BLOOD TIES (Decklan Jennings Thriller Book 1)

by Philip Duncan

  “Last chance, buddy. I don’t want to hurt you,” Decklan said, hoping this would prompt him to give up and walk away.

  The frat guy stood there, contemplating his next move. He may have been an idiot but even an idiot could see nothing he could do would allow him to come out of this on the winning side. He threw up his hands, showing he was done, and walked away in defeat.

  Decklan’s heart rate was elevated but it only took a minute or two for him to recompose, refocus, and head in the party to find Langley.

  CHAPTER 11

  Decklan couldn’t believe how many people were at this party. It looked like half the damn town.

  Where the hell is Langley?

  He walked around, hoping he would eventually find him. About ten minutes passed by before he finally tracked Langley down.

  “Hey man, how’d it go outside?” Langley asked. “It doesn’t even look like you got in a fight.”

  “It went about how you’d expect,” Decklan replied, knowing good and well that Langley knew how skilled and dangerous he was. “You found our guys yet?”

  “I have been watching them, but no action yet,” Langley replied. “They are standing over by the fireplace in the living room.”

  They walked out of the kitchen and into the main hallway where they could get a visual of them.

  “Right there—you see them?” Langley said, looking in their direction without being obvious.

  “Yeah, I see them. What now?”

  As soon as the last word left Decklan’s mouth, they saw something. Two young girls walked up to the drug dealers. They appeared to be flirting with the guys, clearly not knowing who they were flirting with. They must have been trying to sweet talk a deal out of them. One of the thugs was soaking it up while the other one was getting irritated. He grabbed one of the girls by the arm and pulled her in aggressively to say something. Unfortunately, there was no way for Decklan or Langley to hear what he said.

  Despite being surrounded by dozens of people, no one seemed to notice what happened. This pissed both of them off, but it was about to get even worse. The same guy, still holding the girl’s arm, started pulling her away and down a hallway. They watched, knowing they had to be careful before taking any action. He eventually got the girl to a room, opened the door, threw her in, and followed behind her. The young girl's friend was too busy flirting with the other dealer to realize what happened.

  “Wait here and keep an eye on them,” Langley said.

  “Where are you going?” Decklan asked but Langley was already walking away.

  Decklan watched as Langley headed straight for the same room the young girl was just taken into. Langley stood in front of the closed door, listening intently. Then, without hesitation, he slowly opened the door, stepped inside, and closed it behind him.

  Oh shit. This can’t be good, Decklan thought.

  It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes before the door opened again. Langley and the girl walked out, leaving Decklan wondering what happened to the other guy. Eventually, Langley made his way back over to Decklan after whispering something to the girl before leaving her in the hallway.

  “Did anything interesting happen with the lovebirds while I was gone?” Langley asked, acting as if nothing happened.

  Decklan shook his head no and asked a question of his own. “Did anything happen in that room that I should know about?”

  Langley smiled and answered, “Let’s just say that asshole won’t be bothering anyone for a while.”

  They stood there watching as the girl that Langley just saved was crying hysterically and grabbing her friend, urging her to leave. This raised suspicion with the dealer and he quickly realized that his buddy didn’t come back with the girl. It appeared that Langley wanted the girl to cause suspicion, which would prompt the dealer to go looking for his friend.

  They waited for him to turn and go looking before they followed suit. As soon as the guy got inside and saw his unconscious and blood-soaked friend, he heard the door shut behind him. He turned around to find two men that he didn’t recognize: Langley Jones and Decklan Jennings.

  “Who the hell are you guys and what happened here?” the thug asked, pointing to the unconscious body on the floor.

  “Don’t worry about who we are, but we do have a couple of questions for you,” Langley replied.

  “Fuck off. I ain’t gonna tell you shit.”

  “You know, your buddy said the same thing and look how that turned out for him,” Langley said.

  “I’m gonna gut you both like a pig,” the drug dealer said, pulling a knife from his waistband. “Do you have any idea who I work for?”

  “As a matter of fact we don’t,” Langley replied. “Do you care to tell us?”

  “It won’t matter if I tell you or not because you’re both going to be dead when this is all said and done.”

  Clearly this threat had no effect on either of them as they listened to this guy ramble on. Decklan had been silent up to this point, as he was letting Langley work his magic, hoping they could get some useful information out of this guy before they knocked his teeth down his throat.

  “I don’t think this is going to go down like you think it is,” Langley said. “We just need you to answer a couple of questions, and then we will let you and what’s left of your buddy over there leave.”

  Leave? There is no way we can let these guys walk out of here after seeing our faces. He must be bluffing, Decklan thought to himself.

  Then, without warning, the guy lunged forward with his knife, narrowly missing Decklan’s stomach. He reset and was about to try again, but Langley struck the guy right on the temple with a kick, leaving him out cold right next to his buddy.

  “What the hell are we going to do now?” Decklan asked. “We can’t exactly get answers out of a couple of unconscious bodies.”

  What came out of Langley’s mouth next, completely caught him off guard.

  “Hurry, help me pick him up. We are going to take him back to your house,” Langley said.

  “My house! Have you lost your damn mind?” Decklan said.

  “You got any better ideas? He knows what we look like. We can’t just leave him here to wake up and run back to whoever he works for. We need to get him out of here so we have more time to get the answers we need.”

  “And what about the other guy?” Decklan asked.

  “Him we can leave. I knocked him out from behind so he never saw my face.”

  “Okay, fair enough. But how do you expect us to just carry some unconscious guy through a crowd of people without raising any questions?”

  “This is a college party, Decklan. People get blackout drunk and carried out all the time. No one will look at us twice.”

  ***

  They laid him down in the back seat and Decklan sat in the back as well to make sure he didn't wake up and try something stupid. They arrived back at his house and carried him inside.

  Decklan didn't want this scumbag on any of his furniture so they just dropped him on the floor in front of the TV, right about the same time he was coming back to his senses.

  “Hey, where the hell am I? Who are you guys?”

  Langley pointed at Decklan. “You don't remember him?”

  The thug shook his head, indicating he had no clue who Decklan was.

  “Are you sure? Look real close. Doesn't this place look familiar?” Langley suggested, hoping to jog his memory if he had something to do with the murders.

  “Listen man, I don't know who you guys are and I don't know anything, I swear.”

  Neither one of them were buying it. Clearly this guy would say whatever he needed to stay alive.

  “All we need to know is who you work for and how we can get to him, and we will let you live,” Decklan said.

  This flustered the thug. It was evident by the look on his face and sweat beading on his forehead that he was nervous.

  “Even if I tell you, it wo
n’t matter. I'll be dead when he finds out.”

  “Who?” Decklan asked.

  He didn't respond.

  “Who is your boss?” he asked again, with a more forceful tone.

  Silence.

  Decklan pulled out his Glock and pointed directly between the guy’s eyes. “Last chance, asshole.”

  “Okay, I'll tell you,” he finally responded with his eyes shut tight, hoping Decklan didn’t pull the trigger. “His name is Vladimir Ivanov. He's one of the biggest drug dealers in the world.”

  “How did he end up here? How long has he been dealing drugs in my town?” Decklan said, growing impatient.

  “I don't know. He just moves from city to city recruiting local drug dealers to do his bidding. I just do what I am told and don't ask questions. I have seen him do things to people for just looking at him wrong. He’s fucking crazy, man.”

  Decklan and Langley stood there staring at each other. They finally got the information they were looking for, but somehow it didn't bring them the satisfaction they imagined.

  “Where can we find this Vladimir?” Langley asked.

  “Come on, man, I told you his name. Just let me go. I swear I won't tell nobody.”

  “Just tell us where he is and you are free,” Langley said.

  This surprised Decklan. He didn't think that he would be so quick to dismiss this guy back into the streets. But he guessed it was the only alternative to killing him. And they had no real reason to do this.

  “He likes to hang out at some high-end strip joint just a few miles outside of town. You can usually find him there most nights when he doesn't have other obligations.”

  “Name?” Langley asked.

  “The Mouse's Ear.”

  Neither one of them knew where this was but it couldn't be too hard to find. There weren’t many strip clubs around here. Actually, until now, Decklan didn’t know there were any.

  “Great, how far?” Decklan chimed in.

  “It’s about half an hour away.”

  “Do you know if he’s there tonight?” Decklan asked.

  “I don’t know, man, probably. His favorite girl works on Fridays.”

  “Perfect,” Langley replied.

  Decklan knew they needed to go tonight but he didn’t feel comfortable leaving a drug dealer that they just beat up and basically kidnapped in his house alone, even if he was tied up.

  “What are we going to do with him?” Decklan said, looking at Langley. “We can’t just leave him here. What if he escapes or someone finds him here before we get back?”

  “Good point,” Langley replied as he pulled out his silenced 9mm Ruger. “We can’t leave a trail.”

  And before Decklan could respond, Langley put one straight through the thug’s skull.

  “There, problem solved.”

  “Jesus, Langley! What the hell did you do that for? We can’t just walk around shooting people. That’s not exactly the best way to keep a low profile.”

  “I get it, Decklan. But we both know we couldn’t just let him run back to his friends after seeing our faces. We can’t take that chance. Especially now that they will eventually catch on that someone is messing with their guys. Even if the other one didn’t see our faces, he still knows something out of the ordinary happened and they will come looking for this one,” Langley said as he pointed to the corpse on the floor. “We need to get ahead of this. Let’s go to the club and see what we can find out.

  Decklan was still stunned by what just happened. Another life taken in his home. It had become a fifty-five hundred square foot coffin for four people now.

  They couldn’t just leave him on the floor bleeding everywhere, so they rolled him up in the living room carpet and sat it against the back of the couch.

  “There, this will do for now. We’ll figure out a long-term solution when we get back,” Langley said.

  CHAPTER 12

  They were back in Langley’s car, where it seemed they spent most of their time. It would be around nine-thirty before they got to the strip club. They wanted to get inside and get comfortable with the layout while they kept their eyes peeled for Vladimir.

  They could see the neon sign about a hundred yards before they could even see the building. The Mouse’s Ear, where the drinks are cheap but the company is not.

  “Damn, this place is packed,” Decklan said as they pulled into the parking lot. “How could I not know this place existed?”

  “Probably because you're not a lowlife piece of shit,” Langley said, jokingly.

  After they finally found a place to park, they got out and started to make their way to the front door where two giant men stood, picking and choosing who was allowed to enter. They saw several well-dressed men enter, but right behind them, a couple of guys were stopped. They looked to be in their early twenties and had clearly been drinking prior to arriving.

  “The bouncers don’t like to take their chances with guys like this because more times than not, it ends up with a fight or someone getting too handsy with the girls,” Langley said.

  Decklan shot a quick look at him. “How do you know that? You come to places like this in your spare time?”

  Langley laughed. “Only for work reasons. Kind of like tonight. But I’ve done it enough to know what kind of people are inside.”

  “How do you know they will let us in?” Decklan asked.

  “Well, for one, we can actually form a coherent sentence. And two, we look old enough for them to assume we have money to spend.”

  “I’m not giving a penny to this shithole,” Decklan said.

  “It’s fine; I got you covered,” Langley replied.

  They got inside with no problems, and made their way over to the bar to get a couple of drinks. Not drinking in a place like this would make you stand out, and that was the last thing they needed.

  “Two whiskeys on the rocks, please,” Langley said to the bartender.

  “I don't drink,” Decklan responded. “I have a complicated history with booze.”

  “You don't have to drink it, just hold it so it looks like you are. We need to blend in.”

  I don't want to blend in with these people, Decklan thought, but he knew he didn't have a choice.

  They stood there, with their backs to the bar, scanning the club. They were hoping to see Vladimir, or someone they thought might be Vladimir. They didn't actually know for sure if the older gentleman they saw the other day at the house was him or not, but they assumed as much.

  We should have asked what he looked like before blowing the guy’s head off, Decklan thought.

  “Do you see anyone that could be our guy?” Langley asked.

  “No, nothing yet,” Decklan replied.

  They decided to walk around rather than just standing at the bar, staring like a couple of creeps. As they were making their way through the main floor, they had three different half-naked women come up to them asking for a dance.

  They both politely brushed them off and kept moving. Then another girl came up, but this time only to Decklan.

  “Hey handsome. Can I buy you a drink?” she asked.

  “No thanks. I have one already,” he replied, holding up his untouched whiskey.

  “How about a private show?” she said.

  Decklan looked at Langley, not exactly sure what she meant, but he nodded his head, indicating for him to go with her. Langley leaned over to Decklan and whispered, “Go with her and see if you can find out anything about our guy. See if she knows him or possibly who his favorite girl is.”

  Decklan hated this plan, and in any other situation, he would turn around and run straight for the exit. His wife was dead, but he still felt like he was somehow cheating on her. This left a gut-wrenching feeling in the pit of his stomach. The only feeling worse than this was the feeling of not knowing who was responsible for killing his family. Against his better judgment, he agreed. The attractive woman grabbed his hand and led him through
the crowd and into a hallway behind the stage. There were several doors, all shut, which meant there were other girls inside entertaining privately.

  They entered the only room open and she instructed him to sit on the couch while playfully pushing him down. The lights were off, but the room was not dark. It had a neon glow that was coming from the ceiling. The girl started to dance and Decklan tried his best not to look, but he had to look somewhat interested so he could get some answers.

  “You like what you see, handsome?” the girl asked.

  Decklan nodded.

  I need to get some answers now so I can get the hell out of here.

  “Can I ask you some questions?” he finally said, cautiously.

  “Of course, baby, whatever you want.”

  He couldn't believe this shit worked on guys. It was clearly rehearsed and disingenuous. Nothing about this was a turn-on for him. Not even a now completely naked girl. Any girl that wasn’t his wife did nothing for him.

  “Have you ever seen a Russian guy in here before? Goes by the name Vladimir,” he asked. “Possibly an older gentleman?”

  “Oh sure, I know who that is, but he has his own girl. I’ve never met him before, only seen him.”

  “Who's his girl?”

  “Candy.”

  “Is Candy working tonight?”

  “She's working the room next door.”

  “With Vladimir?”

  “That's right, baby. Why do you want to know so bad?”

  “He's an old friend, and I heard he was in town and wanted to catch up.”

  “How sweet,” she said, continuing to dance.

  “Do you know if he ever brings anybody with him when he comes in?”

  “You mean like friends?” she asked.

  “Sure,” he replied.

  “Yeah, he usually comes in with about four or five other guys.”

  “Where does he go after he's done with Candy?”

  “To his private table in the corner next to the main stage,” she replied.

  Decklan figured he got all the information he needed and was ready for this little show to end. He tried standing up but the girl playfully pushed him back down.