Even with how much I had traveled, I couldn't quite place that accent, meaning it must have been a combination of several different accents. Army brat? Who else traveled that frequently?
"Gee thanks for the shopping advice, Martha Stewart," Sugar drawled in that accent of his, dropping many of his end sounds. "Now we are going to need to know who the fuck you are, where the fuck you came from, and how the fuck you got in here."
Burning questions all, but the latter was the one that was bothering me the most.
Once we had been trusted enough to get such details, Reign and Cash had walked us around the grounds, explaining in painstaking detail all the steps they had taken to ensure that nothing like their ambush that had taken out most of their men could ever happen again. And, thanks to the input from Hailstorm who had insisted on the DARPA glass room on the roof. Hell, there was even a safe room in the basement with enough supplies to weather the end of the world thanks to Duke's obsessive planning brought on by his upbringing with racist, zealot, preppers.
There should have been no holes, no weak spots to exploit.
"Yo," Virgin's deep, smooth voice said, drawing my attention to where he was on the phone. "You, Cash, and Wolf need to get back here. Someone broke in. Everyone is fine." There was a pause, Virgin looking almost a little uncomfortable, something I had never seen on his face before. "Making a sandwich. No, I'm not shitting you. Yeah. Okay." He hung up, tucking his phone away, doing all of this without the aim of his gun moving from a perfect third-eye target. "Five minutes out. Start talking, asshole."
"That's Adler," Roan's voice said out of nowhere, making everyone stiffen, wanting to look at him, but unwilling to look away from the man casually finishing his sandwich.
"Would ya look at that. My reputation precedes me. Who the fuck are ya?"
"Roan. You capped my informant in Turkey ten years back."
"And ya found out it was me. Obviously fucked that one up, eh?" He rolled his shoulder. "Informant, eh? Cop? A cop as a gun-running biker? That one doesn't line up."
"So he's what, Roan?" Pagan asked. "Rival?"
Coming from the gym, I had no gun to raise, so I could look over to find Roan shaking his head, his eyes keen. "Contract killer."
"Figure if you're here to kill someone, you wouldn't make your presence known first," Roderick mused, looking no less confused than he had been a few moments before. I think we were all feeling that way as well.
"If I were here to kill anyone, you'd all be dead without anyone even seeing where the bullets came from."
"Not exactly inspiring any trust here, man," Pagan said, shaking his head.
It was hardly a minute later when you could hear the bikes rumbling in. If they were at their places, they had to be pushing ninety on the way over.
"Can't figure he needs four guns on him when the yard has no fucking protection," Reign said as he came in.
Without needing anything further than that, men used to orders, Sugar and Virgin lowered their guns to their sides, and moved out toward the door.
Roderick followed.
Roan moved to leave as well, but Pagan shook his head. "Roan knows a bit about this guy," Pagan explained. "Adler. Contract killer."
Wolf came in a second later, his massive form taking up the space both Virgin and Sugar had vacated.
"The fuck is this?" he asked, just as Cash strolled in, more tense than usual.
"Lo is on her way."
Five minutes later, the room was packed with people who wanted answers from the man who seemed perfectly at-ease even as Janie threw herself down, frantically typing away on her laptop, digging up dirt on the man who had somehow managed to get into a compound protected by some of the brightest ex-military minds around.
"How did you get in?" Lo demanded almost as soon as she was in the door.
"Got a lot of practice getting through security systems. Tried yours up on the hill," he told her, managing to shock a woman who had seen and heard it all. "Don't worry. I failed. The gates are high. The dogs were a great deterrent. You should look into some dogs," he went on, talking to Reign.
"Yeah, I'm real fuckin' interested in taking advice from some two-bit contract killer."
"Got a hole in your system that I could drive a herd of buffalo through, but sure, let me walk out of here without telling you how and where."
Reign's smirk was slow, wicked, promising. "Who said you're walking out of here?"
"It's the tree," Adler supplied, completely unworried about being held against his will. Hell, maybe he had been in his past. "In the back corner. Might want to consider taking some fuckin' pruning sheers to that every once in a while. I could grab it from the other side of yer fence, and haul my arse up over it with no trouble. Waited for that one to look off toward the front yard," he said, meaning Roan, "and made my way to the side, sliding in the back door that was unlocked because that one was taking out some more bottles from your party last night," he went on, meaning Pagan. "Simple really."
Said a lifelong criminal.
Reign shot Wolf - who was perhaps a bit more familiar with chainsaws than the rest of us - a look that had him nodding, then heading outside to deal with the problem we had all overlooked.
Lo and Janie's shoulders relaxed slightly, like they were relieved it wasn't their original design problem, but instead a maintenance issue.
"Alright. And how about why the fuck are you in my compound?" Reign asked.
"Ya know, heard some things. Wanted to check ya out."
"Heard things about us how? And wanted to check out what? And if you keep fuckin' dragging this shit out, we can try getting the information in the old-fashioned way. Pagan, Roan, and Edison are particularly brutal fucks when on a job."
If he wasn't wrong about me in that - and he wasn't - then he wasn't wrong about the others either. I mean, anyone who had seen Pagan in a ring knew he was capable. I had also seen him back when Lazarus needed our help dealing with the scumbags who ruined Bethany's life. So if the two of us were violent fucks when we needed to be, then so was Roan. That was more information than we had gotten from the man since we heard that he was a spy - a concept already cloaked in a thousand questions. This was the first answer we had been given.
"Think we all can agree that Pagan only uses it in the ring, and when some fuck asks for it. Roan hasn't spilled any blood stateside. And Edison," he said, turning his gaze to me, "Well, we all know his deal." He let that rest for a minute, making the eyes of those who didn't know my deal look over at me.
There were going to be questions now.
A lot of them.
I wasn't ashamed of my past, far from, but keeping that shit close to my vest was what kept me out of third world country jails. I needed that anonymity to protect me. I wasn't exactly comfortable letting that go. Not just yet anyway.
"So I think my torture would fall in yer hands, Prez," Adler went on, lips tipping up at one side. "Think we both know ya have done plenty of blood spilling in yer day. But I won't let ya have yet another body on yer hands. I'll answer yer questions. Is that Johnnie?" he asked, actually moving past us all toward the bar, like it was the most normal thing, like we weren't a group of men one command away from taking his life. "Everyone has heard of ya," he said, twisting off the top of the Johnnie Red, grabbing a red Solo cup off the stack from the party. "Got the most solid arms trade in the country. I mean you don't have dick on places like Russia, the Ukraine, or Southern Nigeria, but considering the fucking heat ya got here with the ATF constantly sniffing around, you're doing pretty well for yourself. Gotta love a corrupt police force, eh?"
"Okay. So you've heard of us," Reign said through gritted teeth, clearly losing his patience. "Explain why you're here, or you'll be bleeding through your teeth in another minute or two."
The threat rolled off Adler's back as he refilled his cup, putting the bottle back on the counter, rolling the cap back on. "I was over in Boston when I heard through the wire about what went down with yer club. Fuckin'
two-bit wanna be mobsters, amirite?" he asked, but no one seemed willing to play into his charm right then. "Came back to town. Got a friend here. Figured maybe I would stop in, see about bolstering you up."
Reign looked almost taken aback at that. "You want to prospect here? And you fuckin' thought the best way to go about it was to break in?"
"Showed ya I got a skill ya clearly need, didn't I?"
We couldn't exactly argue with that.
"Who is your friend?" Lo piped in, knowing it wasn't her place, but zeroing in on the thing that might be most helpful.
"Friend of yours too," Adler went on, nodding his chin at Pagan. "You like to paint his floors in red."
"Ward?" Cash asked, looking confused.
"Ward doesn't have fucking friends," Pagan shot back. "Try again."
"Call 'em up," Adler said casually, too casually for it to be a bluff, knowing Reign and Pagan would absolutely check into that.
"Alright, gotta ask," I cut in, making Adler's gaze move toward me. "Why would an international contract killer want to become a member of an MC? At your age, you doing your job, if you were any good, you'd be retired in Turks and Caicos, chasing bikinis half your age right now."
"Retired from that line of work. Too much travel, not enough roots. Got Ward here, figured this would be as good a place as any to settle in. I might be older, but I'm not fucking geriatric. I'm not ready to sit in a lawn chair and yell at kids for not using the fuckin' path just yet. Checked into the local options. Third Street is a fuckin' joke. Could use a decent leader, but drugs have never been my thing. Mallicks, well, that is too similar to what I've been doing for the past twenty some odd years. Besides, they like to keep it in-family. I'm not quite Italian enough for the Grassis. That leaves you and Lyon's former, Marco's current empire. But, like I said, I don't do drugs."
"So it's us by default?" Cash asked, looking both amused and insulted at the same time.
"Ya are an interesting group. Not so much in the past. Yer father's men were the utter cliche greasy, misogynist, bastard bikers. But the crew you've been building, this is interesting. Lifers," he said, meaning Reign Cash, Wolf, Sugar, and Virgin. "A couple nobodies with their own skill sets." That, I believed, meant Roderick, Reeve, and Cyrus. "An ex-spy and an ex... whatever he wants to call himself," he said, meaning me. "Interesting. I like interesting. I can share a drink with interesting. Won't be bored to fuckin' tears with interesting."
"We don't let just anyone in," Reign said, but there was a curiosity in his voice.
Adler wasn't wrong. Reign was carefully choosing his crew. That was why out of the twenty or so serious prospects that came to the open house a while back, he had only brought in four. He didn't want an organization like his father's. I figured he had suffered enough growing up in a place like that, and didn't want his own children to be around influences like that.
"Got time for ya to vet me," Adler graciously offered, making Reign's brow raise.
"Regardless of if I would even consider you or not, your ass needs to stay around until we can find out more about you."
"Oh, am I about to be yer prisoner?" Adler asked, almost sounding giddy at the prospect. "I haven't been held prisoner since, fuck, a small time cartel kept me in a spare room about five years back. Stupid fucks, they were. Walls were fuckin' plaster. I could literally kick my way out. Faces were fucking priceless."
"No windows and concrete walls," Reign told him, meaning the prospect room we had all needed to bunk in while Reign vetted us. "Can try to kick your way out, but you'd have two broken legs for your trouble," Reign went on, holding an arm out for the man to move with him, flanked by Cash, then followed by Pagan.
As soon as we were alone, Roan walked across the room, grabbing the bottle of Johnnie with a napkin, then walking it over toward Lo. "Fingerprints won't bring you shit," he told her, shrugging. "But test the liquid."
"You think he poisoned it?" Lo asked, carefully reaching for the napkin as well.
"Never know. He sounds like he's been a lot of places. Poison isn't common in the States, but it's big overseas. If he meant us harm, this would be an easy way to do it without anyone finding out."
"Sounds like you know from experience," Roderick said, coming in from outside, a bit of sawdust in his hair.
"I do," Roan surprised us all by admitting.
"Okay," Lo said when Reign and Cash walked back out after locking Adler in. "I will test this. Janie and Alex will get on tracing any bit of him across all the wires. Pagan, will you let me know what Ward says so we know if we should look that way or not?"
"Will do."
Reign looked around, taking a breath.
"Edison, Roan, Pagan, Virgin, Sugar, and Roderick are on lockdown. You eat, sleep, breathe, and fuck in the compound now. You don't even go out for a fucking beer run. Duke and Renny will come to keep an eye as well. Until we know this is legit, that he's just a weird fuck who wants in, all guards need to be up. Lo, I want some of your guys back to check for any other weak spots. It's been a while. We were obviously slacking. Cash and I are gonna go check and see if the Grassis or Mallicks have heard from or heard of this fuck. Wolf, well, sounds like he's out there cutting down every fucking tree," Reign mused, shaking his head. "We'll have church at ten to see what we have to go on. Don't fucking open that door until then," Reign demanded, moving off toward the door, tapping his brother in the gut as he did so to follow him.
"Maybe he was the storm," Sugar mused, shrugging, when he moved inside. "We kept saying something was coming, maybe it was him."
Hell, maybe it was.
We would have to see.
TEN
Lenny
I was not going to reach out.
No way in hell.
Not even if my body decided that three orgasms weren't satiating, but instead, created a hunger that no amount of working out or masturbating could ease.
Speaking of working out, the day after our last session, yeah, he hadn't been at the gym. I told myself I wasn't even going to notice such a thing as I drove over that morning, but for the first time since I joined up, I found my focus lacking, my gaze constantly seeking the corners of the room, thinking I would find him there, watching me, or pretending not to be watching me. Something. Anything.
But he wasn't there at all. And, I reminded myself as I got ready for work that night, I really shouldn't have been surprised by that anyway since Edison was not a staple at the gym. He, like Cyrus, and like Malcolm only did occasional classes when there were enough people to fill them. They had outside lives, outside jobs. I had never seen Edison before that morning in the gym when we met. And I was pretty sure, as focused as I was when I was there, that I would have noticed someone like him.
So it wasn't weird that he wasn't there.
His lessons with me were over.
I guess his group class was over as well.
I was being utterly egotistical to think he wasn't there because of me, because we'd had an argument.
Almost as a rule, I didn't have arguments with men.
Quite frankly, I never gave a shit enough to argue with one.
Had I occasionally told one to get the fuck out of my life? Yes. But coolly, calmly, collectedly.
Nothing like we had done the other night.
Maybe it was just all the frustration built up, and then the physical relief. It just made all that stuff that I would normally keep under control, burst out of me like a madwoman.
It was not, was completely not anything to do with the idea that maybe he was right, that maybe there was something more than sex between us. Because, well, that made no sense at all. We barely knew each other, save for the yammering I had done when I was drinking, which if I recalled correctly, was mostly about music and food and movies and travel, nothing deep.
It was weird that I was so emotional after sex, but, hey, I had a lot going on.
So, no.
It wasn't something more.
It was just the culmination of a
really fucked up year with me, a bad decision in calling him over, and a brief lowering of my guard.
"Yo, Len," Meryl's voice shook me out of my endless loop of thoughts. "I'm used to you phoning it in, but you literally have a fucking line standing here," he said, the words brusque, but his tone was almost a bit worried.
Christ, if Meryl was worried about me, then I really needed to get a hold of myself. He wasn't exactly an intuitive man. He wasn't picking up on a subtle vibe. If he was sensing I was off, it was because I was genuinely off my game.
I shot him an eye-roll for good measure, then dealt with my line of people signing up to ruin their lungs.
"You feeling alright there, Len?" Niblet, whose real name was a mystery to all of us even though he had been a regular since long before my time, asked from where he was standing with Meryl, talking about some new brewery he heard was opening.
"Five by five over here," I said, parroting a phrase I had picked up from one of my mother's many men, this one a decent blue-collar man a little too obsessed with things like his ham radio who taught me that the phrase meant everything was coming in loud and clear, that everything was good.
"You sure, 'cause that little shit just commented on you being braless, and it being cold in here. And you not only let him leave here with his balls attached, but said you would catch him around."
Fuck.
I guess I did do that.
In my defense, I wasn't paying close enough attention to hear what he was saying to me.
"Len," Meryl cut in, voice even more concerned than a few minutes before. "Is this about—"
"No," I cut him off, voice actually shrill.
Meryl was the only person - aside from family and the people at the hospital - who knew about my sister. This was only because I had needed to take a few days off to be at the hospital for the breakdown of the situation, and the futile begging for something other than what they kept telling me about her condition. But I had made it clear the day I came back that I didn't want to talk about it, that it was an off-limits topic.
Edison (The Henchmen MC Book 10) Page 12
