Page 47 of Saxon

"A few times, yeah." I glance at him. "So. Why did your father have an armored car?"

Saxon laughs. "I actually have no idea. He was a raging bastard, but I don't think he had any enemies willing to kill him…other than my brothers and I, at least." He shrugs. "He was a collector and had more money than he knew what to do with, so he probably ordered it just to say he had it because nothing screams ‘tasteless display of wealth’ like turning a Range Rover Autobiography SV into an armored car with a twin-turbocharged V8."

"A tuned twin-turbocharged V8," I correct. "That fucker in there has been bored out at least. Something this heavy moving that fucking fast is not normal, at fucking all."

He just shrugs. "Sure. Cars aren't my thing."

"You picked a good one to run from the bad guys in, though, that's for damn sure." I fold the knife and return it to him. "So. Broken Arrows?"

Origin Stories

Saxon

"Told you about Camilla. How I watched her for months, supposedly preparing for the hit I was ordered to carry out but couldn't go through with. I fell in love with her from a distance, without ever seeing her face to face, let alone talking to her.” I sigh. “It was…more of an infatuation, I suppose. Can you really be in love with someone you've never even talked to?" I shrug. "Whatever. I told you I let myself into her condo—"

"How?"

"Climbed up the outside of the building and used a laser cutter to cut a hole in her window." My voice is dry, inflectionless. She stares at me with her arms crossed over her generous—and goddamned distracting—chest until I can't help but laugh. "I picked the lock, babe."

"Didn't she have a security system or something? Rich girl, daughter of a mafia kingpin…seems like something she'd have."

"Oh, she did. But I knew the code."

"How?"

I sigh. "I watched her put it in. Anyway. I told her what was going on, who I worked for, that I'd been contracted to kill her but couldn't. That she should get out of town and stay gone. She'd never been interested in the family business. Wanted nothing to do with it. She'd spend the money but didn't want to know where it came from. I mean, she knew…she knew damn well. She was there when the Moreno cartel dumped her little brother's body on her dad's doorstep…in a lot of very small pieces. Thus, the panic attacks."

"Why would they do that?"

I shrug. "Who the fuck knows? Cartels, crime families, syndicates…they're all fuckin batshit crazy. Cross them in the slightest and they'll murder your whole family out of spite, saving you for last. Sergio Marccione was a real blood-thirsty bastard, by all accounts. He probably cooked and ate one of the Moreno bosses' kids, I don't fucking know." I glance at her. "No, not really. Point is, Camilla knew damned well what her family was and thought she could pretend she wasn't involved. The Cabal wants Marccione territory, but the Marccione are connected to other even more powerful families. Even the Cabal has to think twice before starting a war with them. So, they figured they'd have me kill Camilla and make it look like it was the Morenos, have them fight each other, and then the Cabal would mop up and take everything. Brilliant plan and it would've worked…if I'd gone through with the hit."

"But you didn't."

"No, and it fucked the Cabal. I knew it would, but by that point, Si and I were…disillusioned, you could say, with the life. Mainly the sex trafficking. Drugs, guns, murder—whatthefuckever. But kidnapping and selling innocent women, girls, and boys? Putting them in cargo containers without food, water, light, or air and shipping them across the goddamn ocean? Keeping the working girls in debt so they can never quit working? We couldn't stand that shit. Couldn't stomach it. Couldn’t stop it but couldn't be a part of it. Si was faced with a similar choice, with the same results."

I’m quiet for a while. Remembering and hating every second of it.

"I knew that I was signing my own death warrant by failing to kill Camilla. I didn't much care. I had no way out. I have no skills other than violence. I'm not fit to be in society. I belong in either a shallow grave or a prison cell, and I knew it then. So I figured fuck it. I warned Camilla, figured I'd make a run for it and go down in a hail of bullets, you know? Sell my life as best I could. Only, it didn't go down that way. Camilla and I started talking, and we talked all night. Drank wine and shared our shit." I feel my voice go rough and heavy. "I let my guard down. Told her shit. Listened to her. Things sort of…happened." I glance at her and then back to the road. "I told you she seduced me…that's a lie.

“We didn’t just fuck. It was…"

"It was real," Terra murmurs. "It meant something. To you, at least."

I nod. "Yeah." I go quiet again for a few seconds. "Cabal showed up. My own guys—people I'd trained. See, when I wasn't carrying out hits, I was a trainer. Squad leader. I had rank." I produce the coin, flip it, and pocket it. "They don't just hand these out to anyone, you know. I was on track to be a boss by forty. Anyway. They knew where I was, and they came in force. I had to kill guys I'd trained, guys I'd bled with. See, when you're in a gunfight, the cause don't mean shit. It don't fuckin' matter we were at war with another group of fuckin' murderers. What matters is the guys next to you. You bond with them. And I had to fuckin' put 'em down. And I did."

I swallow hard.