"Their PTSD nightmares can trigger mine. Last time, I had a hard time coming out of it. Spent a week in intensive therapy. We both decided it would just be better for me to have my own space."
I tried not to feel guilty about that. If anyone else asked for a space, my mom would give them one. But the others seemed happy with their accommodations.
And my nightmares were a lot more tolerable with my own four walls. And a locking door.
"I am just going to help myself to a cup of coffee," she told me, moving away from my twin-sized bed crushed against a wall to make room for the chair-and-a-half in the other corner of this side of the room--velvet green and draped with a cream blanket, a giant pile of paperwork sitting on the ottoman near it.
Startled awake, no matter what time it might be, I knew I wouldn't get back to sleep. So that chair, that blanket, and that pile of paperwork and me, we had a hot date.
"Make enough for me too," I demanded as Ferryn walked to the space diagonal to my bed, a little kitchenette area with an under-counter fridge, a microwave, a sink, a hot plate, and a coffee machine.
I went to the closed-off section of my room, a bathroom so small it felt positively claustrophobic since it had no windows, nothing but the stall shower, the podium sink, and the toilet which, when you sat on it, made your feet go into the stall shower.
Not much.
But mine.
More than I could have hoped for just a few years ago.
My therapist had been trying to persuade me into leaving the electric-fenced, barbed-wired, guard-dog-and-armed-men-and-women Hailstorm compound for the better part of the last two years.
In general, I gave in to her demands. I did the work. Because I understood that was how progress was made. But on this one topic, I had stubbornly dug in my heels, had practically stuck my fingers in my ears and shouted "I can't hear you!" about it.
Because I had stepped out of my comfort zone in so many ways.
This was not one I felt like I was ready to give up.
Hell, maybe I would never feel ready to give it up.
I felt that, given my past, if this was as good as it got for me, then great. It was good enough. It was independence laced with perfect safety. I couldn't imagine anyone thinking I didn't deserve that.
By the time I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and changed into something cozier, Ferryn was long gone, leaving me with half a pot of coffee, and having robbed me of my leftover cold pizza from the fridge.
Coffee in hand, I made my way over to my chair, slipping under the blankets, cranking up the light, and grabbing the paperwork.
There were a few files in the stack that my mother wanted me to look over. Just some Hailstorm business. I would get to it. Because I was too Type A not to. But my priority was all the paperwork I had printed out myself, had gotten from a friend in the hacking department, but hadn't had the time to look over before.
It had been a training day.
Training days were hard on me. Not just physically. But there was that. I was not lithe and tiny like Ferryn. Once I was no longer being starved, my natural body slowly but surely came back to me. Which meant I was thick of thigh, wide of hip and ass, a little top heavy too, if you get what I mean.
Not small.
Not dainty.
Not amazing at aerobics.
But training took more out of me emotionally than physically. Especially on days when my sparring partner was of the male persuasion.
Because they made me falter, made me pause, made me flinch.
Knee-jerk.
And, so far, completely unavoidable.
So by the time I hobbled my sore ass back to my room, my mind and spirit were often fried, turning my concentration to more of a wish and a prayer than an actuality.
With a little sleep, though, I could feel all my pieces slipping back together.
I was ready to get back to it.
To finding a way to fund our mission.
My coffee was a few sips from gone, ice-cold, my eyes sandpaper-dry, when something finally jumped out at me.
Someone, actually.
A man by the name of Finch McAwley.
"Got you," I said, grinning down at the file in my hand.
I didn't, technically.
Have him, that is.
Not yet.
But I would.
And soon.
Whether he liked it or not.
Chapter Two
Finch
Maybe starting over in this clusterfuck of a town called Navesink Bank was not the best of my ideas.
Not that I was known for great ideas, that is.
But the underlying belief that hiding out in a place so overrun with other criminals would somehow give lowly ol' me anonymity was, in hindsight, a bit flawed.
Because who do local criminals notice and distrust immediately?
Unknown criminals from unknown places.
People like me.
What can I say, a guy like me stood out.
Anyone who'd ever met me said I had trouble tattooed on my forehead. Which was fair. And if that wasn't enough, there were my prison tats on my hands that gave me away to anyone keen enough to pick up on them.
No matter how low I tried to lie, there was always someone willing and able to ferret me out.
It didn't help, of course, that I had decided to rent an apartment right next door to a member of the local outlaw biker club along with the MC president's only daughter.
When it came to luck, it was typically tilted in any direction but in my favor.
Hell, I'd picked this apartment building--and we are being incredibly generous in thinking of these connected, glorified shacks as 'apartments'--because I thought it was the absolute last place any established criminals in a town like this would be found.
God liked to laugh at your plans and all that cliched shit.
God thought my plans were fucking hilarious. Always had. Likely always would.
But, I had to at least count a couple things in my favor.
Like the fact that Ferryn and Vance seemed content to leave me to my own devices, hadn't looked into me, demanded more personal information, mostly stayed in their own apartment.
There was also the fact that it didn't appear that Vance told his boss--or Ferryn her father--that I existed, that there was some new player in town.
This was evidenced by the fact that my doorstep had yet to be darkened by the man who was likely tall, dark, and intimidating. Much like his daughter. Except instead of occasionally letting me hang out, drink beer, and eat takeout, he would probably throw me out of my own damn room, and tell me to get the hell out of Navesink Bank.
So, things were as stable as could be expected for your average, everyday outlaw.
And I was never the type to panic before there was something to worry about.
Which was why I was cracking open a beer and lighting a cigarette at my fold-up card table in the early afternoon, mentally rolling through a list of things that needed to be done.
A storage unit needed renting.
Paper from Poland needed ordering.
The right ink needed to be mixed.
Printing presses needed to be procured.
A lot more than one might think went into the art that was making Monopoly money that could pass as the real thing.
And since I left my old place with nothing more than the clothes off my back and a small backpack full of all the wrong shit, I was starting new here. Everything I had carefully obtained over the years in the past needed to be purchased once again.
Luckily, in my line of business, money wasn't typically an issue. More of it could always be made. But finding the right items? That took a lot of work.