LOGINTalli groaned and reached for the door handle. When the door swung open, she almost fell out of the car. It took all her remaining strength to stay upright. Moving slowly, she managed to get out of the car and move along the side to the front of the vehicle.Russell scowled as he noted her progress then reached out and grabbed her by the upper arm. “This is going to take all damn day at this rate. Let’s move this along.” He dragged her along and a few minutes later, they were in her mother’s backyard.Standing in the shadows of the garage, Russell checked out the yard carefully. The sky would soon lighten and in the predawn light, the shadows were easing. Talli didn&
Rizvan nodded at them. " MY great grandfather hid it well and guarded it until the day he died. As did my father, as did I until the day I turned it over to Christophe. He did not want to help me and I’ll admit I had to force him to take the piece but he finally accepted it. He told me he had a safe place for it and would protect it well until I came to collect it.”The men all listened as they finally knew what Jerome had been after.Shaking his head, Rizvan admitted, “I heard a year later he was murdered. When no one came forward with the piece, I figured it was still safely hidden.”“What does this have to do with your cousin?” Felix posed the question.“Thirteen years ago, Dexter Pavel came to me and told me he’d tracked me down. He showed me the paperwork that supported his claim to be a member of my family. But he belonged on my mother’s side so he had no royal bloodline to speak of. He kne
Sazon’s phone rang a few minutes later. When the call was done, he looked over at Barshan before he turned to address Yuri, “Jerome left the Watcher’s clubhouse with Talli. Everyone else left a few minutes later. One of our people is following them but he seems to be just driving around town.’“Did anyone get a look at Talli?” Barshan asked. “Was she hurt from when they rammed the car earlier?”Sazon glanced over at his brother. “Yeah, Stephanous said she didn’t look so good.”Barshan felt his hands tighten into fists. He’d never felt more helpless in his life. Not even living in the streets of Moscow scared him this much.“Barshan,” Yuri called out to him. “As soon as Felix and Rizvan arrive, we’ll move in on this motherfucker. We will get her back, have no doubt about that. This will end soon and she’ll be back in your arms again before the next sunset. I promise you this.”Barshan sighed as he stared at Yuri. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep brother. We all swore an oath as youn
Across Town…Russell Jerome barely lifted his head and began searching the room around him. The dozen or so men were separated into their own little groups and he could see they were laughing and making small talk with each other. Several were standing at the bar drinking and a couple were even playing pool. The small warehouse they were in had been converted into a clubhouse of sorts, a meeting place for them all to hang out while they waited for their next gig.Russell hated this place. It was run down enough that he cringed and the men living here in the back rooms were not the sort of men he cared to hang out with. They were dirty low lifes and he couldn’t wait to leave them behind him. But for now, they had done their jobs and Talli was his for now.Without moving his head, he saw three men enter the main room. The one in the middle was the guy he’d hired when he needed someone inconspicuous to watch over the shop and to arrange the ram and grab that would get him the girl. He wa
Talli shuddered as the bad memory of her father’s death filled her mind. He’d stabbed her father over thirty times in his rage and hadn’t thought anything about it. Her father was left to die alone and in pain. Russell never thought about the loved ones Christophe left behind without any answers as to why he’d been murdered.Then eleven years later, he’d done the same thing to her mother. Maybe not stabbed her to death but he killed her all the same. And again, thought nothing about his victims instead he thought only of himself. There was no remorse in his soul for either murder, nor would there be when he killed her. The only person he truly cared about was himself. He was so focused on himself that the rest of the world didn’t exist, at least not in his mind.Talli shivered in the cool darkness. Grief threatened to overwhelm her but she knew if she gave into it, she would be lost. So instead, she thought about Barshan. Closing her eyes, she felt the safe feeling surrounding her aga
Russell got up to pace again. “I have no doubt that you’ll help me. You’ll help me by getting into that vault and giving me its contents.”“And if the vault is empty, what then?” Talli asked. “I’m dead either way, so why should I do as you demand?”“Because if you don’t, I’ll track down the man I found you with and kill him right in front of you. He’s nothing more than a loan shark anyway. No one will even miss his kind, in fact there will probably be some people who are happy that they no longer have to pay him his blood money.”Talli stared at the madman in front of her. “Do you really think that? That he is only a loan shark?”Russell sneered. “Of course, as that is all he is. I went to him to get money, nothing more. The fact that he demanded a bigger amount than I b
Yuri searched the paper, growled, then handed it to Mikial.Mikial read it then crumpled it in his hands. He looked at Yuri and tightened his lips in rage. “That dirty low down bastard.”“What is it?” Sazon asked.“It’s a newspaper article from eighteen years ago and a death certificate for Pepper
The alarm went from solid red to a blinking red. On the third blink, a special alarm went off in the security room and the door locked behind the interloper.Down in the hotel’s security room everyone saw this and three men scrambled. One got on the phone while the other two sat at monitors searchi
When she and Nicky had come to New Orleans three years ago, Raven had learned everything she could about the city and who actually ran it. After what happened with Carlos, trapping her into a life of thievery, she had learned to be very careful. She’d gotten a job at the hotel/restaurant in houseke
“Do you know who Yuri Anatoly is?” Nicky asked Raven as she walked through the front door of their apartment.The apartment wasn’t much and not in a good neighborhood but it was the best place they had lived in yet. It was small but then they didn’t need much.Raven groaned as she leaned wearily ag







