“No their blood is all on you, you bastard.” Bull growled.
“I’m giving you fair warning.” Conrad snarled. “I’ll give you seventy two hours before the mayhem begins. Not a moment longer. After that, I’ll burn this fucking town down to the ground.” Conrad ended the call.
Bull was so enraged he wanted to throw his phone but he didn’t. He did slam it down on the table. “That rat bastard,” he yelled.
“What did he say?” Hawk asked.
“He’s giving me seventy two hours to come to him or he going to burn this city to the ground and innocent people will die because of it.” Bull had to fight to keep his temper.
“Can we tip off the police?” Tank asked.
Charlie shook her head and began writing a message down in the notebook.
Bull looked over at her and read what she wrote. Then he growled. “Charlie says he owns the cops in this town, not only cops but judges and lawyers too. Here and Texarkana.”
Judge crossed his arms over his huge chest and glared at her. “What would Charlie like us to do about this?” he asked snidely. “She seems to know more about what’s going on here than we do.”
Charlie glared at the man but didn’t say or write anything else. Instead, she gave him the finger.
It was a gesture Judge didn’t appreciate. He growled and took a step toward her and Charlie scrambled to get to her feet. She wouldn’t run from him but she was going to show him she wasn’t scared of him either, even if he was over a foot taller than she was.
Bull got between them quickly enough. He looked at one then the other. “We don’t need this right now.”
In the silence that followed, Mustang called out, “Hey guys, I might have found something interesting here.”
Everyone’s attention turned to the other man.
Mustang looked up from his laptop with an evil like grin on his face. “You know that tattoo on Bane’s chest? The reason Salim had one like it is because it’s an old family tattoo. Every male in the Malik line has one. They earn it when they become a man at the age of fifteen.” Mustang shook his head. “What a fucked up family the Malik’s are. To earn the tattoo the boys have this ritual they have to complete. They have to add to the family wealth by taking something valuable from an enemy. Usually, their lives along with a trophy of some kind.”
“How the hell did you find that out?” Tank asked with an astonished expression on his face.
“I have my ways,” Mustang smiled. “They may not be legal but they’re there if you know where to look.” He shrugged. “I know where to look. Sue me.”
“And if you get caught?” Tank growled.
“I’ve never been caught yet.” He grinned. “And I don’t plan too. I know how to hide my searches and I don’t share the info I go after.”
“Did you find out who this bastard is?” Bull demanded.
Mustang nodded. “His real name is Adhir Malik. He’s Salim older brother by two years. Old man Malik had four sons and each one is worse than the last. The two remaining brothers, Adoma and Makam are back on their home ground working with Adhir to solidify the pipeline. They ship the drugs out and Adhir brings them into this country.” Mustang turned to Bull. “I don’t think he’s looking to make money off your fights. He’s been looking to take the whole team out for killing Salim and for daring to disrupt the pipeline, his major moneymaker. We’ve been dodging attempts on our lives for a while now.”
“You guys too?” Bull asked. “I’ve had a couple close calls myself but chalked it up to being in the wrong place and the wrong time. I never once thought of a connection to Salim. I didn’t know he had family over here.”
“We still need proof that the drugs are coming into this country via the cartel and being disturbed by the River Ratz,” Hawk stated. “We need that proof before we can go to anyone with any power to stop this.”
“Maybe we can get Senator Ritcher involved in this.” Judge threw out his name. “It might be worth political points for him to stop a drug pipeline in his state.”
No one noticed Charlie shaking her head or the fact that her hands were shaking and her eyes filled with dread.
CHAPTER FIVE
While the others began collecting evidence, Bull stared down at the street below. Everything was quiet at the moment but he didn’t trust Conrad Bane or the Ratz to keep the peace. He knew Conrad was trying to find him and that he wouldn’t stop until Bull was standing in front of him.
The rage he felt growing inside him was banked at the moment but Bull knew it wouldn’t stay that way if something else bad happened in his town. He thought of Smokey and his girlfriend. Smokey had been close to sixty and ready to retire when Bull met him three years ago.
Smokey worked with him building his body back up after his injury. It had taken him a year and a half to get his body back in prime shape and then another half a year to make the fighting ring. This last year, both Bull and Smokey made money from the fights and Bull was well on his way to making the heavyweight championship. He only needed two more fights and he could take home the belt. Now he would never know. But that didn’t matter, Bull discovered.
What did matter was that Smokey was gone and someone had killed him over a stupid piece of paper. Well maybe, it was a little more than that but his past shouldn’t have cost Smokey his life.
Bull glanced back over his shoulder and glanced at Charlie. She was sitting back on the bed with her arms wrapped around her knees, rocking back and forth. She didn’t seem to be looking at anyone in particular but instead, she was drawn into her own memories.
Bull frowned and turned to join her on the bed. As he sat down next to her, he cupped her chin and drew her gaze up to him.
Charlie’s eyes were unfocused for a moment but then she noticed him sitting there. She stared at him for a moment then reached for her notepad. Scribbling for a moment, she showed him what she’d written.
Bull frowned as he read her words, then he stared at her for a moment. “Are you sure of this?”
Charlie nodded.
“Absolutely sure?” Bull insisted.
Charlie nodded again.
“And how are you so sure?”
Charlie grabbed her notebook and wrote something more down. Turning the notebook back to him, Bull read her words and swore when he was done.
Turning to Judge, he yelled at the other man, “Commander, we got a problem.”
Judge looked at Bull and Charlie and said in a weary voice, “What now?”
“Charlie says she’s seen Ritcher in Conrad’s company,” Bull announced.
“How do we know that’s true?” Hawk asked.
Charlie growled and wrote something in her book. Tapping on the page, she waited for Bull to read her statement. “I DON’T LIE.”
Bull read her words and shrugged. Facing his men he told them, “I believe her. I think she knows more about this than we do and we should at least listen to what she has to say.”
“I think maybe she’s hiding a very big piece of the puzzle here and I don’t like it,” Judge commented as he stomped closer to where they were. “I don’t think she’s being completely honest with us and I find it hard to trust her without all the facts. After all, why would Commander Seth Ritcher have anything to do with a man like Conrad Bane? When he was in the military, he was as straight as they come. I can’t believe all of a sudden, he would turn completely around and become dirty.” He paused for a moment then had to ask, “How did she see all of this anyway? Bane and the Ratz, the cartel, Ritcher in Bane’s company? It just seems too much of a coincidence for me. For one thing, we don’t know anything about her and I can’t trust someone I don’t know. I’m gonna need proof of this so called connection before I’ll consider what she has to say.” Shaking his head he continued, “We barely know her name, let alone anything else about her.”
Charlie began scribbling in the notebook. Then she handed it to Bull and turned her back to the room. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks and she closed h
er eyes to shut out the pain.
Bull got to his feet and stomped over to where Judge and the others were standing. “This is bullshit and you know it.” He growled. “She’s only trying to help.”
Judge shook his head. “That’s not how we work and you fucking know it. We only trust what we can prove. We have no reason to take her word for anything. Like I said before, we barely know her name. We don’t know her story, where she comes from, how she knows the players or what the help happened that got her beat up. Now she tells us someone we know and have trusted in the past is in cahoots with drug runners and cartel? I find that just a little bit hard to swallow.” He looked around at his men then turned back to Bull. “We were a team back in the day. No one could touch us we were so close. We fought the good fight and we would still be doing it if Salim hadn’t fucked us over. After the ambush, we were sent home with two dead bodies and more questions than answers. You went your own way which was what you had to do at the time while the rest of us began our own battle against the drug trade here at home. It took us four very long years to find out what little we have now.” Judge stepped in closer. “Don’t forget, you called us in this remember? Yeah, she’s helping us connect the dots and all but until I know for sure she’s not gonna fuck us over, I can’t take what she says as gospel. She was right about Conrad Bane but I find it hard to believe that Seth Ritcher would give up his soul to the man in question.”
Bull reached up and began rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, that doesn’t make sense to me either. Ritcher was always so straight laced when I knew him.” He turned and looked over his shoulder at Charlie. When he looked back at the others he said in a quiet tone, “I know you have issues with her but there’s something about her that I trust. I know it doesn’t make any difference in the long run but my gut is telling me to protect her. She needs us to believe in her.” Spreading his arms out wide he said, “She needs someone to believe in her and that someone is gonna be me.”
Judge shook his head. “We need time to see if what she’s telling us is true or not. If it is, we can make our plans.” He paused the narrowed his eyes at Bull. “Is that acceptable to you?”
Bull stared at the man for a long minute then nodded slowly. “It will have to be won’t it?”
“Why don’t you try and get my information on this girl, the more we know about her the better we’ll feel about her,” Hawk suggested. “Talk to her while we check deeper into the backgrounds of the players involved, or at least the ones we know about.”
Mustang went over to his computer and began typing. “I’ll look deeper into Bane. There has to be more about the man.”
“Go back further than five years and see how long he’s been here,” Judge told him. “I think this route has been set up longer than five years.”
Mustang nodded and continued to type in commands.
Judge looked over at Wild Child. “I need to know more about the cartel they are using.”
Wild Child nodded and began searching out the Benali cartel on his laptop.
Judge looked at Tank. “Check out the members of the River Ratz gang.” Then Judge turned to Hawk, “I need you to check on Ritcher. Charlie says he’s partners with Bane, I need to know if that’s true or not. If it is, then what happened to us after the ambush needs to be made public. It’s time we had those answers.”
“That will be my pleasure.” Hawk snarled. “And if I find out it’s true, I’ll hunt down the son of a bitch myself and pull his confession out of his guts.”
“Then let’s figure this out people, before it’s too late to stop it,” Judge called out.
Bull went over to the bank of windows and watched over his adopted city. In all the years he’d lived here, he never knew the evil that roamed here. But he learned the hard way, hell they all had learned that lesson, evil always hides its true face until there is no longer any reason to do so.
A while later Bull came over the where Charlie was sleeping. For a few minutes, he just watched her sleep then his eyes caught sight of the notebook and he frowned.
Taking the notebook, he moved away from her and sat down to read what she wrote. Lifting his eyes, he noted everyone else was sleeping and he had the entire room to himself. Lowering his eyes, he began reading Charlie’s letter.
My name really is Charlie. It’s the only thing that I know is really mine. I was found by the police in a small apartment in a bad neighborhood right here in Mount Pleasant when I was two. The only other person in the apartment was my mother. Her name was Joni and she was found dead on the floor. She’d been strangled. I don’t know how long she was dead before the police found her body. No one ever told me that when I was growing up. I found that much out when I was eighteen and looked up the old police files on my mom’s death. I don’t know my real last name or if I ever had one. I only know this because other people told it to me. The name my mom listed on the rental file was not her own. She put Joni Kennedy on the paperwork but it wasn’t her real name. The police found that out when they checked up on her. They never did find out her real name or who my father was. They either didn’t care to check her out or couldn’t find any information on her. Social workers let me use the name Charlie Kennedy when they took me into care. They didn’t know what else to call me.
I was put into foster care and every time I went to a new home, I was made to feel less than I was because everyone knew my last name wasn’t really mine. I had twenty three different foster homes until I was sixteen. After that I was on my own. I just couldn’t stay with people that didn’t care whether I lived or died anymore. To them I was nothing more than a check they got the first of the month. Some of the foster homes were ok and others were really bad. The social workers didn’t care they just left me there and never looked back. Until the next time they had to move me.
You learn quickly what to expect in foster care. Nothing you have is ever your own, not even the clothes on your back and every time you go to another house, you pack your clothes in garbage bags. If you had proper luggage when you got there it was gone by the time you left. I went to fifteen different schools in seven different towns around here in my lifetime and everyone knew about me before I got there. I was the girl with no real last name and everyone let me know it. Kids can be very cruel to other kids.
I never had many friends growing up but I did learn to watch for trouble and trouble always found me when I least expected it. I also learned how to street fight and protect myself. I learned those lessons the hard way and I have the broken bones to prove it.
When I was eleven, I met a girl two years younger than me and her brother who was two years older than I was. We lived together in the same house for the next three years. Maggie and I became best friends and her brother Jesse looked out for the both of us. We became a family of sorts. Then Maggie and Jesse got moved to another house. We tried to keep in touch and we did for a while but after a couple of years, we lost touch. Nobody’s fault, shit like that happens every day.
We managed to stay together as friends but seeing each other became difficult. I was sixteen at the time and for a while, I ran the streets. I didn’t finish high school as I was pretty much living on my own at the time.
Then something happened. I found out my friend Maggie was kidnapped by a monster. She was raped over several days and then thrown into the garbage dump by the man who took her. They left her for dead and they almost got their wish. She was fourteen and what happened to her shattered her soul. I found her again in the hospital and tried to stay with her as much as I could.
Jesse and I tried to find out who took her but Maggie couldn’t tell us much. She was afraid of her own shadow at the time. She was afraid the guy who took her would come back after her to kill her before the police could find him. After all, she was a witness he had to silence. I think she would have ended her pain if not for the fact the monster who took her got her pregnant. She knew suicide was a mortal sin but killing an unborn baby was much worse.
She was a
lone when her son was born. I didn’t get to her until almost after the fact. She begged me to forgive her and to take care of her son. We talked until the early hours and I tried to stop her from doing it but her mind was made up. She couldn’t live with the shame of what happened to her. So while I slept she took her own life. She swallowed some pills and by the time I woke up, she was already gone. She knew I would take care of her son and I did. I hid him with a family I knew and I know he’s safe.
Jesse and I began piecing together what happened to Maggie. We found out the man who took her was a River Rat gang member, we just didn’t know which one. Jesse joined the gang and I watched them for the next three years. They never even knew I was there. Either that or they didn’t care. Paolo always was an ass. But even then, I knew if they caught me I was dead.
At first, it was hard because I didn’t know who was coming or going from their compound. Then over time, I began putting names with the faces and I started to recognize the patterns and the people they did business with. Then one day, I saw a man that gave me the creeps. The moment I saw him, I felt a shiver in my soul. If anyone could project evil this man did. I didn’t know him from Adam but when I saw him, I was afraid. For the first time in my life, I didn’t know what to do. Later, I found out his name was Conrad Bane.
Conrad Bane has been there more times than I care to count. He showed up every time a boat arrived from Mexico. He has been coming and going a lot for the last three years. I’ve gotten close enough at times to overhear their conversations. I haven’t been caught because I know how to keep still and hide in all the right places.
I can follow someone without getting caught. I have followed Conrad Bane many times and he’s never known I was there. Believe me if he knew I was there, I wouldn’t still be alive. I’ve seen the man in action and he doesn’t suffer fools lightly. He’s cruel and barbaric and wouldn’t hesitate to slit your throat if you crossed him. I watched his eyes on several occasions and they are cold and black as his soul. I would hate the man but that takes too much effort. I’d rather not waste my time on such worthless thoughts. I still get the vibe from him that I know him from somewhere else but I’ve racked my brain and can’t remember where I’ve seen him before.
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