Camden (The Henchmen MC 18)

Fuck no. Just don't know what I'm gonna do now."Well, I have to appreciate someone who hates a rat bastard even when he's related to him. Tell ya what, I got a heart. Can't kill you with your old man. Can't leave you on the streets neither. Guess I could take you with me. I can always use someone to do some grunt work. You willing to work, kid?"

Yes, yes, I sure was.

I had a feeling that this man was giving me the opportunity of a lifetime, that he had a future for me when the world seemed wholly incapable of giving me a normal one.

Absolutely, I wrote.

"Okay, that's another thing," he said, reaching for the pad, taking it out of my hand. "This won't fly," he said, shaking it. "Makes you look weak. You don't speak, fine. You don't speak. People might not understand that, but that is their problem. You don't make it easier for them to understand. They don't like it, they can fuck off. But no more writing shit down."

I never wrote things down again.

At least until texting became a thing.

"But... you write to me," Annie interrupted, eyes a mix of confused and worried. Like maybe she thought she had somehow forced me into it or something.

"Y-Y-You're t-the e-e-e-exception."

She was, too.

For the next two decades, I never wrote anything unless it was paperwork or something I needed at a coffee place or something like that. Never around colleagues or even friends.

Bernard - who would not allow anyone to call him Bernie - kept to his word. He took me in. He made me do grunt work. Eventually, when age and loyalty recommended me, he moved me up in the world, taught me about the arms trade, let me help with drops, with securing new contacts, with smuggling things in or out when it was needed.

Eventually, Bernard took three to the head on a drop, leaving his organization stumbling without any proper second-in-command to take things over.

During the internal struggles, me and a guy about my age, Drew, took as many guns as we could load into a trunk, and headed out of town before we caught bullets in the crossfires.

We set our sights on New Jersey, moving into Camden where things at the time were still in upheaval, when crime was running a little too rampant for the cops to even try to keep up. And where crime soared, so did the need for guns that couldn't be traced.

We didn't get to Bernard's level. And, really, it was a miracle that Drew and I managed to work together at all considering we barely got along. But it was easy to overlook personal hang ups when we were both motivated by the same things. Money. Security. Things our upbringings never supplied us with.

"D-D-Drew s-s-shot L-Liv."

We'd been working on a drop - a set of automatics to some up-and-coming street gang - and we hadn't known we weren't the only ones they had reached out to. I guess our supply wasn't quite enough for them, so they had brought in some new chick too.

The deal had started to get heated when the gang was trying to wheedle Liv down because she had underestimated the worth of her supply.

I wasn't even sure how it went from a heated argument to bullets flying. There were so many players involved, so many attitudes, and so many fucking guns.

All I knew was everyone drew, everyone was screaming or ducking for cover.

And Drew shot Liv.

My life had been pretty much woman-free since my grandmother died. Sure, I eventually dipped my wick, got my fill of women in a casual, carnal way, but they simply weren't a part of my everyday life. There weren't a lot of women in the arms trade and fewer still who felt safe being around it.

But still somehow, seeing her body jolt back as the bullet ripped into her flesh, it did something. It broke through. It made words my grandfather had pounded into me force their way to the surface again.

About caring for women.

About protecting them.

About never letting harm come to them.

I don't know what happened to Drew after that second. All I knew was I ran through the flying bullets, grabbed her, and got her out of there.

I'd removed a bullet or two in my life.

But never without the numbing agent that Bernard managed to get through fuck-knew what means.

And certainly never on a woman.

She should have passed out from the pain.

I still say it was sheer stubbornness that kept her awake and screaming. So hard that she ruptured the blood vessels in her throat and started bleeding.

"Scared," Annie broke in, making my brows furrow. "She wasn't stubborn. She was scared of what might happen if she passed out."

She was probably right.

But whatever the reason, she stayed awake.