Page 1 of Protecting His Woman

D amion Archer stepped out of his car and slid on a pair of sunglasses. The sun was glaring, and most people were dressed in either bikinis or shorts. He was in his full suit. No one stopped him. No one dared as he made his way into the abandoned cabin on the lake.

Old County was an interesting place to live.

First, it had absolutely no law enforcement.

Why? Simple—people were not willing to give up their lives for anyone in Old County.

Not that it was completely full of bad people.

There were locals who had absolutely nothing to do with the shit going on around them.

There were good, innocent, sweet people in the large town of Old County. Damion wasn’t one of them. Neither were the men who stood outside the cabin door, holding shotguns, ready to take down anyone who dared to step inside, apart from Damion of course.

Now, because law enforcement refused to have anything to do with Old County, there was a problem.

Rules still needed to be followed. Order had to be enforced, and because of that, Damion was considered the man in charge.

He was the one that got shit done. He kept everyone at bay and stopped outright war from breaking out on the streets. He did this by any means possible.

Stepping into the cabin, he saw the man covered in sweat, and the scent of blood, shit, and urine strong in the air. The only light was provided by a few windows with several broken panes of glass.

“Tommy, this is not a good look for you,” he said.

“Mister Archer, I swear to you, I didn’t do anything. I swear. Please, there has been some kind of mistake.”

The man started to cry, and the strangest thing was, if Damion hadn’t seen the tapes, he still wouldn’t have believed him. Damion also had a knack for bullshit. He could smell it a mile away.

“Mistake? You’re accusing me of making a mistake?” Damion asked. He stepped a little closer. Tommy was tied to a chair, and the moment he got closer, he saw him literally wet himself.

It was totally his own fault. His reputation wasn’t exactly a good one. He wasn’t a nice man, and never claimed to be one. He was cruel and did what he had to, in order to get shit done.

Like now, if he didn’t handle Tommy, the Guns were going to wage a war with the Wrights.

Might not sound so great, only both families brought a shit-ton of wealth to Old County—through the money they paid Damion to allow them to continue producing and distributing their drugs, along with some of their porn.

This was how it worked. Families or gangs were able to do whatever the fuck they wanted within the town of Old County, without the law breathing down their neck.

There was always a price for doing business.

They had to pay their way, and that money went back into town.

It funded the schools, the local community, and allowed people to thrive.

Of course, it was hard as fuck to get out of Old County the moment they got in.

There were a lot of fights that included guns.

Damion had simple rules: Stick to your lane, be respectful, stay away from kids for everything, and women had a choice.

If any rule was broken when it came to the locals of Old County, Damion dealt with it.

Anyone who wanted to expand their business without consulting him broke the rules.

Anyone who thought they were above him got fucking killed. It was as simple as that.

He was not a good man. He was a bad man, willing to do whatever it took to keep everyone in line.

Which is why he had Tommy in his cabin today.

Tommy broke the fucking rules. Tommy was a twenty-five-year-old asshole who thought it was cool to start sleeping with a fourteen-year-old girl.

Now, to some people, a girl knew her own mind at fourteen.

Only, that fourteen-year-old girl was related to the Gun family, or gang.

Tommy was part of the Wrights, and shouldn’t have been anywhere near the girl.

Damion knew this was not true love, because it had also been brought to his attention that Tommy liked young girls.

There were at least five girls, under the age of eighteen, all of whom were pregnant.

Not only was that a problem, this little shit had also decided to upload his .

.. time with those girls on the Internet, on some kind of dark web.

Now, that added up to multiple Old County rules broken:

- First, a Wright invaded Gun turf without permission.

- Second, he had fucked an underage girl, in fact, several of them.

- Third, he had broken into another area of business without consulting Damion, and allowing him to make the decision.

- Four, he broke all the fucking rules by looking at a minor and involving kids.

Tommy was not going to make it out of the cabin alive.

“No, no, I’m not saying you’re wrong.”

“That is what a mistake is, Tommy. It is a polite way of saying it is wrong. You’re telling me I’m wrong. So, why don’t you tell me what it is about fucking children you think is right?” Damion asked.

There was a sob.

“She wanted it,” he said, sniffling.

“Oh, so we’re going there. She wanted you, an older man, is that right?”

“I ... I would have said no, but she begged and begged, and all I did was give her what she wanted.”

Damion looked at him, and with each word he spoke, his anger built. This was not the first pervert he had to deal with, and he imagined it wouldn’t be his last.

“Is that right? She begged. They all begged. You want me to go back to the Gun family and tell them that?”

“I didn’t do anything wrong. She was asking for it, and I gave it to her.”

Damion had heard enough. Pulling out his knife, he held the man’s neck and stuck the blade in, holding him still as he twisted the blade.

There was no time to talk.

“The Guns will not accept anything other than your death, and that is exactly what they are going to get.” He looked into the man’s eyes, not stopping until the last of his life had ebbed away. Once he was done, he pulled the knife out, wiping the blade on the man’s shirt.

He turned to a man known as Fisher. “I want his body sent to the Guns, and you tell the Wrights the deal is done, and they owe a debt I intend to collect.”

Case closed. The problem was settled and done.

Leaving the cabin, he made his way back to his car, and before he climbed in, he looked down at his shirt and jacket, which were stained with blood.

This would not be the first, nor the last. The cleaning crew was already there to take care of business, and he removed his shirt and jacket, checking his pants to make sure they didn’t have blood on them.

One of the women took the blade, cleaned it, and handed it right back to him. There was nothing he could do about the girls that were pregnant. That was their own families’ problem, but he had just gotten rid of a pervert that walked the streets.

****

V icki Reid tried not to get too happy about seeing Damion Archer enter the diner.

She knew exactly who he was, what he was capable of, and knew everyone in Old County feared him.

She should probably fear him as well, but there was a tiny problem—she liked him.

He was the only person who talked to her with respect and didn’t treat her like trash or think she was like her mother.

She was not at all like her mother. Although she did try to love her mother, it was hard.

Annette Reid was one of the town’s ... whores.

She didn’t like to work for a living and often treated men as if they owed her something.

No one owed her mother anything. She spread her legs for anyone who would take her, and then, when they got bored, she made scenes and spectacles.

Vicki tried her best to do what she could, but her mother was a force that refused to go quietly.

The best solution was to hope she stayed in her drunken stupor, but even that was hard.

Currently, Annette was missing. This also wasn’t unusual for Vicki.

She was used to her mother randomly going missing for weeks or even months at a time.

Most often she came back pregnant and would complain about the supposed father.

It was a nightmare, but it was one she was constantly trying to escape.

Getting out of Old County was not easy. Once you saw the shit that happened on a daily basis, getting out was next to impossible, even if you were just a civilian.

The one benefit to being a civilian was that it gave you an added layer of protection.

You had a job to do to keep the town running smoothly, which was why she worked in the diner as a waitress, and she was a damn good one too.

One of the best the Old County Diner had.

At twenty-two years old, she had built a reputation amongst the customers. They knew she was the daughter of Annette Reid, but that was all she was. She was nothing like her mother. There were some assholes who liked to think she was a whore in the making.

She had never had a boyfriend, never had sex with anyone, and kept to herself. She didn’t flirt, or allow any man to think he had a chance with her. To some, she was a good girl. To others, she was a prude. Either way, that suited her.

No one else was allowed to deal with Damion. No matter what section he was in, he always demanded she serve him. Vicki didn’t know why he did this, but Tank, the owner, told her that whatever Damion wanted, he got.

Martha, another of the waitresses, glared, but wouldn’t serve him. This was because when Damion came in, Martha refused to listen to Tank’s advice, and attempted to serve Damion. That had ended in disaster, and Martha in tears.

Damion was a particular customer. He liked his coffee done a certain way, and his food presented in a particular way. Vicki was more than happy to serve him. He was friendly to her, which she also knew was weird, because he was not a friendly man.