Chapter Eleven
“Can I make a suggestion?” Pepper asked. When everyone turned their attention to her, she swallowed hard but pushed herself to finish her thought, “If he’s bringing down the heat on you maybe you should return the favor and bring some heat down on him.”
“What do you mean?” Yuri asked.
“Leon Knight is a public figure or at least he wants to be. I know he may not have announced his candidacy to the public yet but those in the know are already making up their minds to back him or not. He’s a long time attorney, dealing with back stabbing people of all sorts here in the city. Knowing Leon kept my mother and I, a secret, I’m sure there are more secrets he has to hide.”
Yuri sat back in his chair and stared at her for a moment. Then he looked at Mikial and nodded. “She has a point but how can we do this quickly and quietly? An attorney’s secrets are not going to be so easy to uncover.”
Raven grinned. “Again, you just have to know the right person to call.” Reaching for her phone, she made a series of phone calls. When she was done, she laid her phone back on the table and smiled. “It shouldn’t take too long to come up with something Leon doesn’t want known to the public.”
Yuri shook his head and grinned. “You scare me babe.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because all this time I thought you were trying to hide and you obviously were very busy behind the scenes.”
Raven shrugged. “When you live on the streets, if you have their back then they have yours. We live by our own code.”
“Let’s hope your friends can come up with something then,” Mikial stated. He turned to look at Pepper and saw the tears building in her eyes. “What is it?”
She dove into his arms and burst into tears. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey baby, it’s okay.” Mikial hushed her. “What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
“I don’t know.” Pepper whimpered. “I was just thinking about my mother. She stayed with Leon for a long time and I have to wonder why. Was he different all those years ago? I can’t imagine she’d stay with him the way he is today.”
“It has been twenty years.” Mikial shrugged. “If he has changed it wasn’t for the better.”
Pepper looked down at his shirt and her fingers traced an imaginary pattern on the cotton material. “Do you think…” she couldn’t finish her query.
Mikial waited for a moment before he asked, “What?”
Pepper stared at him. “Could we go out there one day?”
“Out where?”
“Out where I lived. I know the trailer is gone and has been for some time but I’d like to see where we lived. I can’t remember too much about my mom and I thought maybe if I saw where we used to live I might remember more about her.”
Mikial wrapped his hands around the back of her head and held her close to him. “Yeah baby, we can go out there.”
“I know it’s silly but I feel as if I’ve lost so much.” Pepper bit her lower lip. “I couldn’t remember what my life had been before I was four and then I only had memories from the time Paul and Marie took me in. Now I’m remembering bit and pieces of the time before then, but I still don’t have a complete picture of my mother. I looked at her picture at the gallery and I felt so lost.”
“Why lost?” Mikial frowned.
“Because I couldn’t remember anything about her. It was like looking at a stranger and that made me feel sad. She gave me life and I couldn’t remember her. I couldn’t remember her touch or her laughter or even her smile. It just made me incredibly sad.”
“And you think going out to the place you shared with her would help you remember her?”
“Maybe.” She nodded. “I don’t know. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. But I won’t know until I try.”
“We can go out there tomorrow if you like
“Please don’t go out there alone,” Yuri made the comment. “Ideally, it would be best to wait until this is over but I understand if you don’t want to. Just make sure you have some extra men with you to watch your back.”
Pepper looked heartbroken. “Maybe we should wait until this is over. It isn’t going to hurt to wait a few more days.” Shrugging she said, “I’ve waited this long.”
Mikial pressed Pepper closer. “We’ll go in the morning.” Glancing at Yuri, he nodded. “We’ll take extra men.”
Yuri nodded just as Raven’s phone began to ring. He listened as she talked to her contacts on the street. After a moment or so, he got up and got a pen and some paper for her. Raven smiled and began taking notes. Before she could discuss the first call a second call came in, then a third call. An hour later, she hung up on caller five.
She looked at Yuri and shook her head. Looking over at Pepper she said, “Leon Knight is a pig. A dirty, rotten, scum loving pig.”
Pepper nodded her head in agreement. “So tell us something we don’t already know about him.”
“I can do better than that.” She grinned. “With the information I just got, we can ruin the man without a doubt.” She looked hard at Pepper. “Are you going to be okay with that? I mean he is your father and all.”
“He’s nothing to me,” Pepper insisted. “I don’t know what my mother saw in him but I don’t know him, I’ve never known him and now I don’t want to know him. He killed my mom and would have killed me if I hadn’t run away from him. He never even looked for me and told everyone I was dead. He’s lied and cheated all my life and I want nothing to do with him. I don’t know if that’s the way society handles things or not but that’s not the way I do things.” She nodded. “If you can take him down, by all means take the bastard down.”
“Then let the fun begin.” Raven grinned.
By early afternoon, they were watching the news. Report after report was airing about city corruption with Leon’s name being mentioned frequently. They had already shown a segment piece where McKenna had slammed her front door on a reporter asking about the fact that her husband put a building in her name that became known as a drug house.
The house was now under police guard and armed men patrolled the area.
By two o’clock, Mikial’s phone rang and when he answered the call, it was Leon. He didn’t seem happy. “What the fuck have you done to me you son-of-a-bitch?” Leon screamed.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Mikial told him with a grin on his lips.
“Don’t tell me this isn’t your handiwork, you prick.”
“Having a bit of trouble today, councilor?” Mikial growled.
“All you had to do was cooperate. That’s all.” Leon began. “All of this was unnecessary. Now you’ve opened a can of worms nobody wanted open.”
“All you had to do was accept my answer and move on,” Mikial reminded him. “You’re the one that kept pushing and pushing. You’re the one who brought this down on your head. At least be man enough to accept that every action has consequences.”
“I was doing what was best for everyone, even if you didn’t see that. Now you’ve ruined it all,” Leon stated. His voice seemed distracted. “All you and your friends had to do was cooperate just a little bit and everything would have been okay.”
“No you ruined a little girl’s life twenty years ago when you murdered her mother. Have you thought about her at all between then and now? Does it bother you at all that she’s your own daughter and you left her on the streets to die? Or that you declared her dead a few days later not knowing if she was even safe or not?” Mikial growled.
“No, not really,” Leon answered him calmly. “You see I have three other daughters and a son.”
“You bastard.” Mikial swore. “You deserve everything you’re about to receive.”
“Fuck you!” Leon shouted as he hung up the call. Before he disconnected completely, Mikial heard him say, “And fuck her too. I was hoping she would have died after the little bitch ran off. My problems would have been over if only she had died that day.” Then the line went dead.
Mikial looked over at Yuri.
Yuri had no problem reading the rage and fury in his eyes. “Calm yourself brother. There is too much to do before you can seek your vengeance.”
“Before this is over vengeance will be mine,” Mikial swore.
“And mine as well,” Pepper said quietly from beside him. “I want that bastard to pay for killing my mother.”
Mikial nodded. “Of course.”
“What else did he say?” Barshan wanted to know.
“Just that he wasn’t happy about the events of the day. He said I opened a can of worms and that it all could have been avoided if only I had cooperated.”
Sazon snorted. “Yeah, all you had to do was bend over and take it in the ass like everyone else he’s screwed over the years. I for one, am happy with the events today.” He grinned. “We stuck it to the man everyone thought was untouchable and you know what? It feels mighty fine.”
Barshan got up and walked over to Yuri’s bar. He grabbed some glasses and a bottle of vodka then brought them back to the sitting area. Pouring everyone a good shot, they raised their glasses in a toast.
Raven raised her glass as well. She couldn’t drink it but she raised her glass anyway.
“To bringing mighty men down,” Yuri called out the toast. “Salute.”
Everyone downed the liquor and slammed their glasses down on the table.
By later that same afternoon, Mikial found Pepper standing at the window looking out over the city. Wrapping his arms around her from the back, he nuzzled her neck. “What ya doing baby?”
“Not much. Just got tired of watching the news.”
“Don’t blame you there.” He chuckled. “It’s fun the first few hours but after that, it gets boring to see a man fall.”
“Did we do the right thing?” she wondered out loud.
Mikial tightened his arms around her waist. “Are you doubting yourself? After everything he did to you?”
Pepper sighed. “No I guess not but whatever he did won’t bring my mom back. It can’t make right the wrong he did me. I mean what did I ever do to him that would cause him to hate me so much?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong sweetheart.” Mikial tried to tell her. “This is his wrong not yours. You were a helpless child and he was the adult. He should have stayed home,, instead of being with your mother. She made the mistake of loving and trusting the wrong man.”
“She paid an awfully high price for her mistake though. She lost everything including her life.”
“And now, it’s his turn to lose everything he’s worked for all these years,” Mikial added.
Pepper turned in his arms and cupped her hand around his jaw. “Hey, all of this led me to you and that I do not regret. I know you want to hear the words. I feel them. I just can’t say them yet. I’m afraid of jinxing whatever this is. So please give me some time. I do care about you very much and want to say those words, so just give me some time.”
Mikial closed his eyes. When he opened them again he said, “Alright baby. I know this is all strange to you but I’m not giving up on you. I can wait until you’re ready to say the words, just don’t take too long.”
“Don’t give up on me. Please don’t give up on me. I need you so much I can’t imagine life without you in it.”
Mikial grabbed her up and tugged her close. “Just try and get rid of me.” He crushed her lips under his.