by K. J. Dahlen
“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 Jon 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 Jon 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 woe 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. P
eople 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 once 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 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 six 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.”
“My father told me what happened to her.” Michael nodded. “But that doesn’t tell me what I want to know.”
“And what is that?”
“Why did my mother leave me behind? Was it because I was Bane’s child and not your fathers?”
Cricket carefully put her cup down and turned to observe him for a moment. “No, I don’t think it was that at all, you see Cordy was Bane’s child too. I think she left you behind, so you would have a chance to live. She ran away from Bane to allow you be born. He threatened to have you aborted. I told you this. You were still part of her, even if Bane was your father. Where he would have destroyed you in the womb, she wanted you to live. She carried you full term and gave you to someone she trusted…to give you the chance to live.”
“If Bane wanted me to die before I was born, why did he come looking for me after all this time? Why did he bring me here and allow us to meet?” Michael asked.
Cricket shrugged. “Who knows why Bane does anything? Maybe he finally realized that he’s human? That’s hard to believe but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he finally wanted to have something beyond his own life? Who the hell knows? You’ll have to ask him if you want to know.” Cricket got to her feet and began to walk away then she stopped and turned back to Michael. “Tell him something for me will you? Tell him he won’t get the daggers. I don’t have them nor do I know where they are but even if I did, I wouldn’t give them to him. They belonged to my father and now, they belong to me. End of story.”
Michael watched her walk away and thought about what she told him. Bane had told him most of it already. He knew the reason behind his birth. He also knew his father hadn’t wanted him at first but later, regretted that decision. Bane also told him he was elated when he found out about his son.
Michael got to his feet and went in search of his father. He still had so many questions and no answers.
~* * * *~
The Priest watched Sawyer’s progress from inside the shadows of the trees. He watched the compound with a small pair of binoculars. He’d arrived shortly after Leon Vincinti drove in and he had spent the night watching and waiting to see if his quarry was inside.
He’d waited all day, taking notes of where everyone was. He’d seen people in and out of the clubhouse but they held no interest to him. He knew who he was after. He’d seen her before. In a warehouse in Rochester. He had gotten there too late to save her from a beating and the two men responsible had almost gotten a taste of his wrath but then her brother had come in and rescued her.
He had stayed in the shadows and watched everything play out. Why he did that he couldn’t say. When he first saw her hanging there with her arms above her head something inside him took notice. There, he saw what Jack Fremore and Jon Paulson had done to her and for a moment, he felt a rage like no other. He stood there stunned. He’d never felt this emotion before and why he it happened at all surprised him. Then she had raised her head and for a brief moment, he locked gazes with her. He’d taken a step out of the shadows and almost came into the light but her brother chose that moment to break into the room she’d been held in. He quickly stepped back and watched as Jordan freed her.
Since then, he’d been there. Always watching, always hidden. He couldn’t explain this obsession he had with her. Max had hired him shortly before the warehouse incident to find the Black Hand Jolene had taken years ago. He hadn’t pushed for results until after his nephew beat the hell out of Jolene. But by then, it had been too late. Sawyer and Jordan had taken off after they thought Jolene died in the hospital. It had taken some time to catch up with them but he’d been there when Micah caused the accident that had injured Sawyer.
He’d also watched as her long lost father reunited with her. He watched when daddy took care of Micah and silently toasted the man and his method of vengeance. It had been beautiful to watch the light leave Micah’s battered body. Then again, he was glad to watch Max’s demise. Max had been a despicable creature and the world was better off without him.
For a week now, he had Sawyer in his sights again, and this time he was determined not to lose her again.
Now she’d come out alone and for a moment, he couldn’t believe his luck. He waited and watched. When no one came out after her, he thought he was safe. He waited then checked the spot where the guard watched over the compound and found the man’s back toward him.
He made his way to the checkpoint. Moving silently, he slipped behind the man who was supposed to be watching for intruders. Strong fingers hit the nerve along the side of his neck. Pressing down, the man staggered then fell to his knees. He hit the ground unconscious.
He then slipped back into the woods. Making his way parallel to the path Sawyer had walked. He found her. She was standing at a man-made pond. The place was hidden but someone knew its location as it seemed well used over time.
Sawyer was sitting on a bench staring at the waterfalls. The sounds of rushing water falling over the rocks hid his movements and allowed him to creep up behind her, unnoticed. While he stood behind her, he moved in and reached for her neck. Hitting the same nerve as he had the man on watch. He caught her in his arms before she could fall.
Lifting her up, he threw her over his shoulder and made his way away from the compound. He got to his car and placed her carefully in the backseat. Before he left, he slipped her hands behind her back and held them together with a zip tie. He slipped a bandana over her eyes and a gag into her mouth. He had a way to go before he could secure her in his lair. It was an obscure place, as he hated surprises.
Swiftly, he slipped behind the wheel and drove away. He glimpsed into the rear view mirror and found himself filled with a sense of the anticlimactic. While he was glad he found her alone, he felt let down somehow. The chase was often the most fun for him. That she had fallen in his grasp so easily almost made the whole trip a letdown. As he drove away, he couldn’t help but chuckle. He had the one person he was after but he knew he wouldn’t have her long. He’d done his homework when Max told him what he could be up against. Then he dug deeper on his own just recently. While Leon Vincinti had his own connections to worry about, he also knew Deke Tory had a whole other set of connections to call upon. Between the two of them, he was more worried about Deke’s connections than even Leon’s.
