My Mystery Mate Ch. 12

Alexandria, Virginia

Marty's Gentleman's Club

Ricky Tomczyk was more nervous than a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs. A low level soldier in the Torchelli crime family, he hadn't ever been summoned to see the Boss. Hell, he had never seen anyone higher than his capo. The Family was like that, it had been explained to him early on. The old military system with levels and hierarchy was gone. In its place was a cellular structure, each capo operated independently and reported directly to the Underboss, Sammy Torchelli. He and the Boss, Vito Torchelli, were the only ones who knew the full extent of their empire.

He had been dropped off at an empty strip club at ten in the morning in the industrial section of Alexandria, Virginia. His boss just told him to go in and tell the bartender who he was before he left without him. Ricky ran his hands through his shaggy blonde mane, wiped his hands on his designer skinny jeans, and walked in the door.

Walking nervously to the bar where a huge black man was cleaning up, he told him who he was. The bartender poured him a bourbon and pointed him in the direction of a door labeled "Office." He knocked, then entered. He didn't see the man behind the door until it was too late. A black hood was placed over his head and he was pulled backwards, he tried to fight him off but there was something soaked on the hood. The more he fought, the faster he breathed it in and after twenty seconds he was unconscious.

He woke up slowly, the bright light of the room causing him to squint. His neck hurt and when he tried to touch it, he found out his hands were cuffed to the rail of the bed. Panicked, he tried to sit up, but the leather strap around his chest and the leather restraints on his ankles stopped that. He looked around, the room was empty of everything but the bed and a metal folding chair. He yelled for help, but it was ten minutes before the man arrived.

Vito Torchelli walked into the room, his immaculate suit and perfectly combed hair making him look every bit the gangster boss he was. Looking down at Ricky, he asked one thing. "Where is Lynn?"

Ricky paled, swallowed once and answered. "I took her to her father's place in Alexandria and gave her to him. Those were my instructions if Black Ker was killed."

Vito nodded. "So who told you she was killed?"

"It was on the news."

There was a pause before Vito replied. "You really are dumber than a pair of numchuks, aren't you?" If Ricky could turn any more white he would be transparent. "Did your boss, or anyone else tell you to do that?"

"No sir."

"Well, she's NOT FUCKING DEAD AND YOU GAVE AWAY OUR LEVERAGE." Vito backhanded him, the large rings on his hand cutting his cheeks open and knocking one of his molars loose. Ricky fought the restraints, but there wasn't anything to do but wait for his fate. Vito walked out the door, leaving him to think about how his stupidity was about to get him killed. Vito's reputation was well earned; he rewarded those who earned and was vicious to those who failed or betrayed him.

When Vito finally returned, he had a piece of paper in his hands. "You're lucky there was someone smarter than you involved. Lynn has a GPS tracker placed inside her, she is in Los Angeles at this address. You are to get on a plane, fetch her and find a place to hide out with her until we call you with further instructions." He handed him a cellphone. "There is one number programmed in, call it when you have her. You have twenty four hours, Ricky... don't fuck this up." Vito left, soon after the bartender came in and released him from the restraints. Handing him a plane ticket, he walked him out to the waiting taxi.

Black Ker was still alive, and he was the one who had been holding her daughter hostage. Ricky could only hope that he found Lynn before the Ker did.

Los Angeles

Safe House

Linda moved over and sat on Joe's lap, leaning against his broad chest while she took a long sniff of his neck to settle herself. "You know, we have a big problem with Lynn."

Both men looked at her in alarm, but Trevor spoke first. "What, she was fine when she went to bed!"

Linda sat up. "When you found me, I had an implant in my neck. It was an explosive on a timer, it was insurance to make sure I didn't leave them. When I would go out on a job, they would set it to make sure I came back, or if I was captured I wouldn't live long enough to give the Torchellis up."

Joe hugged her waist from behind. "Yes, but we removed that, what does that have to do with Lynn?"

"Lynn was their way of forcing me to do the jobs they had for me. They put an implant in her too... but hers is a little different. Instead of a timer, they have a GPS locator and a radio receiver. The reason I couldn't run, I couldn't get away from them, is because they had her on this electronic trap. If she left the house we were held, it would send an alarm and they could command detonate with the radio transmitter our captors had on them. I've seen it work, it's a small charge but effective. I knew I'd never get her far enough away to keep them from killing her, so I stayed and did what they said. Even if it was killing me inside." She laid her head back on Joe's chest.

"Well, I got her out of Virginia without a problem, I guess since they thought you were dead they didn't use the transmitter." Trevor looked at them both, understanding came across his face. "But the locator is still in her neck. They know where we are."

Joe squeezed his mate again. "When Dr. Julia operated on you, it was very tricky to get the device out without activating the charge. We can't remove it without a skilled surgeon, but there is no way we can bring her to a hospital. The CIA will find out, and in the meantime the Mob still knows where she is." He moved her off his lap and stood up to go to his bag. "We'll need to bring Doc to her."

He moved off into the kitchen, opening a fresh burner phone he called Julia in his old pack. "Julia, it's Joe. I'm sorry to call you, but I need your help."

"I can't help you, Joe. You need to turn yourself in before more people get hurt."

"What happened? Is Richard all right?"

There was a long pause. "Alpha Merino figured out that we told you the Telluride pack members were here, and that Richard helped you escape. I've been suspended as Pack doctor and restricted to my quarters... but Richard was horse whipped, and the whip had silver embedded in it. He's alive, but he can't move. I'm tending to him."

Joe started to cry, both were so close to him and had done so much, he hated that his friends were suffering for what they had done. "I'm sorry, Julia. I'm so sorry."

"Don't you dare apologize, Joe. You were protecting your mate, I would expect nothing less. Joe knew what he was doing and he paid the price. Just stay alive, Joe. I don't want this to be for nothing."

"It's not. She got some memories back... her name is Linda, and she has a daughter who is two. Cutest girl I've ever seen, and she only needed one look to get me wrapped around her finger."

Now it was Julia that was crying. "Take care of your family, Joe. I have to go." The line went dead.

Moving back into the living room, he knew the others had been able to hear it so he didn't repeat the conversation. "Any other ideas?"

Trevor closed his eyes, then sate up. "I've got one, but you won't like it." Joe and Linda both looked at him expectantly. "The CIA maintains doctors in all regions, they are capable and discrete. If the Agency will help you, there are doctors here in Los Angeles who would do this without paperwork."

Joe's jaw dropped. "You mean the same CIA who is probably out to kill us, the same agency that I've already killed two agents?" He shook his head. "How the hell do we get them to help?"

"Simple. We ask." He got up and went to the wall, removing a section of molding from around the window he reached in and pulled out a Scandisk. "But we ask with the right leverage. You don't think our group would leave the CIA without some means to assure they leave us alone, do you?"

Linda nodded. "Hell no. We were contractors, and we knew too much. We made sure we had all the leverage we needed to stay safe after we left. You have anything specific in mind, Trevor?"

"A couple ideas. We need them to help Lynn and to leave us alone again. That's an arm twisting, we don't need to use everything we have." He moved over to the counter where he booted up his laptop and inserted the disk. Opening the file manager, he searched the titles for something appropriate. Pulling up one folder, he scrolled through the list as Linda and Joe looked on. "The CIA role in the death of Princess Diana. That should be enough."

"Princess Di? What the fuck are you talking about?" Joe's eyes were wide as saucers.

"The Royal Family didn't like her being so close to Dodi Fayed, they were about to get married and Di was already pregnant. MI-6 was tasked with the job but was to close, too many of their people would hesitate, so they asked the CIA back channel. The CIA didn't want to be involved directly, so they gave it to me and my group. We'd been operating long before Linda joined us."

"You guys killed her?"

"Indirectly. We put a drug in her driver's drink, one that would slow his reflexes further and cloud his judgment. The paparazzi that were chasing them we paid off, once they got in a high speed chase the accident was inevitable. Just to make sure, though, I had a person working the ambulance that responded and another in the hospital. They just had to make sure she wasn't transported too quickly, her injuries took care of the rest. Then they took care of switching out the blood samples for toxicology, and made sure her pregnancy didn't come out."

Trevor paced for a while. "I'm not proud of everything our country did back then, Joe, but she was a threat. She had been planning for years her escape from the arranged marriage she was in, and she had threatened to come out publicly on some things that she shouldn't have."

Joe went and sat down, his head hurt from all this. "So what is in that file?"

Trevor looked up, he had started a file transfer to a thumb drive. "Bank records, voice recordings, video of the paparazzi driver taking his payoff and receiving his instructions, the real blood tests for all occupants, and camera footage from within the chase car. Plenty of uncomfortable information. They'll help, I have no doubt."

Linda looked at him. "But... what if they don't believe what you say about what happened to me? About me having no choice?"

"You'll have to convince them. I'm not going to the CIA, Linda- YOU are. Joe and I will stay here with Lynn, and you can text this burner phone with the address to bring Lynn to."

Joe pulled her into his lap. "He's right, they won't believe you unless they can talk to you and the doctor can examine you. Of all the people after us, they are the ones who will listen to reason. If they harm you, Trevor and I will break them, personally and publicly. I give you the same blood vow I gave my Daria; I will avenge you, and I don't care who or what is in the way if they take you from me."

Linda straddled his hips, kissing him deeply. It only took moments for Joe's body to respond, and soon her sex was grinding against his hard length.

Trevor looked away, but the scent was driving him nuts. "Plenty of time for that later, lovebirds. We need a plan..." He brought his laptop over and they started to work.

Joe left them to deal with the CIA, he had other problems. He went to Linda's computer at the small desk by the television and logged on to a secure chat line; Enrique had asked him to communicate this way instead of by phone. The site was encrypted and routed the communications through dozens of servers in the US and abroad, making it very difficult to track. He typed in his message. "Enrique, it's Joe. Can you talk?"

It took a few minutes before there was a reply, in the meantime Joe had fixed some sandwiches and made sure they all had drinks. "Hey Joe are you guys safe?"

"Yes we are holed up in Los Angeles. Interesting day. Linda got her memories back when her daughter came home and saw her."

There was a pause. "Daughter?" Joe spent a few minutes filling them in, including the plan to get the CIA off their back. "OK, I have some news from this end. First off, our phone communications have been intercepted. The FBI tracked down the plane you used to get to LA and arrested the pilot, all those contacts I gave you are blown."

"Shit, we might need to get out of town fast."

"Well, not with that guy. I'm blown as well. I hacked into the Homeland Security servers, they have an alert out now based on voice prints from our conversation. I was able to mask the location I was at, but they know I'm alive now, and it won't take them long to figure out I'm in Gila Pack territory. Since I was technically dead at the time, I'm not part of that Presidential pardon that all of you were covered by. They will either kill me or put me in some black prison site, so I can't stay here."

"Where will you go?"

"I'll let you know. Anyway, I've filled in my Alphas on what is going on. They don't like the rush to judgment by the Council, they are working to slow things down. Renee has Elder Grey on her side. When it is time, if you turn yourself into Renee she will protect you and ensure you get a fair trial."

Joe paused for a bit. "We need your help in that, now that she has her memory back, Linda was paid to break into the Pack house and steal cash from the safe. She did, but that money was lost in the chase. She swears she didn't kill anyone at the pack house, and certainly not the Luna. There were some fights as she tried to escape but those were Pack warriors, not leadership."

"Yes, we've been looking into that. Things just don't add up with that Pack, we're finding out a lot of interesting tidbits. Nothing that proves her innocence yet."

"We've got more problems than that. The Torchelli family will want Linda back now that they know she is alive. We need intelligence on them, enough to get them to back off or take them out of the equation."

"I'll start looking, if they've been running Black Ker there will be a few people interested in that information." He paused for a while. "Joe, what are you doing to do with your daughter? She's not going to be safe with you."

"She needs to get that device removed, and her biological father is still around. We will use him if he can, but he was part of the same CIA team Linda was- he's not safe either. What I would really like is a safe place for her to go, but I have no family, no Pack, and Linda is alone except me."

"I've got an idea, but I need to run it past them. You take care, all right? I'll check back with you in four hours." Joe shut the connection down and went to sit with his mate just as a door opened. His little girl came into the room and crawled onto his mate's lap. Joe couldn't help but love her, she was a part of Linda and his heart had already made room for her.

"Momma, are you going to stay with me? Please?"

Linda kissed her head and hugged her tight. "We have to keep you safe above all else, Lynn. The bad men are still out there and they aren't the only ones. The three of us have to do some things." Lynn's face pouted as she buried her face in her chest. "I can't promise you I will make it, but the three of us will do our best. I trust Joe with you, and you always have your Daddy. I won't leave you alone and unprotected, ever." She hugged her again. "Stay here with Daddy, Joe and I have to go get a few things." She pulled his hand to get him off the couch, looking back at Trevor she asked him to order some pizzas or something for dinner.

Moving into her bedroom, she went to the walk-in closet and pressed her fingers in a set pattern on the wall in the back. There was a click, then a hidden door opened and the lights in the safe room. The lights exposed racks of weapons, shelves full of communications and other electronic gear, tactical clothing and other supplies. Joe moved behind her as she pulled down a black case and started to put things on the table.

Thirty minutes later, they were still getting gear ready when the doorbell rang. Trevor yelled out "Pizza's here" as he walked to the door, checked the window and opened it.

There was a suppressed gunshot, then the sound of a body hitting the floor. Lynn screamed as the door slammed open.