It had been a long, uncomfortable flight. Kassandra repeatedly tried to nod off during it, but Camdyn would suddenly be there, leaning into her face, squeezing her hand, and telling her no, don't sleep, Darling, I can't have you going away on me. Threat of concussion was there, but there was no doctor he could take her to, to find out. He kept her hydrated, awake, and alert instead, telling her stories of his childhood in Ireland, how he ended up in the States, and how he would take her there one day.

"You're going to take me to Ireland? You've known me all of a day, Baby. Don't tease a girl like that," she smiled, and was rewarded with his lips on hers. He turned his head and whispered into her ear a few of the other things he was going to do with her, and she giggled until her head throbbed.

Philadelphia was interesting. Nothing at all like New Orleans, but then again, nothing was. It had its charms, though. Beyond the historic, it was heavily populated, busy. The weather would be an adjustment, and Kass would have to alter her wardrobe considerably before she sought out new modelling jobs. That, and she still needed healing from the abuse doled out to her, back in her apartment.

When she found a hostessing job in a small eatery downtown, Cam had been skeptical. He was a professional gambler, after all, and made plenty of money, why did she need to work at all? 

"I'll get bored, Camdyn! I can't very well sit here in the apartment all day, waiting for you to come home to ravish me! And besides, I'm not even your wife, you shouldn't be supporting me!" Was her reply.

HIS reply was to take her to the justice of the peace the very next day and remedy that. It was too fast, too irresponsible, and too crazy, but she already loved him so much.

So very much. She loved watching him, the way he moved, the way he smiled, the way his brow furrowed during a poker game. His tell, and he had a tell- all players do- was an almost imperceptible twist of his wedding ring. Nothing more than a slight, one-fingered spin, really, and it happened so quickly, there and gone, that no one ever saw it. She did, though. She was the one who'd memorized him.

And then, one day, someone else memorized it. It was an average game on an average night. Kass was working a late shift at the little bistro downtown, and hadn't attended the game. Camdyn's only fault was his wife, and she wasn't even there. That slight twist of his ring gave away his hand, and it all went downhill from there, fast.

Gone, fifty thousand, just like that. Everything they had. Whether it was shame, fear, or false bravado, he never said a word to his wife that night. They enjoyed a late-night dinner, they enjoyed each other, and then they enjoyed a good night's rest. Cam was up and gone the next day before Kass even awoke, but that was normal. He always left her a love note, whether he was there or not. He'd done that since the first day, and had never stopped doing it. Had she known where he was headed, and what he was doing, she would have forsaken all the love notes in the world to stop him.

It was Camdyn's intention to borrow the money from a loanshark, win as he did 90% of the time, and subsequently have the debt repaid, with interest, before the week was out. Kass never had to know he'd lost, life would be back to where it was, without a hitch. Shit happened, he was going to fix it. He'd heard about a guy that hung out in one of the downtown clubs, and who would be willing to 'invest' in him. Camdyn took the cash, shook hands, and walked away, confident that the loan was temporary. There was a game that night, in fact, and he was going to win it.

That Goddamn tell.

Word had spread like quicksilver through the small betting community. While Cam had been enjoying his wife the night before, other local players had enjoyed spreading the gossip.

Inside of one game, he lost another fifty thousand.

Camdyn sat quietly next to Kassandra in the DC-3 that was hopefully taking them to a new life in Philadelphia having managed to escape from their ordeal in New Orleans. Kass was still pretty shook up but had at least now started to interact with him again and spent the longest time - since they first met - on the flight just sitting and listening to him ramble on about his past, he had to do something to try and keep her awake yet even though she would never let it be known he did sometimes wonder if he was helping to put her to sleep! Truth be told he was so nervous about what they were having to leave behind and what new challenges and opportunities were awaiting them that he was glad to have someone who let him pass the time by talking for a couple of hours straight.

A few weeks had gone by and things were just starting to settle down nicely for them both, Kass seemed to be adjusting well and getting over her terrible experience and Camdyn had slowly but surely been making enough money from them to get by winning private poker tournaments he had been able to get himself invited to. One day they had been talking about a new job that Kass had managed to get doing some hostessing. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be putting yourself under any unnecessary stress right now darling, especially when I’m managing to make more than enough for us” Cam protested however Kass had come back at him with a good argument (as she had a habit of doing) that she was starting to get bored doing nothing all day long and she didn’t feel like he should be paying for everything especially when they weren’t even married”.

“We aren’t even married…” Cam mused the thought in his own head, before he knew it he had already got a plan and a grin on his face. “What are you suddenly so pleased with yourself about?” Kass queried him, “Oh nothing, nothing at all darling…”

Kass woke up the following morning to find Cam standing over her holding a tray filled with a freshly made breakfast “Oooo what have I done to deserve this??” she asked. He looked at her with a wicked smile and replied “Well… I was thinking that you might need the energy for all the running you could end up doing today”
“Running?” she looked at him quizzically “Why would I be running anywhere??”.
“Considering what I have planned for you today there’s a good chance you will run away and not come back…” Cam snorted trying to stifle his own laugh.
“Cam, you’re not making any sense, what have you got planned for today???” Kass demanded.

Cam got down onto his knees next to the bed and cupped her hand in his. “I might have possibly spent a long time last night thinking about what you said about us ‘not even being married’… and I know we haven’t been together or known each other for a long time but I do know that I love you and I think I know that you love me soooo I was maybe just wonderi…..”

“YES!” she squealed catching him off guard

It had been a couple of weeks since the most magical and memorable day of Cams life and things for the newlyweds had been going very well. Their troubles in New Orleans seemed to be behind them and they were getting on with their new lives comfortably. Then, Cam lost a significant amount of their money in a poker tournament, he was devastated and ashamed but most of all he couldn’t understand how someone had managed to pick up on any tells from him to fleece him in the way they did.

All he knew was that he had to get that money back somehow… So, arrogantly, he approached a loan shark with the intention of winning and repaying as he had done maybe times before, unfortunately by this point Camdyn still hadn’t worked out what the tell was that he let slip last time, put it down to pure bad luck and lost all of the money again on the second occasion, he was now $100 grand down and owed half of it to a very serious loan shark and he didn’t have the slightest idea how he was going to fix this or find the strength to tell his new love.

Cam stood up from the table in a daze, “Shit!” was the only thing that his brain could muster when he went in search of answers as to what the fuck had just happened. He slowly made his way through the underground casino and stepped out into the fresh air to gather his thoughts when suddenly a black bag came down over his head darkening his view whilst he was also punched in the gut to wind him. Shortly after his arms were grabbed from behind and he was launched forward into the opened door of a parked vehicle, a few bangs of closing doors and it was soon speeding off into the dark night.

Her shift was over at ten, and since she was a hostess, and not wait staff or kitchen help, she was out the door well before the rest of the bistro's employees. Kassandra switched out her high heels for flats, got into her coat, and managed to find a cab before she'd gotten a block down the street. Five minutes later, she was home.

"Baby? I'm home!" She called out into the dark apartment. Camdyn should have beaten her here. Maybe he'd stopped for a beer with the boys? Kassandra left her purse on the coffee table and kicked off her shoes. She removed her coat as she approached the bedroom, which she found empty. With a small sigh of disappointment, she laid her coat on the bed, then laid down next to it. She must have been more tired than she thought, because she was asleep in moments. 

BRINGGGGGG!!

The phone had her sitting bolt upright. What time was it? Her watch said...one? That was impossible.

"Hello?"

"You've got two hours to find seventy five thousand, or we start removing parts of your husband."​​​​​​ Kass' blood ran cold. 

"Who is this?"

"Take down this address." Kass scrambled for pen and paper inside the nightstand, then wrote down the location that was relayed.

"Two hours." Click.

They had her Camdyn. She didn't have seventy-five thousand, and they had her Camdyn. Kassandra continued to sit there for another ten minutes, twisting her wedding ring around her finger. She wasn't aware she had a tell so similar to her husband's. After taking a deep breath, she changed into jeans and one of Camdyn's t-shirts, and pilfered around in drawers until she found the gun he'd taken from her attempted rapist. Shaking fingers checked to see that it was loaded, and after playing with the safety, she tucked it against her back and left the apartment with the address, and no plan.

They wouldn't be expecting her this early. That was the only thing she had going for her. There was a man on the porch of the abandoned house, but he was half asleep with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Kass moved quietly around back, peeking into bedrooms as she went. Darkness in one, darkness in a second- there, the last one. A dim light shone through and when she raised up on her toes to look in, there he was, taped to a chair. His chin was down, almost resting on his chest. Was he conscious? It was hard to tell from here. She tapped gently on the glass, and his head came up, swiveling to meet her gaze.

One eye was nearly swollen shut, and blood caked that side of his face. When he saw who was there, he shook his head at her vehemently, mouthing the word 'NO' over and over at her. Camdyn may have loved her with all of his heart, but he didn't know his wife too well, yet. She wasn't going to leave without him. Creeping onto the back porch, she tried the door. Locked. Kass pulled a pin from her hair and wiggled it around in the old mechanism for what seemed forever. Just when she was about to give up, it clicked open.

Best she could tell, there were two, inside. Kass tiptoed towards the room she'd seen Cam in while their voices filtered towards her from the living room. Inside the back room, she said not a word, kneeling down behind Cam's chair and going to work on the tape that bound him. The light was low, only one 40-watt bare bulb coming from an old lamp on the floor, which was missing a shade. She was most of the way through it when they caught her.

"What the fuck!" Yelled the goon who had walked in to check on the prisoner. Kass reached over and grabbed the lamp, smashing him in the face with it as she rose from her crouched position. He yelped as he bent forward, and she came down on the back of his head with what remained of it, sending him to the old hardwood. She could hear footsteps pounding down the hall towards them, now. There was a sticky-sounding snap, and Cass realized that Cam had broken through what remained of the tape. His arm slipped around her waist as he rose from the chair, then stopped. He'd found the gun she'd forgotten was even there. There was a tug, and it was free. When the second man came around the corner with his piece drawn, Camdyn aimed and fired, dropping him. 

"There's a thir-" Goon number three was coming through the front door now, and Camdyn shot around the corner, half blind. He appeared to have hit the third man's leg, though, because they heard him, and his gun, clatter to the hall floor. Hands grasping each others', they ran out the back.

"You never should have-"

"Baby, shut up," she said breathlessly, kissing him firmly on the mouth before they descended the back stairs and ran off into the night. The immediate problem was solved, but the larger one remained, and was suddenly much larger than before.

Now what?

It had been a couple of days since Kassandra had saved him from the loan sharks goons that had kiddnapped him, fortunately though Camdyn had managed to keep them both hidden by laying low to let his wounds heal. He had been rather distint and in deep thought since his ordeal but had always seemed very confident of being able to resolve this when Kass had asked him about it.

"Don't you worry my darling, I will get us out of this, that I am sure of." he insisted whilst they sat on the bed in their motel room, "this is what we are going to do...".

A day earlier Camdyn had left early in the morning before Kass had woken. He spent the morning driving around the city looking various banks before finally settling on one he liked the look of. It was a busy bank to watch and he wanted to know hours and how many people went in and out and especially when the armored trucks made deposits. After watching the bank for a few hours he saw that employees went in and out a back door for lunch. This is how they would sneak in and out of the bank, hopefully disturbing as few people as possible.

On their third day of hiding, having had the full plan detailed to her, Kassandra distracted a bank employee when as he came out the back door whilst Camdyn slipped in and then doubled back to let Kass in. They went straight to the safe where they were met by a startled bank manager. Camdyn grabbed the man and put a gun to his head, “Tell me how to get into the safe.” The manager angrily replied “Let me go now and get the hell out of my bank!" so Camdyn struck the butt of the pistol on the back of the managers head and knocked him out cold then searched the body for any keys and codes. Having found them he then quickly unlocked the safe, filled their dufflebags with the money and signaled Kassandra to get out.

Camdyn slammed the large van’s heavy door behind him once as they drove out of bank’s parking lot. Adrenaline plowing through their veins and breathing heavily Camdyn turned onto the main road. The two sped along, when suddenly blue and red flashes of light flood through the black van’s rear windows.

“Shit!”, Camdyn shouted out angrily.

Just when it looked certain that they had been caught, the police car suddenly veered out to the side of the road and drove straight passed them by... Looking over at Camdyn, Kassandra stared at him in shock, she was sure that they were done for.  After laughing away their shock they quickly ditched the van, got into another car and drove back to thier motel. The two showered and changed their clothes and whilst Kassandra was attending to her makep and hair, Camdyn sat and done a quick count of their haul. As Kassandra exited the bedroom she walked through to where Camdyn was sitting only to find him with a massive smile beaming across his face.

"Well?" she grinned

"Give or take... one hundred and forty thousand!!" he almost yelped as he jumped up and gave her a massive hug in his strong arms.

"Lets go and see this loan shark shall we darling?"