A/N (9/2022!): Hi everyone! It's certainly been a while for this story, and so before changing anything, I wanted to leave a note here for those who have been following since 2018 (wow!). I've rewritten the entire thing - for the most part, the plot has remained the same, though I've cleared up some plot holes, and the writing should (hopefully) be a bit better than it was 4 years ago. I'll be updating by chapter, but the chapters don't necessarily line up with the old ones, so there may be some overlap and/or gaps here and there until it's complete. I've also added a few epilogues.
This story will likely be cross-posted on AO3, if you prefer to read there!
Finally, I just want to say thank you so much to anyone who comes back to read this new version, and hello to any new readers. I don't share a lot of my writing, so it's a unique experience for me to see what you all think!

Xxxx

Updated 9/24/2022

Charming.

She found it somehow ironic that she would end up in a town with such a cutesy name.

It was quite a name to live up to, and she wasn't sure that the sprawl of buildings over the hill in front of her truly lived up to it. But in the end, it had what she needed - a job, some protection, and maybe a friend.

Her story really began well before that warm day. She was born Mackenzie Adrien, but most people knew her as Mac. Her parents were both immigrants - a father from France and a mother from Russian - and had been troubled, difficult people. Drugs, alcohol, petty crime - it hadn't really mattered.

In the end, they'd had money, and they'd had Mackenzie.

There was a time in her life that her parents had been alive and cogent and free - and loving. They shared with her their native languages, their cultures, stories of their childhoods. A love for books and cars, perhaps too much of their fondness for weapons and violence.

It didn't last.

A crime too far, a step over the line. Suddenly, Mackenzie's life was police, and people from protective services asking questions she didn't want to answer. Still, she'd been young enough that the hole in her heart left by their passing had long since healed over.

Her uncle - her father's brother - had been the only family left to take her in. He was a guardian with a much firmer hand. A high-rank Naval officer that raised his niece like she was some new recuit.

Mackenzie would later blame her choice of career on the boot camp that had been much of her teenage life. Post-college, the best jobs available to smart drifters with a knack for languages had been translating jobs for the government. But she was talented and intelligent and caught many eyes as she rose through the ranks. Her eventual transition to service was almost natural.

It happened slowly, at first. A job here, a meeting there. Then, suddenly, she was being trained overseas, in Britain and France. She was torn down and built back up again - created, as much of a weapon as she was anything else.

And when they sent her out to kill, she was good at it.

Mackenzie spent those years battling exhilaration and hatred in equal measures. Abhorrence, and a revelatory kind of power.

She was never meant to be your average soldier, of course. She was the deadly shot from the window, the knife in the crowded train station, the poisoned wine at your birthday dinner. She was the local in the coffee shop eavesdropping on a conversation, the tiny recording device planted under a desk. She was sent to root out, to steal, to get close, and to kill.

She rationalized the deaths she caused with one simple metric: no one died at her hands that didn't deserve it. She inspected every target - due diligence became her religion - and refused to go near innocents or children, preferring to take on the worst of the worst.

Since there were plenty of those, she was successful for quite a few years. Then came Peter, and they were happy together, for awhile. But the darkness swept in fast, as did the feeling that if she didn't leave now, she would never be able to. So she disappeared, began working for people with the same goals as the government, but a hell of a lot more money.

There was no denying that it was a dark life, but Mackenzie managed to find honor in the work. Killing those who had killed, who had tortured, who had so thoroughly darkened the lives of others. She built up a network, developing a reputation for being picky, thorough, and excellent.

It was lucrative, too. Most of the money she tossed into an offshore account that her uncle had set up for her years ago, choosing to forget about it, withdrawing only enough to live on. She tended to move around, taking short term rentals, and keeping most of her valued possessions in her truck.

Eventually, a job landed her in Sacramento. A favor for a friend of a friend, to meet with one Clay Morrow and one Bobby Elvis about a potential job. To maintain what secrecy she could, she went by the nickname Kennie, professionally. Typically, the looks on her clients' faces when they realized she wasn't a man were comical, and Clay and Bobby were no different.

"Who're you?"

The question came from the fat man sitting on the right. Drunk, she realized.

Mackenzie grinned from under her hood.

"I'm your contact, Elvis." she said. Bobby's eyes widened.

The man on the left - whose face might've been carved from stone - smiled menacingly, observing the small frame that her sweatshirt did not hide.

"You're a wannabe." he growled. "We didn't come here for a little boy. Get out."

Mac ignored him. She sat, slipping the gun out of her pocket and aiming it under the table. Made sure they heard the safety click off.

"Well, that's good." she said, shaking back her hood. "There's nothing boyish about me."

Her face was colored with disdain, but she couldn't help but enjoy the surprise on both men's faces.

"Besides," she continued, slouching in her chair, "little doesn't mean shit in my business."

She grinned at them.

"I'm Kennie. Short for Mackenzie."

And she stole Bobby's shooter and downed it.

It took awhile, but once the boys were sure of her identity, they'd grudgingly described the job. Some problem they were having, and their motorcycle club, the Sons of Anarchy.

From Charming.

Mac had had to fight the surprise that wanted to show. The shock at hearing that name again, so many years later.

She had met Tara Knowles in Chicago, while they were both in college. They'd spent their time raising hell before Mac had left for overseas, when they'd been reduced to letters. Tara had told her, bit by painful bit, about a town called Charming, a gang masquerading as a motorcycle club known as the Sons of Anarchy, and one blond-haired ex-boyfriend named Jax Teller.

So as the boys left, job offer on the table, Mac had decided to jump on the opportunity presented to her. She and Tara had always maintained some sort of contact, and Tara's latest letter had mentioned a move back to Charming. Perhaps this offered Mac the opportunity to move with her.

The truth was, the contract work got old fast. Mac was tired of running around. Somehow, she'd lost any sense of what a real home was supposed to feel like. But something had always stopped her; fear of the past catching up, maybe, or bringing hell down on wherever she chose.

But with the Sons in Charming, there might just be enough protection to make it worth a try. Even Tara - who'd left to get away from them - had described an easy camaraderie that appealed to Mac.

And so they planned.

Mac took a short-term job at Charming's library, leveraging her languages degree from a different lifetime. Tara found a job at the hospital, and opened her family's home to Mac. She did her due diligence on the Sons' target, and accepted the job. As soon as she was done, she would meet her old friend in Charming, and together, they would keep house.

It would be charming. Mac laughed to herself.

Or something.