Chapter 52: In Defense of the Realm

“Maybe not tonight, my friend,” I said.

“Really? So you asked us over for more than to have my man stare at Erin’s girls?” Terri asked, amused, yet concerned.

“Yes, my dear,” Lynn said, walking in and showing the bandage on her head. “The police were here this morning and gave us some bad news. I need your help, Bosco.”

“Wait,” Terri interrupted. “YOU need Bosco’s help, not WE need Bosco’s help?”

“Guys,” I began, “the other evening, Lynn and I had a date. We went to Hannah’s and a guy attacked her and put a gash on the back of her head. The guy that assaulted Terri at Hannah’s last night was a member of the Church and he was related to the man that killed Taylor Erin. The police found a connection between the Church and the people in Tennessee that have been supporting them. Lynn thought that she’d shut them out but apparently that’s not the case. Now, because of this attack, we have to go after them and eliminate them ... for good.”

The color around Bosco’s neck gradually turned more and more red as I told him the situation. Terri moved over to Lynn and took her in her arms, understanding that Lynn still, after all these years, felt responsible for the death of Taylor Erin.

“Lynn, Bosco and the Brothers will do everything they can to help you take care of this.”

“Terri’s right, Lynn. I’ll have one of two of the guys camp out in front of the front gate as a deterrent. That should ease your mind a little.”

“Bosco, do you know anyone in Tennessee? Specifically in or around Tullahoma?”

“If that’s near the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg, I have some contacts around there. What do you want to know?”

“Everything. I need names, addresses, financial connections, everything, and anything.”

“Why don’t we arrange for them to have fatal accidents?” Bosco said seriously.

“No! The police know the connection between the Church and the O’Dells and the connection between the Brothers and us as well. They’d be all over all of us,” Lynn insisted. “No, I need info so I can go after them legally.”

“I can arrange for them to have a legal accident,” Bosco said.

“Maybe as a last resort, Bosco, but not as a first move,” Lynn said.

Bosco turned to Erin for the first time in the conversation. He looked straight into her eyes and said, “Erin, I’ll do everything I can to avenge Taylor Erin and to ease Lynn’s guilt.”

“I don’t have any guilt!”

“Bullshit, Lynn!” the big hairy biker spit back at her. “Everyone who knows you well knows that you still feel that you could have done something different and that it might have stopped Taylor Erin from being killed. It’s not true from what your husband, wives, and police have told me. So you take the steps you need to do what you need to do and then me and mine will close out the deal.”

Lynn stood before her friends, wives, husband and began to cry. She buried her face in my chest and I rocked her gently and stroked her smooth, bald, head. I wished that I knew how to take this burden away from her but the burden was all hers. None of us ever placed any blame on her but she kept looking at the incident from her own perspective.

But in her mind, she held the gun and she took the shot that wounded the man. When the brave Taylor Erin had bit the man’s wrist everything happened in an instant. His leg shot out from behind the cover of Taylor Erin’s body and Lynn shot him in the thigh. He recoiled and pulled the trigger on the pistol that he’d not moved from the brave little girls head.

So many things could have happened that day. Maybe Taylor Erin would have bit the man’s wrist and he might have shot her. Maybe, he would have moved his head when he was bitten and Lynn might have had a head shot. If he’d have been shot in the head, he might have pulled the trigger out of reflex.

Might. Could. Maybe. Lynn was living in a hell of suppositions.

“This has to stop, Lynn,” I said quietly. “And I think it needs to stop by your hand so you feel vindicated and you have whatever retribution you need in your heart. As far as I’m concerned, fuck the legal. You need to end this whole situation. I’m sure I can speak for our wives when I say we’re behind you one hundred percent.”

“Lynn, The Brothers will do whatever needs to be done.”

Lynn O’Dell wiped her eyes with her fingers and then wiped her fingers on my bare chest. She looked up at me and then at each of her wives, since Blossom had joined us, and said, “Thanks.”

I kissed the top of her head and said, “Lover, you’re the financial wizard. Erin, you’re the computer wizard. Get together and let’s get these bastards once and for all. Bosco, please get Lynn the info she needs. Let’s meet here at the house in three days to see where we’re at.”

The police officer looked at the man in the cell and tried to get him to wake up to his real situation.

“Son, you have certainly stirred up a hornets nest. Do you realize what you’ve done?”

“I hit a bitch in a bar. She deserved it.”

“She deserved it? Your brother broke into her home and raped her wife, then killed her daughter.”

“Do you hear yourself? You claim my brother raped a woman’s wife? How the hell do you allow these perverts to live in this town. A man with three wives and multiple children? Those children are going to grow up to spread this perversion and it has to be stopped.”

“You’re living in a different world. I know these people. They present themselves as married but their arrangement is more like a company with subsidiaries. That’s how they keep it legal here in Idaho.”

“I don’t care about legal, I care about morality. These people are perverts and should all die and have their children saved from following in their footsteps.”

“And that attitude had helped you how?” the officer asked.

“It has allowed me to lead a moral life.”

“Good luck with that in the future.”

Bosco made some phone calls and Terri went with Blossom to play with the kids before they went to bed. Lynn, Erin, and I talked about potential actions we could legally take.

“The most obvious would be to find out if they have investments and then crush them. We could buy them out of their properties and then evict them,” Lynn started.

“But that would give them money, right?” I asked. “And they could buy replacement stuff.”

“Right,” Erin replied.

Erin sat at the table with her massive breasts resting on the table top and her arms resting on her breasts. Her brow was slightly furrowed in the manner that she normally was when she was deep in thought.

“First, I need to find their electronic signature. Once I find that, I can direct any payments they receive to an alternate destination.”

“Like our accounts?” I asked.

“No silly,” Erin chided. “Like some accounts that are off shore and are controlled by a company that’s controlled by another company that’s controlled by a different company that’s controlled ... Well you get the idea. The point is that nothing will point at us. I could even have it point to one of their own group.”

“And that would get them to go after their own people. I like it.” I said.

“But that will still leave them alive and physically untouched,” Lynn complained.

“When Bosco gets some info on their physical locations we can worry about that,” I opined. “I think we should take this a step at a time.”

“No. I want to hit them all at once and break them,” Lynn said quietly.

I stood and waved Erin to follow me. We stepped out of the office and I led my tall blonde wife to the foot of the stairs.

“OK. How long before the kids go to bed?” I asked.

Erin answered, “Blossom will have them putting their games away in about twenty minutes.”

“That means another twenty minutes for showers, pj’s, and then we can tuck them in. So let’s get the kids to bed and have some quiet time before we go to bed,” I offered.

“Quiet time?”

“Yes, Erin. I think Lynn needs to be held. Maybe a long, warm shower. She’s more upset about Taylor Erin that I ever imagined.”

“I know. I was shocked that she was still holding on to that. I don’t think I’ve ever sent out signals that I felt that way.”

“I don’t think any of us have, Sweetie. This is all inside her.”

We went back to the office and found Lynn sitting with her head in her hands. I knelt next to her and put my arm around her. Erin came around and did the same from the other side.

“Lynn,” I started quietly, “I wish I knew what to do to get you to stop feeling so guilty about Taylor Erin. As I look at it in hindsight, it was an unwinnable situation. Blossom and Erin had been raped, I was unconscious on the floor. The children were all panicked. The guy had a gun to Taylor Erin’s head. You were the only one left to save the rest of the family.”

“I could have let him go and let the cops get him,” she said, her hands slightly muffling her words.

“He said he was going to take Taylor Erin with him. Once outside and gone he could have raped her and shot her. He could have taken her and sold her. There were too many bad options.”

“I could have done something else,” she said with building anger.

I kissed the top of her head while Erin wiped tears out of her own eyes.

“Lover,” Erin said in a broken voice. “You did exactly what needed to be done. I believe that when my little girl bit the guy she knew she could get shot. The look in her eyes told me that. She still acted and gave you the opening. In my mind you saved all my other babies and my wife and husband. I don’t know what to do to make you stop feeling this way.”

“Let me get them.”

“I agree! Kill them all and let Satan sort them into the lowest levels of hell!” Blossom said loudly from the doorway. “Take every one of those motherfuckers out.”

“Blossom!” Erin said in shock.

“What? I will put up with no further attacks on my family, and if the rest of you are pussies, then I’ll do it on my own. Enough is enough.”

It was clear that Blossom’s Latin blood was boiling. I’d never seen her like this. She looked into my eyes with an almost defiant expression, like she was demanding my agreeing with her.

Lynn looked at her and wiped her eyes with the tissue in her hand. She was nodding and starting to sit up straighter. She reach in front of her and hit the on switch of her computer. It began to come to life and Lynn looked at Erin and then me.

“She’s right. Enough is enough. I’m going after them tooth and nail. They all need to die.”

“What do you want Bosco to do?” a voice from behind Blossom asked.

Terri had been listening, with Bosco standing behind her.

“Give me the targets and I’ll take care of it,” Bosco said in a tone I’d not heard since the main members of The Brothers had been here a few years ago. What they did to the guy that had blackmailed and raped Lynn was almost unspeakable.

Lynn got up and hugged Blossom. Then hugs for Terri and a hug and a light kiss on the lips for Bosco.

“I’ll call you in a couple of days. I know the guy who attacked me is in the city lockup and I’m assuming that the guy that killed Taylor Erin is in IMSI. He got life, which here means a minimum of 10 years before even a parole hearing. He should be in the unit in Kuna.”

“I’ll get my guys started on him tonight.”

With those words he turned and headed for the front door, Terri rushing to keep up with him. He was out the door and headed down the drive by the time I got to the front door and opened the gate. I went back to the office,

Blossom was sitting in one of the office chairs next to Lynn. Lynn had all three of her computer screens lit up and was already immersed. I looked at Erin. She shook her head and walked towards the kitchen, waving for me to follow.

“She’s going to go after them. She has the determined look in her eyes like she had when she was fighting the cancer and it seemed like it was going to win. I’m going to focus on the children. I can’t do anything to add to what she is doing. I’ll keep on top of the bars and the band’s finances. You need to be ready for whatever happens.”