Wolf (The Henchmen MC #3) (25 page)

"Don't need to worry about getting on her bad side," Lea said, raising a brow at him. "Right now, you're on my bad side and, believe me, that's bad enough for you. So," Lea went on, seamlessly losing her anger as she gave me a small smile then turned to Charlie, "what does she want from us?"

"Eli," Shane supplied, watching me with keen eyes.

"Yes. Eli."

"For Marco," Shane went on, starting to freak me out with how easily he was reading the situation. I never pegged him for the brightest bulb, figuring he was all brawn, no brain. I guess I had to reconsider that stand.

"Yes," I agreed.

Lea pursed her lips for a second, then turned to Charlie in a way that tossed her hair like the chicks in movies that I didn't think happened in real life. "If you don't let her have Eli, I will go and kick that bastard's ass myself."

Something about the way she said it made it sound like she was capable. I made a mental note to look into her when things finally blew over. I knew so little about Lea and how she came to Navesink Bank. All I knew was she used to work for Fiona Mallick's phone sex business and live in the slums, almost across the street from the Third Street gang's headquarters. Next thing anyone knew, she and Shane were a thing, fighting and fucking and creating relationship goals for everyone they crossed paths with.

But I could tell by the confident way she squared off with the Mallicks and the threatening way she delivered her words, that she had a past of her own. She was, in some shape or form, a badass bitch just like me and Summer and Lo and Alex.

"Baby..." Shane tried, his tone both sweet and sexy at once.

Seemingly completely unaffected though even I was feeling the effects a little, Lea rolled her eyes. "Do you really think you can 'baby' me out of this? Have we met? Hi, I'm Lea and I share your bed and your stupid warehouse apartment, and I put up with you
never putting your shoes in the fucking closet
. And I never, as in ever, bend just because you turn on the charm. That was for your little chippies before me. That shit has never worked on me."

"And don't I know it," Shane said, sighing dramatically, but he was smiling.

"For the love of God, I'll do it," Eli interrupted for the first time. All eyes swiveled in his direction. He was a little smaller than his brothers, just as tall, but not quite as muscular. He was... scrappy. That would be how Lo would describe him. Smaller and fast, wiry, good in a fight because he could easily out maneuver a bigger guy. "Don't give me that look," Eli said to his father, shaking his head. "We have two women threatening to start their own war and a good man going to jail for killing someone one of us should have taken out five years ago. Time to get involved, Pops, whatever the risks."

Charlie sighed, shaking his head. "Gotta do what you gotta do, E. But be smart."

With that, I got my muscle.

As soon as it was dark, it would be time to go get my man.

At this point, I know I wasn't winning any favors with people. I was planning on having one of the very few not-crooked cop's ass kicked. It wasn't that I had no respect for law enforcement. I did, though I found their rampant mistakes and conclusion-jumping absolutely despicable and the amount of innocent men in jail was a statistic I could lay up at night being angry over. But did I like that they, once in a blue moon, dragged in a wife beater and threw the book at them? Sure. Did I like that they showed up at a car wreck and tried to save lives before EMS showed up? Of course.

But, come on, their investigative skills were downright elementary and their holier than thou bullshit was grating to anyone with two braincells to rub together.

Marco couldn't be swayed to accept a bribe or to leave the organizations to handle their business like they had always done. No one had investigated when The Henchmen, Richard Lyon, and Hailstorm took out V the year before. Because anyone with working gray matter realized that we did the world a good deed, taking a heartless skin trader out of the game. Whereas Collings and other members of the force managed to see a lot of gray in life, Marco saw only black and white, only good and bad.

And, well, if it wasn't me and Eli doing it, it would be someone else introducing him to the shades of gray. If he was particularly unlucky, it wouldn't be one of the friendleys. It would be the Italians or the Russians. It would be the Third Street guys. It would be one of the syndicates that didn't just want to scare him, but wanted to annihilate the threat.

Better he learn from me how things went in Navesink Bank than pay for that knowledge with his life.

So that put us in the alley next to Marco's too ritzy apartment in a too nice part of town for a cop salary. Eli gave me a look before he slipped into his gloves and mask. I tied my hair back and brought up my hood, but didn't cover my face. I was going to be standing off in the distance, keeping an eye on things, intervening only if I needed to.

"He drives a Mercedes?" Eli asked quietly as Marco pulled it into his space.

"What the hell is going on?" I asked myself, but out loud.

"Want to fall back till you know?" Eli asked, sounding deflated at the idea.

He hated the violence, but he also craved it. His body was humming with it. If I ventured a guess, afterward, he would be in need of a hard fuck to get the feelings out of his system. Calling him off would be like leaving him with blue balls.

"No. See what he says. Maybe he will give us something to go on. Who knows?"

Eli waited, then in a movement that was so fast I felt vertigo wash over me, he was across the alley and on Marco.

It wasn't what I expected.

It wasn't what Eli expected either.

Marco didn't fight with the predictability of a cop, practiced moves from endless hours of grappling. Marco fought like he was trained on the streets, not at the academy. I felt my heart start to slam beneath my ribcage, frantic as a hummingbird's wings.

Something was off, seriously off.

Fuck.

I didn't vet him.

I just figured he was a stupid, cocky rookie.

And, well, that made
me
a stupid, cocky, rookie.

I started walking into the alley, wincing when Eli took a hook to the jaw. But his blood lust was thick and he bent at the waist, running into Marco's center like a human battering ram, slamming him up against the wall. Marco's eyes snapped up and I got a good look at him. How had I missed the hollowness in his eyes before?

I watched as Eli finally let go of whatever control he was holding on to. One minute, Marco was still up and fighting, looking almost cocky. The next, he was on the ground and unconscious, Eli still pounding.

"Enough," I said, grabbing his arm before it landed another fist. "I said enough!" I yelled when he didn't immediately back off.

His head swiveled, eyes finding me, and exhaled a ragged breath. "Right." He climbed off of Marco's prone body, cracking his neck. "Was it just me or was something off there?"

"I need to find out who the fuck he is, because he's not just the squeaky clean cop I was thinking."

"Fights like a street kid," Eli said, reaching up to rub his jaw through his mask. We walked back out of the alley, Eli keeping his head ducked until we passed the last of the cameras, when he ripped off the mask and looked over at me. "Think this is a good or bad thing for you?"

I shrugged. "Why is he so gung-ho to take down Wolf if he's crooked or connected in some way? Is he trying to take out possible competition? If so, that's definitely a bad thing. Especially if whoever he works for is after The Henchmen in particular. That means they want the gun trade. The last thing this area needs is another war over the gun trade. Last time it was disastrous," I said, thinking of Reign and Cash's dad and half of the other members getting killed or locked away. In the end, they managed to push out the competition, but I wasn't sure if the club had ever recovered enough to take on a new threat. They had systematically been vetting and adding new members over the years, but their numbers were still depleted, Reign being much more particular in the kinds of members he would accept.

"He saw your face," Eli reminded me as we closed in on his car, parked several blocks away. Mine was a block down a side street.

"Yeah."

"If he's connected..."

"Yeah," I agreed. I never much worried about being seen by the bad guys. It was kind of hard to be afraid of anything when you lived at Hailstorm with dozens of other people ready to defend you at anytime. "I'm staying at the compound until this blows over," I informed him.

"Smart move. You need anything else..." he extended and I gave him a tight smile.

"I appreciate it, Eli."

With that, I turned and jogged off down the side street, suddenly a little more paranoid than I liked to admit. I threw myself into my car and drove onto the main street, seeing that Eli had waited to leave until he was sure I was safe.

I was surrounded by good men, I realized with a warm feeling in my chest.

The compound was buzzing when I returned, loud music blaring, alcohol flowing, club whores on full display. I felt my lips curl up slightly, wondering how many of them Wolf had slept with in the past before I reminded myself that that was ridiculous. He was a man. He had a sexual history. I couldn't be pissed about that.

"It takes some getting used to," a familiar female voice said beside me as I realized I had been standing there staring.

I turned, taking in the long, wavy red hair, the delicate face, the big gray eyes. The last time I had seen her, I had asked her to hold a dinner party and invite Cash, Wolf, Lo, and her father. I didn't tell her why, just that it would help keep them safe. In a way. She fed them as I set bombs at all their headquarters.

Summer.

She was Reign's woman.

"What does?" I asked.

"The women mostly. I mean the music and the drinking can get old, but the women... they can eat at you. Doesn't take a genius to know our men have slept with most of them," she said, her lip curling much the same way mine had. As she said that, my eyes landed on one of the women in particular who whipped off her top while she sat on the lap of one of the men. Yeah she wasn't wearing a bra. And no one else seemed the least bit phased. "Reign is faithful. Cash is too," she added, nodding to where the two in question were sitting at the bar, chatting with a few of the older members of the club. "But you get it, it never sits right that they are around all this."

"That why you're here?"

"No, I usually avoid coming when the women are here. I come earlier in the day and leave before they call them in. But Reign is worried about Wolf so I thought I should be around." While she was speaking, her eyes were on Reign, looking soft and warm. As if sensing her, he looked over and gave her a small smile before turning back to his men. "Come on," Summer said, tugging the sleeve of my shirt. "I'll take you to Wolf's room. I put all your stuff up there when they started showing up," she waved a hand to the place as a whole. "They're nice guys and all but sometimes they forget that they can't rest an open beer on a laptop."

She led me up a hallway past a dozen or so doors, some open, some closed with unmistakable noises coming from behind them. I was hit with a stab of longing so strong it was a wonder my legs could keep me moving forward. Summer fished a key out of her pocket and unlocked the door. "This is yours now," she said, handing it to me as we went inside.

The room wasn't huge and it was dominated by another giant bed like at the cabin. This one had a black and gray plaid comforter and I felt the tears sting my eyes at seeing it. The room smelled like him too. I had been so busy working on trying to get him free that I hadn't given myself much time to think about him, miss him. It all hit me right then, standing in the doorway, making my heart hurt and the air hard to breathe.

"I washed the bedding," Summer supplied, snapping me out of my sadness. "When Reign first stuck me in his room, he didn't think twice about sleeping on the skeezy sheets. Figured I'd save you from having to strip the bed and bear the basement."

"Thanks. Basements and me... not a good combination," I shared, surprising myself. She had that quality though, a warmth, almost maternal, that made you want to open up to her.

She gave me a wobbly smile. "When V had me," she started, recounting the months she spent with a local skin trader who used her as a pawn to try to get her father to let V use his shipping containers to bring in women, "the basement was where all the beatings and... everything took place. It took me a long time to be okay with basements too. Anyway," she said, her tone getting cheery again, "Reign and I are two doors that way," she pointed. "Cash usually doesn't stay here anymore. He and Lo go to his place. But if you need anything, just ask."

"Thanks Summer," I said and watched as she moved into the hall. She turned away, then back, looking like she was fighting whether or not to say something. "Just say it."

"I'm glad he's dead," she said, shrugging. "And I'm glad you came to me for help. I know it ended up not really being much help, but still. Everyone always turns to the men. It's nice to be thought of."

"We girls got to stick together," I said with a tight smile.