Roderick

by Gadziala, Jessica

  Contents

  Dedication

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  EPILOGUE

  DON'T FORGET

  ALSO BY JESSICA GADZIALA

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  STALK HER!

  RODERICK

  A Henchmen MC Novel

  _

  Jessica Gadziala

  Copyright © 2018 Jessica Gadziala

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for brief quotations used in a book review.

  "This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental."

  Cover image credit: Shutterstock .com/ ESB Professional

  DEDICATION

  This one goes out Cricket, Butchy, and Misty -

  who tried their very hardest to make this book not happen,

  But gave me puppy snuggles on the hard days.

  RODERICK

  A Henchmen MC Novel

  ONE

  Roderick

  V was dead.

  Things had calmed down.

  Meaning they could go back to normal.

  No more looking over our shoulders meant we could open the doors again, have parties again.

  But what kind of parties could we really have with just Virgin and Roan - and me - being single anymore? And Roan didn't even count since he was still up in his glass room saying something about a storm coming.

  So when Reign had a small-time job he needed someone to carry out - just delivering a few rare guns to a collector, not even a criminal of any sort, just someone who liked unique guns that were hard - if not impossible - to find through legal channels, I had jumped at the chance.

  To get out of the clubhouse.

  To get out of the town for a bit.

  It was a cupcake mission, but it would bring me to Long Beach Island, let me get a few days away, maybe meet a fine thing and have some fun before coming back to the oddly empty clubhouse, most of my brothers moving out almost full-time to make lives with their women.

  I couldn't blame them.

  Family, future, that shit was as important as the brotherhood was.

  But I just wasn't at that point.

  Something I had to tell my mother every goddamn weekend when she called or I went to see her.

  Never mind that I had a handful of single sisters, she still felt the need to rag on me about not settling down.

  You're not getting any younger, mijo, she would tell me, making me remind her that I wasn't that old yet either.

  Around the time she started wondering aloud if any of The Henchmen old ladies had any sisters or cousins or good friends for me to meet up with, I generally rushed off the phone or kissed her goodbye, claiming I needed to get back to club business.

  I loved my mother, but she needed to put a pin in the grandma dream for a couple of years still. Settling down was the last thing on my mind.

  "I would normally send at least another man with you, but Henry is an old contact. He was the first contact I ever brought in. Rich as God. There's never been an issue."

  "I've got no worries, prez," I told him, shrugging my shoulders as we made our way into the vault, Reign grabbing cardboard boxes instead of the usual duffel bag for the typical AKs and such we generally got the most demand for.

  "This is the Howdah he wanted," he told me as he dragged out a long, oddly curved old pistol. I paid three. He will pay eight. And this one is the Titanium Gold Desert Eagle," he went on, flashing a golden gun at me. "Five, but he's paying ten. And then this is the Frank Wesson Double-Trigger. Not worth all that much, but for the trouble it took me to hunt it down, he's paying me three grand. So you are collecting-"

  "Twenty-one grand," I supplied. "I can count," I added with a smirk.

  "He's probably going to hand you another list. Don't lose it. Keeping him happy keeps our name circling around to the collectors. They bring in a lot of money without all the hassle like the bangers and shit," he concluded, slipping the double-trigger into a long, thin box before duct taping them all together.

  "Got it. Rep on the line. Be on my best behavior. Get the right amount of money."

  I wasn't exactly new at the lifestyle, but I guess I couldn't begrudge him the Don't fuck this up talk when one of his main guys wasn't on the job.

  "And don't touch his dog. He brings the ugly fucking thing everywhere, but the bastard hates everyone. I ended up with stitches the last time I was over there. Take the SUV, obviously," he added, reaching in his pocket for the keys. "I don't mind you staying over a night. But don't be running around with that cash for longer than that."

  "Got it," I agreed, taking the boxes from him. "I'll text you as soon as the job is done."

  "I'll be waiting," he agreed, staying in the vault as I made my way through the basement, knowing I needed to get on the road soon if I wanted to avoid the five p.m. traffic. I didn't exactly want to be late to my first solo job.

  "Yo," Cash called as I moved past him. "Did Reign tell you about Andrew?"

  "Andrew?" I asked, slowing to a stop, turning.

  "The dog," he clarified.

  "He named his dog Andrew? Whatever happened to Shep or Spot or Rover?"

  "When you meet Henry, I think you'll understand."

  "That's not vague at all," I mumbled, turning around to head into the garage.

  Normally, I'd chafe at the idea of traveling without my bike. I hadn't exactly known much about them before I'd joined the MC, but once I had gotten used to them, no other vehicle could compare.

  That being said, we were heading back into the coldest part of winter, and as I had learned over time, the icy wind slapping your face even just doing thirty on some back roads left your face chapped and painful.

  I was thankful for the roof and windows of the SUV and the heat blasting through the vents.

  What can I say, I was raised in the tropics where it was practically summer all year round. Maybe it wasn't manly to admit it, but my system didn't handle cold as well as the natives around here could.

  So I went ahead and put the butt and steering wheel warmers on too.

  No point in having the luxury shit if no one used them.

  The drive was just a couple hours down the deserted coast.

  Beaches reminded me of home, about getting out of the hell of my house to carelessly jump around the waves, keeping an eye on my sisters while they played. A fair chunk of my life was spent with warm sand sifting between my toes, the sun warming me, saltwater drying on my skin.

  There was the occasional chance for that here too, when things were quiet enough with the club that I could sneak away, joining the overcrowded beaches overrun with out-of-towners who packed like they were moving in - tents, umbrellas, blow-up pools, three coolers, chairs, misting fans, solar panels to charge their phones and the tablets for their screen-addicted kids - when all you really needed was a bottle of water and a towel. And even the towel was optional.

  With V gone, hopefully things would be quiet for a while, letting everyone sit back, relax, get away for a few days.

  We were al
l due.

  And as much as I loved my club, I would like a small reminder of home.

  It was why I set my mom up in a bungalow on a hill overlooking the beach. She could open her windows in the morning, let in the salty air, pack a small bag, and take a ten minute walk across a bridge and onto the beach, collect the mermaid's toenails she liked to painstakingly poke tiny holes in, stringing them together to make a fence around her backyard, the translucent shells catching the light or clicking together in slight winds.

  We couldn't be in Puerto Rico anymore, but I wanted her to have a place that could - even in a small way - remind her of it.

  It had been my mission in life since we left - fleeing under the cover of night - that someday, I would give her the life she always deserved. I hated watching her work two jobs to keep food in our mouths when we were younger, living in noisy apartments with roaches in the sinks. It wasn't until I joined up with The Henchmen that I finally had the money to buy her a house. She partially retired, just working at a little town store that she enjoyed to have social interaction now that all my sisters were off on their own. But she didn't have to work.

  That was my dream for her.

  I had finally made it a reality.

  Sure, it meant I was a few years off from getting my own place. But I didn't need one. I had the compound with my own room and bathroom. And it was free of charge. Besides, what did I need a place for? Just to have another yard to mow?

  See, when you signed up to be part of a biker gang - an outlaw one at that - you didn't exactly think that your life would involve sweating your ass off mowing the grounds. But that was what I had spent my summer doing. It would normally have ended when I got patched-in. But since there were no new prospects, the job still needed to be done.

  So, yeah, I didn't need another patch of grass to mow or floors to scrub or repairs to work on.

  Maybe someday.

  When I was ready to settle down, give a woman a nest to fill with shit only women knew things about. Curtains and carpets and those pillows they toss on everything. A place she could get round in, giving me some sons and daughters of my own.

  Someday.

  But not anytime soon.

  For now, my life was full.

  Brotherhood, women, riding, the occasional dose of action.

  It kept life interesting, but comfortable.

  It was a balance I was happy with.

  I pulled off the parkway into LBI, driving through the area of McMansions before they faded away to actual mansions, ten mil a pop easy for each one. All different, but with similar features. The wraparound porches on multiple levels, raised foundations, in-ground pools, just a few hundred yards to the waterfront.

  My GPS had me going to the end of the street to an estate settled on a piece of property that both had sand toward the front and acres of property to the back, hidden from view by six-foot-tall stone walls with spikes on top.

  The home itself had three levels - all dove gray with white accents, huge, sprawling gardens on either side of the bluestone driveway, the plants dead and dormant for the winter, but promising something spectacular come spring.

  I was almost curious to see it.

  Maybe I'd take a vacation in LBI in the summer.

  Perfect place, a shore town.

  Full of women only passing through, only looking for a casual fling with a guy they'd never see again.

  Sounded like a place I needed to be.

  Not sure what the exact protocol was, I parked the SUV on the street out front, pretty sure this was not the kind of place you risked leaving an oil spill, climbed out, grabbed the taped-together packages, and headed up the driveway.

  The front door flew open, making me slow to a stop, brows drawing together when no figure moved into the doorway.

  And then I met Andrew.

  He was a living, breathing, barking, well, mop.

  Really, that was the only way to describe the fucking thing.

  It was a giant fucking mop.

  With fangs that he was snapping at me as he got closer and closer.

  Instead of fur, what you would find were white dreadlocks that brushed the ground and looked, yeah, mop-like.

  "Andrew, Andrew," A man's voice said, calm, unconcerned, like his beast wasn't barreling down on me with his jowls pulled back to show his teeth, snarling like I was attempting to murder his owner with a dull kitchen knife. "Greet our guest. That's right. Good boy."

  Henry himself was somewhere in his sixties with graying hair styled short and sprayed to submission. His face was mostly wrinkle-free, artificially deep tanned, eyes an almost unsettling light blue. He was tall, but slight, dressed in a cream-colored, perfectly tailored suit complete with a white and green striped tie and a matching pocket square.

  His dog's idea of greeting me was to spin in three fast circles then lunge.

  The box flew out of my arm as the beast took me down unexpectedly, making me slam back on the relentless bluestone driveway, knocking out my air, shooting pain up my back and the back of my head.

  But that pain was short-lived when razor-sharp teeth sank into my forearm, dragging a string of curses out of me that belonged on the street, not in the driveway of a multi-million-dollar mansion.

  "Andrew, boy, why... who are you?" he broke off, voice rising, making something within me stiffen even as Andrew continued to treat my arm like a goddamn chew toy.

  A flash of something to my side had my head turning on the driveway, seeing a body bend down, grab the boxes, and run.

  I saw nothing except long, dark, shining hair and a wet-dream of a perfect ass as it hauled it down the driveway, flew into a waiting black SUV - almost identical to the one I'd been driving - and peeled away.

  Reign had asked little of me.

  But he did expect one thing.

  For me not to fuck up.

  Having twenty-some-odd grand worth of rare guns stolen was practically the definition of fucking up.

  "Call off your hound," I demanded, pushing up which manage to dislodge his teeth for a minute before they sank in again in a new spot.

  Blood trickled, hot and sticky, filling the air around me with copper as I tried to throw out my arm, dislodge the dog so I could get up, run, try to track the SUV and thief.

  "Andrew, my boy," Henry's voice cooed, calm, like he hadn't just lost his precious, hard-to-find guns as his hand finally found his dog's collar, pulling him - and what felt like a giant chunk of my flesh - away. "That's a good boy. Good boy," he consoled his dog whose dreadlocks were stained red with my fucking blood. "No, son, don't," Henry demanded as I tried to get to my feet to run away. "There's no way you'll catch up to them now. They're halfway to the highway already."

  "I have to track them down," I insisted, finally finding my feet, pretending to ignore the way blood was trickling off my fingertips, likely staining his pristine driveway further.

  The burning sensation was intense, but I was trying to ignore it, refusing to look down at it, to assess the damage. That would only slow me up.

  "Yes," Henry agreed, "you do. But I figure perhaps not getting yourself arrested for speeding might be wise. This needs to be remedied. Since Reign is an old friend, I will give you six weeks to fix this situation before I find a new contact. Now, if you'll excuse me, your blood has ruined Andrew's coat. He needs to visit the groomer immediately."

  That was a dismissal if I had ever heard one, making me give him a nod. "I will get your guns back," I guaranteed him even though I wasn't sure how the fuck I would deliver on that when I had nothing but an ass, hair, and nondescript black SUV to go off of. But I would do it. I had to. I couldn't cost Reign a contact. He didn't need any more bad fucking news in his life.

  I turned, moving down the driveway, and I was pretty sure I heard the words, "Did that bad man get you all dirty?"

  Never mind the chunk of flesh I was missing, the blood I was still losing at what felt like an alarming rate.

  But that didn't matter.

&
nbsp; It didn't matter that the blood just kept coming the whole ride back to Navesink Bank, staining the interior of the SUV.

  I could deal with the stains later.

  It wasn't like it was the first time I had ever needed to get bloodstains out of material before.

  Everything was a blur before I turned into the grounds of the compound, making me wonder if it was just road-wariness or a result of the blood loss. I had no idea.

  But I flew into the compound, finding Reign and Cash standing near the bar with Renny.

  "Told you to watch for the fuck," Cash laughed, shaking his head.

  "That was fast," Reign said at almost the same time.

  It was Renny, the astute fuck, who realized it wasn't a dog bite that was the problem. "What happened?" he asked, tone serious, serious enough to make Reign and Cash stiffen.

  "You got any female competition?" I asked, looking at my president.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I was in the middle of getting mauled by that dreadlocked hellbeast when some woman came out of nowhere and snatched the fucking packages. Took off with them to a waiting SUV."

  Not missing a beat, used to bad news, Reign didn't yell or curse or even tense up.

  "What did Henry say?"

  "I have six weeks," I told him with a nod.

  "Then we'd better get to work," Reign told us.

  "No. This is me. My fuck up. My fix," I insisted, shaking my head.

  Reign watched me for a long moment, his light green eyes unreadable as they always were. The inspection would make almost any man uncomfortable, have them shifting their feet, looking away.

  Impulses I fought, wanting him to know how serious I was taking this, that I wouldn't rest until I got the guns back.

  "Yeah, that's fine. You can do the legwork, but we can get Janie and Alex on figuring out who else in the game might want to take me down or has been sniffing around for those guns. You need to get your fuckin' arm sewn up," he added, brows low. "You're missing a chunk of it, you know."