Chapter Two
Kirill sighed. “Now all we have to do is find out what secret your mother hid.”
Yuri nodded. “Da, but maybe her father knows more about this.”
“That secret is also twenty years old, Yuri,” Boo told him. “It might mean nothing now.”
“Da, it could be useless now. We will have to open the SIM card to find out.” Yuri shrugged. “Will any of our phones work with such an old SIM card though?”
Kosta scoffed. “Man, never mind about using a phone.” He opened his laptop up.
“You can look at it on a laptop?” Yuri asked as he looked surprised.
“Sure. Well, you have to have the right set up though. You can insert a SIM card into a laptop if it has a built-in SIM card slot and a compatible wireless WAN card. Alternatively, you can use external devices like a USB dongle or a mobile hotspot to get cellular data connectivity. Dongles are also used for other purposes, including software copy protection, adding storage, connecting legacy peripherals, or acting as adapters for different port types.”
“Dongles?” Kirill stared at him. “Speak English or even Russian but nerd speak is not on the menu, man.”
Kosta chuckled as he plugged the SIM card in and paused when a passcode came up. He looked up at Yuri and shook his head. “We need a passcode to open it.”
Boo paused. This whole thing had caused her to remember more of her past. It was almost as if her child mind had locked a door where all her secrets had been safely locked up but Mr. Peanuts had unlocked that door.
Then after all this time, secrets she hadn’t remembered before had finally come to the surface.
She finally remembered something. She broke from Kirill’s hold and put Andros into his arms. Then she disappeared into the bedroom.
The men all watched her then they looked at each other.
Just two minutes later, she returned with the purple elephant.
She ripped the tag off the bottom and hurried over to Kosta.
With trembling hands she placed the torn tag on the table next to him.
She flattened it down and showed him the writing on it.
“I think this is the password. I remember my mom writing it. She told me I might need it one day. I hope it is what you need.”
Kosta looked up at her then at the tag. He typed in the letters Joanie had left for them. His hands never left the keyboard.
The whole room went silent as they waited.
Nothing moved at first and just when Kosta was about to give up, the SIM card opened. There were more than a few pings on his laptop as files appeared on his screen. He gasped when he began reading each file. “Bozhe moy!” He whispered and stared up at Yuri. “Boss, this is huge.”
“What is it exactly?” Yuri stepped forward. Even his eyes went wide as he read the file labels.
The first files were dossiers on the members of the Bratva then there were dossiers on the MC Kings of Wrath. Then finally, dossiers on the several factions in New Orleans.
Yuri looked over at Boo. “What the hell is all this?”
Boo shook her head and backed away. “I don’t know. I was all of four years old when she gathered this stuff. I didn’t know what my mom was doing at the time.”
“I’m wondering why she stayed so long if Lionel was threatening her and using you to control her.” Kirill growled.
“She didn’t just allow him to hurt me. He would drag me into another room and lock the door while one of his men held her.
He would make her listen to my screams and when he was done she always came to me and cleaned me up.
She always held me after he hurt me and always promised me that one day she would get me away from him.
” She looked up and said, “I don’t know why she couldn’t leave but she couldn’t.
The day we left she told me she didn’t care what he did to her but I didn’t deserve to be hurt any more.
She told me she couldn’t keep me safe anymore but she prayed my dad could.
” Shaking her head she added, “Maybe if things went the way she wanted them to that day and she actually got me to him things would have ended differently, but she never got that chance. Logan made sure of that when he pushed her car off the road. She died trying to get me to safety.”
Yuri looked over at Kosta working on the SIM card. “Maybe we will find some answers to all of that.”
Kosta read the names on the files. He looked over at Yuri and shook his head.
“They list everyone big in the city. I haven’t looked into the files but there are dozens of names here.
” He looked back at the home page and in the far right corner, he found a name that made him pause.
He looked up quickly and found Boo looking back at him.
He held her gaze then he looked at Yuri. “I found something.”
Yuri asked him, “Can you open it?”
Kosta nodded. “Da, I can but maybe we should wait for her dad to get here, he might want to know this information as well.” He blew out a long breath then shook his head.
“These files are twenty years old or older. His MC is on here as well. He might want to be here when we open it.” He nodded at the screen.
Yuri paused, then nodded. “Da, maybe you’re right about that.”
Boo gazed up at the clock and offered, “Knowing him, he’ll be here as fast as humanly possible. I called him three hours ago, so he should be here soon.”
Just then, they all heard the roar of motorcycles coming down the street outside. “Well speak of the devil...” Kirill grinned.
A few minutes later there was a heavy pounding on the front door.
Boo walked over and opened it.
Pride rushed toward her and wrapped his arms around her carefully. “Are you okay, baby girl?” He raised his head and looked around the room.
Several of the Bratva men were standing there.
“Yeah dad, I’m okay or at least I’m getting there.” Boo smiled.
Pride released her and went around the room, shaking hands with the Russian men.
The Wrath men Candyman, Rage, Romeo and Cosmos, all came in and shut the door.
Finally, Pride looked at Kirill to ask, “Ok, so what’s going on here?”
Kirill stared back at him as he still held Andros.
“When we got here, Boo told us about this purple elephant toy her mother had given her. Her mother told Boo to make sure she hung onto the elephant no matter what happened to them. Then when they left to meet you, they never made it but Boo held onto that elephant. So today, she gave the elephant to Andros and found a small bit of plastic in the trunk.” He looked over at his brother Kosta and said, “It turned out to be a SIM card. Then she found a note.”
Yuri handed him the note she found.
When Pride read it, he slowly shook his head. “She read it to me over the phone, but what does it mean?”
Boo shook her head. “I wish I knew.”
Pride looked down at the note again and read it out loud so everyone in the room could hear it, “My darling girl, if you survive what’s coming and I don’t, please keep this safe.
When you find it, give it to your dad. He’ll know what to do.
I love you always. You are the best of me and him, remember that.
” Pride blew out a breath as he glanced over at Yuri and the Bratva men standing there. “So what’s on the SIM card?”
“Dossiers on every faction in the city, including your MC.” Yuri shook his head.
Pride’s men all sat down on the large couch as they listened to the conversation.
Yuri went on to explain, “We haven’t looked at most of it yet, we were waiting on you because we found another file named after your daughter.”
Pride stiffened and he just stared at him. “My daughter?”
Yuri finally nodded. “We thought you might want to be here when we opened it.”
Pride nodded and glanced at his men. “Yeah, you got that right. None of this makes any damn sense.”