A Promise Kept Ch. 04

As far as my relationship with Lelahni was concerned, she turned out to be an angel unaware, a muse of sorts, but most of all, she was a very kind and gentle friend...It was then that I saw the wisdom in Admiral White sending me there to begin with...

~~~~~~

Chapter Four

THE PRESENT

"Poor baby," Kara sleepily sighed, hugging me, "Lelahni was right about you. That's why you're such a sweetie."

"Yes, you are," Jayne softly smiled, wrapping her arms around Kara and me, "And I love you guys so much."

~~~~~~

The next morning at work was a Monday, and with it came something nice. When I walked into the gym to begin class with my girls, Kara, Jayne, Talia Genaro, as well as the Lynch twins, all stood in a group each one of them with knowing grins on their faces. Needless to say the rest of the girls in the class each wore some kind of grin, or smirk, making me realize that they were all up to something.

"Alright, ladies," I chuckled, "Come on, what gives?"

All of a sudden, the afore mentioned group of girls all parted to reveal that my baby sister, Brittany, was standing there looking more beautiful than I could ever recall her being. Somewhere in the process in the process I felt my heart slowly mend a little more than it had been as of late.

"Hi, big brother," she happily sniffled, "I sure have missed seeing you," and then she ran into my arms, crying, as I held her tightly against me, tears silently pouring down my own cheeks.

"It's good to see you," I finally smiled, gently holding her back so that I could look at her now perfect, beautiful face, "God, Brit, you look so pretty, I mean you've always looked pretty, but you look even more beautiful now."

"I think I get the point, big brother," she good naturedly teased me, eliciting laughter from my girls, Kara and Jayne included, "I'm glad you think I'm pretty. It means a lot to me to hear you tell me that, Mikey. Because I know that you would never lie to me."

"That's right, baby girl," I smiled, hugging her once again, "Never in a million years."

All at once I heard a chorus of female voices gently say, "Awww, how sweet," followed by sniffles from every single one of them, bar none.

"I need to start class, Brit," I smiled, gently pulling away from here, "Stick around, because I want to talk to you some more if you have the time."

"Of course, Mikey," she sweetly replied, "I've always got time for my big brother, and she scurried away, taking a seat next in the lower bleachers.

"Alright, ladies," I announced, "We have a tournament coming up this weekend, does anyone have any questions?"

"Excuse me, Coach," Jillian Hendrix, my highest ranking black belt, asked, "I was wondering if you would look at a technique that I've been working on for the tournament."

"Of course," I replied, "Would you care to demonstrate?"

"Sure," she knowingly winked at the class, "I want you to be the opponent, okay?"

"Not a problem," I cockily grinned, "Meet me on the mat, please."

~~~~~~

With Kara as acting referee, Jillian and I began to spar. She came in with several good combinations, which, had been lacking in experience, she would've received more than several points. However, it was when we squared off for the second time that she stung me. She had her right foot out front, and when she raised it, I thought that she was coming in for a body kick, and I blocked accordingly. What I didn't expect was for her to suddenly draw her foot back, and then quickly sweep it over the top of my guard to tag me in the face for two points; and losing my balance in the process, I fell onto my ass.

"Uh, excuse me, Coach," Kara smirked, the rest of the class laughing like fools, "But I believe that counts as two points."

"You shut up," I playfully grumbled, "That wasn't funny."

"Sorry about that, Coach," Jillian playfully smirked, "How was that?"

"I don't think I need to answer that, young lady," I grinned, "The fact that you knocked me onto my ass, gaining two points in the process ought to tell you something, shouldn't it?"

After that little "incident" was forgotten, the girls spent the rest of the time preparing for the up and coming tournament that was about to take place in the next few days. All twelve of my girls each had their own personalized style of attack, and the best part about it all was that they were all very strong, aggressive fighters; I tried to teach them that being aggressive was fine, but to also maintain control...

~~~~~~

"Hello Coach," Gavin Phelps smiled, knocking on my door after class was out, "I've got some good news, and some not so good news; which one would you care to hear first?"

"Give me the bad news first," I told him, "That way, the good news will put me back in a good mood."

"Tommy Powers and his three friends, Rick Blaylock, Jimmy Cooper, and David Burns are no longer in custody," he told me, "Some bail bondsman out of Oklahoma poster their bail; but you can be damn sure that I've made sure that there are at least two of my men watching each one of them at all times until their trial. They won't hurt anyone...I promise you that. My men all have standing orders to shoot to kill if necessary."

"Fuck...and I'll bet old Clayton Powers himself put up the money," I disgustedly replied, "What's the good news?"

"The two men that bombed your house, James Kindle, and Howard Nash, accepted a plea bargain of five years as opposed to life without possibility in exchange for testifying against Robert Dresden," he told me, "The public defender cut a deal with the D. A's Office just this morning so; the Grand Jury will be handing down an indictment on Dresden in the next few days."

"That's great," I smiled, my good mood immediately returning, "If that's the case, then who is going to head the Board of Regents here at the U of H?"

"It seems that a gentleman named, James Peel, has been asked to step in to temporarily fill that role," he said, "I've never met him, but I've been assured by a very reliable source that he's an extremely trustworthy person, not to mention, a very good man."

"That's great," I happily grinned, "I can't wait to meet him,"

"I'm very happy that you feel that way, Tommy," Gavin knowingly grinned, "Because Mister Peel said the same thing about you, when he found out that I knew you when he and I spoke earlier."

"Hell, Gavin," I laughed, "Set up a meeting, I guess..."

~~~~~~

THE NEXT DAY

Because of the fact that I had no classes that morning, Detective Gavin Phelps accompanied me to meet with Dr. James Peel, acting Chairman, of the Board of Regents over the University of Houston. He was somewhere in his early to mid fifties, I'd say, and stood roughly the same height as Gavin Phelps. It was obvious that he was a very highly educated man, as I saw the diplomas and certificates, covering two walls of his office when we first walked in.

"Come in, gentlemen," he warmly greeted us, "Please have a seat. Can I offer you guys something to drink?"

"No," I replied, "But thank for offering, sir."

"Not a problem, Master Chief Walker," he smiled, "What about you, Detective?"

"I'm good for now," Gavin smiled, "But thanks just the same, Doctor Peel."

"Gentlemen, please," he said, "Call me James."

"Thank you, James," Gavin smiled, "It's nice to meet you."

"Alright, then," he smiled, "I'll get right to the point of why I wanted to meet with you, Master Chief Walker."

"That sounds fair enough," I said, "But you can call me Mike, just like everyone else does...okay James?"

"Okay, Mike," he chuckled, "I understand that a member of your family was very seriously assaulted not too long ago. Would mind telling me what happened?"

"Not at all," I began, "Tommy Powers, and three of his friends brutally raped and beat my little sister within an inch of her life, and now that I've recently discovered that they're out of bond, they'd better grow eyes in the backs of the fucking heads, pardon my language."

"It's quite alright," James told me, "I would've fucked them up, too, if they'd touched my sister so; there's no need to apologize to me for anything you say, Mike. My only question is if there's anything that I can do to help?"

"Not at the moment," I said, "The little bastards are somewhere licking their wounds, right now. However, the moment they're out in the open, I'm going to personally take them down myself...as well as Old man Powers...you know, the retired Judge."

"I know Clayton Powers only too well, Mike," Peel warned, "Be very careful though, he may be old, but he is still extremely dangerous."

"Without going into too much detail," I said, "I think there's something you should know about me before this goes any further."

"Okay," James asked, "What is it that you want me to know?"

"Anderson Clayton Powers doesn't scare me one bit," I said, "Because when the time comes, and I assure you it will...I'm going to destroy his entire bloodline, and not think twice about it."

"Be careful, Mike," Peel warned me again, "Like I just said, that old man is dangerous."

"So am I, Doctor Peel," I strongly replied, "So am I..."

~~~~~~

THAT AFTERNOON

I'd just finished teaching my last class, and was about to leave my main office and head to my office in the gym when a knock on my office door got my immediate attention. It was Rick Blaylock, one of the assholes who'd raped and beaten my sister.

"You got a lot of balls, you little bastard," I growled, as I stood, ready to spring at the slightest suggestion of attack, "What the fuck are you doing here, dammit?"

"Easy," he quietly replied, backing away from me with his hands raised, "I'm not here to make trouble...I'm here to warn you that Tommy Powers is coming into the gym to face you, one on one today, and I wanted you to be ready."

"Why would you do that for me," I asked, "Especially after what you motherfuckers did to my little sister? I ought to kill you right here," and then my temper got the best of me, and I sprung onto him, grabbing him in a sleeper hold.

"Please, wait," he gasped, trying to pull my arm from around his neck, "I never touched your sister...I swear it...I just drove the car, that's all."

"I swear to God that I will kill you if you're lying to me," I spat, releasing him, and then pushing him to the ground. Then I reached down and grabbed him up by the hair and told him, "You're coming with me, asshole..."

~~~~~~

"When I got to the gym, I can't begin to explain my surprise when I'd heard a male voice screaming out in pain; and then I felt absolute joy when, after dragging Rick Blaylock by the hair behind me as I ran to the gym, and then found Tommy Powers laying out cold on the gym floor with Kara standing over him yelling, "GET UP, ASSHOLE, I DARE YOU."

"Well, well, what have we here?" I laughed, when I walked over to where Kara was standing, and much to my delight, discovered that I'd been mistaken, and Tommy Powers had not been knocked out and was still very wide awake. He was simply afraid of getting up and getting his ass kicked...again...and by a female at that.

"I told him to leave, Michael,." Kara said, "He took a swing at me so; I took his little dumb ass down for it, and now he's too chicken shit to get up..."

~~~~~~

"We searched his car and found two illegal handguns," Gavin Phelps smiled, "Now we've got something to keep the little son-of a bitch behind bars for a while longer, at least."

"Good," I chuckled, "You just saved that boy's life, because if he comes back here I think Kara will seriously hurt his ass the next time."

"Oh, yeah, I almost forgot," Gavin laughed, "Did Kara really kick his ass the way Tommy Powers claimed? He tried to file assault charges against her ya know."

"I didn't know that," I smiled, "What's going to happen with that?"

"Nothing," Gavin grinned, "I laughed like hell when the little bastard told me what she did to him, and then told him that he damn well deserved whatever he got. My only regret is that I wasn't here to see it."

"Me, too," I laughed, "All I got to do was hear the son of a bitch scream."

Meanwhile, I had Kara, as well as the rest of the girls in my Karate class keeping a watch over Rick Blaylock, because I wasn't finished questioning his ass...

~~~~~~

"I want you to tell me everything you know about Tommy Powers," I told Rick Blaylock, as he sat in a chair, surrounded by every single one of my girls, each of them ready to stomp his ass if he so much as flinched, "If you don't, I'm going to turn these girls loose on you, and keep in mind that every single one of them has been trained in the art of how to tear your punk ass to pieces. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, sir," he gulped, "I'm not here to make trouble Mister Walker, I swear."

"You said that you came to warn me," I began, "And Tommy did exactly what you said he was going to do, which compels me to trust you...for now. So; it's time for you to keep that trust by telling me everything you know..."

He began to talk, and over a period of an hour and twenty minutes, Rick Blaylock told me everything that he knew of the now infamous Tommy Powers. He even told me the floor plan of the house where Tommy lived with not only his parents, but also the evil retired judge Anderson Clayton Powers, the boy's great uncle. And as far as the eldest Powers went Rick revealed the old man's secret network of different people, some of them holding pretty high offices within the state government, which he'd paid off over the years; and/or was still on his payroll.

The worst of these was none other than Tommy Powers' father, Donald Powers Junior, who, when his father, Donald Powers Senior was killed due to his involvement with the infamous crime family, the Gambinos; became the legal council to Old Clayton Powers himself. Once Blaylock had finished confessing his sins, he asked to speak with me privately.

~~~~~~

"So, what're you going to do with me now?" he asked me, in the privacy of my office, "I sure don't want to die."

"Relax, kid," I told him, "I'm not going to kill you; but you're still going to have to answer for your involvement with what happened to my sister. However, seeing that you've helped me the way you have, it's possible that you might get a break, but you have to promise me one thing."

"Name it," Blaylock desperately replied, "I'll do anything you ask..."

~~~~~~

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Gavin asked Blaylock, as he placed a wire beneath the boy's shirt, "You're taking a big risk ya know."

"I don't care," he defiantly replied, "I wanna do whatever it takes to make up for what happened to Brittany Walker."

"You're a very brave kid," I admirably told him, "I'll give you that much."

"This is not about bravery," he said, "I wanna see those asshole pay for the shit that they've been getting away with for too long now..."

~~~~~~

THAT NIGHT

"So," Kara asked me that evening, "Did Rick Blaylock tell you everything that you wanted to know?"

"He sure did," I grinned, "We'll have that whole family behind bars in no time. Maybe then the people around here can relax and get on with their daily lives without having to live in fear of those assholes."

"I want you to be careful," she warned me, "Old Clayton Powers is a very dangerous man."

"Everybody keeps telling me that," I replied, "But I don't fear that old motherfucker one bit..."

~~~~~~

"Michael, wake up," Kara cautiously whispered, waking me later that night, "There's someone outside. I can hear them moving around."

"Go down the hall and stay with Jayne," I quietly said, reaching under my bed and retrieving my old Service Issue Colt .45 Automatic pistol, "I'll be back in a little while...oh, don't forget to call the police."

~~~~~~

I quietly slipped out of the back door and made my way around the house trying to find out whom, or what Kara had heard moving about. I hadn't been outside for more than a minute or two, when I suddenly felt the muzzle of a weapon being placed behind my ear, while at the same time, I heard a male voice tell me, "Put your hands in the air. One false move and I'll blow your fucking head off asshole."

I did as I was told, however; when whomever it was that had pulled their weapon on me made the mistake of grabbing my hand in order to restrain me; I knew that God had given me the chance of self redemption.

I quickly grabbed the "would be" assailant in a thumb lock, making him drop the pistol he'd been holding to my head. And then when I turned around and found that he was wearing a ski mask, I quickly snatched it off of his face to discover that it was none other than Tommy Powers' father, Donald Powers, Junior. As opposed to immediately taking him out, I kicked him in the face several times until I was able to take the handcuffs that he'd apparently brought to use on me, and then place them on him, restraining with his hands behind his back, holding him until the police arrived.

"Who sent you, asshole?" I angrily asked him.

"Fuck you," he spat, "I'm not telling you a God damn thing."

"Is that right?" I asked, suddenly back fisting him in the face, knocking him out of the chair that he'd been placed in, "You want to try again, shit head?"

"You can't do this to me," he said, spitting blood out where I'd hit him in the mouth, "I know my rights."

"Is that right?" I laughed, this time lightly kicking him in the face just enough to give him a good shiner the next day, "Well let me tell you something Councilor. Until the cops get here, you have no rights. Do you understand me, you son of a bitch?"

~~~~~~

"Damn if they're not getting bolder," Gavin grimly replied, on his arrival, "You're no longer safe by yourselves so; that's why I'm going to put my two best men on you at all times."

"That's not necessary, Gavin," I told him, "As you can see, I'm more than capable of taking care of myself, as well as Kara and Jayne."

"I know that all too well," Gavin laughed, "But I'm asking you to please do this for me...I'll sleep a whole lot better, Mike."

"Alright," I relented, "But they'd better be good."

"They are," Gavin reassured us, "Both of these guys are SWAT officers, and they're two of the best on the whole force..."

~~~~~~

So, that's how it went. The police pulled shifts watching my house for the ten days following the incident involving Donald Powers until the day before Robert Dresden went to trial. The two men whom he'd hired to bomb our house, James Kindle and Howard Nash; were both ready to testify against him, guaranteeing that Dresden would get a sentence of at least twenty-five years to life.

However, what none of us knew was that Dr. Robert Dresden, too, had cut a deal with the District Attorney's Office, and was going to turn State's evidence against the evil Clayton Powers, therefore making himself a living target. We also found out that as soon as he testified, he and his whole family were going into the witness protection program. It was the first time I'd ever known anyone who had done what Dresden was preparing to do.

If you asked me though, I'd tell you that the "Good Old Boy Bullshit" that had been happening around there for the better part of the past fifty years looked like it was in the process of being totally and completely brought to en end. I only hoped that there would be no violence of any kind.

When I use the term "Good Old Boy Bullshit" I'm speaking of a group of men that had been friends since they were all very young. And because of the fact that his family was wealthy, Clayton Powers more or less usurped his place as the leader of the group of assholes that had been giving me grief ever since I first arrived on campus that year.

However, it wasn't like they attacked me without provocation; no. This whole thing stemmed from the fact that I'd put the hurt on Tommy's little ass for being not only a trouble maker, but now even moreso because of what he'd done to my sister, Brittany. And while I know that what I'm about to say is wrong, but I couldn't wait for the day that I would be able to take retribution not only for breaking the law where he attacked me on campus at the U of H, but I was especially anxious to make him pay for the crimes he and his punk ass friends had committed against my family.