Roderick

by Gadziala, Jessica

  We catered to them all.

  If they had the money, we had the guns.

  Of course, this meant we had to bust ass harder than anyone else in the industry.

  But after a few hard years, we had managed to stockpile a nice little arsenal to pull from so we didn't have to work as much as often.

  Kicking back and enjoying life, that was what we liked to be able to do every few months.

  Except when people like Manuel wanted some rare ass, impossible to find gun, sending us on a wild goose chase.

  We'd been on the road for nearly a month, sleeping in the car in shifts while someone else drove and the third person alternated between sleeping and researching. On the rare occasion we got to grab a hotel room, it was never for long enough to feel like we had gotten a break.

  It was going to be good to be home. Back in the city. Back in our loft. Back to our own beds that wouldn't cause cricks in necks, shoulders, backs, and hips, back where the noises - while varied and loud - were predictable, back where we could get takeaway at two a.m. when we were all on vampire schedules for unknown reasons, our internal clocks going all haywire of their own volition.

  None of us were from the city, but had learned to make our home there, create a makeshift little family there, something desperately needed by three orphans with no family to speak of.

  Except in Astrid's case.

  But that bitch didn't even count as family. Just blood. Just a mix of DNA they shared. Nothing more.

  "I need to put the tree up," I added, used to carrying the conversation. Before Astrid came along, Cam was all I had. It had been awkward at first to talk what seemed like at myself, but after a while, once I learned to interpret his non-verbal responses, it became natural, felt like a conversation instead of like I was speaking to a houseplant just to give it some carbon dioxide to convert. "Astrid was already talking about it on Halloween. And we still haven't gotten around to it."

  In a lot of ways, Astrid was like our kid sister even though she was only a few years younger than me. As for Camden, well, his age was one of the many things I might never know. I guessed he was a few years older than me, putting him in his mid-to-late thirties. As for me, I was thirty-one. And Astrid, our little kid sister, was pushing twenty-five.

  Six years, from her perspective, seemed like nothing. To me, yeah, she seemed so young still.

  I wondered if Cam felt that way about me.

  "Are you going to handle the lights?" I asked, watching for his nod.

  It was our arrangement. I'd handle all the decorating, all the cooking and baking, but he had to do the goddamn lights.

  Actually, he had struck the deal, physically ripping a strand out of my hands with a look of near disgust on his face when he jerked his head to the tree.

  And, yeah, so maybe I half-assed it a bit, just laying the lights in uneven rows.

  Camden was not a half-asser.

  He always used his whole ass.

  Which meant that, when it came to the Christmas tree, he wrapped every single freaking branch in solids. And then when that wasn't good enough, he went back in to pepper in slow blinkers until the tree looked alive, magical, making me stand back and realize that at some point in his life, he had to have a family that loved him, he had to have had someone to teach him traditions like trimming the tree properly.

  There had been a gut-punch of sadness for him before I remembered that I too had once had a family, that sometimes families didn't - couldn't - shouldn't - be with you forever. And while that was not a happy thing, it didn't mean that finding a new family was any less than the other family you once had.

  We certainly were not less.

  Just different.

  Just an interesting group composed of a lot of years of damage and fucking up and scars and stories and interesting shit coming together and making something out of the wreckage.

  It was a different kind of beautiful - broken souls connecting, finding healing together, maybe filling some of the voids inside one another.

  And all that brokenness, yeah, it made for one hell of a banging Christmas tree.

  "Have you bought any presents yet?" I asked, needing to talk, not liking too long silences. My life had been full of them back when I had no control over it. Now that I did, I didn't let them stretch long enough for lonely to nestle inside.

  Cam's head shook.

  "Yeah, me either. I can't seem to think of anything for Astrid. I mean, aside from the usual. I want that 'wow' gift, you know? I guess I am still trying to make up for all those years she was the only kid in her school who didn't get jackshit while all the others got everything their hearts desired."

  Camden's hand reached over, giving my knee a reassuring little squeeze. It said nothing, but spoke volumes.

  It told me that, one, he thought I was a good person, that he didn't think many other people who hadn't even known someone when they were little would feel such sympathy for them, feel such a responsibility to make it right. And, two, that I would find the right thing, that things had just been haywire, that once we got home, once things fell into swing, once I got my first chai latte with two shots of espresso, got out on the town, saw the Merry Christmas signs on the buildings, the wreaths on the hotels, the tree in Rockefeller Center, the people standing in never-ending lines just for the chance at a few minutes to ice-skate, once I got into the spirit of things, the idea would come to me.

  See, Cam, to me, was the most exceptional person I had ever met. To be able to convey so much without needing to say a word.

  I wondered a bit absentmindedly if there was anyone else in his life who had understood him like I did, who took the time to learn his mannerisms, dig deep beneath his often-stoic exterior.

  I wouldn't claim it was easy.

  And I was no saint, no Anne Sullivan patiently trying to teach Helen Keller to communicate.

  No.

  I hadn't understood at first.

  I didn't know how to read him.

  So his silence sometimes grated on me, especially when I needed him, when I needed someone to lean on, when I needed answers.

  And his lips remained sealed.

  I had ranted and raged about why he wouldn't just write it down, so we had some way to communicate. It wasn't like he was illiterate. I'd seen him write. I'd seen him read.

  But he refused to communicate that way.

  In a fit of near-hysteria one night, every inch of my body bruised, busted, screaming in pain, needing to hear a kind word, needing some reassurances, getting faced with only his stony silence - even if his eyes had been telling me all I needed to know if I would have just paid attention - begged him to learn sign language. I said we could take a class together, we could learn together, we could practice together.

  But he had simply sat down on the bed at my side, back to me, reached down, grabbed my hand, and squeezed.

  That was all he could give me.

  I didn't understand the reasons, the motivations behind why.

  But I understood one thing.

  If there was ever a time he had wanted to talk to me, wanted to help me, wanted to tell me everything would be okay even if it didn't feel like it, that was the time. So the fact that he couldn't, it told me I would have to learn his way, would have to study him, come to meet him where he was.

  That was what I had done.

  And when Astrid came along, I had helped her to understand as well, to accept things as they were, not to try to fix them.

  And because she didn't want people trying to fix her, she had been on board, had learned to communicate with him as well. And he, her.

  As we crossed through the tunnel, the ever-present ache that had been poking at me under my left shoulder blade easing as we crossed back into our city, as we made our way toward the lot where we stashed Cam's car - having an agreement with the guy who owned it.

  "Astrid, we have to go," I told her, nudging her foot with my hand, careful not to startle her too much.

  She woke up
in panic sometimes. You had to ease her into consciousness.

  "We have a Christmas tree to put up," I told her, nudging her again.

  Her eyes snapped open, sleep immediately gone, letting out a grumble as she reached for the hands Camden extended to her.

  "Why is it so cold?" she grumbled, folding deeper into her jacket as we walked the block toward our loft.

  "Just a couple weeks ago you were saying how much you wanted snow," I reminded her.

  "Yeah, but like... unless it is going to snow, this is completely unnecessary," she declared, a shiver racking her system.

  "We're home," I told her when we got there, rolling my eyes as Cam pulled the door open for us. "That wasn't so bad."

  "Says the woman without steel bars between her nipples. There are icicles on them, I swear," she told us, making Camden snort as we rode the elevator up.

  I felt it the second we stepped inside, the lightness, the comfort, the familiarity, the relief.

  Home.

  And, what's more, I saw it in Cam and Astrid too, their shoulders and jaws losing their tension as we all went around, settling in.

  Home.

  After so many years without one - for all of us - it was a luxury none took for granted, a sanctuary where we found peace, where we separated life from work, where we could decompress and stop worrying.

  Because nothing could touch us here.

  Or, at least, that was what I had thought, a lie I had told myself day after day, month after month, giving myself a false sense of security.

  Because, as it would turn out, our loft was not some magical place set apart from the rest of the world, some beautiful oasis no one else knew how to stumble across.

  No.

  It was just a home.

  Just a loft in a city.

  Where people could show up.

  They could.

  And one blustery winter day more than a full week after I forgot about his existence, he did.

  He showed up at our door.

  And that was when our crazy, but predictable little life started to chart a new course.

  Even though none of us knew it at the time.

  THREE

  Roderick

  A three-man operation.

  A three-man operation had managed to outsmart The Henchmen MC.

  Reign clearly wasn't pleased by the revelation, but had allowed me the opportunity to fix the situation myself, as I had asked.

  It was my fuck up.

  It was my job to fix it.

  It hadn't been easy to track them down even after Lou had given us a name.

  Liv.

  She didn't have a full name.

  She didn't have an address.

  And she had refused to betray her any further than she already had, something Reign had surprisingly respected.

  So Jstorm and Alex had been on it day and night, trying to track down these people who we only had vague descriptions of.

  Liv was five-six like I had said, black-haired, brown-eyed, and some kind of Hispanic - Lou said they'd never gotten into it.

  Occasionally, she had a woman with her, someone in her mid-twenties with brown hair and hazel eyes. And there was always a man in the car. Dark hair and eyes.

  That was it.

  That was all we had to go on.

  It took almost a full week of endlessly researching the three on the dark web to come up with a neighborhood in the city.

  "What are you doing?" Cy asked from the doorway of my room as I stuffed clothes and toothpaste into a duffel bag.

  "Packing," I told him unnecessarily since he could see what I was doing. "I'm going to go stake out the neighborhood," I added. "Track them down. Make this right."

  "What if they have already unloaded the gun?"

  "I haven't figured that out yet. I'm going to go ahead and hope the damn things are just loaded in a vault somewhere or something."

  "You sure you don't want backup? Even if it is a small operation. It is still three against one."

  "I'm going to attempt to catch her alone."

  "And... what? Beat the truth out of her? We both know you would never do that."

  "No," I admitted, shaking my head. I'd gone this far in my life never putting a hand on a woman, and I didn't ever plan on breaking the streak. "But I will figure it out."

  "We're only maybe an hour away," he reminded me. "If you need a hand, reach out. Doesn't make this any less your job."

  "Thanks, man," I told him, meaning it.

  "Did you tell your mom you aren't visiting this weekend?"

  "I'm more worried about what she is going to say than I am worried about what Reign is gonna do if I make him lose Henry," I admitted.

  "You gotta bring her and your sisters around someday."

  "Why? Do you like being told you are too thin and need to start making babies?" I asked, rolling my eyes.

  "She cooks though, right?" he asked, giving me a knowing smile.

  "She does do that," I agreed, my stomach mad at me for having to miss a dinner. We didn't go every weekend, but she tried to get us all around a table at least one Sunday a month. The food was worth the nagging. "After all this is done, I'll see about it. I gotta go, though. Get this over with."

  "I'll keep an eye on my phone in case you need me."

  "I appreciate it," I told him, clamping a hand on his shoulder before moving out into the hall, snatching the keys out of the air when Reign threw them at me, then threw my shit into the SUV, knowing it was going to be my home for all intents and purposes until I got this shit squared away.

  It had been a while since I had been to the city.

  And I hadn't ever been in the depths of winter right before the holidays when everything was lit up, making the place I thought of as noisy and dirty look almost magical.

  Which was lucky since I had nothing to do but sit and look at it - and the streets of the neighborhood - day in and day out.

  It wasn't until the third day that I found them.

  The trio of them coming and going together, always together, carrying themselves in an unmistakable way - sure, confident, aware. The way criminals carried themselves.

  Besides, there was one man - tall, dark, and two women, one light-brown haired, the other long black-haired. With an ass I recognized.

  Liv.

  I staked out their apartment building, pretending like I wasn't miserable, aching for my own bed, a shower that wasn't in a gym, food that didn't come from a convenience store.

  Because I couldn't pop into their place - what seemed to be a whole-floor loft - when all three were at home. I didn't know their skills, didn't know what they were capable of. So I couldn't blindly walk in there.

  So I waited.

  And waited.

  Every morning, the man - whose name Jstorm and Alex had never been able to figure out - went out, coming back with a brown bag of - likely- bagels, and a long, low box of what were probably donuts, then a cardboard carrier with coffees on top.

  Every afternoon, the younger girl took off to a dojo around the corner.

  Liv was the one who stayed in the most, usually only heading out with one or both of her friends.

  They didn't have curtains on their windows, the buildings across from them lower than theirs, so there was no worry about anyone looking in.

  But I could catch slight upward glances of her looking out at the windows with a mug in her hands.

  But that was it.

  It was on the fourth day that luck struck.

  The guy went out for the usual.

  But then the chick headed out in a rush, disappearing down the stairs to the subway.

  Which left Liv alone in the loft.

  I didn't give it enough time for the guy to come back.

  I cut the engine, threw on my jacket, tucked a gun just in case of the worst possible situation, and made my way toward the building, sneaking in after some girl and her Basset Hound all bundled up in a sweater and booties that made him lift his feet higher th
an necessary with each step.

  All I could think the whole ride up was that all this was finally almost over.

  I could stop feeling guilty, worried about what might befall me if I cost the club money and reputation. I hadn't been there in the older days, back when there were more men, back when fuck-ups and punishments happened. I had no clue how Reign handled that kind of thing. And I was pretty damn sure I was happy to keep it that way.

  The elevator opened up to a top floor with two doors - one that seemed to be to a small room Storage space maybe? The other took up almost the entire top level.

  Bingo.

  Taking a deep breath, I made my way to the door, hitting the bell before I could think of any better plan.

  "Astrid, how do you always forget your..."

  The door flew open.

  And there she was.

  In goddamn Santa shorts and a tight black wifebeater.

  There was that saying about people.

  Easy on the eyes.

  She was that.

  But she was also a kick to the gut.

  That was the kind of beautiful she was.

  The sort that knocked out your fucking air.

  Lou hadn't really elaborated beyond the hair and eye color thing.

  She had sharp features, wider in the forehead, tapering off at the chin. Inverted triangle or heart, something like that. I remember my sisters obsessing over that shit. Hairstyles for face shapes. What would hide your forehead or elongate your face. Some of it, apparently, stuck somehow, despite me trying to block that out.

  But yeah, inverted triangle or heart with the kind of cheekbones that cut high and hollowed out underneath. Her eyes were dark - as Lou had described - almost black, but almond-shaped and surrounded by thick lashes - the kind that seemed likely to be natural since there wasn't a swipe of makeup on her face.

  My gaze moved down a bit, taking in her mouth, the lower lip plump, a bit oversized, giving her a perpetual pouty look.