The same couldn’t be said about a kid who came in after me. He was skinny and weak and an immediate target.
I couldn’t say for sure why I took him under my wing—and protection. I guess you could make a solid argument for the fact that my old man was a bully who enjoyed beating on me because I was weaker than him. So as I started to sprout up myself, I developed a fierce protectiveness for the neighborhood kids who were smaller and weaker than me.
So, yeah, there was Cameron. My shadow. The kid I kept safe until I was released.
He found me when he got out, still bruised up from whatever the other kids had done to him after I hadn’t been there to protect him.
He hung around a lot after that.
You’d think a stint in juvie would have made me straighten out. But it just gave me a few months inside to learn the rackets all the other kids were doing to make some extra cash. So when I got out, I got to work. With Cameron and some other neighborhood kids there to help.
But, well, I was young and dumb. So I was in and out of juvie until I was seventeen when the court-appointed lawyer told me I had to clean up my act (or get better at not getting caught) or I’d be facing adult time moving forward.
All the while, I kept an eye on Cameron.
Until it finally happened; I went away for real time.
Five-year sentence for possession with intent to distribute.
And I’d made the biggest mistake of my life.
I left Cameron in charge of the hustle I had going.
When I got out on good behavior, I was sent to the damn halfway house. Which, in retrospect, was the best thing that everhappened to me. It was how I’d met Syl. And through Syl, Voss. Then, eventually, Finn, Fallon, and the rest of the club.
At the time, though, it meant I was not only dealing with my parole officer but also under the watchful eye of the staff at the halfway house. There was no way to go back to my crew, to check on things, reinforce alliances, or take control back.
So I had to sit around playing chess and twiddling my fucking thumbs.
Once I was released from the halfway house and went to a townhouse situation, I finally got back in touch.
“It was all catching up with old friends and making plans for the future,” I told the club.
I tried to keep my gaze on the club. But when I scanned the crowd, there was an extra second where I focused on Gracie.
I couldn’t tell you what it was that I saw on her face. But I didn’t think it was the judgment I’d been bracing myself for.
I think in my head I’d put Gracie on a pedestal, like she was above all this ugly. Forgetting that she was connected to a lot of shady people herself. All of whom she loved. Everyone from bomb experts and cage fighters to people who tracked down andput downthe men who abused and trafficked women and children.
To accept and love things like that about people, your moral compass couldn’t point due north.
Of course, she wouldn’t judge a shady past.
Though I hadn’t gotten to the bad part yet.
“I’m assuming your second-in-command didn’t want to hand over the reins,” Reign said.
“He handed ‘em right over,” I said.
Or so it seemed at first.
I guess Cameron had been smarter than I’d given him credit for. And he’d become a better liar over the years I’d been away.
I think I’d just caught him off-guard, showing up the way I did. Maybe he figured I’d gone straight after prison and the halfway house, so he hadn’t come up with a plan to keep the crew away from me.
So he’d welcomed me with open arms. He shared business plans with me. He’d shared drinks with me. Laughs and inside stories and memories.
“Then, one night, I woke up to a knife pressed to my carotid.”
