CHAPTER SEVEN
Cricket finally found the room she was after. The tunnel had been dark and damp. Following the directions her mother had given her had been hard for her to do in the dark. If she’d taken one wrong step, she would have been caught but so far, luck was with her.
At last, she found herself in front of a heavy wooden door. Pulling it open was a struggle but finally, the door budged enough for her to slip through. Then she found her way blocked by a heavy tarp like tapestry.
Stepping out from behind it and into the middle of the room, she looked around, half expecting Bane or one of his thugs to jump out of the shadows at her. The office itself was huge. There was a large wooden desk in the middle facing the fireplace. Along one entire wall were ceiling to floor bookshelves filled with books. In another corner was a small bar. She could make out bottles and glasses. Next to the tapestry where she stood was a small chair and table. The entire room was cast in shadows due to receded can lights in the ceiling.
Somewhere in the house, a clock chimed and she heard seven bells. Knowing it was getting late in the day, she hurried over to the fireplace and ran her hand along the mantle. There in the center, she found a circular divet. Reaching inside her backpack, she lifted out the small bundle. Unwrapping the small apothecary jar, she held it up to the faint light coming from the background lighting in the ceiling. There was just enough light to see where you were going without being too much to waste power when no one was home.
Inside the jar was a multitude of diamonds, rubies and emeralds. She sucked her breath in. She could see them clearly when she unwrapped the jar. The jar was filled to the top and the top was sealed. As she gazed at the jewels, Cricket shook her head. All of this was over money. Bane would have killed innocent people just to get the jewels back.
God how I hate this man.
She placed the jar on the mantle and quickly hid in the shadows of the room near the tapestry when she heard soft footsteps coming down the hall. She didn’t know who was coming but she did not want to be caught. She ducked down so the shadows and furniture would hide her.
The door opened and footsteps walked to the fireplace. Someone gasped loudly.
Peeking over the top of the small chair she was hiding behind she saw the person standing at the hearth.
It was Bane himself. “So, Miss Cricket you either lied about not knowing what I was looking for all this time or you knew in your heart I really would kill to get this back. I don’t know and I don’t really care what the reason is but I am glad to have this back,” he murmured. Taking the jar over to the desk, he reached inside the drawer and pulled out a knife. Breaking the seal, he opened the jar and poured out the gemstones on top of the blotter.
Then Cricket saw something else fall out. Among the gems was a key. A very old key.
Bane lifted the key and held it up in his fingers. Then he grasped the key tightly in his hand. He sat there at the desk with his eyes closed for a moment. Leaning back, he began to talk, “Let me explain the dynamics of my…our family to you, so I know you will finally understand the truth.”
Cricket placed her hands over her mouth. He knows I’m here? Her heart pounded loudly in her chest with fear.
“Grace was my wife, not Orrin’s. She was never married to Orrin because I never gave her, her freedom. Back then, I was just making a name for myself, working for the New York Families or anyone who could afford to pay my price. I traveled all over the world, until I became the best hitman ever. At some point in your life, a person just knows what they want to do with their lives, for me that realization came early. I knew by the time I was fourteen that I wanted to kill. Some people may not understand that statement but for me, it just made sense. There was some kind of rage deep inside me. I couldn’t feel emotions like other people. It used to bother me when I was growing up but by the time I was fourteen, I simply didn’t care. My grandfather saw this trait in me and he encouraged it. He knew this rage intimately for he suffered from it as well. When I knew what I wanted in life, it became easier to shut down any emotions I had left. I worked hard to master the weapons I would use but I also studied the human body. I became very well versed in how the human body worked in order to know when and where to strike with my choice of weapons. My grandfather trained me in the use of many weapons, some of them dated back hundreds of years. He had a grand collection of weapons, both old and new.”
Cricket kept her hands over her mouth and listened to this madman talk.
He inhaled deeply and when he exhaled, he continued with his story, “I saw your mother for the first time in Chicago when she was sixteen and I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I know she was the first woman I ever felt anything close to real feelings for. I can’t say I ever felt real love for her but I did feel something. It was probably the closest thing I could feel.” He shrugged. “I never let the fact that she didn’t feel the same way for me bother me too much. I brought her home with me without giving her a choice. We were married and even though I knew she feared me, she became my wife. I really tried to show some kind of emotion toward her but I knew I couldn’t. I did feel lust though. I wanted her in my life and in my bed. I went on to become the best assassin in the world. I was gone a lot back in those days. Shortly after we were married, she told me she was pregnant with my child.” He paused and looked down at the key in his hand.
Cricket held still, a man like this being a father? She shuddered.
“I may not have been the most understanding person I could have been. I wasn’t ready to start a family at the time. I had to go to Europe the next day for two weeks on a delicate job. We argued the night before I left. That was the only time in our marriage she stood up to me. She was very angry with me and she never even said goodbye when I left. When I returned fifteen days later, she was gone. She had escaped my guards and had vanished. I couldn’t find her and believe me, I searched for her. From one coast to the other, I searched for her. I finally found her ten months after she disappeared. I had called her parents and told them if she didn’t return to me, I would kill her entire family. I found her sitting on a beach in Malibu three days later. She called and gave me an address. When I asked her why she left, she wouldn’t tell me.”
She continued to stay in the shadows and didn’t say a word as he recalled the past. Tears of pain for her mother rolled down her cheeks.
“In that ten months without her, I had changed. I became more focused on my work. As hard as I did try to show my feelings, I feared I didn’t do a very good job. I had lost touch with any sort of human feeling I ever had, except for the lust I felt for Grace. I still had that, but for her that wasn’t enough.” He got up and started to pace as he continued, “I watched her struggle for over a year to adjust to the way things were. I thought she knew I cared for her as much as I honestly could care for anyone. Then I came home early from a business trip. I was supposed to be gone a week and I came home on the third day.” Bane stopped speaking for a moment and sat down in his chair.
Cricket knew her mother and she could understand Grace not wanting to be with a killer, a man who had no feelings.
He seemed lost in the past, then he spoke again, “I walked into my bedroom and was stunned by what I found. Grace was there with my brother Orrin. They were so caught up in their passion neither of them heard me come in.” His fingers tightened on the arms of the chair he was sitting in. “You have to understand that Orrin and I were as different as day and night. While I loved death and all its glory, Orrin was a pupil of making things blow up. His brain was wired to figure out how to destroy things, not people. His brain was also wired to break into anything that can be locked. Whether it’s a room, a safe or a locked box.” He ran his hands down his face as if he were washing away the memories.
Cricket knew what happened next. It was horrible and her mom’s voice had broken when she spoke of it later.
“Anyway, getting back to the day I found them together, the emotions I felt that day were very real. The rage that I could control all the time up until then exploded. I tore him out of her embrace and literally beat the hell out of him. I wanted to kill him and I certainly did my best to achieve that goal. Then I went after her. She betrayed me in the worst way a woman can betray a man. She told me then that she tried to love me but she told me there was nothing for her to love. That I was more of a robot than a man. That this was the first and only time they had given into to their feelings for one another but I didn’t know if I could believe her lies. I took out my rage on her as any feelings I had left died in her betrayal. I used and abused her and for the first time, I truly didn’t care. I got no joy from the union that day and when I was finished, I turned my back and walked out of that bedroom.”
She listened to his words but she could never understand what he felt. She did have a better understanding of how Cordy had felt all these years but she still couldn’t understand what had made them both the way they were.
Bane leaned his head on the back of his chair and closed his eyes. “I knew I had to leave or I would have killed them both. I got on a plane and didn’t return for three days. I had calmed down by then and could think rationally. That rationality lasted until I found the two of them were gone. They had run off together. Grace left me a note. She said she couldn’t live this kind of life anymore. She couldn’t stay with a man that was more monster than real man. With Orrin, she could at least feel something akin to love. That what she’d felt for him in the short amount of time they were together was more than she felt for me in the four years we’d been together. She begged me not to try and find them because if I did, she would rather plunge a knife in her heart than have to come back here.” Bane opened his eyes. “Orrin also left me a message. He told me they had left something for me in the safe my grandfather left me. The safe was one of the first safes ever made here in the states. It was an old bank safe and it meant a great deal to our grandfather, so in turn it meant a great deal to me. Orrin wrote to me that he finally figured out the combination. He said he’d found some very interesting items in there. My grandfather told me that while he never figured out the combination, he had a key. I never told Orrin about the key but he found it. Then he was clever enough to find the combination. I knew if anyone could open the safe, it would be him. He told me in his note that the key had been so close the whole time and we never knew it. The key had been hidden all along in Grandfather’s jar of gemstones.” Bane’s eyes went to the small glass jar of diamonds, rubies and emeralds.
The jar was as big as his hand, from the tips of his fingers to his wrist and as wide as his hand. It had been on display sitting in a place of honor on the mantel of his office. Honoring the only person he ever cared about. The safe in question had been built into the wall next to the fireplace.
“My family built its fortune on being in the service of others. My grandfather left the jar of gemstones to the oldest grandson along with the safe. That was me. So when Orrin told me he’d been in the safe and had taken the key with him, that betrayal was worse than the one where he took my wife. Orrin also told me there was no other way to get into the safe. He’d ruined the tumblers, so even if I could figure out the combination, the tumblers would never open again.”
Cricket wrinkled her brow. This part she did not understand. This was why he kept searching for them? For a key? Not the stones, but a key?
“I tried to put the pair of them out of my mind but I found I couldn’t. I did look for them but I also went on with my life. I honed my skills while I began to plot what I would do to them when I caught up with the pair of them. It took me more than eight years to find them. When I did, I watched them for a few days before I approached their love nest. I waited until Grace was gone before I came to Orrin. I wanted him to feel the absolute terror at the thought he could lose everything he had taken from me. I watched his eyes that day and I could see the terror in his soul. It felt a bit like revenge, a strange emotion at the best of times, but that day I felt it and I have to admit I felt good that day. I could have killed him then in Utica and perhaps I would have but he told me Grace had taken the key and only she knew where it was. I told him to get the key and I would be back later for it. That I would be merciful if they gave it back but if they didn’t, I would kill his whole family.”
Cricket flinched…by that time, she was part of the family and she realized the terror her parents must have felt that day.
“When I returned that night, you were gone. I searched again for them but this time, I didn’t find them. I had seen you two girls and I knew Orrin had the family I wanted but never had. I knew then, I would never have a family with anyone else. It wasn’t that I didn’t like women, I did but I could never feel anything and when Grace left me I couldn’t even feel the lust anymore. That’s a very hard thing for a man such as myself to admit, but alas it is true. It has been a good number of years since I have enjoyed the company of a woman.” He sighed deeply. “But that is neither here nor there.” He fell silent.
At his silence, Cricket peeked out from her hiding place.
Bane looked over at the safe nestled in the wall next to the fireplace. “Shall we find out what Grace left for me all those years ago?” Bane got to his feet and went over to the safe. Inserting the key, he twisted it and they both heard the old lock give way. He pulled the door open and gazed at the shelves inside.
There on the top shelf was a bundle of papers wrapped in a wide purple ribbon. Bane lifted the bundle out and pulled the ribbon off. As the purple cloth floated to the floor, he opened the first piece of paper. When he read it, Bane gasped, then growled in anger. “What the fuck?” he shouted in rage. “That fucking woman!” He screamed. “If she wasn’t dead already I would take my time and kill her slowly.” He tipped his head back and closed his eyes.
Cricket cringed as he ranted and raved at her mother. She wondered what was written on the paper he crushed in his hand but she didn’t want to give him anymore ammo for his rage.
Then he opened his eyes and stared at the paper in his hand again. “I have a child. A son. Grace gave birth to my son after she ran away from me the first time. She hid my son from me for close to thirty years. Right now, I would give anything to feel her neck in my hands. Damn her, damn them both!” He began to pace. “I wonder if Orrin knew I had a son? Did he hate me that much that he wouldn’t tell me?” Shaking his head he said, “I will find my son and he will know who I am.” Then he turned and his eyes pierced the darkness around him. “Your parents should be resting in hell for what they did to me. They kept a vital piece of news all these years. They both hid my son from me and for that, I hope they burn in hell.” He was screaming by the time he ended his rant.
Cricket shivered at his fury.
“But whatever happens now, is not on you. You have fulfilled your part of the bargain. You returned what your parents took from me and I thank you for that. You saved lives today because I would have taken those bikers of yours one by one until the jar was returned to me. I would have killed each and every member of that MC and their families until the jar was returned. There’s a card with my phone number on it on the desk. Give the card to Deke and have him call me.” He turned and began to walk to the door, then he stopped. “Do not come back here. I allowed your entry this once and only this once. If you break my faith again, I will take your life. I have a reason to hate you, so when you leave here, forget where I live.” Then he walked out the door, closing it softly behind him.
Cricket waited for a moment before she moved out of the shadows. She went over to the desk and found the card Bane told her to take. Slipping it into her pocket, she found herself staring at the pile of gemstones.
She reached out and touched them. They were cold and lifeless bits of stones. Shaking her head, she couldn’t help but wonder why some people set so much store in owning them. They brought nothing but misery to whoever thought to possess them.
Then she thought of Dusty. Just a few of these stones would set him up for life. He would be able to go to college or start his own business or whatever he wanted to do. It would only take a few stones and his grandfather would never know.
And why shouldn’t Bane help his grandson out? Why shouldn’t Dusty get something out of his family? Cricket didn’t think about it anymore, rather she scooped up a few stones and closed her hand around them. Then she pushed her hand into her pocket. She knew he wouldn’t miss the few she took, so she turned and found the tunnel. Then she began crawling through the mountain.
When she came to the end of the tunnel. She pushed the heavy door open. Finally, it was open enough for her to squeeze through.
Glancing around, she set off to find Raine. She made her way in the growing darkness to where they had parked his bike. She wanted nothing more than to go home. She didn’t know when she began thinking of Troy and the clubhouse as home but that’s where she wanted to be right now.
When she reached the stand of trees, she called out for Raine. When he appeared, she went into his arms.
“Did you run into any problems?” he asked.
“No. I got the item back to him. Can we go home now?”
Raine closed his arms around her and nuzzling her ear he whispered, “Let’s go. I want to sleep with you in my arms when we get back.”
Cricket closed her eyes. She wanted that too, but she also knew he might change his mind when he heard what she found out tonight. As she swung her leg over his bike, she slipped her arms around his waist and hung on tight.
~* * * *~
The sun was almost up by the time Raine and Cricket got back to the clubhouse in Troy.
When they got off the bike, three members came to stand behind them.
Raine knew they’d been sent out to make sure Cricket didn’t run.
She walked on her own power inside and when they got there, they saw Deke and the others standing at the main table glaring at her. Cricket walked over to where Deke was standing.
Deke raised his hand and slapped her hard. “Where the fuck have you two been? We didn’t know what happened to you. We thought Bane had killed you. We thought he’d come back here and kill us all.”
Cricket stumbled back but didn’t fall. Nor did she cry.
Raine growled and took a step toward Deke. “Dammit, let her explain!”
Cricket stepped in between the two men. “You know Bane is my uncle. You all heard he was married to my mother all these years. What you might not have heard was when she left him to run away with my father, they took something that belonged to Bane. Bane has wanted it back all this time and he’s been looking for them for the last 25 years. Because they are long dead, I was the only one who could find it and return it. He didn’t give me a choice. He told me he would give me a week to find it and return it or he would start killing each and every one of you. That if I told you what he had planned, he’d know and would start the killing without warning. I didn’t run away. I had to find what my parents took from him and get the damn thing back to him. I came back here honor my word to you.” She looked around and saw their expressions.
Each face held a bit of rage and a bit of fear on them.
“I couldn’t let anyone die for something you had no part of. I couldn’t allow Bane Jessin to murder anyone. I had to see if I could find what he was so willing to kill for.”
“And did you find it?’ Deke growled as he ran his fingers through his hair.
“Yes, I did.” Cricket nodded. “I found it and I returned it to him.” She stared at him for a moment then she spoke again, “I couldn’t tell you before I left, because I didn’t know if I could find it or not.” She gazed around at the others and shook her head. Tears ran down her cheeks freely now. “Don’t you see, I couldn’t let that monster hurt anyone I’ve come to care for. I didn’t care about myself but I couldn’t let him hurt anyone else.”
“What was the item Grace and Orrin took from him?” Sam asked.
“It was a small apothecary jar filled with diamonds, rubies and emeralds. Also inside the jar was a key. The key was to an old safe handed down to him from his grandfather. You see, when Grace and Orrin left his home they put something in the safe for him to find. He had no way of getting inside the safe without that key.”
“Did he find what they left him?” Deke asked.
Cricket nodded. “Yes, he did.” She reached in her pocket and laid Bane’s card on the table then pushed it toward Deke. “He wants you to call him. He asked me to give this to you.”
Deke glanced down at the card on the table then looked at her again. “What else?”
Cricket closed her eyes briefly and then opened them again. “I found out the secret my mother hid in that safe for thirty years was the fact that she gave birth to his son. Now, Bane has a real reason to hate me. He told me to never come back and to never contact him again.” She dropped down into a chair and held up her head with her hand. “Nothing would please me more than to never see or speak to that man ever again. But I have a feeling that isn’t going to happen.” She gazed up at Deke. “I have to keep Dusty a secret from him. I can never allow him to know he has a grandson. The man has no soul and he would corrupt Dusty above and beyond anything else. Let him find his son, he is a full grown man by now, but I have to protect Dusty! I would give my life to protect that boy.”
“What would Bane do if he ever found Dusty?’ Raine asked.
“He would kill everyone who kept him away from the boy,” Cricket warned. “It would be a slow and agonizing death for anyone involved.”
“And you are willing to face that to keep him secret?” Deke raised his brows.
Cricket turned to look at him. “I would face the devil himself to keep Dusty safe. So yes, I would be willing to face Bane’s wrath.”
Deke shook his head. “You are completely insane.”
“Tell me something…” She locked eyes with him. “What would you do to safeguard your children?” She looked around at each one of the men in the room. “What would you do to keep your families safe? What did you do to Cordy when she took them for her own gain?”
Deke started to say something but shut his mouth. He would face the devil too, to keep his family safe. Then he glanced around at the entire MC. He saw the agreement on all their faces as well. “Very well, we’ll keep your secret. Hopefully, it won’t came back to bite us in the ass.” He picked up the card and began walking down the hall to his office.
Everyone watched as he went. Then Sam turned to Cricket. “Thank you for what you did. I know it wasn’t easy. When we found you and Raine gone yesterday morning, we didn’t know what to think.”
“Bane is just like his daughter, and make no mistake, Cordelia was his true daughter. When you look in his eyes, you can see he has no soul, there’s nothing in there other than darkness. I had no clue that he was my uncle or that my father took anything from him. Then I remembered a dream I had. In the dream, my mother was telling me how to get into a house I’d never seen before. She told me about a small packet I would someday have to find and return. I don’t know how she knew I would be the one to return it, but she did.” She shook her head. “I had to find out if that dream was real. When I found the package, I knew what I had to do. I had to return it to him. Even if I got caught, I had to give it back. I’d rather he took his rage out on me than you guys.”
The office door opened and Deke returned. He looked at her and nodded. “It’s done. Bane claims the debt is satisfied. He requested that you be allowed stay with us for a while. He said he wanted to know you were safe while he searched for something. I told him you were more than welcome to stay if you chose to.” Deke shrugged. “He rather insisted that we keep you here. I told him you are free to leave at any time but he insisted you stay, so I guess you’re staying. It doesn’t hurt that he’s your uncle.”
“That bastard is not my uncle. I lay no claim to him.” She growled. “He told me he never wanted to see me again, now he’s changed his mind, why?”
“I don’t know but you don’t have a choice,” Deke announced. “And neither do we. He is not a man I want to disappoint. I cannot risk my family or my brothers here. So for now, you stay.”
Cricket surged to her feet. “I do have a fucking choice. I may not have had any choices in the past but I do have a choice here. I lay no claim to this bastard and I’m free to leave anytime I chose!” She turned and walked back to her bedroom.
~* * * *~
When the door slammed shut, Raine cringed. He looked over at Deke and shook his head. ‘This isn’t going to end well.”
“We’ll have to do what we can to protect Dusty,” Sam told the group. “The way I see it, she did what she could to protect us and now, we have to protect the boy.”
“You do realize this will bring Bane’s wrath down on us if he ever finds the boy?” Raine stated.
“Then we have to make sure he doesn’t find him.” Deke nodded.
“I’ll warn my family,” Raine said. “But you have to give us a head’s up if it ever goes south. Give them enough time to get him away.”
Deke nodded. “We can do that.” He looked down the hall at the closed door. “We owe her that much.”
“We owe her a hell of a lot more than that,” Sam commented. “After all, we were the ones who had Zipper dig him up in the first damn place.”