Chapter Seven
Titus shook his head. Turning back to Ursala, he asked, “What is he going to do?”
Ursala took a shaky breath and said, “He’s going to find the truth about his dad and brothers and it's going to gut him.” She turned her head to stare at the doorway.
“Nolan has always been a straight and narrow kind of guy. He’s also as honest as the day is long.
So what he will find is going to tear his world apart I think. ”
Titus snorted. “Crank has lived here for a very long time. Like you said, he’s always been honest to the bone, he puts in a fair day’s work for a fair day’s wage.
He’s a little on the cranky side but I think that was because of you being without you.
He’s told us a bit about what happened but not everything.
” He looked at Ursala and shook his head.
“He’s had a helluva shock today. But finding out he has a grown kid will do that to a man, but finding you again?
I think that’s something he never thought he’d ever get back.
Then to find out you’ve been running from his dad?
That I think will gut him in time, but I think it's something he needed to find out.”
Ursala took a deep breath and said, “What he’s going to find out next may gut him even worse, but it will at least open his eyes and maybe answer some of his questions. His dad has been looking for us since the day I left.”
“Why?” Titus asked.
“Because his dad lost something that day,” she replied.
“Something he couldn’t afford to lose. He thinks I’ve had it all along and I did.
When his dad tossed me out of our house and threw my stuff at me, he threw out a small notebook too.
That notebook has information in it that proves his dad is a crime ring boss.
He’s been looking for me to get it back and make me just go away, permanently. ”
“Holy shit,” Titus said quietly.
Ursala nodded. “Yeah, holy shit. And that book is old but Todd Lawler hasn’t stopped coming for me so there must be something in there that he wants to keep secret even after all this time.”
Titus nodded. “Well, if anyone can find it, Crank can. He’s a wizard at that sort of thing.
He could make a living just as an IT but he likes to work with his hands.
He’s the best damn mechanic I’ve ever seen but he’s got unbelievable computer skills too.
If there is anything to find, he’ll find it.
” He paused then asked, “Are you girls hungry? We got food ready.”
“I could eat.” Reno nodded as she helped her mother get up from the bed. Then she linked her arm around her mother’s.
Titus escorted them both to the main room.
Crank opened his door hours later. The hall looked dark and he knew everyone else was sleeping. His eyes were red rimmed. He felt tired but he’d found something then followed up. And holy shit, did he find out something big about what his family had been doing for years now.
He trudged out to the main room to see Titus and Bouncer sitting there with cups of coffee in front of them.
Bouncer looked at him then got up and disappeared into the kitchen. When he returned he had another cup and a pot of coffee. He nodded at the chair at the same table they were sitting at.
Crank sat down with a groan. “Damn, you're drinking coffee at three a.m.?”
“We’ve been waiting for you,” Bouncer told him. “Does this mean you found something? Something we need to know about?”
Crank rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. “Yeah, I found something. A whole lot of something and it all stinks.”
Titus leaned forward with his elbows on the table and he said, “Spill it.”
So Crank spilled everything he’d found out in the last few hours, “My dad’s business is a front.
He may hold business meetings there and he does a certain amount of honest business behind those walls, but the rest?
Are all late night meetings with the low lives of the city.
He’s the head of a crime ring in and around Albuquerque, New Mexico.
He’s also a drug lord and he runs a stable of women.
His runners are collecting a hell of a lot of money each and every day.
He’s using some of that money to pay off judges and cops to look the other way.
He’s lied and cheated his way through life and he’s roped both my brothers into his schemes as well.
It’s nasty.” He paused then shook his head.
“He’s even paying a Senator to bend the laws in his favor and a string of city people he needs to help him with for zoning rights and he’s got a string of missing persons connected to him that somehow turn up dead in another state. ”
“Holy shit,” Bouncer swore as he glanced at Titus.
They were both thinking of Ursala and her run for her life. Now her claims of what Crank would find were beginning to mean something more than they ever thought it could be.
“He’s been after Ursala for a long time hasn’t he?” Titus asked.
“Yeah. And now we all know his intentions weren’t going to end with less than the kiss of death for her.
She’s lucky she and Reno are still alive.
” He shook his head. “He never expected her to get this far. Ursala is very lucky to have survived all this time. He always underestimated her and me. But I’m only getting started in this. ”
“So now what?” Titus wanted to know.
“Now we fight back,” Crank vowed. “I’m going to keep digging until I have a clear picture in my head and then I’m gonna bring him down. I’m gonna set fire to his empire and leave him nothing but ashes to rule over.”
“That’s your dad and your brothers, man.” Bouncer shook his head.
“No.” Crank shook his head. “He stopped being my dad the day he slapped my woman in her own damn house. He’d always been cold toward me when I was growing up.
” He shrugged. “Maybe because he couldn’t control me like he could my brothers, hell I don’t know.
I do know he stepped out on my mom all the time and I held that against him for the longest time.
After she died, he no longer had to hide his cheating but by then, I didn’t care anymore.
The day I turned 18, I was out of that house.
” Shrugging he admitted, “I kept an eye on the brothers over the years but they were becoming mini versions of him the older they got. I wasn’t gonna watch him turn them into entitled images of himself.
Instead I began earning my own way. They may have wanted that kind of life but I didn’t.
Then he kept coming around telling me how to live my life, who I should associate with and I told him to go to hell.
Then he started telling me who I should marry but by then I’d already met Ursala and she was the only one I wanted to marry.
Dad never approved of her because she didn’t have any connections he could turn around and use to better his position.
Hell, I didn't care about that. I loved her and I wasn’t gonna throw away what I had with her for a connection my dad wanted.
” He sat there and looked down at the floor.
Rubbing his face with his hands he looked up at them and said, “It took me twenty five years to find her and this time I won’t lose her again. ”