The Henchmen MC: Renny Part 5

"Suspicious?" I supplied. "Maybe. Or maybe he was genuinely just doing a good deed and just so happens to come from a background in either military or crime that makes him immune to the threats you guys fed him. We'll know more when we get back."

"We?" he asked, and I could feel his gaze on me.

I knew I shouldn't have. Really, I did. But I turned my head to face him anyway and found his eyes lighter, his lips tipped up.

"Yes. That would be how you say more than one person, wouldn't it?"

"Nope. You want us to be a we. You just said it. No takes-backsies."

"What are we, five?"

"I think we should hold hands now," he went on, ignoring me. "If we're a we, I'm pretty sure we are supposed to be at the hand-holding stage."

And with that, the smooth b.a.s.t.a.r.d slipped his fingers between mine and gave me a squeeze and I just... couldn't seem to make myself pull away.

"Why won't you give up?" I managed to force myself to ask.

"Come on," he said, ducking his head to the side a little. "You and I both know that when this happens, not if, when, it is going to be f.u.c.king epic."

He wasn't wrong.

That was the sad part to me. I was denying myself something I knew would be amazing. I mean, in general, I had pretty much always had good s.e.x. What was the point of doing it if you weren't going to do it with a partner that knew what they were doing? But I had a feeling that, like he told me when we first met, that two people like us, people who were intuitive and could read a lot into even the smallest of things, we would be explosive in bed.

I was starting to wonder if maybe I owed it to myself to experience that before I moved on.

But, at the same time, there was this small, almost inaudible voice telling me that once wouldn't be enough.

"You know I'm right, sweetheart."

"Don't..." I started, only to be interrupted by the opening of the doors in the front. Reign and Mitch hauled themselves in and slammed the door.

"f.u.c.king Lloyd," Reign exhaled, shaking his head. "Like talking to a G.o.dd.a.m.n wall."

"Once they get booked, Alex can find their names and once we have their names, we can try to run their financials," I went on, trying to pull my hand from Renny's discreetly so the guys in the front wouldn't see. But he just held on tighter, grinning like an idiot as I kept trying to gently struggle. "Then from there," I went on, giving Renny a death-glare he only chuckled at, "we can see if they have used credit cards at hotels or restaurants around here and maybe track down some a.s.sociates. Alright, enough," I snapped, reaching across my body and digging my thumb into a pressure point in the crook of Renny's elbow, making him hiss and jerk away, releasing my hand.

"f.u.c.king ow," he said, shaking his head at me, but his d.a.m.n lips were still tipped up.

I could see Reign's eyes in the rearview, amused, and I knew he was probably smirking too. Like he knew what had just happened. Maybe he did.

"But what I'm saying is, we have a little more than we did. This might not be what everyone was hoping for, but it's not a setback either."

"Alright," Reign said, putting the car into reverse. "Well, you and Renny need to have a talk with the Lazarus guy anyway. So while we wait on booking and Alex, we can at least get something accomplished."

"The cops will be snooping around for another half an hour at least," Mitch piped in. "And then we need to get some people inside to check everything over too; make sure they didn't miss anything; sweep for bugs. The usual."

"Lo is gonna be p.i.s.sed," Renny added, drawing my attention, head c.o.c.ked to the side. "She and Janie are part owners of the gym. Actually, they have majority share over Cash. This was the first attack that didn't solely target Henchmen, but their allies as well. And that s.h.i.+t wasn't exactly kept under wraps; they couldn't have been blind to it. They just didn't give a f.u.c.k. That won't sit right with Lo and Hailstorm. They just f.u.c.ked up."

He wasn't wrong.

Hailstorm was Lo's pride and joy. It was what she built out of the shambles of her old life. It was what was a constant for her, always there for her, always a safe haven for herself and all her little lost puppies. Me, in a way, included.

Threats in the beginning weren't rare. She was a newbie in the game; other more established organizations wanted to take her out before she got too big. She dealt with those threats, along with her small but highly trained team of ex-military and niche criminals, swiftly and mercilessly. And once she got the name on the street of a 'plain old crazy mother f.u.c.ker', she branched out, expanded, made an empire that was so big that very few could or would be willing to f.u.c.k with. Sure, we lost men and women on missions. But no one came after us. Not anymore.

Really, it was a suicide mission.

Everyone knew that.

So the Abruzzos must have known that. They were either so large that they thought they could best all of The Henchmen and Hailstorm at the same time, or they maybe thought Lo was losing her edge, softening.

Which, well, yeah that wouldn't sit right with her.

No one would accuse Lo of being soft. While there was absolutely, at her core, a softness, a nurturing spirit- that was for her people at Hailstorm and her friends. When it came to enemies, she was still that younger, hungry, angry person with a point to prove, with a mission to never be f.u.c.ked with again.

She was going to flip.

"And, f.u.c.k, when Janie hears about this..." Mitch added, shaking his head.

You didn't f.u.c.k with Lo because she was smart, capable, and had control over an entire lawless army.

You didn't f.u.c.k with Janie because she would, quite literally, blow your s.h.i.+t up.

And while she was hurting, while she was genuinely making herself sick living at the bedside of her unconscious husband, she was still Janie. She was still the most headstrong, resilient, bada.s.s woman I had ever met. She would not handle the news well that while the man she loved more than she loved the air in her lungs was laid up recovering from multiple gunshot wounds and head trauma, someone was coming after her. Even if it was inadvertently.

I wouldn't exactly put it past her to start building a bomb in the private bath in Wolf's room.

She was that level of insane when she was p.i.s.sed.

"We aren't telling Janie," Reign surprised me by saying, breaking the silence in the car.

"Why the f.u.c.k not?" Mitch asked, clearly insulted that Reign thought he in any way had the right to make a decision for Hailstorm.

"Right now, Janie needs to worry about Wolf and her son. She doesn't need any more stress on top of that. In case you haven't noticed, she's not handling this f.u.c.king well. She's losing weight and she was a f.u.c.king rail to start with. Every time I see her, her eyes are red-rimmed from crying. This is f.u.c.king Jstorm we're talking about here, baddest b.i.t.c.h in the state and she's crying all the time. She doesn't need this. And we aren't going to burden her with it."

"You do realize," Renny cut in, brow raised, "that when all this blows over and Wolf wakes up and she gets briefed on this s.h.i.+t, that she is going to lose her ever-loving mind for being left out of the loop."

"And I'll be a f.u.c.king happy man to see her back to her normal self," Reign agreed, pulling into the garage at the compound and cutting the engine. "Because that means I have my best f.u.c.king friend back and it means that Malcolm has his father back and Janie has her protector back. So everyone is going to keep their G.o.dd.a.m.n lips shut if they see Janie, got it?" he asked, giving us all a hard look before climbing out of the car, slamming the door, and heading inside.

"You and me," Renny started when Mitch went out to follow Reign.

"There is no you and me," I cut him off, defensive, stupidly thrown-off by the whole hand-holding thing.

"Oh, there's a you and me alright," he said, smirking. "But I wasn't talking about that. Though, if you want to talk about that..." he said, jerking his head to the seat we were sitting on, "this row of seats lays down and we have the whole cargo area to prove just how much of a you and me there actually is."

An unexpected jolt of desire shot down to my core and my thighs pressed together instinctively to ease the ache as I swallowed hard before speaking. "What were you talking about then?" I asked, deciding it was safest to side-step the entire other comment. If there was one thing I had learned over the past couple of weeks, it was that Renny was capable of doing something that not many were able to- he could throw me off, surprise me, keep me on my toes. And when I was on my toes, I found that I stumbled. I lost ground. I gave ground to Renny.

I couldn't keep letting that happen.

Before I knew it, my back would be against a wall and there would be no escape.

"What I was going to say, sweetheart, is that we have a date with that guy you would normally be drooling all over if you weren't currently in the midst of a somewhat embarra.s.sing attraction to a certain hot as f.u.c.k, charming as the devil, redheaded biker," he said, big grin in place.

"That ego," I said, reaching for my door handle, "something to do with your abusive upbringing?" I asked and watched as his eyes went guarded, as his smile fell and his jaw tightened. I was sure most people didn't know anything about his past and I was equally sure that those that did were not as cruel as to use it against him. I wasn't cruel by nature. And, unlike Renny, I didn't get my kicks by pus.h.i.+ng b.u.t.tons to see what they did. But I was apparently capable of being nasty when on the defensive and trying desperately to not lose the game.

I found I really didn't care for that side of me as I exited the car and made my way inside, followed the whole way by a silent, looming, angry Renny.

As I went down the stairs, I decided it was yet another reason that I needed to detach myself from the situation, I needed to get some s.p.a.ce. In general, I tried to turn my profiling skills on myself as well as others. I wanted to know my motivations. I wanted to know what made me tick. And after so many years, I thought I knew everything about myself. I thought I knew of what I was capable.

So suddenly finding that I was capable of cruelty was not sitting well with me.

Fact of the matter was, I needed to leave.

And once we finished talking to the Lazarus guy, I was going to head out.

There was absolutely no reason for me to be there every day. I wasn't the most trained at Hailstorm. Other guys would have been much better for the job of helping to protect The Henchmen. I didn't need to oversee any more of the renovations which, yet again, I wasn't the most knowledgable about to begin with.

My specialty was specific. My skills were niche. And while I could manage well enough with the other things, why not step away and let someone else more capable take them over. Lo wanted me at the compound to get a feel for the guys, to see if they were the kind of personalities to make the kind of enemies who would come at them like someone was coming at them. Then, when I finished that, I was there to try to create a blind profile on the attackers by their actions.

Now that we had a name or, as it were, a list of names, I didn't need to be there. There was no reason. I would likely be able to make a better, more comprehensive profile back at Hailstorm working side-by-side with L who apparently was a crime encyclopedia. And maybe Alex who was currently banned from The Henchmen compound by her husband, something she railed against endlessly to the point where I almost felt bad for Breaker. But, then again, he brought that on himself. But she would be able to come up to Hailstorm and work with me.

I worked better from afar.

And I d.a.m.n sure worked better when I wasn't constantly thinking about a certain redheaded, charming, impressive biker. I spent more time trying to think of ways to shoot him down and hide my ever-growing attraction to him than actually doing any kind of work.

I went to the bottom landing to find Lazarus sitting on a steel chair, ankles cuffed to the front legs, arms cuffed behind the back, making his chest widen. But he was slouched back, seeming as comfortable as you please despite the very uncomfortable position.

Repo gave us a tight nod as we walked up toward them.

"They didn't blow it up or anything did they?" Lazarus asked as soon as he saw us.

"Cops got them first," Renny supplied and Repo made a frustrated noise. "Go on up and talk to Reign. We have to have a few words with our new friend."

Repo nodded, clamping a hand on Renny's shoulder before heading up the stairs.

"If you guys are supposed to come down here to pick my brain," he started, tone casual, "let me save you some time. My name is Lazarus Alexander. I'm thirty-one. I live in Shane Mallick's apartment building because I like when people mind their own G.o.dd.a.m.n business. I've lived in Navesink Bank for two years."

"Why did you move here, of all places?" I asked, brow raised. While Navesink Bank had its very nice areas, the crime rate was, well, a deterrent for most people.

He shrugged a shoulder. "I was in the City. Got all kinds of f.u.c.ked up and needed to get away."

"f.u.c.ked up meaning drugs," Renny supplied, watching the man with a quiet intensity I shouldn't have, but absolutely did, find incredibly attractive.

"Booze to thirties to H."

"And you decided Navesink Bank was a good place to recover?" Renny went on. "You do realize we have an impressive drug problem here, right?"

Laz shrugged. "I've got some time in. Can't hide from your triggers. Gotta face 'em up. So when I'm having a bad night, I walk."

"Which was how you came across the guys breaking into the gym," I concluded.

"Yeah, babe. I walk for hours some nights. See a lot of s.h.i.+t."

"She hates being called babe," Renny supplied, not bothering to look my way and I knew he was still ticked at me. But that was probably for the best. "If you see a lot of s.h.i.+t, why bother reporting this? And why to us and not the cops?"

"Fact of the matter is, when you're a junkie, you get a different perspective on the world. It's not as easy as the cops are the good guys and the criminals are the bad guys. It's a f.u.c.kuva lot more complicated than that. And I've been here long enough to know that you guys don't f.u.c.k with innocents. You keep the s.h.i.+t between you and who you're having issues with. If you're overthrown and a new power takes over, there's no guarantee of that being the case with them. The lesser of two evils, if you will."

I looked over to Renny, wanting to see if he came to the same conclusion as I did- he was being honest with us.

But he was stubbornly keeping his gaze away from me.

"What do you do, Laz?" Renny asked as I felt something akin to regret burrow into my belly.

Why? I wasn't sure. Because distance was what I thought I wanted. I had accomplished that goal by being a b.i.t.c.h. But being faced with the distance, yeah, I found I wasn't a fan.

"Why?" Lazarus surprised me by asking, snapping my attention back to him. So far, he had been nothing but forthcoming. Clamming up about his job seemed odd.

"Hands are covered in bruises and scabs," Renny said and I felt myself stiffen. I moved to the side slightly to look behind him at his hands to find he was right; Laz was covered in injuries in various stages of healing. Really, his observational skills were second to none. While everyone else was freaking out about his declaration earlier, Renny had been cataloging small, seemingly unimportant details about him.

Lazarus sighed, shaking his head. "Not a lot of employers will hire someone with my record."

"So you got inventive," Renny agreed. "Who do you work for?"

"Ross," he supplied, voice a little hollow.

"Ross Ward?" I asked, putting two and two together.

Ross Ward was a different kind of criminal. The genius of his business was that he literally employed three people- guards. And they worked on a contract business, not full-time. His overhead was low and therefore, he never had to worry about dissent in his ranks. He was smart, cold, calculated, and delivered something that no one else in the area did.

Ross Ward led an underground fighting ring.

"Guard or fighter?" Renny went on.

"Depends on the night," Laz said easily. "Someone b.i.t.c.hes out or is too hurt to fight, one of us steps in. Either way, it's good money."

It would be very good money. While Ross took a huge cut for providing the venue and the audience to bet on such things, there was enough of a demand for it that even the fighters raked in the big bucks.

Renny gave him a nod and moved toward the stairs without saying a thing to me.

I looked at Laz who was smirking at me. "Lovers spat?" he asked, dark eyes seeming amused.

"He wishes," I countered, moving off toward the stairs as well.

"I bet he does," I heard Lazarus murmur before I was upstairs, going into the main room to listen to Renny interrupt the conversation going on there.

"We can let him go," he said with a shrug. "He works for Ross Ward. There's no way Ross would let him work with the mob and still work for him. She agrees with me," he added when eyes s.h.i.+fted to me as I moved in.

"I didn't say I..." I started to object, though I did agree with him. Ross Ward, as far as anyone was concerned, was the ultimate of careful. He was even picky about the a.s.sociates of his fighters. He didn't take chances. He didn't get in bed with anyone because he knew that by choosing to stay neutral, that all the local bad guys could come to his little underground club and throw money around, which wouldn't be possible if, say, he picked to a.s.sociate with the Russians and thereby p.i.s.sed off the Italians.

"She agrees with me," he cut me off again, tone sharp. "Let him go before Ross gets p.i.s.sed. We have more important things to focus on right now."