CAMDEN
PRESENT
The sun was setting as I pulled my Volvo S90 into the back parking lot of the little dive bar outside the city. The front lot was already full of patron's cars, some hanging just outside the doors to chat due to how full the place was. I'd heard Allan planned on expanding due to how popular his place was getting. Good on him. The man was a workaholic but with a… particular taste in women, though he usually kept that shit far away from his legit business and me. I didn't agree with it but I kept my mouth shut about him as long as he kept his shut about my dealings because God knew I'd done some pretty shady shit to end up at the top. It was the only way to get ahead in this city.
As I stepped out of my car, smoothing a hand down the front of my black tailored suit, the man standing beside the back door turned to look at me for a moment, assessing me, trying to see if I was a threat, but as soon as he recognized my face he gave a solemn nod.
"Mr. Antonov." He greets me as I approach, opening the door.
I give a polite nod and enter the dive bar through the back immediately turning left down a long hallway towards Allan's office. The hallway is lit by fluorescent lights only containing three doors, one a storage closet for all the cleaning supplies, one leading to the basement where all the liquor supplies were held, and the last door near the end was Alan's office, as marked by a gold plaque on the door.
Just as I reached to open the door, it burst open. I managed to avoid the door hitting me in my face but the short black-haired girl who barreled over the doorframe rocked me back on my heels as she slammed into my chest. On instinct, I wrapped my arms around her to steady her as she wobbled.
"I fucking told you not to untie the lying little whore!" A nasally voice yelled from inside the office as he held his bleeding nose with one hand as he stalked towards The girl and me. He froze when he caught sight of my face and the glare I was aiming at him, probably recognizing me though I had no idea who the greasy fucker was. Blood was pouring between his fingers and as I looked around I also saw spatters of red across the wall beside the desk where Allan stood eyes wide as he took in the girl squirming in my arms along with the glare that I turned to him now.
"Let me go!" The girl was unsteady on her feet and weakly struggling as if she couldn't find the strength in her muscles. As she turned her face up to me to snarl again I felt her go rigid in my arms, perfect, pink, little lips frozen ready to tear into me verbally. Her pupils were blown wide, engulfing most of her iris and it was obvious that she had been drugged. The bruise around her neck was livid and purple where a hand had strangled her and she looked disheveled.
But I would recognize those pale green eyes anywhere.
Evelynn.
There was a muffled curse from across the room from another brutish-looking man I did recognize. Gage Whitmore. One of my enforcers. How had he gotten mixed up in all this bullshit?
"Gage, what the fuck is going on?" I growled at my enforcer who had the gall to glare back. The girl whipped her head around to Gage and then back to me, fury burning through her drugged-up haze.
Before he got the chance to answer, the skinny guy sneered at her through bloody teeth as he spoke. "She killed a close friend of ours. Shot 'em in the fucking head."
"And the dick." She pipes up turning as much as she can to give him a mocking grin. "And both kneecaps and thighs."
I blinked, caught off guard by the glee in her voice. She sounded viciously gleeful, not at all like the sweet little bunny she had been for the six days I'd known her. What had happened to cause this level of brutality to come from her?
And fuck if my cock didn't jerk, hardening as her hip pressed into my groin as she tried to twist in my grasp despite how unsteady she was. Was she the one who gave the greasy man in front of me a bloody nose? I couldn't see it with how fucked up she was, but damn.
I tightened my arm on her, pressing her closer to me as I looked down at her again, scowling. She had been pretty before with long raven hair and green eyes, but now, she was breathtaking, beautiful even with bruises and smelling as if she hadn't bathed in a few days. She had grown well into that curvy little body of hers, gaining much more breast and ass than she had before, and apparently a fucking attitude.
A lot of things had happened that Friday when I'd gone home after school but her kiss has haunted me for years, fourteen years to be exact.
"You fucking bitch-" the greasy guy took a step in my direction, glaring at the girl like he was about to rip her apart but Gage jumped to grab his friend.
"Shut the fuck up, Jed," Gage growled as he yanked him back. My body went rigid but Gage kept talking. "We were going to give her to Allan."
That set my teeth on edge. Give her to Allan? My head whipped to Allan who held his hands up.
"Hey man, I had no clue they were coming here tonight. I told them to take her back and pray to God her father went easy on them." Allan tried to placate me but Evelynn butted in again.
"My dad will be the least of your fucking worries, you slimy bastards." She tried to lunge from my arms but I yanked her off her feet, which wasn't hard considering she weighed no more than a hundred pounds soaking wet. She gave an enraged growl, kicking wildly but I held my arm firmly around her belly.
"What, you gonna put a bullet in my dick too, sweetheart?" Jed goaded.
When she stiffened in my arms, her chest heaving, I snarled at Jed. "If you know what's good for you, you'll shut your Goddamned mouth, boy."
Her head hung low, toes barely touching the ground, I looked for a seat to sit her in, finally choosing Allan's office chair. I noticed the ropes lying just to the side of the chair, fury rising at her treatment as I seized her arm, holding it a little tighter and meeting her eyes until she stopped fighting me then I slid my hand down to smooth my thumb over the rope burn at her wrist, avoiding the worst of it where the skin was raw and broken.
I was going to fuck those two up. Gage knew better than this shit. I didn't care who she killed. Chances were they deserved it.
Allan's words also beg the question of who exactly her father was and how he had enough power and influence for even Allan not to want to deal with him. She was exactly the type Allan liked too, except for maybe the fiery personality, short and curvy with a pretty face, big tits, and a round ass. And those fucking lips.
Right now, they were pursed as she scowled up at me but I avoided her eyes and focused on Jed. "Why did she kill him?" I wanted all the facts before I put a bullet in the man's head. My cold calm was clinging on by a thread at the moment.
"Because the judge ruled in Chad's favor, not enough evidence to convict." He answered with another sneer in her direction which had me releasing Evelynn's wrist to clench my fists but before I could tell him to stop fucking looking at her, she started to stand as she raised her voice even as I pressed a palm to the top of her chest to push her back down.
"Bullshit! His DNA matched the rape kit. He had someone paid off."
The blood in my veins froze, Allan and Gage watching me as Jed just kept digging his grave. "There was never a kit submitted to evidence in the first place
I moved to snatch him up by the front of his shirt just as he took another step towards the desk and subsequently Evelynn, spinning to pin him to the wall before gripping his throat with my free hand and squeezing hard. His lips opened and closed like a fish and his face quickly turned red. I released the pressure a bit as I dipped my head to get in his face and I gritted out the next words, low and dangerous, nearly a whisper. "Give me one good fucking reason why I shouldn't kill you right the fuck now, Jed. I don't know you and I don't owe you a damn thing but a slow miserable death."
Jed whimpered and tried to pry my fingers from around his neck so I wrapped my other hand around his neck as well adding even more pressure. I had half a mind to snap his neck like a twig, but that would be too easy. I'd have to ask her later if Jed had touched her inappropriately, had... God, I didn't even want to think about that possibility. If he did, he was a dead man walking.
"They will have to scrape your corpse off the fucking pavement when I'm done with you, that is, if there's even enough to do even that." I sneered down at him before I threw him to the side, letting his body crumple in a heap as he gasped for breath, glaring. "Fine, I'll deal with you later." Then, I turned to Gage. "Both of you."
When I turned to look at Evelynn she looked shocked, her plump pink lips slightly parted, brows raised as she sat straight in the office chair. A moment of panic comes across her face as I step towards her but I scoop her up into my arms before she can do anything rash and stalk towards the door. She stares up at me, her expression one that says she definitely recognizes me but can't reconcile that I'm not the same quiet loner I used to be as a kid, not that she even really knew me back then. We had talked about ourselves, our favorite foods, and what we wanted to be when we grew up, but I'd avoided talking about my home life and, hers. So all I knew back then was that she was pretty and liked me. She knew that I was poor and still wanted to be around me, still waiting on me every day for those six days. She said she wanted to be a detective. I wondered if that had become a reality for her.
I never got to be a doctor.
Evelynn is silent as I make my way back out to the parking lot in the back, to open the passenger door of my sedan and sit her in the seat before buckling her in. I pause for a moment amusement rising in me as she takes in my spotless Volvo, reaching forward to slide her fingers across the dash in front of her.
Gently, I shut her door so as not to startle her, then circled the front of the car to open my door and slide in. I sat there for a moment, just staring out the windshield as I tried to process everything that had just happened. Evelynn was here, sitting in my front seat, dirty and bruised, but she was here.
I'd go. Back and kill Jed later. He was probably the one who put that bruise around her neck. Fuck, I'd tear him apart, piece by piece until there was nothing left but bloody little chunks to feed to the fucking fish in Lake Michigan. If there was even enough of him left to do that like I said before. I'd draw it out and make him suffer for daring to lay a hand on Evelynn.
"Camden?" Her voice broke me out of my dark thoughts of blood and torture, soft and concerned.
I turned to look at her as she gazed up at me from underneath long black lashes, a scowl marring that pretty little face. When her eyes went to my hands I shifted my gaze to stare at my fingers gripping the steering wheel so tightly that they shook, my scarred knuckles white beneath the tanned skin, and took a deep breath before releasing my grip. All of this was just too close to home for me, too close to how my mother died, in a pool of her blood with her killer's DNA all over her. In her. She'd been high off her ass, given Rohhypnol, better known as the date rape drug. The toxicology reports had a whole list of drugs that were in her system.
But I didn't have time to dwell on the similarities or differences between my mother and Evelynn, instead, I turned my gaze to meet her pale green eyes. "Yes, sweets, I'm okay," I reassure her in as gentle of a voice as I can muster, though it's still a little growly, before fishing my keys from my slacks and cranking up the car. I drive fast, twenty miles over the speed limit until we reach the city to be swallowed up by the tall buildings.
I didn't miss the look on her face when I called her sweets, the slight blush that adorned her high cheekbones even as she tried to hide it by looking out the passenger side window.