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4
~Dealer~
WHAT’S SHE DOING HERE?
What’s going on?
I was woken from a dead sleep by her invading my home with the intent to kill.
Not Cal “Dealer” Austin, though. No, my goddamn alias, James Cannon, a guy who has no links to any of this kind of down ‘n’ dirty shit. He’s all above board. And, most of all, he’s fake! Somebody I created so I could live in the world again without reprisals and things like this happening.
That’s not the only thing that’s off here, though.
I’ve always been able to read Charlotte well and it was clear to me that she had no idea that I was the reality behind the alias. And that ain’t like her at all. Like I said, she’s the best. She don’t go in blind to a job. She overdoes her research on all her targets. She’s obsessive about it. Yet, she came in here with none of that, hardly prepared at all.
It points to her working for somebody else, somebody else pulling the strings. How the hell did that happen? She’s intense about being a freelancer, not wanting nobody to control her.
She’s gotta be in some sort of trouble, maybe owing somebody a favor, a favor that’s forced her hand somehow.
Who? Who’s got the power and resources to pull her strings?
I gotta find out ASAP.
But first… first I need a minute to get my head together.
I finish pulling a tee on, then snatch up my phone and watch her on the security cameras I got set up all over my place. I gotta keep her in my sights until I know what’s going on. While I don’t wanna believe she, of all people, is playing me, I ain’t dumb enough not to consider it.
She’s sitting on my couch, just chilling and looking around the salon. She’s helped herself to a glass of bourbon from the bar.
She ain’t on high alert or nothing. She’s standing down, off-mission. Looks more than willing to talk it out with me.
Talking it out with her? It’s a tall order.
It’s been nineteen years since I last set eyes on her. Just before I went to ground.
Ain’t stopped her being on my mind way more often than I would’ve liked.
I’ve managed to move on from a lot of pain and grief in my life.
Not her.
Of everything and everybody, she’s the one who’s stuck with me. Guess I never really managed to let her go.
I can’t be showing none of that to her, because it can’t just be a coincidence that it’s her who’s been sent in here to take me out.
After all this time?
Nah, somebody knows about our history and they’re using it to mess with the both of us.
Who? Who could know a thing about us? I kept my thing with her on the downlow. Big time. Only two people ever knew about it and one of them is dead. Skinner. That was back during the time when we were tight, before he went off the deep end. The only other one is Sin, and he ain’t the gossiping type. Never would’ve told nobody. Who’s Charlotte been talking to then? She was always real private like me, but it’s been years, things could’ve changed, she could’ve changed.
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath.
There’s no use staying holed up in here. I gotta go face her, hold it together, and get the answers to all these questions out of her.
I fire off a quick text to Sin to give him a heads up, putting him on standby, in case things go south. I ain’t gonna let Ax or nobody else know that I been attacked right now, until I’ve found out more. It’ll just worry them. Sin don’t sweat things like other people. He just rolls with it. Plus, he lives nearby these days, close enough to get here in minutes if I need it.
The two of us moved down to Brockford shortly after Roxana gave up her control here, promised we’d watch over it for her and keep the criminal element at bay. Our reps do a lot of that before we even have to lift a finger. Me and Michael “Sin” Barron are cut from the same cloth. We fought, survived and flourished in what Ax terms the dark days of the club, when Black Thorns and the Devil’s Mavericks were embroiled in a brutal war, where we surrendered our souls and hell knows what else to the devil just to survive it all and keep those we cared about from being cut down in the crossfire. We were the guys who crushed our moral compasses beneath our motorcycle boots and never thought another second about it. We were about power in any way and at any cost, forgoing consequences.
