Chapter 85 - Complicated

Harry scoffed. "Torrie, this is melodramatic even for you!"

"Is it melodramatic to get bricks with notes that say watch your back bitch thrown through the kitchen window?" Torrie asked, upset her own father didn't believe her tale.

"Someone threw a brick through your kitchen window?" Harry looked scandalized.

"Yes, it nearly hit Vince." Torrie sighed. "I didn't want to worry you but someone tried to kill me and Dom more then once while we were in New York." Torrie proceeded to detail the several attempts that had been made on her life. "And now he's followed me home as well. He tried to crash me in Dom's car last night, he tampered with the brakes."

"What was done to the brakes?"

"I don't know yet. They boys never told me if they even looked at it yet but all I know was Dom went to stop at the end of the race and the peddle hit the floor. We only got stopped because Dom thought to use the parking brake. If I had been driving that car I would have been killed because I never would have thought of the parking brake. Dom wasn't even supposed to come home til today so as far as this guy knew I'd be driving the 8 anywhere it moved."

"Where is Dom now?"

"At work I guess. Vince was the only one home when I woke up. He says that he fought with Dom and got told to stay put or get his face rearranged but I think it's a story they concocted so I wouldn't flip out at them for not wanting to let me be alone at all."

"I don't want you to be alone until this is resolved Victoria and that's an order." Harry looked stern and serious. Since Torrie was use to being spoiled by him and getting whatever she wanted it was strange indeed.

"I can take care of myself. I don't need to have someone watching over me all the time!"

"Torrie, until this is settled why don't you go stay with your grandmother? I'd feel better and you'd be safer."

"Dad, grandma lives in Italy and I've never met her, let alone know her well enough to go live with her. What are you protecting me from? What's going on?"

"I think I know who's after you." Harry rubbed his face in agitation. He felt no small measure of guilt over bringing this danger to his daughter. In his mind it was all his fault that she was in the situation.

"I think you better explain." Torrie sat up with a mutinous look on her face and Harry sighed.

"The manager who, well…Tried to hurt you, remember him?"

"Of course. I'm not likely to forget him am I?"

"I suppose not. Well, I did some research into him. He's with the guys who I was working for in the first place, the one's who tried to let me take the fall for their crimes."

"He was one of the people selling you stolen parts?"

"Well, he worked for them at any rate. He didn't get caught with the rest of his cronies and since he had a legitimate job at the bank he wasn't looked twice at. He's always been good at covering his tracks they tell me now that I've been investigating him. Once he was in the position of power here he started his plan."

"Which was?" Torrie interrupted.

"To end up owning the store."

"I don't understand why this store is worth all the hassle. Couldn't they just open one of their own and be just as far ahead? I mean, it's a nice store but there'd be enough business from the newer kids who aren't attached to shopping here to keep another parts store in business. Hell, even the people who hate Dom would be more then happy to stop shopping at the store that's helped him engineer his claim to fame."

"It's a great way to launder money and the underground street racing scene is only going to get bigger as time goes on. Not only that but they wanted the name. They were going to open franchises of 'The Racer's Edge' all over the country. There would be enough business in almost every major city to justify having a store like 'The Racer's Edge' and with the contacts I'd already established they were well on their way toward having monopolies everywhere they opened. And since the businesses would do so well they would make excellent fronts for their illegal business."

"I don't understand how I fit into this big picture."

"Well, if Ken had managed to run the store down to the point he could buy it from the bank it would be truly his. However, had I been around he wouldn't have been in a position to have anything to do with the store. So knowing that I was unhappily working for his bosses he set up a plan with them to let me take the fall for all their transgressions. When I agreed with the feds and cooperated with them to bring the whole ring down it threw a wrench in his plans but didn't totally ruin them since Ken wasn't caught with the rest of them. He cooked up another plan to get back at me by enacting the plan to use my store as a front for their organization. Knowing they sent me into temporary witness protection, he got on here as the manager and proceeded to make sure you thought I was dead, taking my note and making sure you never got it, running the store into the ground, and driving you away so you wouldn't see what he was doing."

"Thank god I kept Stacy on then."

"Yeah, I'm glad you still had eyes here to see what was going on. But when things didn't go his way fast enough and when someone pointed out that I was still alive and was likely to come back and start asking questions someday he decided I had to go and he tracked me to Italy and started making attempts on my life."

"He never left L.A." Torrie looked confused.

"Well, in his world you don't have to leave to do these things you just contract someone to do it for you. So he sent a hit man after me in Italy and there were several attempts made on my life while I was there but all of them failed."

"Why did he have to bother? As far as the US government was concerned you were dead and the store was mine."

"But that all would have been reversed when I came back not dead and took things back over. If I was truly dead the odds of anyone questioning how Ken got the store were slim to none. If I came back and started asking around he wouldn't have gotten away with it so easily."

"Why does he want me dead?" Torrie shivered involuntarily, not liking the knowledge that someone with this kind of ties was out to kill her and Dom.

"I can't figure that part, unless he thinks that if somehow both of us disappeared he'd get another chance to buy the store from the bank." Harry sat back and thought about it and he couldn't find a better answer then that.

"Or he's just that upset that we thwarted him that he wants to kill us for his frustration."

"Anyway princess, I'd be happier if you stayed someplace else. I could have you on a plane in an hour." Harry went to pick up his phone.

"No way. I'm not leaving Dom, not again. I'm staying and we're gonna bring this guy down. I refuse to live my life running scared."

"Torrie, I have people on it. You'll only have to be gone a few weeks. A month at the outside. Please, for my sake, go. Take Dom with you for all I care but you have your whole life to be with Dom if you're smart about this now."

"No way. No more running. I'll fill Brian in and we'll get his help. We'll bring this guy down and then life can go back to normal."

"I don't like it but I can't force you to be smart Tor. But I stand by what I said. I don't want you alone til he's caught. You're either with Me, Dom or Vince. Got it?"

"What about Leon and Brian?" Torrie asked sarcastically, and looked upset by his order to say with the guys at all times.

"They'll do fine too but I don't want you out alone, got it?"

"Yeah, I got it." Torrie frowned and stood up. "I should go tell Dom and the rest of the team what's going on. I'll talk to you later."

"Be careful Torrie."

"You too Daddy. I thought I lost you once, I don't want it to end up being for real."

Harry hugged his daughter. "I don't intend for that to happen princess. I'll be careful too. We'll catch him, try not to worry too much."

Torrie just gave Harry a tight smile letting him know that while it was a nice sentiment, asking her not to worry was like asking her to bring the moon and stars down out of the sky. She left the office and motioned to Vince who rose and walked out to his car with her.

"Let's go to the garage. I have some things to tell you all." Torrie said as she leaned back in the seat of the Maxima and sighed. Her life for the foreseeable future just got more complicated by half.