Chapter Five
In the middle of the night, Leon woke up to his phone ringing. The ring tone told him who was calling and he really didn’t want to answer the call. He looked over at his wife and found her still asleep. He realized then that she’d taken a sleeping pill and she wouldn’t wake up until morning, but he got out of bed and went to his office anyway. He didn’t want anyone to overhear this call.
“Hello.”
“What the hell did you do?” The voice on the other end had a slight accent to it. The accent was fading but still there, much to the owner’s disgust. Timothy Flynn didn’t want anyone to know he had ties to the Irish mob, even though he wasn’t part of the organization he still had ties associated with it.
“What are you talking about?” Leon growled. “I haven’t done anything.”
“You hired Oscar Mann to pressure a man like Mikial Bannonkov? Are you completely insane?”
Leon closed his eyes and rode out the storm Timothy’s words invoked. “I didn’t hire Oscar to pressure Mikial,” he explained. “I asked him to watch someone. He took it on himself to shoot out the glass of the gallery.”
“Did he also take it upon himself to rob the place?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I heard through the grapevine that several of the paintings are missing. That they were missing before Mikial or the police could put security in place.”
“Damn,” Leon swore under his breath. “Did you know which paintings are missing?”
“Does it matter?” Timothy scoffed. “This is not a good thing, you moron. If they start investigating you and they find out about our little partnership that could be something neither of us wants.”
“Why would they investigate me? I was nowhere near the place when it got shot up. Which paintings are missing? Is the one of the child still there?”
“Neither are there but word on the street is your man Oscar can’t handle his pain, if they get their hands on him he might give up everything. And why are you so worried about that one painting?”
“Don’t worry. You’re safe, he doesn’t know about you at all,” Leon assured the other man. Clearing his throat he added, “That painting is the focus of the exhibition and her finest work.”
“Like I care about a fucking painting. I don’t care what your man knows or doesn’t know about me but he does know about you and you wouldn’t be able to handle the pressure of an interrogation either. Not from these men.”
“What the hell does that mean? They are simply men from Russia who took a chance and now own a piece of their American dream.”
Timothy chuckled. “Man, don’t you even know who you’re dealing with, do you? You really are an idiotic moron, aren’t you? These men are Russian mob.”
“Russian mob? You bastard, what have you gotten me into here?” Leon yelled. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me this before I approached them? Are you trying to get me killed?”
“It was supposed to be a simple business deal. All you were supposed to do was get me an outlet in the Import business,” Timothy explained. “Not a shootout.”
“I’ve been trying to get an in there for both of us. I thought if I could get to be the attorney for these guys, I could use that as a way to get your shipments through without them being the wiser. I’ve been asking Mikial about it every day but he hasn’t given me his answer yet. “What do we do now?” Leon asked. “This has become a clusterfuck of epic proportions.”
“You can do what you want. I’m not going to do anything but dig in and stay out of the way,” Timothy told him. “But word of advice, get your man Oscar out of town before Yuri Anatoly or his men find him. If he leads them to you, don’t you dare tell them about me or I’ll kill you myself.”
Leon listened as Timothy ended the call. His stomach erupted and he felt his blood pressure skyrocketing. Dialing another number, he waited until Oscar answered before giving him the order, “Abort the mission. You idiot, you’re dealing with the Russian mob.”
Oscar chuckled. “You’re just figuring that out now? You are an idiot. I knew that even if you didn’t.”
“And you decided to shoot up the gallery anyway?”
“Yup, I wanted to shake things up a bit,” Oscar snickered. “This is gonna be fun. I want to see exactly what they will do next.”
“Are you crazy?” Leon exclaimed. “They will kill you if they find you.”
“They will have to find me first, won’t they? I can hide very well, but can you?” the other man chided. “What? Are you afraid they’ll find out about your little secrets?”
Leon hesitated. “What secrets do I have to hide?”
“How about the fact that eighteen years ago you were responsible for a woman’s death? That it was your hand that started the fire she was burned in? How about the fact that it was you who ordered her attorney run off the road?” Oscar chuckled. “You, my friend have many secrets to hide.”
“How the hell did you f-find out?” Leon sputtered.
“That is my secret to hide.” Oscar hung up.
Pepper woke just as day was breaking. She could see the light brightening the sky as it peeked around the shades covering the windows. She felt the heat coming from behind her. Mikial was spooning her back. His arm was around her waist and his hand was cupping her breast. She smiled slightly and wiggled her body back up against him.
Mikial tightened his grip on her and smiled in his sleep. He breathed in her scent as he took a deep breath. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” she whispered back.
“I love waking up to find you in my arms. You fit me so well, almost as if you were born to be there.” He nudged the back of her neck. Pressing his hard cock against her ass, she moaned. His fingers moved her leg up around his hip and he pushed his cock into her core. She was already wet for him and he growled as he slid inside her.
Pepper arched her back and took him in deep. She moved as he did and without saying a word, they both rushed to release. When she came, he followed her quickly. He leaned to her head and whispered in her ear, “I could wake up to that every morning for the rest of my life.”
“Me too.” She moaned.
“I wish we could stay in bed today.” Mikial grumbled.
“But we can’t, can we?” she reasoned. “You have to go to work and I have things to do as well.”
“I’m not going anywhere today and neither are you. Whatever we have to do we can do from here. We’ll be safe here.”
“Will Raven be safe here too?”
“We have to convince her to stay but yes, she’ll be safe here as well.”
“I hate to say this but your friend Yuri is an idiot,” she muttered. Shaking her head, she explained, “She loves him and she thought he loved her too.”
Mikial chuckled. “He does love her, more than either of them realize, I think.”
“Are you upset that she hit you?”
Mikial shook his head. “No, I think in the circumstances she did what she thought she had to do. I’m just glad we got to you before anyone else did.”
Pepper pulled his arms closer around her. “Me too.”
Mikial kissed the back of her neck then pulling himself away, he smacked her bare butt. “Come on woman, we have work to do.” He sat up on his side of the bed and put his clothes on while Pepper did the same from her side of the bed. Together, they got up and went out to the kitchen and living area.
Raven was already there sipping a cup of tea.
Sazon was watching the yard from the back door and no one said a word to either of them.
Mikial got busy and made a fresh pot of coffee.
Pepper went to sit next to Raven. “How are you feeling this morning?” she asked her.
Raven shrugged. “I’ll be okay. I really don’t have a choice, do I?”
“He does love you, you know that right?” Sazon asked while looking out into the backyard.
“I thought he did,” Raven said softly.
Mikial brought two cups of coffee over to the table and touched Raven’s shoulder lightly. Setting one down in front of Pepper, he took the other one over to Sazon. Handing the other man the cup, he went back to the counter and poured himself some.
Sitting beside Pepper, he told everyone, “First of all, we have to find out if you have a tie to Jessie Carter. If she is your mother we have to find out who your father is and what he might have to do with the night your mother died.”
“Whoa,” Raven exclaimed as she sat up in her chair. “What are you guys talking about?”
“Pepper had a nightmare last night,” Mikial explained.
Sazon turned and looked at Pepper.
“I think it was about the night her mother died,” Mikial explained. “She spoke of going back to get her mother because she was hurt, then she talked about a fire.” He looked at Raven and shook his head. “Then she acted like someone hurt her.” He glanced at Pepper. “I believe she knew this other person and that he or she dragged her away from the fire that night. I don’t know what happened next but I think her mind forced her to forget the trauma of it all. She was just a child at this time in her life. How she ended up in New Orleans is anyone’s guess at the moment.”
“What do we have to do first?” Sazon asked.
“Our first order of business is to find out if Jessie Carter ever had a child. And who that child might be. Also we need to find out who the father of that child might be.”
Pepper suddenly gasped. She stared at Mikial with worried eyes.
“What?” he asked.
“What if the fire that killed Jessie Carter wasn’t an accident?” she asked. “If it was deliberate, someone out there knows or thinks I’m a witness.”
Sazon nodded. “That might be a reason for the shooting.”
“It could also be a reason they won’t stop until they get her,” Raven pointed out.
“But I don’t remember that night except in my nightmares. Nightmares I don’t even remember when I wake up,” Pepper cried out.
Mikial reached out and took her hands, pulling her to him he held her in his lap. “No one will get close to you, not as long as I live. You are safe here. Both you and Raven will be safe here.”
Pepper laid her head on his chest. One hand reached out for Raven. When Raven took her hand she whispered, “Will you stay with me?”
Raven hesitated then nodded. “I’ll stay with you.”
“Do you promise?”
Raven hesitated again, then nodded. “I promise.”
Pepper nodded. “Good because I don’t know if I can do this without you.”
Mikial snorted. “What about me? I’m here with you. Don’t I count?”
“I know but you’re different. You’re a man,” Pepper reasoned.
Sazon chuckled and Mikial glared at him. The other man nodded and said, “Well she’s got a point, you are a man.” Shrugging he added, “Not really sure what that has to do with anything but she’s got a point.”
“Very funny,” he grumbled.
“I think we should call Nicky,” Raven suggested.
“Why?” Sazon asked.
“Because my brother can hack into the files we need.”
“But won’t he ask why you aren’t using Yuri’s security people?” Mikial asked.
Raven shrugged. “You know why I don’t want to ask Yuri for anything. Besides, I doubt Nicky will even ask.”
“I know why and so does Yuri but Yuri might not want other people to know why. He’s a very private person.”
“That’s too bad for him,” Raven stated. “Right now, we need Nicky’s kind of help.”
“I have to agree with Mikial,” Sazon said quietly. “Yuri wouldn’t want everyone knowing his business.”
Raven glared at both of them. “Yuri lost whatever rights he had yesterday when he disclaimed this child. I understand the two of you are his friends but I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing this for Pepper. No one else has to know what an ass he is, but Nicky is our best bet for locating this information. He’s quick and he’s sneaky.”
It was a long moment before Mikial nodded. “Okay, make the call.”
Raven called Nicky and gave him the information they had and asked him to find out what he could. She told him it was for a new friend but said nothing about her own situation.
After she hung up the phone, Mikial began making breakfast and by the time, they consumed the pancakes and scrambled eggs the phone rang.
Raven checked the call and looked over at Pepper. “It’s Nicky. Are you ready for whatever he has to tell us?”
Pepper held on to Mikial’s hand and nodded.
When Raven answered the call, she put it on speaker. “Nicky, what did you find?”
“Well sis, I found that Jessie Carter did have a child. She was born in 1992 and her name was Pepper Rosemary Carter. Father’s name isn’t listed on any of the birth records…” His voice hesitated then he went on, “I also looked into the fire four years later. Her address was listed in Chalmette not in New Orleans so the Orleans paper never carried the story. Fire officials listed the fire as arson but there wasn’t anyone of interest listed in the police files. No mention of a child missing either. No one knows what happened to the little girl.”
“Was there a cause of death listed on the death certificate?” Raven asked.
“Only the one they could say for sure, death by arson. Her body was too charred to make an ID possible. They assumed it was her trailer, so it was her body.”
“Did you find any other paperwork associated with Jessie Carter’s name?” Sazon asked.
“Actually, I did. There was a will entered into the court system along with a trust for the daughter.”
“Who is listed as her attorney?” Pepper asked.
“A Cullen Brandt of Chalmette.”
Mikial frowned at Sazon. “Not Leon Knight?”
“Nope. No mention of Leon Knight anywhere in her papers.”
“What about on the trust fund? Who is the guardian of that?”
“Again, Cullen Brandt is listed as her guardian for the trust,” Nicky told them.
“Okay, thanks.” Mikial ended the call.
“What?” Raven asked as she looked between Mikial and Sazon. “What has you acting so weird about this?”
“It was Leon Knight that came to us about the exhibition of Jessie’s painting. He showed us paperwork that said he was the attorney representing Jessie’s estate. He told us that the paintings have been in storage since the fire until this last year while he’s been exhibiting them in various galleries around the state.”
“Leon Knight?” Pepper repeated the name. “Isn’t he the guy who was standing with you yesterday?”
Mikial nodded. “He suddenly had to leave. He claimed he wasn’t feeling well.”
“Were the paintings the only business he had with you?” Raven asked.
Mikial shrugged. “No not really. He also wanted a partnership deal with my Import/Export business.”
“What kind of partnership deal?” Sazon asked.
Mikial shook his head. “He said he had a partner that he wanted to introduce me to. He felt both of us could benefit from the deal but I wasn’t interested in any new partner. So I wasn’t really willing to listen to his pitch. He was almost getting too pushy about it.”
Sazon frowned. “How hard was he pushing this guy on you?”
Mikial shrugged. “Like I said, I wasn’t really interested so I ignored the conversation.”
The phone rang again. It was Nicky calling back. When Raven answered, he got right to the point, “I looked into this Cullen guy and I don’t think you’re gonna like what I found.”
“And what did you find?” Raven asked her brother.
“Cullen died a month after Jessie in what the police think was a suspicious car accident.”
“What the hell?” Mikial swore. “How did they determine it was suspicious?”
“The accident was a roll over on a flat stretch of highway. They figured he rolled the car seven times before it stopped. The car was burned out by the time the firemen got to it. Almost like someone didn’t want any trace of the accident to be found. No bad weather, nothing to impede him, but they did find a second set of tire tracks too smudged to trace. It was found a ways away from where the car went off the road but the car itself was too ripped up to try and find any evidence that another car might have been involved. There just wasn’t enough evidence to suggest another car ran it off the road but some of the cops suggested this wasn’t an accident. When they looked into it, they couldn’t determine there was any reason to think it was murder. Nothing in the background of Cullen said he had a powerful enemy, so they had to let it go.”
“Okay, thanks Nicky.” Raven ended the second call.
The four of them were quiet for a moment.
“Why would anyone murder the attorney?” Pepper asked breaking the silence. “Did he know something that might have mattered? Did he know something about Jessie’s death that might have labeled it anything other than an accidental death by fire? What is going on here?”
“I don’t know baby, but something here stinks,” Mikial assured her.
Raven snapped her head around to stare at him at the endearment but didn’t say anything. She just reached for her cooling tea.
Sazon reached for his phone and called Barshan. “We just got word that Pepper could be Jessie Carter’s daughter. We need an in depth profile of Jessie Carter. Nicky told us that her attorney of record isn’t Leon Knight. The attorney she had was Cullen Brandt until Cullen was killed in a car accident a month after Jessie died. Need to know how Leon got her paintings. The paperwork he showed us looked legit but it might not have been. There also a trust set up in Pepper’s name. Can you check it out?” He listened for a moment before he hung up the call. Then he looked at Mikial and nodded. “He’ll find out what he can and get back to us.”
“So you think I’m her daughter?” Pepper stated.
“Yes, I do,” Mikial replied. “Especially after last night.”
“Explain again what happened last night,” Sazon demanded.
“The nightmare, remember?” Mikial reminded him. “When she acted like someone hit her, she curled up to protect herself, almost as if she’d been struck before.” He glanced at her. “When I put my arms around her she fought me like a wild animal until she woke up enough to realize I wasn’t going to hurt her.”
“Oh, my god,” Raven whispered, reaching out to take her hand. “I’m so sorry.”
Pepper lifted her shoulders and let them drop. “I’ve had the nightmare before, most of my life actually but when I wake up I can’t remember anything about it. It’s so frustrating.”
“Maybe your foster parents can tell us more about the nightmares?” Sazon suggested.
“Maybe, I really don’t remember a lot of when I was a child. I do remember living in fear for a long time,” she admitted. “They had to homeschool me for a while. I remember that.”
“Why did they do that?” Raven asked.
“I used to hide in my room a lot when I was a little girl. They told me I didn’t speak for about the first two years I lived with them. I do remember struggling with them when they dragged me out of the bedroom. I saw more doctors during that time than I wanted to. Everybody I saw back then poked and prodded at me. I hated it every time we left the house. I was afraid he would come back for me.”
“Who would come back for you? Who were you afraid of?” Mikial asked.
Pepper felt the tears rolling down her face. She shook her head. “I don’t remember. I couldn’t even remember what he looked like but to my mind, he was a big man, an angry man who hurt my mom and he wanted to hurt me too. I couldn’t let him get me.” She wrung her hands until her skin turned red. “The only place I felt safe was in the bedroom Paul and Marie gave me. I had a small place in the closet I liked to hide in. I would cover up with a blanket, so no one could find me.”
Mikial grabbed her and dragged her into his lap. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close to him. “You’re safe now, baby. I’ve got you. No one will ever hurt you again,” he whispered in her ear.
Pepper laid her head on his chest and listened for a moment to the beat of his heart. The sound was strong and steady and after a few minutes, she settled down.
Raven grinned behind her coffee cup.
Sazon looked troubled at the sight. Glancing toward the window, he paused then he was on his feet immediately. Gun in hand he stalked toward the portal to peek outside.
Mikial was on his feet with one hand around Pepper and the other around Raven urging them for the back rooms.
It took a moment for Sazon to call out, “All clear.”
Mikial holstered his weapon as he led the women back out to the living room. When they got there, they saw Roman and one of Yuri’s security guards had joined them.
“What’s going on?” Mikial asked the other men.
“We’ve identified the shooter from the gallery yesterday,” Roman explained.
“Who was it?” Sazon demanded.
“A guy by the name of Oscar Mann.”
“Who the fuck is Oscar Mann and why would he shoot up an art gallery?” Mikial demanded.
“We don’t know that yet, but Yuri wanted extra men on the girls.” Roman nodded at Raven and Pepper. “We’ll be here while you guys get some rest.” He hesitated then added, “He would like you to think about coming back to the hotel where he knows he can protect you better.”
Raven shook her head. “You can take her but I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m not going without her, so I guess that’s your answer.” Pepper shrugged.
“Do you know this guy, Oscar?” Mikial asked.
“No I have no clue who he is.” Pepper shook her head. “I’m not a very social person. I go to school then to work, then home again. I don’t hang out in bars or go clubbing at all. I can count on my fingers the number of friends I have, people that are close to me.”
“What kind of job do you have?” Mikial asked.
“I’m a legal research assistant until I finish school in a few months. I work about twenty hours a week.”
“Any problems in school?”
Pepper shook her head. “No and I have four classes a week.”
“It has to tie into the paintings,” Mikial reasoned.
“Which ties back to Leon Knight.” Sazon pointed out.