Apollo

by KJ Dahlen

  Apollo’s arms tightened on her and he didn’t speak this time.

  She looked dazed for a moment. “I just stood there in the shadows and watched as the house burned. I knew they deserved better than what I did next, but grandpa had drilled it into my head, that thee men wanted me dead. For what reason we didn’t know but he made me promise that if anything happened to them, I would just run. We had a plan in place and he made me promise. I followed the plan they made out for me. I got to the car we had stored and I got out of town. I stayed close enough to watch but not too close that they could find me. I contacted my grandpa’s attorney like the plan said and I told him what happened, then I told him I didn’t want to sell the property. Grandpa’s attorney said he had the paperwork on file to prove my rights to the land. He didn’t say what it was and I didn’t ask. I thought I could walk away if I needed to but then I got mad. My dad gifted me that land for a reason. I never got the chance to know him or hear why but I wanted what was mine. I couldn’t let this Bennett bastard win, but I didn’t know what to do about it.”

  Tank shook his head as he looked up from his laptop. “I hate to interrupt, Boss. But we might have a problem here.”

  Jackal turned to look at his man. “What kind of problem?”

  Tank looked up at him then turned to stare at Kitty. “There’s a woman living at your dad’s house that claims to be Katherine Newton. And she claims she’s this dude Bennett’s partner in the business they plan to open early next year.”

  Kitty paled and stared at him. Tears filled her eyes as she thought about what this new information meant. “He isn’t happy by just taking the people I love away from me and trying to kill me, now he has to steal who I am too?”

  “Could be why he’s still after you,” Jackal commented. “He has to take out the real Katherine Newton to legalize the new Katherine. That way, there’s no one out there to challenge him.”

  “And he murdered an entire family just because they told him he couldn’t have something.” Tears rolled down her face. “What a monster.” Turning her face into Apollo’s chest, she sobbed.

  Cin looked around and shook her head. “Are you guys going to just sit here and let him do this to her?”

  Noelle nodded. “And I thought my stepbrother was bad.” She looked over at Jackal. “Are you boys gonna let this happen?”

  Jackal snorted. “What do you want us to do honey? This isn’t like it’s just next door. Georgia is three states away.”

  “So if those bastards hunting her come here looking for her, are you gonna push her out the door and hope they leave you alone after they gun her down in cold blood?” Noelle asked him quietly.

  Jackal glared at her and asked roughly, “What the fuck are you talking about? I wouldn’t do anything of the kind. No one is going to gun her down, nor will we throw her out. What the hell, woman?”

  Noelle sighed. “I’m sorry. Her story just made me so mad. I know you wouldn’t. Hell, you saved me and I brought my fair share of trouble here.”

  Kitty shook her head. “There’s nothing anyone can do without running the risk of catching a bullet and for me, it’s not worth the fight.”

  Noelle shook her head, “Oh honey, it may not be worth it to you, but four people you loved died because of this. They died to protect you because they loved you and they believed in you. If you don’t stand up for them then who will?”

  Kitty swiped at her cheeks. “It was five...” She sniffled and looked back at the women. “And I don’t want your men to fall into that count. I just couldn’t live with that. I just can’t.”

  “We need more information on this lousy little prick before we go after him boss.” Beast growled.

  Jackal nodded. “I know.” He ran his hands over the back of his head. “I’m gonna have to make a call to our friends down south.”

  “Friends down south?” Kitty asked. “Who are you going to call?”

  “Bratva,” Apollo whispered in her ear. “They’re gonna call the Bratva.”

  She didn’t looked confused at all about who this was. “Would one of them go by the name Sergi by any chance?” she finally asked.

  Jackal snapped his head around to stare at her. “How would you know about Sergi?”

  “I don’t know the man but my grandpa did. I told you he left a, to go bag right?” At his nod she said, “There was a note inside the bag addressed to a man named Sergi. I didn’t open it because it wasn’t mine. But how would my grandpa know him?”

  “I’m not sure,” Jackal admitted. “What was your grandfather’s real name?”

  “Peter Novirish.” Kitty spotted her bags from the trunk of her car under another table. So she got up and went over to where they were stacked and picked up a small duffle. Bringing it back, she opened it and pulled out a file. Opening it, she pulled out a letter. She handed it to Jackal and went back to Apollo to sit with him while Jackal read the letter.

  Jackal read the letter her grandfather wrote to her before he died explaining to her that Bennett had murdered her parents and would in all probability keep hunting her until he killed her as well. The letter told her to go to Sergi Constantine with her story and allow the man to help her if he wanted to. He told her Sergi would be her best bet.

  Jackal then passed it around to Beast and the others. “Well, this might be our way in anyway.” He glanced over at Beast and at his nod, he reached for his phone to place the call.

  He called Roman in New Orleans and after the pleasantries were over, he asked the man a serious question, “My friend, I need some information and please forgive me if this isn’t a pleasant thing to talk about. I have a woman here who claimed to have a letter for your Sergi from her grandfather. A man named Peter Novirish.”

  There was a moment of complete silence on the other end of the call, then Roman asked, “Petr Novirish? Are you certain of his name?”

  “Yeah, I read a letter Petr left for her,” Jackal told him, “and I’m looking at the letter he left for Sergi. It’s still sealed in the envelope.”

  “Is Petr still alive?” Roman wanted to know.

  “No, he was murdered five years ago with his wife. Vailda Bennet has been hunting this woman Kitty all her life. He murdered her parents when she was a few weeks old then found Peter and his wife sixteen years later. As a teen, Kitty watched his men kill her grandparents then set fire to their house. He picked up her trail several times and tried to kill her too. He recently found her again, and wired a bomb to her car.”

  Roman listened patiently while Jackal told him the short version of what was going on then he said, “I will contact Sergi and let him know what’s going on. Keep the girl with you and one of us will contact you soon. Protect her well and keep her safe my friend.” Then Roman ended the call.

  Jackal looked at his phone with a frown then looked over at Kitty. “Well sweetheart, I think I just started a shitstorm. Roman was very interested in your grandfather. He’s going to contact Sergi and get back to us.” He swung his gaze to Beast and Wolf. “He more or less ordered us to protect her well and keep her safe.”

  Beast just stared back at him.

  Wolf raised his eyebrows to the top of his head. “Now I wonder what that’s all about?”

  Jackal swung his head over to study Kitty a moment. “You got ties to the Bratva, little girl?”

  Kitty looked confused. “I don’t know. I would wake up some nights and hear voices in my grandparent’s bedroom. It sounded like they were speaking another language but I couldn’t understand it. They only spoke English around me but like I said, sometimes they spoke another language when they were alone.”

  “Holy shit!” Wolf exclaimed softly as he swung his gaze over to Apollo and Kitty. “Do you think this Vailda prick knew the old man had known the head of the Russian Bratva?” He shook his head and glanced over at his Prez. “You were right about this being a possible shitstorm.”

  Chapter Nine

  Vailda paced his office waiting for a phone call. His men Tho
ma and Stephanou were supposed to be calling him with a progress report tonight. They found her vehicle and placed a bomb on the engine. He knew he had to take her out of the picture if he were going to get his empire built. He’d come too far now to get stopped cold by this woman. He’d put too much money in building this land up and he couldn’t afford to be stopped now. He had to prove himself to his father and brother and he was convinced this was the only way.

  He walked over to the bar and poured himself a drink. He preferred whiskey but forced himself to drink the vodka of his father’s homeland. He snorted, his father? That was a joke. He even carried the bastard’s name. Vailda sneered when he thought about what his own mother had done to him.

  She spread her legs and took him inside her. Carried his bastard child and gave birth to his son. And she had known the whole time, he would never claim her baby. She knew and did nothing to stop his conception. He snorted when he thought about his life growing up. He’d been bullied and made fun of his whole life. No one thought he had a father figure in his life and Vailda didn’t. When he was eleven, he finally got his father’s name from his mother and as soon as he could, he looked up his father. When he read about the man whose blood he carried, he saw the man had some power and wealth behind him. So Vailda wanted his father to know he was waiting for him to bring him home and give him a good life. It took him three years to get through to his father then when he was fourteen, he actually met his father. The disappointed look in his father’s eyes when he looked at him was something he would never forget. Then the damning words the old man growled at both him and his mother were forever imprinted on his soul. His father told them not to contact him again, as he wasn’t interested in a bastard son.

  Alexi Vailda told them in no uncertain terms that he would never claim his son. He claimed he wasn’t interested in the boy. He told them his legal son was waiting to take over his empire. The only son he wanted to claim was the boy he’d had with his wife.

  Vailda’s hopes and dreams died that day. They died when his own father told him he wasn’t wanted. That same day his vengeance was born. He knew he had to finish growing up first but from that day, he got a new dream, a new purpose in his life. He would show his father he was better than his brother, and better than his own father. He would show them all what a bastard son could do.

  He started small and the games he played weren’t all legal but needed quick money so legal didn’t matter. Then he found this land and in his eyes, it would be the perfect place to open up and branch out. It would be the perfect place to make a name for himself. The only problem was he couldn’t get Paul Newton to sell it to him.

  But Vailda wouldn’t take no for an answer and when he had enough arguing with the other man, he simply shot him and his wife. He missed the newborn they had and it took him a few years to find her but he did.

  He missed the girl that time too. Vailda knew he couldn’t put his plans off any longer, so he found someone to impersonate her and moved forward with his plans. The whole time he kept looking for the real girl and now, his men told him they found her trail again. He’d warned them that this time they better make sure the job was done and tonight, he was waiting for their call to tell him she had joined her parents and grandparents.

  He contemplated the next phase of his plans. Everything was in place and in two years, he would be ready. His empire would be so much better and make more money than his father’s ever could. In two years. He was so close, he could almost taste it. He just needed another twenty four months.

  His father and older brother Vlad would come running to him and praise him for being a better business man than they could ever be. His eyes narrowed as he thought about the reunion with his father. This time, it would be him who turned his father away, not like before.

  His thoughts turned to his mother briefly. He remembered that day fifteen years ago. That was the day he settled the score with her on a number of things. He settled the score for each and every day he’d had to endure the taunts of his neighborhood along with the punches from the local bully and his group of buddies. He settled the endless nights of dreams and hopes he had for the day he would met his real father. He settled the bitter disappointment he felt that day when his father turned his back on them both and walked out of his life altogether and his final words were not to contact him ever again.

  He settled her with a bullet to her brain, but added a piece of himself when he let her see the bullet coming. He wanted her to know exactly what was going to happen. She had brought him into the world and now he was going to take her out. He laid the blame for every disappointment he ever had in his young life upon her. She had looked into his cold eyes just before she died and she knew in that moment that he would have no mercy in him, not for her and not for his father. She called him a monster and she was right. In that moment and every moment since then, he had become the monster his mother had called him the day he’d killed her.

  As he swished the ice and vodka in his glass and waited for the phone call from Thoma, his eyes narrowed and he thought about his father again. Every time he did, his chest grew tight and a small piece of his soul froze over.

  His men had better come through for him this time, or he would put a bullet in their brains. They only had so many second chances and they had run out of those. It shouldn’t be this hard to kill a woman.

  Sergi looked out the window of his vehicle as they rode from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. When he received the call from Roman earlier and he mentioned his old friend Petr, he had been happy to hear from his friend again, then he was told his friend was dead and by whom. Then he felt a fine rage begin in his soul.

  He had been hearing about this man, Vailda Bennett and what he heard hadn’t been good. He had called his friend, Alexi Vailda and he had told him the truth. Bennett was supposedly his bastard son, a son he couldn’t acknowledge in any way shape or form. Not that he even wanted to. The boy was a mistake, and he’d made sure he never mad it again. Alexi claimed the mother had tricked him, doctored his drink and when he woke up the next morning, he knew something had happened. Something he never would have allowed if not for her tricking him.

  Sergi told Alexi he never should have been compromised and Alexi agreed. Now, his mistake might come back to bite him in the ass, as Sergi was headed to try and save his good friend’s granddaughter.

  His friend Petr should have come to him years ago. Now it was too late to help him but he could step in and assist his granddaughter. He had had his security people do an in-depth profile on Vailda Bennett years ago when he first started up his endeavors. He wasn’t impressed with the young man back then, and he wasn’t any more impressed now. The man had made too many mistakes. Everything he did was both immoral and illegal. There were honorable ways to build and empire but this man, did none of that. It was reported that he murdered on impulse and killed many of his own men when they failed. He used blackmail, extortion and any other foul means to get what he wanted.

  He kept Alexi informed about what Vailda was doing and between the two of them, they knew it was time to step up and stop him.

  He looked over at Roman and asked, “Tell me again, what you were told.”

  Roman shifted in his seat as he responded to Sergi’s inquiry, “He said, he had woman there who claimed to have a letter for you, from her grandfather. A man named Peter Novirish. Then I asked him to make sure the name was correct. Then Jackal told me, he’d read the letter he’d left for her and he was looking at the letter he left for you. Apparently, it’s still sealed in the envelope. I asked if Petr was still alive.” Roman shook his head. “I knew you would want to know what happened to him. He told me then that Petr had been murdered five years ago with his wife. That this Vailda Bennet has been hunting this woman, Kitty for all her life. Vailda murdered her parents when she was a few weeks old then found Petr and his wife sixteen years later. She witnessed his men kill her grandparents then set fire to their house. His men have picked up her trail several times
and tried to kill her too. They recently found her again and wired a bomb to her car.” Roman growled and said, “The Advocates were able to rip the bomb off before it could be detonated but still... These men won’t stop until they wipe out the entire family.”

  Sergi frowned. “I have been watching Vailda for some time now and he needs the land that she owns to set up his own little empire. He’s been erecting different buildings on the hundred acres but each building he’s creating is for one purpose only. He thinks he can hide his enterprises behind a walled enclosure and the law can’t stop him.” He shifted his gaze to the window. “He won’t have to worry about the law, the Bratva will stop him. He is using our name to get a line of credit to build his empire. That will end today.”

  Roman’s eyes narrowed. “Bylad...He’s using the Bratva name?”

  “Da, he’s banking on his father’s name, even though his father has never acknowledged him in any shape or form. Alexi is getting his credit pulled from his end. I put in a call to our bank this morning before we left on this trip.”

  “Jackal said this bastard has been hunting this girl all her life, just to get this land she owns.” Roman nodded at him then at Yuri and Mikial, who were also with them.

  “Isn’t that a little overkill?” Yuri asked.

  Sergi sighed. “He is like a little mutt with a bone he won’t give up or give away. He thinks he’s bigger than he really is.”

  “Do you have any idea why he’s doing all of this?” Mikial asked.

  “Da, he’s trying to prove to his father that he is a worthy son,” Sergi told them.

  Yuri scoffed. “Then he’s ass backward in his attempts isn’t he? That isn’t even close to showing his good intentions. That’s nowhere near even being Bratva.”