Chapter 8

I wake up the next morning to sounds downstairs. I assume Branton is already awake so I get ready quickly and head down. I round the corner into the kitchen and see him standing at the stove cooking. I slightly smile as I watch him rinse and load the dishwasher as he goes, just like I do. I snap out of my thoughts and decide to make my presence known.

"Good morning Branton, did you sleep ok?"

"Best sleep ever. I thought I would get up and make breakfast before we do whatever training you have planned today."

"What are you making?" I ask trying to look around his shoulder. "Do you need any help?"

"No I'm good. I am making veggie omelets and I made us some protein shakes."

I hear the alarm disengage. "Donya is here." I tell Branton.

He glances up at me for a second and nods his head before responding, "I assumed because I seriously doubt anyone else has the codes."

Donya breezes into the kitchen, " Good morning guys."

Branton looks up, "Hey Donya, I am cooking breakfast. I assumed you would be here this morning so I made you an omelet as well and made enough protein shake for you as well, unless you would like juice?"

Donya stares at him in awe, "You are like the perfect man aren't you?"

He scrunched his eyebrows, "Uh, I don't think that anyone, anywhere would call me perfect. I do however try to be a gentleman. The two of you are helping me. I am living in Lexa's house, so this is the least I can do."

We finish eating and it is time to start our day. I decided to see what Branton can do at the gun range.

"Ok guys, today we are going to the gun range. Let's go to the weapons vault and pick out our toys." I say.

Donya immediately perks up, "Oooh, yeah. Let's go."

She takes off to the gun vault and we have to rush to catch up. We finally catch up just as she punches in the code and the door swings open. I look at Branton and his look mirrors Donya's enthusiastic expression.

"Holy crap, where did you get all this? I feel like a kid in my first toy store. I want to play with everything, can I?" He exclaims.

"We bought some, some were mafia supplied. Some of the high tech stuff was designed and built by us with the William's Mafia. The answer to your second question is we each can all pick out three guns. I have a great number of knives, stars, daggers and swords in the storage building down by the range already, if we decide to do knife play today." I explain.

We go in and we pick out our choice of guns, lock it back up and go down to the shooting range. Once we get to the range I explain to Branton how it works.

"We will choose our first weapon and target and shoot for five minutes, after the five minutes we swap targets and guns until we have shot all three of our chosen weapons. The second phase is same five minute intervals but moving targets. The third stage is pop up targets. The first to go will be Donya then Branton, I will be last."

We each take our turns and sign our targets after each round and set them aside. After the final round we collect all of our targets to see how we did. We set all of our targets side by side in three rows.

"Every single one of them are near perfect. The first round all three of us had perfect kill shots on each target. "Donya states.

We move to the second round targets, "Branton missed three kill shots, Donya misses 4 and I missed 1." I remark.

We move to the last round targets and we find we each missed the kill shot exactly once. "Well Branton, I guess you can handle a weapon pretty well, indeed." Donya says pointedly.

Branton looks up and smiles, "I guess I am not as bad as I thought I would be."

We load our weapons back up and decide we will save the knife play for another day. We have to get ready to meet up with Sam and Jonas. We get into the house and my phone rings. I look and I do not recognize the number but Branton looking over my shoulder says, "That is David's number" so I answer it and put it on speaker.

*****PHONE CALL*****

ME: "Yeah, who are you and why are you calling?"

DAVID: "See a little birdie told me that you may be more than meets the eye and suggested I call you."

ME: "OH? Enlighten me who am I?"

DAVID: "We don't know your real identity yet but we now you aren't some nobody. We know you are part of the criminal underworld. We know you have skills. We need you in our organization and I need you in my bed underneath me. I will kill anyone that gets in my way. I will have you."

ME: "I can guarantee you will never lay hands on me long enough to take me anywhere. You have no idea who you are dealing with but I can assure you that you couldn't handle me."

DAVID: "I like a challenge it makes the victory and the pussy much sweeter."

ME: "You will soon know exactly who I am. You will know why you should have did what I said and left Branton alone, but instead you double down and decide to come for me too. That sir was a huge mistake. I am your worst nightmare with a deep vendetta. I am now your grim reaper bent on sending both you and your brother's souls to hell. You now have two choices. You can run far away and hope I never find you or you can keep on stepping into my trap. The choice is yours, the devil is awaiting an answer choose wisely." With those final words I disconnect the call. I have anti tracking software built into my phone, they couldn't track me if they had an entire tech team trying, so I am still secure here.

"We need to get to The Williams's now. There is someone from our organization or theirs feeding David and Rocco information. It can not be someone close because the brothers do not have my real identity but it is someone close enough to know my skill set." I say.

I pause thinking for a moment then say what is on my mind, "This is going to be my last Guardian Escort job."

Donya looks at me studying me carefully before speaking her conclusion out loud, " You are about to make you and your fathers identity known aren't you?"

I nod my head and ask, "What do you guys think of that?"

Donya makes eye contact with me and answers, " All of the upper levels of our allies know your true identity so there is not going to be a problem there. I believe it is time to come out of your corner hidden in the shadows. I think you know now is the time, you don't need our acceptance because we are with you regardless."

I look at Branton then back at Donya, "You realize that stepping out of the shadows means stepping into the fire."

Donya remains steady, " Now is the time. You have the strongest team with you right now. It is time to go on the offensive."

I sigh with new resolution, " Ok, lets get dressed and get to Williams's. They have things to discuss with us and now we have a lot to discuss with them."

I call Sam and tell them we are heading over to be ready for our meeting.

We get ready and drive the the Williams mansion. We get buzzed through the gates quickly as the guards are familiar with me and my car.

" Who are we meeting with?" Branton asks.

"Sam, Jonas, Jonas's son and Carlos." Donya answers.

"Who is Carlos?" Branton asks.

"He was Sam's second in command, when Sam handed the title down to Jonas, Carlos retired as well, but he comes back when something big is happening." I answer.

We get to the door and the guards open the door for us and one of them leads us to the library where everyone is waiting for our arrival.

Sam makes his way over to me first. He wraps his huge arms around me, " Hey baby girl. I missed you. Come let's get down to business. It seems we have a great deal of things to go over." He says.

We make our way over to the table in the center and sit down. Just as we get seated Jonas's son Cane speaks up, "Dad why are we here? Are we discussing David and Rocco?"

Me, Branton, Donya and Emo exchange a surprised look, we didn't even mention to Sam that we were going to be discussing the Bowens. Cane is suppose to take the crown as The Williams Mafia head soon. Jonas has recently been diagnosed with cancer and is stepping down to concentrate on his treatments and getting better.

Jonas narrows his eyes at Cane, "We are getting to that, quit being pushy. You do not have anything more important than this meeting right now and I would really like to now what you know about the Bowens, boy. We did not mention them, so why did you?"

I look at the tense exchange then look at Jonas and say, "Actually Jonas, I have some important things to discuss but Cane does not know my whole story and what I have to say needs to start with those already in the know."

Jonas turns to Cane, "Cane, you are dismissed for now but stay around the house. We may need you later, do not make me come find you."

Cane stands up abruptly and stomps out of the room and slams the door behind him, once the door is shut Sam turns to me, "What is it princess?"

I look at everyone and start, "I am coming out of undercover. The Bowens will know my real identity as well as my fathers. I not only want to take out the Bowens but I want to take down their whole operation and everyone attached. I understand that this mafia wants to take control over this entire territory and all the illegal operations associated with it?"

Jonas nods at me, "Yeah, except the drugs and human trafficking. We want those stopped. We will end those dealings the minute we gain control. We have been trying to come up with a plan."

"We would like to help. The Bowen brothers and the Gidalo cartel are the main operators in this territory, everyone else are allies and I expect will fall in line." I state.

Donya adds, " All the collective resources between our businesses will be at everyone's disposal. We will work as a whole unit as a whole. At the completion of this mission the territory will be solely in the hands of the Williams Mafia. The Guardian Escort service will be dissolved."

Everyone nods their heads in agreement then I speak up again, "The reason I needed Cane out of the room is because David Bowen called me right before I came here. He said he did not know my true identity but knew of my skills. This leads us to believe that the person feeding them information is in the fringes of one of our organizations that does not have all my details."

Sam sighs in defeat and says, " Jonas I love you son but Cane has not been acting right since he found out your stepping down and you told him that he may not get the crown. I think it is time to put surveillance and tracking on the boy. I hope i am wrong about him but if I am right we can not and will not tolerate betrayal. That penalty is death blood or not."

Jonas nods solemnly, "I know dad. I have seen the sketchy behavior too. I hope we are wrong, I don't want to have to kill my boy but if he is working for the enemy , he is the enemy."

Carlos had been sitting quietly but decided to join the discussion, "We will take care of that for you Jonas. We won't allow you to do it yourself."

I am trying to grasp the discussion they are having but I am bothered by something they said and I need clarification, " Um, I am sorry to be behind on information but what did you mean that Cane may not get the family crown. I thought he was the only living heir. Are you giving it to Carlos's son Kirk? I thought he didn't want mafia life anymore?"

Sam purses his lips into a thin line before answering, " That was something that I was originally going to talk to you about but that conversation will be put on the backburner for tonight. We need to deal with our rat situation first. I have already called Kirk in to because we need to mop up things with the Bowens and the rat situation quickly. Jonas needs to step down as soon as possible. His cancer is advancing faster than first thought. If we can not clear the situation with the rightful heir then Kirk will take over until the heir takes over."

Kirk walks over and hugs me, " Thank you for what you did for Gil. I never wanted him in this life and despite my best efforts he was shot anyway."

I smile at him, "You guys have always been like family to me, Gil is included. You do not have to thank me for tending to needs of a family member."

Sam shifts uncomfortably but covers his actions and stands up and starts giving instructions, " Emo you and Donya get to working on surveillance and tracking Cane."

Donya and Emo stands, "Me and Emo will work together until I am needed elsewhere. We can stay here in your tech room. We will sleep in the bedroom attached."

I look at Sam and say, " I am just putting myself out there, if we want to eliminate Cane from suspicion, lets get him back in here and let him in on my secret identity. We will not tell anyone else yet. If the Bowens find out my true identity after telling only him then we will know he is our mole."

Jonas picks up his phone and texts Cane . Cane responds saying he will be right in. After a few minutes Cane reenters the room.

Jonas looks at him and starts to talk, "Son, I talked everyone into allowing you back into the meeting. Emo and Donya had to go but we will fill you in. What is about to be said can not leave this room that these two peoples lives depend on it."

Cane turns to me and asks, " Who are you?"

I take a deep breath and answer, " My name is Lexa Belle. My dad was an an assassin as well as I, well, was until recently. I have several different identities but now I am coming out from the shadows for one final assignment and that is to take down the Bowen brothers by any means necessary, as well as bringing down their entire empire. Your family mafia and my team are strong allies and will be doing this together."

Kirk adds in, "With her skills and her alliances combined with our family assets and allies, we will be an unstoppable force."

Cane looks at Kirk, "Why are you here Kirk. Are you the one my dad is passing my rightful position to?"

"No, you insolent child. I am here to support the family but I will take the position temporarily if needed. I am much more fit for it than you."

"Going after the Bowens is a stupid plan?" Cane scoffs.

Jonas looks at him, " Why don't you think think is a good plan, son?"

Cane shrugs, "I just think you are making a mistake. The Bowen brothers have friends. We don't want a war wit them."

"The rewards outweigh the risks. Do we need to question where your loyalty lies?" Sam asks Cane menacingly.

Cane cowers slightly but answers, " My loyalty with family of course. I just think it is bad business."

Sam assesses him carefully and says, " It doesn't matter this is happening with you or in spite of you, either way you have no choice in the matter."

Kirk looks at Cane and adds, "Boy I think it is time you understand ne hard truth, family doesn't mean blood and blood doesn't mean family."

I stand up and Branton follows suit. "Ok guys, Donya and Emo will be staying here to work on the technical things we discussed. They know to secure themselves in. Me and Branton will head home for the night. We will keep our phones on in case of any sudden developments and we ask that all you do the same."

Jonas, Sam and Kirk all agree but Cane adds in, " I think we should follow you home to make sure you make it safely."

Sam lets out a full on belly laugh before responding for me, "Boy, she is one of the deadliest women alive. Her car is bulletproof and have anti-tracking software built in. If you even tried to follow her, she would have you lost on a back road somewhere you never heard of in the middle of nowhere with no cell service. They will be fine going home without an escort and she won't let just anyone near her home."

Cane rolls his eyes and says, "She is only a woman, you talk like she is invincible."

I had started walking toward the door but when Cane said that I stop, turn and look him in the eye, "Cane, there is not a single word for what I am. I am my daddy's daughter, I was taught to be a top assassin, I trained till I was the best. I am motivated by vengeance, I am shaped by loyalty and I am favored by the gods because I deliver the worst sinners to there long awaited meeting with the devil in hell."

With those parting words Me and Branton walk out the door. We drive in silence, taking random streets and back roads to ensure we are not followed. We finally pull into my driveway and go into the house. We both go to our separate rooms without a word shared between us, both of us digesting the days events. We meet back in the kitchen to prepare and eat dinner making light conversation both indulging our own thoughts about what could come our way tomorrow. Like we are waiting for the inevitable other shoe to drop, we just don't know how loud it will thud.