toward them.
Yuri raised his head and stared at Viktor. “Beck? Galen Beck?”
“Da, Galen Beck, named after Galina,” Viktor explained. Turning to Joel, he introduced him to Yuri and Roman, “This is Joel Beck, their father.”
Yuri stared at the other man for a long moment then held out his hand. When Joel grasped it Yuri said, “You have another daughter, did you know this?”
Joel shook his head. “Not until recently. When this is over, I’d like very much to meet her.”
“Galina’s father is also here,” Yuri warned him. “I trust you won’t make trouble for him. I’d really hate to have to kill you.”
“Yeah,” Joel snorted and glanced over at Viktor. “I’ve already been warned about that. I want nothing to do with the old man and I won’t touch him unless he hurts my girls.”
Yuri turned to Viktor and asked, “So what are your plans?”
“We have decided to bring both Tegan Averin and the Mexican cartel he works with down. Pitting them one against the other and we hope that will make them turn on each other.”
“And do you have the information you need to do that?” Yuri asked.