Click – Brothers At Arms #5

Leon and Zeus studied the map of the tunnels.

Once they knew what they were looking at, Leon shook his head. “Alfonzo was some kind of mad man,” he muttered under his breath.

Delaney snorted but didn’t say anything.

After a few minutes, Leon got a text on his phone from the team he’d sent to find the stills. Reading it, he scoffed then looked over at Delaney. Then he turned to look at Zeus. “My men checked both of the larger stills and found a hell of a lot of money in one of them, close to a million I think.”

Marty shook her head. “That stupid man.”

“Was the other one used at all?” Delaney asked,

Leon nodded. “Apparently so,” He then swore, “Gli stronzi sono stupidi…I told them to bring everything to the clubhouse and we would sort it out.”

“We still have to find my dad,” Delaney reminded them.

“Si, this I know.” Leon growled. “I have a feeling this is going to be a very long night.”

Alfredo shook his head, “My son is tired and most likely wounded, and he’s running out of time, even he knows this. We have two of his three sons in custody and I’m sure he doesn’t know where Vincent is. I think he realizes that with you being here, most of the treasures my dad left behind are gone.” He sighed hard, “My son is the fool once again. He thought he could just show up and everyone would just allow him to do what he wants, but he was wrong and he knows this. I’m betting he’s waiting until everyone goes to sleep and then he’ll make his move. He needs to find his own treasure as that is all he’s got left.”

Leon listened to the older man and asked, “What are you suggesting we do?”

“There is no way this is going to end…” Alfredo sighed. “Unless you all end the battle. È ovvio,’ he swore in Italian. ‘Even if Barrett came in here and got his treasure there is no way he will ever get out. Not alive anyway. We know this and I believe he does too, yet he can’t walk away. He needs that money too badly now. It’s all he’s got left and he’s a desperate man. And desperate men make mistakes. His biggest mistake was turning his back on his family and he doesn’t even know this yet, but I have a feeling he will.”

“Again, I ask you, what are you suggesting we do here?” Leon growled with impatience.

“Barrett thinks he needs his sons to get the treasure for him,” Alfredo explained. “It has always been him and the boys, when he wasn’t in jail of course, but even then he had them trained to follow his instructions and wait for him to be released so he could join them again. I suggest we show the boys just how and why Barrett needs them. So much so he’d be willing to throw them under the bus just to get away with all the money for himself.”

Leon began to smile, “Dividere e conquistare?”

Delaney chuckled.

Alfredo nodded. “Divide and conquer. Si that is what I am suggesting. Alfredo shook his head. “I’m too old and too weak to fight them anymore. They have run wild and free for too long and they need a harsh lesson about family.”

 “And that is a lesson I will gladly teach them.” Leon crossed his arms over his chest.

“Si, I know you will.” Alfredo nodded. “I almost hate to make you be their lesson master but I know you will not fail. At least I will have my granddaughters by my side.”

“And just how will we pull that off?” Click asked.

Zeus nodded. “Yeah, I don’t get it either.”

Alfredo shrugged.

“Don’t worry,” Leon assured them. “I have a plan.”

Just then, two of Leon’s men opened the front doors. One of them carried the case Marty had given Vincent for Lily and a sack of money. The second man came in with a stack of Bearer bonds and another small bag.

 Emily stood from the table as she gasped. “That lousy bastard,” she muttered under her breath.

Grave Digger looked over at her. “What is it?”

Emily pointed at the second man. “That bag came from my dad’s bar. They must have grabbed it from the safe before they got out.”

“We found this one in the second still.” The security man put the bag down on the table and opened it up. Inside were bundles of cash and receipts. In the bottom of the bag, there were also several bars of gold and silver.

Leon looked at Emily. “This all belonged to your father?”

Emily nodded. “The bag of money came from his office at the bar but the gold and silver stuff came from the safe in his office at the house. They must have gone there after the bar burned down.” She sat down hard. “I can’t believe they would do that. Ransack our house after they murdered him. How could they do that?”

Delaney sat down beside her and reached out to take her hand. “Because that’s who they are. They thought because they had a few men behind them they could just walk in and demand that your dad hand over his bar. They did their research and found it was a great place to do business and that’s what they wanted, a money maker, but it didn’t go down that way did it? The bar was gone and your dad was dead. I’m not really surprised they robbed his house after the fact. My brothers are true monsters. I’m so sorry.”

Emily had tears rolling down her cheeks. “My dad was always looking to retire. He’d been building up a good retirement. He always told me he came from nothing but he would go out like a king. He kept cash, bearer bonds, gold and silver in his safe at home. He had a safety deposit box at the local bank too, but this was his way of telling the world he’d made it, I guess.”

Leon nodded. “I can almost hear those words coming out of his mouth.” Shaking his head he looked down at the bounty his men found. “All of this now belongs to you and Marty.”

Marty shook her head. “No, it doesn’t. The money I gave Vincent belongs to him. I will not renege on my deal for Lily. I will keep my word to him, so he won’t ever have the right to come back at me to get her back. That little girl is mine now and he has no claim to her.”

Leon shrugged. “I’m not sure when he’ll be able to spend it, being behind bars for the rest of his life but that’s something we can work out later.” He turned to Emily, “But this money will go a long way to raising your son. I know your father would want that.”

Emily nodded. “Thank you.”

Leon looked up and stared at the men around the room, “Now all we have to do is find Barrett’s haul. Hopefully, before he gets to it.”

Zeus growled and said, “We will start digging at dawn. But don’t worry, we’ll have sharp shooters on the roof keeping watch and a few men armed on the ground. I have a feeling we haven’t seen the last of Barrett.”

“Not bloody likely,” Leon grumbled. “He has to get inside to get his treasure and we’re standing in his way, aren’t we? He’s still around here somewhere, but he’s also getting desperate and desperate men do stupid things. That’s what we have to be aware of.”

Zeus looked over at Click and warned him, “We need eyes on the tunnels at all times, so set up a watch.”

Click nodded.

 Diabolus walked over to the laptop and said, “I’ll take first watch, so you can get some rest. We’re gonna be up all night.”

Emily looked over at Zeus and asked, “Do you have a safe you can store my dad’s money in? I don’t want it just laying around in case Barrett gets in here.”

Zeus nodded, then he looked over at Marty. “You want your money in the safe as well?”

Marty shrugged then nodded. “It is not mine, but I suppose Vincent won’t be out of jail any time soon. So I guess we have to safeguard it.”

“My dear Martine, you do know that the deal you made with him is probably illegal as hell, don’t you?” Leon asked.

Marty nodded. “Vincent was using his own child against my sister. Vincent took her child and was holding her hostage to make my sister work against the club. He made her live in a pigsty and that’s no kind of life for any child. The deal was in return for the money, he had to give up his parental rights to his daughter. He signed the papers and I turned over the money. I have to keep my end of the bargain if I want him to keep his part. And I’ll be damned if I fuck up this deal. Lily is too important to me to just hand her back to a man who will abuse her and use her for his own gain. Besides, this was the last thing my sister ever asked me to do for her and I’m not going to let her down.”

“So be it then.” Leon nodded.

Click left them to it and walked down the hall to his bedroom. He knew he needed to have a talk with Desi, or an argument. He hoped for a ‘talk’ but he would take what he could get. Then try to get forgiven. He had acted like a fucking bully just like she’d said and he had no excuse for it.

When he opened the door, he saw Desi standing over at the window, looking outside. He shut the door behind him and leaned against it. He knew he had fucked up. In his need to catch Barrett, he’d pushed her too far. “If I say I’m sorry, will you accept my apology?”

Desi stared out the window, as she did not reply.

Click bit at his lip and walked over to sit in the chair next to the window.

A few minutes went by as he sat back and waited. Would she even speak to him again? He deserved it, but he didn’t want there to be a rift between them. He had only just found her and he already knew what most of the men here knew. When you find the woman that was meant to be yours, you would do everything to keep them. “The silent treatment works, by the way,” he stated softly. “Any woman who uses it, will win any argument.” He hoped if he joked about it that at least she would get mad and yell at him or something. Then he could maybe get her to accept his apology.

Nothing from her end.

He let out a sigh. Well, he could wait as long as it took.

Finally, she turned to look at him.

He sat up straighter in the chair, ready for the fight. Then maybe he could patch this up.

“You gotta understand something about me,” she whispered as she again directed her gaze back to the window. “I have been alone for a long time. I have no social skills. I also have a short fuse.”

Click nodded his head only because she couldn’t see him doing it. Then he simply waited for her to tell him that he had set her off by pushing her.

“I know all of this has everyone on edge, especially me.”

He paused, as this sure did not sound like a dress down, cuss out fight on her part.

Desi shook her head. “See, I got caught by you, which never happened before. I had been trailing the Raggettis for a long ass time. And they never caught me at it.”

Click shrugged. “Baby, I had surveillance cameras and it was my job to catch you.”

Nodding, she finally looked over at him. “I’m new here and to say no one trusted me, is putting it mildly. So, I felt like you did not trust me either when you dragged me into the front room. Like I said, I didn’t know it was a map and I have no idea how my mom got her hands on it. I’m not even sure she knew what it was, but you can understand why Barrett was upset when he found out she had it, can’t you?”

Click rose up from the chair and stepped over to wrap his arms around her. “Yeah, I can understand that. But there’s something going on here that you have to understand too. We don’t keep secrets here. We can’t afford to. Nine times out of ten, those secrets could come back to bite us in the ass and anything to do with the Raggettis, we can’t keep secret. That whole family are narcissistic morons with Genghis Khan traits. About the only good ones are Delaney and Alfredo.”

Desi looked up at him and whispered, “Am I a good one or the other type?”

Click smiled and held her closer. “Oh, you are a good one, a very good one.”

“Even with my temper? Even I know I’ve got a terrible temper.”

Chuckling, he laid his chin on the top of her head. “I think you got every right for your temper. Your life was shit and now you have a dad willing to kill you to keep his selfish secrets.”

“Don’t forget, I’m just as willing to end his life as well.” Desi growled. “We may even meet face to face one day, but only one of us will walk away.”

Click heard the resolve in her voice and he sighed hard. “Then I hope you never meet face to face. You mean something to me and I’d just as soon not lose you to him or put you in the situation where you have to end his life. It just isn’t worth it and killing a man changes you. It makes your soul bleed until there is nothing left for you to call your own.”

She turned in his arms and wrapped her own arms around his waist. “But I have to see this through… for my mom, for grandpa and for myself. I have to stop this man once and for all. I just have to.”

Click tightened his arms around her and just held her for a moment. He heard what she was saying. Hell, he could almost understand her reasoning but he knew killing Barrett would only come back to haunt her.