Pagan (The Henchmen MC Book 8)

by Jessica Gadziala

  Benny hated pink.

  Benny hated pink like I hated blood.

  He had been nagging me to change the pink to a more neutral light gray or crisp green since pretty much the day he was hired.

  "Benny, really, it's..."

  He waved a finger at me in the mirror. "Don't even try to deny it. I know you too well for you to pull that off."

  He wasn't wrong.

  Also, maybe it would feel good to talk about it.

  I had actively been shutting down any thoughts of Niro from the moment I ran from the compound almost a week before. It was just one of those 'If I don't think about it, it didn't happen' kind of deals. Though, judging by the very hot sex dreams I had been having ever since, my subconscious knew it happened and definitely wanted more.

  "So you know last week how I had a meeting with..."

  "The douche," he cut in, making me smile. Benny hated Ethan even more than I did, which was saying something. This might have had something to do with the fact that when Ethan came in, he addressed us as 'hey ladies.' It was something he would normally be okay with, but because he already disliked Ethan, decided he found it offensive.

  "Right. And he told me no." I already told him that part. "But there was this guy there, and he thought Ethan and I were... together."

  "Ew."

  "I know," I agreed, nodding. "And he kinda made some comments about what a real man can do..."

  "Oh, lordy..." Benny agreed, fanning himself with his hand.

  "And invited me to that big party at The Henchmen compound."

  "So you went and you did the dirty."

  "What? No! I mean... we made out and he, ah..."

  "Ate you out?"

  See? I did say Benny was blunt.

  "No, it was just..."

  "Ah, checking the oil. I see. That makes more sense. No way you got laid with how tense you still are. So, what's the problem then?"

  "I didn't even know his name!" I admitted, eyes feeling like they were bugging. "I still don't know his name."

  "He kind of has a hotter young Robert De Niro thing going on..."

  "Oh my God! That's exactly what I thought! I've been calling him Niro in my head."

  I loved Benny. In case that wasn't clear. He was everything a friend should be- supportive, non-judgmental, and he always understood my TV, movie, and song references.

  "Well, honey, Niro is hot as sin. Holy hell. When are you giving him a tour of your bedsheets?"

  "I'm not," I said, trying to sound more firm than I felt on the matter. Quite frankly, just that five-second interaction had me all hot and bothered. A large part of me wanted to tell him to ditch his woman, tell Benny to take a break, and let him take me right then and there. "He has a woman!"

  "The purple-haired one?" he asked, brows drawing together. "You miss so much sometimes, Kenny. She has a set of rings on. His hands were empty."

  "Maybe bikers don't wear wedding rings."

  "What about that man suggests he is married? Come on now. He's single. You're single. So your fun parts should definitely mingle."

  "Benny, I don't do casual sex."

  "Angel face, from what I can tell since I started here, you don't do any kind of sex. It's not normal. Hell, I would argue that it's not healthy. People who fuck and come more are more likely to live longer. Do it for your future, woman!"

  I threw my head back and laughed at that, the first real laugh I had experienced in far too long.

  "Thanks. I needed that."

  "You need to go walk your gorgeous ass down the street, walk into that compound, and tell sexy Niro to take you all night long." He stood, moving toward the front desk again. "I bet you would feel like a new woman after."

  I didn't exactly doubt him on that.

  Sex, for all intents and purposes, was the most enjoyable form of natural stress relief. That being said, I was still me. I knew that screwing around with some bad news guy would in the moment take the stress away, but would just pile on more after it was over. There would be the inevitable guilt or shame-type thoughts. There would maybe even be a bit of wondering if sex could be more than that.

  But Jazzy's warning was still fresh on my mind.

  Niro was not the settling-down kind of guy.

  And I was not the screwing around kind of girl.

  It was doomed.

  And best left unexplored.

  Case closed.

  "So when is her appointment for?" I asked, trying to shake myself out of it.

  "Get this," Benny said, looking excited. "Her name is Maze and she has Monday at 2 PM for a cut and color."

  Cut and color was good. That was decent money for the time put in. We had a lot of clients who came in to get blowouts which, while not cheap, didn't exactly keep the lights on unless they did it frequently.

  If things hadn't gone the way they had, the customer base we had would be more than enough to keep myself and Benny perfectly happy. Not rich, not rolling in it, but comfortable.

  But there was no use thinking about the could-have-beens.

  The reality was the reality, and that meant I kept Benny as happy as I possibly could so he didn't need to quit and find a better job and me, well, I barely, just barely scraped by.

  Another year. That was all I needed. Things would be on track by then. And, maybe it was wrong of me to hope for such a thing, but I was hoping that the shop next door didn't get rented out. That was wrong of me because I knew that it sitting there meant it got no income for the owner. But I wanted it. I wanted that damn shop to expand mine to one big space. That had always been the plan.

  Also, maybe it wasn't so wrong of me to think it since the person who owned it was Ethan, and the reason it was empty was that his stubborn ass wouldn't let me rent it at a slighted scale until renovations were done. Because it apparently was better business sense to let it sit empty.

  Kenny, baby, you're too big of a risk right now.

  That was what the jackass told me at She's Bean Around.

  The worst part, though, was that I understood that. I truly did. I was, for all intents and purposes, still a risk business-wise. Through no fault of my own, but it was just how it was.

  I was just having a really hard time accepting that there was a chance, even a good chance, that my dream salon could be out of my reach at literally any given time if someone else swooped in.

  Then, blissfully bringing me out of my negative thoughts, the door chimed again and in walked my next appointment- a full set of gels and a pedicure. Benny had a labor intensive permanent straightening appointment that would last him most of the rest of the day while I took whatever walk-ins happened by. We always had a few of them- people looking for something trendy that not all the shops in town did yet like oil slick color or decorative undercuts. They would drop in to ask, and then if I was open, take a chair and get it done.

  By the time night fell, Benny shooed his very happy client out the door after she insisted on taking about twelve selfies with him to show off his awesome work and Instagram and Snap about it to her friends. Which we both knew was free publicity, so we always posed when it was asked of us. He shook out his very sore arms and rolled his shoulders. "I need to get home to my man and have him give me a massage," he declared, going behind the desk to grab his stuff. "Come on, let me walk you to your place."

  Because I didn't have a car.

  Not because I didn't drive, but let's just say that things got bad enough that I had needed to sell it. Which sucked and made life even harder than it had to be, but it was a sacrifice I had needed to make.

  Luckily, I only lived around the corner and down about ten houses.

  "Nah, I am going to work on the website before I head out. Go enjoy your man."

  "Oh, you know I will," he said with a smile, giving me a wave, and heading out the door.

  I was no graphic designer.

  I hated web design.

  My first three attempts at a site for us looked like maybe a ten-year-old did it. I was slo
wly, but surely, getting better. Mix that with my absolute determination to get it right, and you would see why I was there almost two hours after closing still tweaking little things.

  But when the coffee machine beeped off for the second time, I knew it was time to head out. I shut down the computer, grabbed my purse, slipped my fingers into this nifty kitty cat self-defense keychain, and went out the door, turning and locking it.

  "Girls who look like you look shouldn't be walking around this town alone at night," a newly familiar voice said casually from my side. "All kinds of bad characters out around here." My head turned in his direction, finding him leaning casually against the wall, foot pressed against it, a cloud of cigarette smoke around him. The end lit up in his mouth as he took a drag before pushing off the wall, squashing the cigarette, and letting out the smoke as he moved toward me. "Guys like me with all kinds of ideas about what they'd like to do to you."

  Oh, hell.

  FOUR

  Pagan

  She ran off.

  That shouldn't have surprised me. I didn't fight clean. It was always crazy, bloody, brutal, animalistic. It definitely wasn't meant for anyone faint of heart or weak of stomach.

  That was why I was paid the big bucks over at Hex.

  Maybe a part of me was so used to that, and the people around me being so used to it, that I forgot that not everyone could handle that kind of violence.

  Especially the soft and sweet girls like Kennedy.

  I shouldn't have even been stressing about it.

  That was the dream, wasn't it? To have the chick leave so there didn't need to be that uncomfortable conversation about how it was casual, how she needed to take her ass home, find a decent guy, and set to sinking her hooks into him.

  So when I turned back, wiping the sweat off my forehead and likely swiping blood all over my face like some goddamn barbarian, standing over the body of the fucking moron kid who thought it was in any way appropriate to step to a member of the MC like that, I expected to see her standing there.

  The disappointment in not seeing her was more than was normal. And it wasn't as simple as the fact that after a fight, I needed a fuck. That was just how I was wired. I had the rough and nasty, and I needed a soft woman there to burn through the rest of that energy. So it was normal in that sense to feel like I was missing out when she was gone, that I wasn't going to get the fuck I wanted.

  That being said, it was a goddamn open house. There was snatch everywhere just waiting to be plowed into. Getting my soft was not the problem. It never was.

  But somehow, she was the soft that I wanted.

  And that, well, was simply not like me at all.

  Any woman was just as good as the next since all I wanted was a good time.

  As I walked back into the compound to get another drink, I had the absolutely insane, uncharacteristic, ridiculous thought that maybe it was because I wanted more than a good time with her.

  And then I grabbed a bottle of something amber and tipped it back until that fucking moronic thought no longer existed.

  "You're bleeding fuckin' everywhere," Reign said at my side, brow raised.

  "Not my blood."

  "Fine, then you're drippin' fuckin' everywhere."

  "Some dipshit kid wanted to step to me."

  "I'm hopin' he's still breathing."

  Hoping.

  You had to respect Reign for a mindset like that.

  Shit happened and lives were taken at times.

  I guess, seeing as he had taken his fair share, he got that.

  Me, I had mangled bodies behind me, but almost all of them were still breathing. Taking lives wasn't an idea I took lightly, though I did believe some fuckers deserved to die.

  "Yeah, he's painting the grass down the alley red for a bit, but he'll get up again. Not to tell you your business, but I'm hoping he ends up nursing his wounds somewhere other than the compound."

  "I dunno," Reign mused, reaching behind me for a beer. "I think a man willing to step to someone with your fucking reputation might be worth looking into."

  "It was booze bravado. He wants to step to me sober after that ass-kicking, then I'd say you had a point."

  "Fair point." He nodded, leaning against the bar, looking out at the sea of people, most of whom were new to us.

  "Any finalists?"

  "I'm liking the duo from the MC."

  "Sugar and Virgin," I supplied, feeling like that event happened ages before.

  "Yeah, them. Janie is already on looking into them. Alex is going to check out Roan," he said, using the neck of his beer to point to the man in question. Size-wise, he was solid, wide, strong, even in jeans and a tee there was no way to disguise that. Unlike most of the other newer prospects, he seemed older. Maybe mid-to-late thirties. There was something primal about him too. Maybe it was as simple as the shoulder-length dark hair and the full beard. But it was in the eyes too, light light green and keen.

  "What's his story?"

  Reign shrugged. "From what he says, ex-CIA."

  "A spy?" I asked, turning to look at the man again.

  "Again, so he says. We're having Alex check into that story. It's possible. I've been eavesdropping tonight and have heard him speak three languages already." At my brow raise, he shook his head. "English, obviously. Then Spanish with that Roderick guy," he said, gesturing toward a tall, good-looking Puerto Rican guy who was almost as big as Wolf. "Then he walked right up to Edison and spoke fucking Romanian without even asking about Edison's background."

  I could see the advantage there. A spy. Ex-spy, whatever. Espionage was a part of every damn criminal enterprise. And spies, since they only worked indirectly with government agencies, tended to be extremely comfortable doing things completely against the law. Plus, Spanish would absolutely come in handy. Maybe less so the Romanian, but Edison was sure to like it. And if he spoke those two, who knew if he maybe had some Russian, Italian, or Polish going on that would prove useful for our contacts.

  "Is he tolerable?" I asked, watching him reach out and shake Sugar's hand.

  To that, Reign's smile was wry. "Kind of hard to tell, don't you think? If he was a spy, then his entire life was built on lying and creating new identities. If his background check pans out, that is what the probate period is for. See if he gets on with everyone, what his strengths and weaknesses are." He turned half to me again, jerking his chin toward the small circle of Roan, Sugar, Roderick, and Virgin. "Did you fucking hear how Sugar got his name?"

  "No." I shook my head.

  To that, the prez's smile was fucking brilliant.

  "You won't believe this shit..."

  --

  "I'm just saying," Maze said as we left her office, flipping her hair over her shoulder.

  "What are you saying?"

  "That you really need to go and tell them about this," she said with a brow raise. Them meaning The Henchmen.

  See, there was a lot I was willing to give them about me. This was not one of them. And I was just starting to see how much of a fucking problem my current conflict of interest was.

  I had hired Maze to handle my books years before. She had a reputation for being the best in the area, especially when you had dirty money coming in like I always did from Hex. I had no idea she was even hooked up with The Henchmen at the time. Not that it would have mattered even if I did know. Back then, that didn't matter since I wasn't involved with them myself.

  Now, well, it was becoming problematic.

  I got an earful every goddamn month when I went to see Maze again.

  She didn't like being in the position of keeping information from her loved ones, but she couldn't turn on me either.

  "It's not the time, Maze," I said, shaking my head as we moved to walk down the street. "I'll let them in on it when I need to."

  "That's just it though, Pagan. You should feel like you need to now. This is a brotherhood. You need to trust them."

  Whether she would admit it or not, she still had a small amoun
t of anger or disappointment about not having been allowed in the MC when she had made it through the grueling probate process that there used to be before all the members had been killed. Things were relatively easy on me, Laz, Cyrus, Reeve, and Edison seeing as we didn't have a whole shitload of patched members to kowtow to. We had to carry out the chores and the shit shifts, sure, but that was about it.

  I couldn't say the new probates would have it so easy.

  All of us were itching to test their resolve.

  The poor fucks.

  "It's just the... oh, wait, I need to pop in here real quick," she said suddenly, grabbing the door to a small salon.

  I went in without looking at the sign.

  It didn't matter that she was completely faced away from me and there were thousands of blonde women of her size in town.

  I knew it was her the second my eyes fell on her.

  And that was some mother fucking fate shit right there.

  I might have gotten mildly inappropriate, but I wasn't the kind of jackass to make a scene at her work in front of her employee. So I left when everything, most especially my cock, was screaming to grab her, pull her into some storage or bath room and fuck her senseless like I had been thinking about every night since when I rubbed one out. Or two. Or three. What can I say? I had a lot of ideas of making that woman scream my name.

  But I forced myself to leave with Maze and let her keep up her professional appearances.

  It was just perfect that when I passed by again, telling myself I was on my way to Chaz's when I was on the wrong mother fucking side of the street for that, and found her alone, well, I decided just to wait it out.

  She wasn't in another sundress that day, much to my slight disappointment, having had decided back at the compound that sundresses were my new fucking favorite item of clothing.

  Two words: easy access.

  But she had on a pair of blue and white patterned lightweight shorts that were short enough to show off a huge amount of leg which I was all fucking for, and a white tank top that was all loose and flowing around her, blue flats, and a huge array of bracelets on her wrists.