Saved by the Outlaw(9)

I let out a low murmur and take a drink from my beer. As much as I don’t want to talk about my past, Genn knows me better than anyone else, and he knows what only a handful of the other patch-members know.

A lifetime ago, my Russian heritage was a lot closer to home. I worked for the Bratva. No, I didn’t just work for the Bratva, I killed for them. I was just a kid back then, but I stuck up for the Russian presence around town. The Russian mafia had enemies, and they needed someone who could work swiftly and quietly to do what inevitably needed to be done. It paid well, and the kind of men they had me kill weren’t the kind I’d lose a wink of sleep over.

But something got to me. I still don’t know what it was, but something in me knew I couldn’t keep doing that forever. Some of the more streetwise locals started to know me, started to fear me. I wouldn’t build a career with the people I wanted to protect being afraid. This is my home, and these people are my family, not my victims. So I tried to go straight.

Got a job at these very docks a few years back. Wasn’t glamorous, but it was honest, and best of all, our union   was solid. Where the old times were a long and awful history of making sure us Russians at the docks got shit lives for shit pay, the union   let us have a voice together. It gave our little community a heartbeat that spoke loud and strong. We all had fair pay, our jobs were protected, and we worked hard to make sure there was enough to go around for everyone. What had long been a neglected back end of New Jersey was starting to shape up, the community felt stronger, and we were going to provide more jobs for honest, hardworking immigrants and their children.

Then corruption from above came down on us like a hammer, all because we dared try to make a fair living for ourselves. The bosses of the old shipping and drydock companies who’d long held our community in a vicegrip got uneasy. union  s have that effect on the fat-cats that mooch off our hard work. So they worked with the feds, lining their pockets until they could trump up some fake allegations of illegal activity — smuggling, larceny, embezzlement, anything they could get their greasy hands to use against us.

The union   bust ruined everything. Our best workers got “laid off,” and the old union   policies got blamed for it. Men paid by the bosses went around spreading rumors that the union   had been smuggling drugs into the community, and incidentally, the cops started turning a blind eye to drug sales from outside the docks to inflate the numbers.

It made my blood boil. Everything we’d worked so hard for was being turned against us. So we did the only thing we could do and banded together, all us dock workers.

So the union   Club was formed, and we’ve been butting heads with the bosses and their minions to keep them off the honest workers that are left. If they won’t allow union  s to protect the workers in an official way, we’ll protect them outside the law.

But my past with the Bratva has been a liability more often than I like to admit. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if someone got a connection from Washington to come investigate me. I can see the headlines now, “Mobster in hiding exposed, affiliated with former corrupt union  !” They’ll do anything to smear common folk in this town.

“I wouldn’t put it past them,” I finally answer Genn, “so I want to know who she is, sooner rather than later.”

“What’s she look like?”

“Hard to miss,” I say, and it was true that she’d made a hell of an impression. “Flaming red hair you could spot a mile away. Full lips, high cheekbones, and and a nose that turns up a little at the tip. Blue eyes, bluest eyes I’ve seen in a long time, bright and keen. Whoever she is, I can tell she’s a few notches sharper than most of the cops I’ve seen. But she didn’t identify herself, either — what the fuck kind of game’s she playing?” I shake my head. “Anyway, she was dressed like most of the plain-clothed feds are. Trenchcoat and jeans.”

The bearded man smiles with a chuckle. “Sounds like you were paying attention, Prez.”

I roll my eyes. “Fuck off, Genn.” But even as I say it, I can’t help but realize he’s right. She was fucking hot. I’ve always been a sucker for a woman who can move like that. And there’s something about her that I can’t quite place, nagging at the back of my mind like an old dream, but it doesn’t come to mind.

Genn nods, understanding, and he turns over to a couple of keen-eyed members wearing the club jackets and playing pool in the corner. “Anya, Vasily! The two of you were patrolling out by the I-78 this morning, you see anyone that sounds like what Prez is looking for?”