Roman

by K. J. Dahlen

  “She’s bleeding, that’s why we’re here,” Stephanous explained.

  “Then let’s get you looked at.” Roman assisted her out of the car then he hustled her into the Emergency Room. He looked back at Benny and noted that Stephanous was watching over him. Corbin was beside Stevie all the way to the exam room.

  When the doctor joined them, Corbin stayed beside her. When the nurse drew blood and began cleaning her shallow wounds, the doctor decided she didn’t need stitches. They superglued the wounds and waited for the results of the blood test.

  Roman had gone out to check on Benny.

  While she was alone, Stevie knelt down on the floor and hugged her dog to her. “Oh Corbin,” she wept into his fur. “What the hell else can go wrong in my life? Now I have brought danger to Roman’s life. I can’t do this anymore.”

  “Don’t you even think about leaving him,” Yuri’s harsh voice rang out in the silence of the room. He’d just walked in to hear her words.

  Stevie looked up and felt that haunted sadness all over again. Tears ran freely down her cheeks. “How can you say that? I put him and you all in danger. I just can’t do that anymore. I can’t be selfish. I just can’t do that to him. I love him too much for that.”

  Yuri knelt on the floor beside her. “And if you think he’ll allow you to leave without turning over every rock in the entire state looking for you, you would be wrong.”

  “Trouble follows me no matter where I go and I can’t watch him get hurt, not because of me. I can’t face that kind of pain anymore. I just don’t want to.”

  “I won’t lose my brother because you’re afraid of getting hurt,” Yuri insisted.

  “But I’m not afraid for me.” She shook her head. “I’m afraid for him. My life would be over if anything happened to him. Don’t you see? He’ll be safe if I go away.”

  Yuri snorted. “Roman will never allow it and in this, I would back him all the way. We are Russians you know? Very stubborn men… all of us. We’ve had to be in order to survive what we did growing up. I think Roman is the most stubborn of us all. If you go, he will follow. I think your brother will as well.” Yuri got to his feet and helped her to hers. “We can’t protect you if you aren’t here.”

  Before she could say anything, the doctor came back into the room. He glanced at his chart but when he looked up, he was smiling. “Well young lady, I have some very good news for you.”

  Stevie glanced over at Yuri and asked, “What would that be? I thought I was ok?”

  “Well, I think this tops just being ok.” The doctor chuckled. “The blood test tells us another story altogether.”

  “Oh?” Stevie got nervous. “What else did it tell you?”

  The doctor looked at Yuri for a moment then back to her. “Do you want me to tell you now or should I wait until you’re alone?”

  Stevie shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, he’ll find out anyway. I don’t keep secrets from them.”

  “It tells us you’re pregnant,” the doctor announced with a smile.

  Stevie felt faint and stumbled for a moment. Yuri caught her before she could fall and assisted her over to an exam table. She glanced quickly at Yuri then looked back at the doctor. “Would you repeat that please?”

  The doctor smiled. “According to your blood test, you’re going to have a baby.”

  Yuri smiled. “Roman will be so happy. He’s always wanted a family.”

  Stevie grabbed Yuri’s arm. “You can’t tell him. Oh god, he can’t know, not now!”

  Yuri frowned.” Like you said you cannot keep secrets—“

  Just then, the door opened and Roman came back in.

  The silence grew tense for a moment while he glanced at Yuri, then Stevie then finally to the doctor. “What’s going on here?”

  “Nothing,” Stevie assured him. “The doctor was telling me I could go home.”

  The doctor picked up on her cue and nodded. “Yes, she should be good to go. Just watch for any unusual bleeding and she can have Tylenol for fever if she needs it. She shouldn’t take anything stronger though.”

  Roman glanced again between the three of them but when no one said anything else, he wrapped his arm around her and walked out to the waiting room.

  Benny was sitting there with Stephanous and several other security men.

  Yuri slapped Roman on the back. “You guys can stay at the penthouse suite until we know for sure your house is safe and we can get some more security in place. This was too close for comfort.”

  Roman wrapped his huge arms around Stevie and Benny. “Da, it was.” Turning to his brother, he held out his hand. “Thank you.”

  Yuri smiled as he took his hand to shake it. “There’s no need for thanks. We’re always there for one another since we were kids. It’s always been us against the whole world and that isn’t going to change now.”

  Stevie looked over at Yuri and met his eyes briefly. His look seemed to dare her to tell Roman the news. Instead, she bit her lip and kept quiet. Looking over at Benny, she went to brush her hair behind her ear and winced when she hit a sore spot on her neck. “Are you ok, Benny?”

  Benny nodded and hugged her. “I’m so glad you’re not hurt.”

  Stevie smiled. “I’ll be fine. Just a few cuts.”

  “What happened?” Benny whispered. “Is this still about Baton Rouge?”

  “I don’t know, maybe.” Stevie shrugged.

  “I thought we were free of that place,” Benny cried.

  “You are free of that place,” Roman assured them. “Nothing from that cesspool will ever hurt you guys again. I won’t let it.”

  Stevie shook her head. “You can’t stop it. They know where we are now and they’ll keep coming. They need Benny and me gone for good and they just won’t stop coming until they get that.”

  Roman snarled. “They aren’t going to get what they want then are they?”

  Stevie looked away. “I hope not,” she whispered.

  When the phone rang, Nick Bennett answered the call. He was on his way to visit his half-brother Eugene Harris in jail but hadn’t left his hotel room yet. Eugene had spent the last four months sitting behind bars for his part in the corruption of the civil authorities of Baton Rouge.

  Four months ago, everything had come crashing down when the people had taken their streets back. Eugene’s wife disappeared along with her sons, leaving him and several others holding the bag for sex crimes and corruption. The state had brought in a special prosecutor and judge into play. The Governor had even declared Martial Law in the city.

  Eugene had called him as a last resort and one of Nick’s conditions had been that no one in Baton Rouge would know that they were related. He didn’t want the stain of Eugene’s crime to be associated with him or his family in any way shape or form.

  When he answered the phone, he heard the words, “I found them.”

  Nick smiled. “Good, can you get to them and take them both out? As far as I know, the special prosecutor hasn’t got a case without her evidence and so far, he doesn’t have it.”

  “I almost got her today.”

  “Damn.” Nick swore.

  “Don’t worry I’ll find her again. Now that I know where to look.”

  “The trial starts in two weeks. You have two weeks to locate them and take them out. The sooner the better. Her evidence hasn’t come into play yet, and it can’t or these people will go to prison for a very long time.”

  The man on the other end of the phone call chuckled. “They broke the number one rule of not getting caught.”

  “Yeah, but they are paying you an insane amount of money to get them out of this, so you’d better earn your money,” Nick threatened.

  “Don’t worry I’ll do my job.”

  When Nick heard the click of the call ending, he tossed his phone down on the bed, then went over to the mini bar and poured himself a drink. Slamming the liquor down his throat, he had to smile.

  He might be able to go home soon with his family sec
ret intact. Eugene was more than an embarrassment to his entire family and Nick had refused to do anything about him until now. Eugene was his father’s bastard’s child and while Nick and his mother knew about him all his life, they wanted nothing to do with him. When he’d called four months ago, Eugene had told them he would tell the papers the whole sordid story if Nick didn’t help him out of this mess.

  So to preserve his family’s good name, Nick had left his law practice behind in Oklahoma City to come here and represent his half-brother. The strategy had been to find and take out Stevie Grace and her brother Benny, so neither of them could confirm the evidence nor tell their own story. These two were the ones who could make the case for the other side and Nick thought this would be the less messy way to win the deal.

  Nick had some unsavory contacts and he had hired the best, Jack Hail to track down the missing pair. Now that he had found them, he knew Jack would take care of his problem. He smiled as he picked up his phone and walked toward the door of his hotel room. He whistled as he made his way to the elevator and beyond.

  LOOK FOR BROTHERS FOREVER COMING LATE MAY 2018

  Exclusive Bonus Content

  A MURDER REMEMBERED

  Rivers Foundation

  A Suspense Novel

  K.J. Dahlen

  Chapter One

  India Carsten sat on the marble bench waiting. The courthouse in Raleigh, North Carolina, was cool at this time of the day and almost deserted. The four story buildings looked rather plain on the outside but inside the walls and floor were tiled with brown marble. As you came in the foyer, you were met with two open staircases leading to the upper floors. The halls of justice housed many offices and several courtrooms and if you paused alone in the dark, you could swear you heard the echoes of past.

  Working as a law clerk for Judge Byron Jackson, she’d been in this building at all hours of the day and night. She knew every inch of the law library and it was there where she often found solace after a trying day deep in the trenches of the law. There, she could read anything she wanted. Reading had always been her passion and her escape. So much had happened in her young life that when she picked up a book and began reading it, she could be carried off to her own new world.

  She had waited until the end of the work day for a reason. She wanted privacy for her talk with District Attorney, Briar Rivers. She’d been sitting here trying to gather her courage to present her evidence to someone she thought of as a friend. She’d known him for some time now and every time she’d been around him, she couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to be with him. Her cheeks heated up when she thought about what she wanted to do with him and thanked her lucky stars he never knew she was interested in him. She couldn’t imagine he even knew she was alive but she wanted to know him in a biblical sense.

  She glanced down at the files in her hand and licked her dry lips. Inside the manila file folders were what she hoped was enough evidence to open an old case, a case that had haunted her for the last fifteen years.

  The door to his office opened and Briar Rivers paused for a brief moment when he saw her sitting there. “India, what in the world are you doing here?” he asked in a surprised voice.

  She stood up, pursed her lips, and said, “I was hoping to talk to you.”

  Briar tilted his head and motioned for her to come into his office. “Well then, come on in and talk to me.”

  India stepped through the door and looked around the office. It was a man’s office, not dominated by junk or little trinkets as some of the offices along this hall were. Here, the counters and desk were clean and clutter free. His desk was large and it took up a great deal of the room. His chair was leather and very comfortable looking.

  Briar walked over to his chair and sat down. He looked very distinguished in his dark suit but even the tailoring couldn’t hide his muscular trim body. The white shirt he wore contrasted starkly with the darkness of his suit and the bright red of his tie. His dark hair was brushed back away from his forehead and was just beginning to turn silver at the temples. His dark blue eyes searched her face as he leaned forward. With his elbows on the desk, he folded his hands and cupped his chin waiting for her to speak.

  India sat down on the other side of the desk and laid the folders down. She was nervous and fiddled with the hem of her tan skirt as she searched for the proper way to say what she had to say. She tucked her strawberry blonde hair behind her ear and began her story. “This may sound crazy and I’m not at all sure what I remember is real or not, but I was reading an article the other day about a murder that was discovered six months ago in Savannah, Georgia. It involved a woman who had been eviscerated. Her organs were removed and not found with her linen wrapped body.” She paused and hen blurted it out, “I think I saw such a murder fifteen years ago in Boston.”

  Briar stared at her for a moment then asked, “What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

  “When I was growing up it was just me and my Mom. My grandparents threw her out of their home when they found out she was going to have me. My father dumped her when she wouldn’t abort me or put me up for adoption. She often had to work two jobs to make ends meet and I was left alone most of the time. My best friend at the time was T.K. Jonas. When I was ten, we were running the streets of East Boston until pretty much all hours of the night. If my mother knew about it, she never said anything. Anyway, one night TK and I were in an abandoned warehouse down by the docks when we heard a noise. We didn’t want to get caught but we wanted to know what was going on.” India paused to she glance at Briar and tears formed in her eyes as she continued her story, “What we saw scared the crap out of both of us. We saw this man carrying in the body of a woman. The woman was unconscious but she was still alive at the time. He tied her to a wooden platform and undressed her. When she was naked, we saw him start cutting her open. The woman screamed but the man continued to cut open her torso. She must have passed out at some point because we couldn’t hear her anymore.” She shuddered slightly at the memory. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to close my eyes and not hear those screams in my nightmares.”

  “What else was the man doing to her?”

  “We watched as he drained her blood and began removing her organs and he placed them in four ceramic jars. He was playing music while he cut her up and when he placed her body parts in the jars he was mumbling some gibberish in a foreign language. When he was finished, he cut off her head. He placed her head in a clear glass jar then sealed the jar. He wrapped her body in bright orange linen. When he finished, he sealed the jars and began loading them into a box.”

  “How do you know all this?” Briar asked curiously.

  “My friend and I were watching him the whole time. We were up on the second floor and we had a direct line of sight to what he was doing. The first trip, he took her head outside then he came back. With the second trip, the man carried the woman’s body outside. TK and I snuck down to his table and we saw what was left there. All we found were the four small ceramic jars.”

  Briar sat forward very quickly. “Are you totally nuts? If he had caught you, he would have killed you.”

  “I know that now but when you’re ten years old, you don’t think about stuff like that.” She looked away for a moment, then took a deep breath and admitted, “Back then, we didn’t think he would miss one small jar either.”

  “Are you saying you took one of the jars?” Briar looked stunned.

  India nodded. “I took one of the smaller jars and TK and I got the hell out of the warehouse. TK went her way and I went mine. I went home and locked all the doors and windows then I stayed awake the rest of the night, fully expecting the man to come after me. I was still awake when my Mom got home at six.”

  “What happened the next day?” Briar asked

  “Nothing, and that’s what so strange. Nothing happened and the murder was never reported. No one ever found a trace of the missing woman either. I kept checking the newspaper for an article about someone fin
ding her body but I never saw one.”

  “What happened to the jar?”

  “I hid the jar. For all I know it’s still right where I put it fifteen years ago.” Her voice was low and shaky.

  “And where would that be?” Briar queried.

  “I buried it in the corner of the basement in the apartment building we lived in fifteen years ago. I doubt anyone has disturbed it since I buried it.”

  “What makes you think that murder and the latest murder are connected?”

  India licked her dry lips. She went through the files until she found the one she wanted and handed it to him.

  Briar picked up a pair of reading glasses and opened the file.

  India explained what was in the file, “A woman’s body was uncovered in a shallow grave. It was wrapped in bright orange linen, almost in the same style as the ancient mummies of Egypt were buried. When the medical examiner unbound her he found the woman’s organs missing. He also found small pieces of jewelry wrapped in the linens. He also said the woman’s head was missing. This could be the same woman we saw being murdered all those years ago.”

  Briar listened to her explanation as he read the exact same account in the newspaper clippings. When he was finished, he glanced over to the other files piled on his desk. “What are those?”

  “More files of murders with similar particulars, all from different areas of the East Coast. I found seven other murders besides the one I told you about from fifteen years ago.”

  Briar reached for the other files on his desk. He spent the next several minutes looking at the newspaper clippings dating back ten years from different cities up and down the east coast. “This is all very interesting. It seems like you found the trail of a serial killer no one else is aware of and he’s been in business for at least fifteen years.” He placed the files down on his desk and sat back in his chair for a moment. He folded his hands in front of his face and steepling his fingers. “I think we should look into this a little deeper. We need to find out if these murders are truly related and then we need to find the killer and stop him.”