Wolf (The Henchmen MC #3) (24 page)

There was no punishing Lex Keith post-mortem, but it would make the news. It would overshadow the story of Lex's killer. Or, more likely depending on the newscaster, it could vilify Lex further and make his murderer suddenly a citizen-backed vigilante.

There was no way to guarantee that Collings wouldn't process the kits without making it public, but there was a way to make sure it did get out.

On a deep breath that felt like acid fog, I opened up the forum that Alex had created when she was trying to get help neutralizing Lex. I took the images, blurring the women's faces, almost gagging as I did so to my own, and leaving Lex and his men's faces for all the world to see. Then I packaged them up with the information about the unprocessed rape kits and shot it all off to every news station in the state. A big juicy story wrapped in a big red bow. They would go fucking nuts tearing down the NBPD.

I shot off an untraceable email to Collings.

Maybe you never wanted a war, but now you got one. Process those rape kits before the five o'clock news or you'll regret it. You have one chance to make this right, Collings. You've kept your pockets clean and your head down to what is going on around you. I respected you until you took down a man who was righting a wrong you and your station overlooked for years as endless piles of women suffered for your cowardice.

Those rape kits managed to get 'lost' for years. I think a little boot print could easily get accidentally deleted, don't you?

Do the right thing.

"You think threatening a cop is the best move?" Repo asked, sitting down beside me and shamelessly reading what I was typing.

"I think Collings understands how things work around here. I think he hates his job and what it has made him."

"What has it made him?"

"Weak." I turned my head to look at him fully. "And if there is one thing a once-alpha man hates to be, it's weak. He will finally get his head out of his ass and do something for once, something that matters. Or he can get his ass swept up in the cleanse when Internal Affairs starts smelling the shit festering inside the NBPD."

"You realize you are erasing the leverage The Henchmen, Mallicks, Lyon, and Hailstorm had against imprisonment?"

I could see the tension in Repo, the barely repressed anger. He was a loose cannon like me when he was riled and he was trying like hell to hold onto his calm. Repo was as loyal as a man came and when he saw someone threatening the safety of his brothers, he felt the need to intervene.

I reached out and hit the send button on the email. "It's done. You can be mad at me. You can scream at me. But we both know you can't lay a hand on me. I belong to your road captain. Your prez and vice like me. It would be the ultimate betrayal to fuck with me right now Repo."

"I'd never put a fucking hand on you," he said, his face twisting up like he was revolted at the idea. "I don't hit women."

"Good then we understand each other."

"Hardly."

"Look," I said, sighing. "Worst case, IA comes in and wipes out the force, right? They all get replaced with another batch of cops and detectives. I guarantee you they will be just as easy to turn as this last batch was. There's also the chance that there will be pressure on IA to sweep this under the rug, blame it on one dirty cop and let it go. From what I know, this goes way past the force. It goes up to judges. It goes to juries. It goes to senators and governors. They start pulling at the stray thread, the entire state will unravel. The jury tampering alone... people sent away or let off based on a tainted jury? Any idea what a mess that is?"

"You better be right, Jstorm," Repo said, leaving abruptly, his every step weighted with his anger.

To be perfectly honest... I wasn't sure I was right. I didn't know that this would work. All I knew was I couldn't sit on my hands as the force and the news tried to paint Wolf as a bad guy. Especially when he had killed Lex for me, to make me feel safe again, to give me peace of mind. He did it for me. And he was being punished for that.

Not on my fucking watch. No sir, no way.

"Reign," I called, looking up into the room to find him talking with Cash.

"Yeah babe?"

"Most brutal fuck in the area who will work with me?" I asked.

Reign and Cash shared a look.

"Eli Mallick."

"Yeah but will his rage-out be controllable?" I asked, knowing all about Eli. The Mallicks, a family of loan sharks from the dad to the five sons, had a reputation for ruthlessness. You missed your payment, you got a warning. You missed it again, you got a visit from Shane or Mark or Ryan. You missed it again... that was when Eli darkened your door. And if you got some kind of false sense of security because you already got visited by one of the other Mallicks and were able to recover after some stitches or a knee replacement, well, you were in for a rude awakening when Eli set his sights on you.

Many said Eli was the most brutal of the Mallicks because he was the one with the temperament least meant for a life of violence. He was an artist, a gentle soul. But Charlie and Helen Mallick raised their boys to settle their disputes with their fists, with one another, with the kids on the playground. Violence was a quality every human possessed, buried deeper in some, almost never to surface. But it was a quality the Mallicks dug out of their sons, brushed off, and polished, making them ruthless knee-cap breakers, making them salivate for blood the way Pavlov's dogs did for a bell.

"That's the thing, kid," Cash said, shrugging. "He doesn't rage-out. He goes in so cold it's glacial. Get in his way, get in his face and you'll get his attention. He'll stop. He's not like Wolf."

"Alright," I said, slamming my laptop closed. "Time to go see a man about an old school ass kicking."

"Babe, be smart about..."

"About getting someone out of jail who killed the man who tortured me for sixteen days?" I spat, my eyes going huge at what I had just admitted, not just to Reign and Cash, but to a whole compound full of bikers. Shit.

"Kid..." Cash said, his voice sad.

Reign stayed silent, but his eyes spoke a thousand words. They wouldn't stand in my way. They wouldn't say another word. They would let me do what I needed to do.

"Jstorm," Repo's voice called and I jerked before I turned to see him walking toward me, all the anger gone, his light eyes on me. "I'll take you to Chaz's."

Great. I had their sympathy. Exactly what I never wanted.

"Look," I said moving back a step so I could address the whole room. "I don't need any of your fucking pity, do you understand me? Pity is for victims. I am not a victim. I'm the badass bitch who stormed into your compound and got you jumping to follow orders. I'm the woman who is going to get your road captain off on three counts of murder. So take those sad looks and shove them up your asses. I don't need that shit. I need..."

"A ride to Chaz's," Repo broke in, voice calm, hands in pockets. "So quit your bitching and get your pretty ass in my car before I throw you in there."

Well then.

Normally, I'd want to gut him for the strong sexist undertone in that statement, but it was better than the pity and he was giving me what I wanted. But still... I couldn't just let it slide now, could I?

"Threaten to throw my ass anywhere again and I will find one of those beloved cars of yours and tear out all her guts, then set the bitch on fire, got it?"

"Low blow," Repo said, holding his gut, but giving me a smile. "I got it, Jstorm. Let's get going. Wolf doesn't like being locked up. We're wasting time standing here..."

"Clucking like a couple hens," I supplied, grabbed my bag, and took off outside.

I had a man to see about a good old fashioned passionate ass-kicking.

Twenty

Janie

Chaz's was a watering hole for the local bikers as evidenced by the half dozen chrome beauties parked out front at any time. The building was low and brick with a simple sign displaying the name. Nothing to write home about.

I parked Repo's obnoxious bright green old school muscle car. He had about six of various kinds of said cars that he was currently working on in the field behind the compound. Once they were finished, he lost interest in them and ended up selling them. Apparently, he made a pretty penny doing so.

"Try to tone down the 'tude in here," Repo said, grabbing the door handle at the same time as me and giving me a look until I let my hand drop and he could pull it open.

"Why? I know Helen Mallick, she's a pretty headstrong woman herself."

"There's headstrong women and there's homicidal, batshit crazy chicks. Today, honey, you're the latter of the two."

"Ew," I said, looking over my shoulder at him. "Don't call me honey, honey."

The inside of Chaz's was more upscale than the outside, thanks to Chaz's son Hunter who no longer worked for his dad. He got out a couple years ago, choosing instead to spend his life doing tattoos and making furniture in his spare time. He married a woman named Fiona who ran a phone sex center in town and they had settled down and started a family.

Everything inside was dark, but in a sophisticated, not seedy way. To the right was a bar and a pool table. To the left and back, were tables and booths.

At one of those tables, as was usual, sat Charlie Mallick and his son Ryan. Now there's something everyone knows about the Mallicks, aside from them being trouble with a capital T, and that was that they were all hot. As in
hot.
Each and every one of them was a towering wall of muscle and tattoos. Each of them had chiseled, masculine faces and midnight black hair that just begged you to run your fingers through it. On top of that, as if that wasn't enough, they all had these impossibly light, almost see-through blue eyes. That against the dark of their black lashes and brows... yeah... they were all panty-droppers to be sure.

Charlie was a perfect example of what all his sons would one day look like, still tall and strong and proud, his face no less striking with a few creases near his eyes, his hair no less touchable with a trace of gray at his temples.

"Hailstorm and The Henchmen today," Charlie said, tilting his head to the side. "You two make a good couple."

I made a noise of disgust and Repo let out a vehement 'no' at the same time. "Hey," I said, lowering my eyes at him. "That was rude."

"And your ick sound wasn't?" he countered.

"Passion makes for a good relationship," Charlie pressed kindly, but it hadn't escaped my notice that his other sons had moved in from wherever they had been, like they needed to present a strong front against us.

"She's Wolf's," Repo clarified and Charlie's eyes widened.

"Sorry to hear he got himself locked up, though I'm not sorry about why."

"I need to borrow your son for the day," I said, cutting through the crap.

Charlie smiled, waving a hand around him. "Which one?"

I met Charlie's eyes and my tone got heavy. "Eli."

"Aw, girl," Charlie said, shaking his head, "I see where your mind is going. I can't say I want to get one of mine involved though."

"If this was you, Chaz, and this was someone you loved being locked up for killing someone who the law failed to get off the streets for years..."

"I understand how you feel, Janie dear, but you're risking one of mine getting in the same position as your Wolf."

I sighed, looking over at Repo for a second, but seeing the TV flash with breaking news. I felt myself smile. They weren't even waiting for five.

"Turn the volume on," I called to the bartender who immediately complied. I moved to the side, folded my arms against my chest, and watched.

The newscasters delivered the story I spoon fed them with looks of absolute horror and I knew they must have seen the images before they got edited for air. They saw all the gory details that the general public could only imagine. They did exactly as I expected them to, detailing the reign of terror Lex had inflicted on the women of Navesink Bank, covering the ineptitude of the NBPD, then seamlessly launching into the story about Lex's violent murder, at first thought inflicted by a wild animal, and then talking about the man who took him out. There was an image of Wolf on his way to the court house that morning, standing flanked by two officers and a glowing Marco, his honey-eyes looking right at the camera, his chin lifted. There wasn't a repentant bone in his body.

The news story moved to a close, promising an investigation further into the actions of the NBPD and I felt myself smile, wondering how hard Collings was scrambling to get those rape kits over to the lab.

"You've been busy," Shane said, walking in from the front of the bar, leaving me to wonder how long he had been standing there without me noticing. I was losing my touch. Shane was the biggest of the Mallicks, tall and broad, the kind of strong that came from owning a gym and taking liberal use of it. On his tail was his woman, Lea, who was just about the prettiest person I had ever seen, tall and womanly, with a mass of wavy brown hair and a sharp face.

"You don't fuck with what's mine," I said, lifting my chin.

"Hate to get on your bad side," he said, giving me a wink.