By the time I had the spaghetti sauce and the meatballs ready Maria reappeared. This time she was in another one of my Betty Boop T-shirts. I noticed ...hat she tried not to lift her arms very much. That just made me want to see what she was hiding underneath it. So just to be a smart-ass I asked her to get me a large bowl from the very top shelf of my cupboard. She knew exactly what I was up too and just smiled at me. Maria then took one of my kitchen chairs and moved it closer to the cupboard,. Over the course of two weeks the Knyazev Bratva had suffered some serious losses. Cargo ships had been looted. Business fronts for their illegal activities had been burned down. And there was even a report of a Nail Bomb being detonated at one of their whorehouses. The war between them was only in its opening moves, but it had the makings of a bloody conflict. Now all I had to do was wait for one side to win. If it was the Irish, my problem solved itself. If it was the Russians, then they would. So now listen here little boy, Doug on his worse day is a better manthan you are on your best day. Now go run along and find some other poorlady who will have low standards to be with. Go now!"Carl went to say something but thought better when he saw Doug'sreaction to what Helen just said. It was that Doug was not fazed hearingHelen flirted with him. Carl did not get the pleasure of Doug feelingless of himself for Helen wanted him. As Carl walked away he thought,'she would have been just. They all kept a close eye on Tara and at least once a week one of the girls would drive her up to visit with Dee, but in some ways that made the separation even harder on Tara.One thing that happened during all of this is that Tom and Tara were spending more and more time together. She had an aversion to men at this point because of the experience, but she saw that Tom was kind, gentle and honorable. He didn't push her for anything, especially physical contact.He had the other four women to.