Chapter Seven
“That’s when Briar and I found her,” Serenity took up the story while breaking the tense silence in the room.
“We helped her the best we knew how but it was Pippy who found a doctor to cut the wires from her jaw. She stayed with us until her family quit looking for her. I heard they finally thought she was dead. She’s stayed out of their way ever since.
But she’s watched them all this time. I think she knows them better than they know themselves right now.
More importantly, she knows their every move and all their secrets too.
” Serenity wouldn’t be the one to give her up but she hoped Aleria would tell them her secrets and soon.
Sergi would be mad if she waited too long.
Then she finally noticed something. Aleria’s arm was bandaged.
“What the hell did they do now, Aleria?” She exclaimed. “What’s wrong with your arm?”
“She caught a bullet after she killed a man coming after Felix last night,” Gennadi told her.
Serenity’s hands flew to her mouth as she asked, “You used your bow to stop that guy, didn’t you?”
Aleria nodded. “I got him too. Then another of the followers got me. But I’m still here and he ran away like a scared rabbit.”
“How bad did he get you?” Serenity wanted to know.
Aleria shrugged. “It wasn’t so bad.”
Felix shook his head. “And you never told us you couldn’t see the first man. Your shot was lucky.”
Aleria snapped her gaze at him and defended her skill, “No, my shot was well placed. I knew it would hit him exactly where I aimed it.”
Serenity nodded. “She was getting along with that damn bow even back when we were living on the streets. Varga might have taken most of her eyesight but there isn’t anything wrong with her hearing.” Serenity grinned. “I can’t wait to tell Briar you’re here. She will be so happy to see you again.”
Just then, they heard footsteps running in the hall outside the room.
Then Briar came in through the doorway to stop as her gaze scanned the room to find her.
“Ali, you’re here, you’re really here!” she shouted happily as she rushed toward the bed and wrapped her arms around Aleria.
“You're safe and now you have protection against your family.”
Aleria smiled and hugged her back.
The dog whined and his tail was wagging as he licked Briar.
Sergi just studied the trio and the dog. He looked at Nikoli and said softly, “Blin, it seems they know each other very well.”
Nikoli nodded. “It seems they do.”
Serenity stepped away and glared at Sergi. “You need to wrap this up and get Greta’s followers before they do something stupid like attacking this hotel.”
Sergi raised an eyebrow at her. “I have already ordered the men to move in, young lady.”
“Good, don’t give nor ask for any quarter. They sure as hell won’t.” Serenity shivered. Then she turned back to Aleria, “Where is your bag?”
Nikoli cocked his head at her. “Her bag? What bag? She wasn’t carrying anything last night.”
Aleria glanced over at Serenity and told her, “They found the notebook in my coat pocket but I put my pack in the tree near the edge of the parking lot last night. It should still be there.”
Briar gave her a thumb’s up then stormed out of the room.
Nikoli stared at Aleria. “Do you have the locations of where these followers might be?”
Nodding, she replied, “I have some of them.”
Briar returned a few minutes later with a worn-out backpack.
Aleria grabbed the bag and held it close as if she couldn’t afford to lose this.
“What is in the bag?” Sergi asked impatiently. “You can’t seem to let it go.”
“Every woman needs a bag, Sergi.” Briar rolled her eyes. “Why do you need to know what’s in it? It’s hers and it is all she has.”
Sergi turned his head to glare at her. “And that is the reason I need to know. Her journal gave us some information but I’m thinking she has more to share with us. Like maybe what they hope to accomplish when this fight is over.”
Briar curled her hands into fists. She went through this same treatment and she resented it back then and now she resented it all over again. “You have no right to go through her things and she doesn’t have to show them to you.”
Aleria’s tears slid down her face and she knew they at least needed to see some of this.
“Bri, let it go. I need to show them one thing anyway. They’ve already read my journal.
But I’ve carried something for twelve years that they do need to see.
” She quietly unzipped her backpack and rummaged around a bit before she found it. Then she held out a manila envelope.
Sergi took it from her hand. He opened the packet to scan the contents and gasped at one point.
After he read the first page, he passed it to Nikoli and went on to read the next page.
The bundle was at least fourteen pages and when he handed off the last page to Nikoli, he glared at Aleria.
“You’ve had this information all this time and you never thought to share it before? ”
Aleria stared at him before she replied, “And just who was I supposed to share it with? You? I didn’t even know you then and I don’t know you now.
After Serenity disappeared and Briar did the same I didn’t know anyone else out there well enough to trust them to bring this information to you.
Do I trust you yet? Not really but it’s better to give it to you now rather than be accused later of not giving it to you.
I don’t have anything else to share with you so now maybe you’ll let me go?
I’d rather be out on the streets than be a prisoner of the Bratva. ”
Sergi gritted his teeth. “Again, you are not a prisoner here. You saved Felix’s life and you got shot for it. You need food and rest to recover. But we can’t let you go just yet until we find your family’s followers and take them all down.”
“She’s had enough pain all her life,” Serenity spoke up. “It hasn’t been easy for her and she’s had to fight for the right to even be alive. Greta was never a mother toward her and none of her three brothers protected her.”
Sergi looked at Serenity then at Briar before he said, “I’m not trying to make things hard for her, but she just brought us news that could tear this city apart. We need to stop it before they proceed to the next step. And we have to keep her alive while we do it.”
Briar gasped and said, “This is what the tension on the streets is all about?”
Nikoli swung his gaze to her to ask, “What are you talking about?”
Briar shook her head. “When Misha went missing a strange tension began building and even when he was rescued it was still there. Pippy called me the other day and told me Little Russia was about to explode. But he said he didn’t know why. What did those papers tell you?”
“The back story of why the Blue Crusaders even began,” Sergi explained.
“Their manifesto of sorts. They had to keep us occupied so others could begin putting the old guard in place again. I fought so hard to change our image and now if they win, it will have all been for nothing. The pillars of the group want to try to get Mother Russia and all her lands back under one monarchy again. They want to get everything back under one family and it will be the Dmitricoffs.”
“How in the hell are they going to do that?” Felix asked. “They don’t have a drop of royal blood anywhere in the line.”
Sergi turned to Aleria. “Through her.”
“Me? What do I have to do with this?” Aleria gasped. “I avoided being involved. No way do I have anything to do with it.”
“Apparently, your father is related to the royals,” Nikoli told her.
“What?” Aleria looked shocked. “I think you’re wrong.
I never knew the man let alone his name, but no that cannot be true.
At times she would look at me like she hated me.
She never spoke of him at all other than to tell me he was a mistake she made when they were both too drunk to remember what happened that night, then she said the next morning he was gone when she woke up. ”
“So perhaps she never knew of his lineage until later?” Nikoli suggested.
She shrugged. “I doubt that as well.”
“My dear,” Sergi said. “Didn’t you read the file you just shared with us?”
She slowly shook her head and admitted, “I have trouble reading some things and the typeset of that was too hard for me to see.”
“The lineage part with you in the line is in that file,” Nikoli informed her.
Her eyes rounded at this outrageous statement.