"How long will you be gone?" I asked when no one else did.
"Wolf and Renny will be back sooner. It's only half a day ride in each direction. They have a meeting tomorrow. Weather permitting, they will be back tomorrow night. Me and Repo will be about three days out."
"There are no other leads you want us to follow here?" I pressed.
"Can't fucking find anyone we know of who definitely wants us out of the picture. Janie and Alex are still on this day and night. But all they get from the cameras around town is masks and plate-free cars. The body we got led nowhere. Prints weren't in the system. There was no ID on him. We rigged up some cameras around the grounds here. They can be monitored here or at Hailstorm. And we put up the flood lights. If you think there's a threat, cut them on. They're fuckin' blinding. They can't get clean shots off if they tried. Yeah," he said, looking at Bruno, "we are sitting ducks right now. But we need to handle this smart. So do what I fucking said to do and not shit else unless Cash or Duke says otherwise."
The group broke up, a new shift of men heading up toward the roof through the catch in the ceiling in the hall instead the ladder down the side of the building like we used to. Everything, even those little things, had changed.
Reign clamped a hand on my shoulder. "Walk with me," he demanded. I nodded as he led me into the hall then down into the basement that was my room when I was prospecting. A room I shared with Renny and, later, Maze.
"What's up, Reign?" I asked, uncomfortable with his silence.
"I got something to ask of you that you're not going to like," he said, turning to face me, legs planted wide, shoulders tense.
I felt a brick of lead settle in my stomach, knowing that if it was making Reign uncomfortable to ask it, it couldn't be good. Nothing shook him. A part of me was worried he was going to ask me to cut Penny loose, or worse, use her as bait in some way.
Which wouldn't fucking stand.
I didn't give a fuck if that meant a problem with me and my brothers.
"Ask it," I demanded, not wanting to put off the inevitable.
He exhaled hard, running a hand down the scruff on his face before his green eyes pinned me. "Couldn't have escaped you the way shit is going lately. Not just in this area, but across the country. There's a lot of tension. People want guns. Some of those people might be the kind of people that you..."
"No," I said, the word low and powerful, bursting from my soul, from my marrow, from every molecule in my body.
"Duke. I'm not saying it will come to that. But if it does come to that, we are going to need your cooperation in putting out feelers."
"Reign you don't know what you're..."
"I know what I'm asking," he cut me off, gaze sympathetic, but tone hard. "But what I'm saying is, whatever hell it might put you through... don't you think it would be worth the lives of your brothers? Of their women? Of their kids?" he asked, then after a short pause. "Of the girl sitting there in your room who you have been watching over like a fuckin' guard dog for days?"
He was right.
I hated the mother fucker in that moment, a man who had allowed me to turn my life around, a man who showed me a different way of living, I fucking hated him for being right.
But he was.
There was no denying it.
When push came to shove, I would face up the skeletons; I would roll down my sleeves and put on gloves to protect me from the monkshood; I would steel my guts and swallow back the screams telling me to never go back; I would do what needed to be done to keep the people I had learned to see as family safe.
"If it came to it," he went on in my silence. "You wouldn't be alone. I'd go with you myself if you need it. But we need to do what needs to be done, regardless of how much we don't want to."
"I know," I said with a nod, exhaling slowly, feeling like my lungs were being compressed and all-too aware that they would never inflate again properly until this was all over.
"But, as it stands, that's not where we are looking yet. I just wanted to give you time to come to terms with that possible future though so we didn't just spring it on you."
"Appreciate that," I said, despite the burning in my chest.
"How's the girl?" he asked, surprising me.
I shrugged. "I dunno. She's alright I guess. Hard to tell. She doesn't talk much."
"Shame Summer is up at Hailstorm. Situations are different, but I think Summer could really commiserate with her."
He wasn't exactly wrong. While Summer had been tortured for months before Reign came upon her, there were similarities in their experiences. If Summer could get over her trauma, it went to follow that Penny could as well. There was a comfort in that.
"Know I'm overstepping here, but are you fucking her?"
"Why would it matter?"
"Doesn't," he said, shrugging. "Just curious. Seems inevitable whenever there is a damsel in distress 'round these parts. Me, Cash, Wolf, Repo..."
"Nothing is gonna happen with me and Penny," I said, willing myself to believe it as well as him.
"Sure it isn't," he said, giving me a smirk and moving off toward the stairs. "I'll see you in a couple days, Duke. Try to keep the guys from killing each other."
With that, he was gone.
I turned around, going over toward the two sets of bunks we kept in the basement for probates, moving toward the one set up against the wall and sliding into the lower bunk, sitting down on my old bed.
I stayed there as the men moved around upstairs, as day turned into night and things got quiet.
Finally, I stayed there until I fell asleep.
NINE
Penny
Duke never came back.
I had sat in the center of the bed, picking at the food I had made, wondering what was going on outside the door.
Things only seemed to be escalating violence-wise. I was beaten. Two men were killed. And an entire business was burned down.
What the hell was going on?
I expected Duke to come back like he promised to at least give me some reassurance or something. But when the entire day passed and I hadn't seen or heard from him, I got both agitated and worried at the same time.
Around ten, things quiet outside the door, I grabbed the knife and folded it in my hand and headed out.
I wasn't a prisoner, I reminded myself as I moved into the main room where I expected to see a large group of the men as always, but instead only saw Lo's husband, Cash, sitting there.
"Heya sweetheart," he said, putting his feet on the floor from where they had been on the coffee table. "You alright? Need something?"
"I, um, I was wondering if Duke was around. I haven't seen him since this morning."
"Quesadillas were the shit by the way," he said, pointing to the plate. "They were gone in all of two minutes. You kinda screwed yourself there too. Now the guys know you can cook, they are going to be puppy-dog eying you all the time to make them shit."
I felt myself smile a little at that. For reasons unknown to me, I liked Cash. I had a feeling that was everyone's knee-jerk reaction to him. It was hard to not like him. Everything about him seemed laid-back, easy, charming. He had none of the intensity or the dangerous vibe that his brother did.
"Well, that's one way to earn my keep," I said with a shrug. I didn't mind cooking. I actually liked it most of the time. I didn't do it much for myself because, well, cooking for one person was lame. But I always loved to pitch in on holidays or at dinner parties.
"Don't have to earn it, love. You're welcome here. Pretty sure Duke would chop off the balls of anyone who said otherwise." He paused at that. "I think Duke is in the basement. The stairs are off the hall if you're looking."
"Thanks," I said, moving away from him and back toward the hall.
Most basements were a bit creepy. The one at The Henchmen compound was no different. It was all bare cinderblock walls, cement floors, and bad lighting. The stairs were steep and narrow and I had my hands on both walls as I descended.
&n
bsp; I squinted my eyes to adjust to the different lighting. There were a couple sets of washing machines on the right wall next to a huge security door that I figured protected some pretty important or expensive or illegal, or all three, things behind. To the far left was a chair with handcuffs that I chose to pretend I didn't see. And then right to the left of the steps were two sets of bunks. Not the nice, wooden types you'd see in children's bedrooms either. They were the sturdy metal varieties you'd see at an Army barracks.
Walking over, my feet cold from the cement floor, I saw him in the bottom bunk butted up against the wall. His back was propped up on the wall, asleep on his side.
People were supposed to look softer in sleep, men especially. But that wasn't true of Duke. He was still all rough and tough and manly... just with closed eyes. Somehow, I took comfort in that.
Before I realized what I was doing, I sat down at the edge of the mattress and looked down at him for a second. Then, as if it wasn't attached to me, I watched as my hand reached out to tuck his hair back.
And, just like the last time I touched him while he was asleep, his huge hand grabbed my wrist before his eyes even snapped open.
I hissed at the sting but didn't pull away as his eyes opened and took me in. The second he realized I wasn't a threat, his grip loosened, but he didn't let me go.
"You okay?" he asked, groggy.
"I was worried about you," I admitted.
"You were worried about me?" he asked, brows drawing together.
"You said you would come back to the room after your meeting. You never did. Cash told me he thought you were down here."
"You were worried about me," he repeated, sounding in awe of the very concept.
I guess that was a side-effect of being so strong; no one ever offered you a hand.
"You've had a rough couple of days," I said with a shrug. Sure, I had had one too, but it really didn't compare in the long run. I hadn't lost two close friends. I didn't have the weight of responsibility of finding the men who did that and dealing with them. And I wasn't strapped with some random, scared chick I had to take care of either.
He let out a sound that was like an almost silent chuckle, shaking his head. And then his hand tightened, pulling me down toward the bed. I didn't even pretend to resist. I got onto my side facing him, our bodies barely more than a breath apart on the tiny twin bed.
"You're quiet," he said, but I felt he meant it in general, not just in that moment.
"So are you," I said with a shrug. "The difference is, I think, that I am quiet because I don't have much to say. You're quiet because you have too much but you're afraid no one wants to hear it."
Something flashed across his eyes and, if I hadn't been watching so closely, I would have missed it. But it looked like vulnerability, like I was right.
"Sure you have things to say," he said to cover.
I smiled at that, rolling my eyes. "Says the outlaw biker guy to the painfully normal girl."
"Everyone has a story," he went on, obviously not giving me a chance to back out of talking.
"Really, there's not much to tell. I was born and raised here. My parents are both really into their careers and always were. Which meant I kind of raised myself on weekdays and then I spent weekends with my grandmother."
"She's why you moved back."
"Yeah. She's made of pure grit and firm opinions, but she's getting older. She needs someone around to keep an eye on her. And, after all she did for me growing up, I owed it to her to move back. I really need to call her," I added, guilt swirling around my belly.
"I'll give you a phone," he said without even a pause. "And, as soon as we can find a safe way to do it, I will take you to visit her. Maybe take another day or two for this," he said, his hand moving from my wrist to glide over the skin under my eye, "to heal all the way."
I felt a small shiver work its way through me, starting only on the inside, but moving out. Judging by the way Duke's eyes got intense, he felt it too.
Maybe that was why he pressed on. "Other family? Friends? Boyfriends?"
"We have a small family. Well, I mean, there are cousins and an aunt somewhere off in Tennessee. But I've maybe only seen them a time or two in my life. I had some acquaintances in Florida, but no close friends." I stopped there, feeling awkward discussing the idea of boyfriends in bed with another man. Granted, it was a twin bed in a barracks-style room in a basement and we were fully clothed and only his hand was touching me, settled down where my neck met my shoulder. But still. Weird.
"Boyfriends," he repeated, brow raised.
"No," I said immediately, but rushed to explain. "I mean... I've had boyfriends. Everyone has had boyfriends. But, yeah, um... none recently I guess is what I meant."
The awkward babbling award of the year went to, no surprise, me. For the freaking twenty-somethingth year in a row.
"How's that possible?" he asked, his thumb moving out and stroking across my neck in a way that was really going to become problematic in a minute or two.
"Well, I, y'know," I said, wetting my suddenly very dry lips and watching as his gaze went there for a second before it moved up again. "I just... don't get out much. I'm not social."
"What do you do if you don't go out and don't have friends and don't have boyfriends?"
I smiled at that, shaking my head. "Don't make me answer that."
"Why?"
"Because it will make me sound like I'm eighty."
"In that case, I have to hear it."
"Fine," I said, small-eying him for a second which made his lips tip up. "I don't know. I read. I clean my apartment. I run errands. I knit. I go to..."
"You knit?" he asked, and there was no tipping up, he broke into a big smile at that idea. "Yarn and needles and shit?"
I felt my own smile pull at my lips. "Yeah, yarn and needles and shit."
"What do you make?"
"Well, I have six afghans in a box on the way to a shelter in New York. That's from the past couple of months."
"You do that because you like doing it or you're scared of doing other shit?"
That was a good question. Actually, it was one I had asked myself countless times over the years. Especially because everyone else seemed to have an urge to club, party, travel, make their lives bigger.
I could honestly say that I had never felt that way. I liked my small life. People asking me to go out was pretty much a surefire way to ruin my mood. I didn't need to see Europe or bungie jump off a bridge. And I definitely didn't need to drink until I was stupid every week.
Though that last thing might have had a lot to do with the fact that I was a lightweight and was tanked before things could even get going.
"I know it's lame, but I like my quiet life."
"Not lame," he said, shaking his head. "I like a quiet life too. I've had enough noise." Somewhere after he said 'quiet life', my lips must have turned up because his head tilted. "What?"
"Well, you live in a building full of outlaw bikers who seem to be as loud, if not louder, than any fraternity house. You get shot at. You plan on exacting revenge. What about this is quiet?"
He chuckled at that. "I guess you get used to this and it seems quiet. But it is small. We're close. It's a family. No one is flying off to fucking France to sip coffee at a cafe. We have barbecues and kids birthday parties."
"And clubwhores," I added, the word sounding weird on my tongue.
"Gets old."
"String-free sex with random and willing partners whenever you want gets old?" I asked, brows drawing together. If I wasn't mistaken, that was most guys' dream.
"Yeah, babe, it gets old."
"So, what? You're like the one-percent of bikers who wants a committed relationship?" I teased.
"You've met Reign and Wolf and Cash and Repo. They're in committed relationships."
He had a point.
I hadn't gotten to see Reign, Repo, or Wolf with their women, but I had seen Cash with Lo and, even though it was clear they had b
een together for a long while, they still seemed pretty crazy about each other.
"Are all their women like Lo?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"I don't know. Lo is..."
"A badass?" he filled in for me.
"Yeah, that about covers it."
"Lo runs Hailstorm so, yeah, she's pretty badass. Wolf's woman, Janie, works at Hailstorm and is like a more spitfire version of Lo. Maze, Repo's girl, she actually was a probate alongside me and Renny back in the day and is arguably more badass than half the guys here."
"So the answer is yeah," I said, feeling oddly sad about that.
"Not necessarily. Summer, Reign's woman, was pretty normal."
"Then how did she find herself hooked up with a biker?"
"Dunno, babe. You found yourself hooked up with bikers too," he said and, as if reading into it the way I was reading into it, rushed to cover. "Summer had been held captive and tortured for months, being used as a bargaining chip to get her father to do something he didn't want to do. She got out one night and Reign found her. That's their story."
"Not really that similar when it comes down to it."
"No, but the point was, she was just a normal chick living her normal life, going to work, coming home, seeing friends. She wasn't learning to make bombs like Janie or commanding a lawless military like Lo or learning to kick ass like Maze."
"What do they all do now? Like now that they're with your friends?"
"They're all pretty much doing the same thing. Lo and Janie are still up at Hailstorm and running the self-defense gym. Maze works doing accounting like she did before she got all baddass. She also fills in at the gym too, given she's got more than enough self-defense skills. But they're really not as crazy as you think. They're all wives and mothers now. Things are calmer. Well," he said, shrugging, "they were calmer."
"You're worried."
"Got a lot to worry about," he agreed. "Lot of people here I give a shit about. Including you."
"You don't even know me," I said, rolling my eyes.
"Know enough to know you take care of your loved ones and you knit blankets for the homeless and you can cook some mean Mexican and you fumble over your words when you're nervous." He paused and I thought he was done. Then he added the strangest thing. "You're clean."
Duke (The Henchmen MC Book 5) Page 10
