Edison (The Henchmen MC 10)

"I appreciate the warning," I told him, pouring us both another glass.

"Where will you go?"

That was a good fucking question.

I had picked up more than a little bit of many different languages. I could settle down in any of the countries I had done business in. But then again, I had ties to killings there as well. And as much as my name was still said in whispers, it was said. And now, a description matched the stories.

I might not have a death sentence on my head like I did in Russia, but things weren't exactly looking good for me across Europe as a whole.

That left, what? Australia with its too-strict gun laws.

South America with too many gangs that wouldn't take kindly to an outsider.

Or, well, North America.

The land of opportunity.

Sure, the Bratva had a stranglehold in some areas of the States as well, but they were nowhere near as powerful as in Russia where they had half the police force and the politicians in their pockets.

Plus, hell, I could skate by on English, brush up on my Spanish, find some nice small town, and fucking retire on the fortune I had made working for the Bratva all these years.

"America is big," Andrei said, somehow reading my thoughts. "A man can easily get lost there, start over, become someone whose name isn't said in whispers anymore."

So that was what happened.

I packed my shit.

I traded in my rubles for dollars.

And I got myself stored in a cargo ship on the way to the States.

Boston was where I ended up for a while, determined to get on the straight and narrow, make a life for myself not soaked in crime and blood.

But then there was a news story on in a bar one night after a shift I pulled as security at a building that, for reasons I didn't care to ask about, didn't seem to give a shit about my illegality.

Good ole dad-next-door got a hung jury on a murder case because his expensive as fuck lawyer got the spousal abuse evidence thrown out of court, not allowing anyone to see the extent of his evil that went on for years before he finally went too far, and killed the poor woman who likely welcomed the fucking release.

Medical records weren't exactly hard to come by if you knew whose palms to grease.

And I sat down in my not-too-shitty pay-by-the-month apartment and opened the folder.

Chipped tooth.

Dislocated shoulder.

Broken collarbone.

Whiplash.

Tympanic membrane (eardrum) rupture.

Two busted ribs.

Black eye.

Subconjunctival hemorrhage.

And that didn't include the bite marks, bruises, scratches, and sexual injuries. It also didn't factor in the three times she had attempted to take her own life by means of pills, a belt, and slit wrists.

It was one of the worst detailed reports of domestic violence I had ever seen.

And he had gotten away with it.

Nothing had ever come of it.

Which left him free to murder her finally.

And seem to get away with that too.

And, well, not on my fucking watch.

I wanted to do better, to have a normal life after so many years of violence and illegal gun running.

But I guess life had other plans for me.

"Well, Walter, what is to be done?" I asked, walking around the table in an abandoned butcher shop on the outskirts of town. He wasn't strapped down because I wasn't a bitch like he was, but he'd taken a knock to the head hard enough to make him too woozy to stand. "I have this laundry list here of things you made that poor woman go through. A woman you vowed to honor and protect. I guess vows never really figure on the fucking groom being the one she might need protecting from, huh? Well, she's free of your ass now. And now your ass is mine. It's going to be a long, painful night, I'm afraid."

Chipped tooth.

Dislocated shoulder.

Broken collarbone.

Whiplash.

Tympanic membrane (eardrum) rupture.

Two busted ribs.

Black eye.

Subconjunctival hemorrhage.

Slit wrists.

Death by overdose.

I knew as I left Boston that a normal life was likely not something I could ever have. No matter how much determination was in me to go straight, to let the justice system handle everything, when I saw or heard of a man getting away with hurting a woman, there was simply no rationalizing with myself.

Because the justice system failed these women the vast majority of the time.

There was only a thirteen percent conviction rate for domestic abusers.

Rape victims were slut-shamed or disbelieved.

These men were allowed to walk free based on a system that continued to allow the exploitation and abuse of women through inaction or juries that maybe wondered Well, what was she wearing? As though rape had anything to do with sex in the first place.

Power.

That was what men were after when they raised a fist, when they held a woman down.

And me, well, I liked to show these men what it felt like to be utterly fucking powerless just like they had done to these women who had to live the rest of their lives with the memories of what had been done to them.