Lazarus (The Henchmen MC Book 7)

by Jessica Gadziala

  "Who charges a shitton of money each month so she can have as many pills as she wants until he has a full-blown addict repeat customer on his hands," Reign said, nodding. Having been in the criminal underbelly as long as he had, there was very little he didn't understand from the mob to the small time bookies. It was his business to know all other business in the area. "But why this?" His hand raised, gesturing to the side of Bethany's face that wasn't smashed into my chest.

  "She started working for them and got the inside track on everything."

  "So she's a liability."

  "Better to keep her drugged up and complacent," Renny broke in, "than have her get clean and start to see how fucked up they are. I'll bet every office girl they've had has OD'd."

  "He's not wrong," Bethany agreed.

  "Sugarplum," Renny said, big smile in place, "I never am."

  "Which one did that?" Wolf asked, his voice a growl. He, like Edison, really had a problem with men abusing their strength. He had a trail of bodies behind him to prove it.

  "Sunny, the physical therapist," I supplied.

  "Makes sense," Renny agreed, nodding. "He causes the pain in the first place. He's used to it."

  "Alright," Reign said, exhaling. "Well, this needs to be handled. Quite frankly, with this war and every fucking other thing we've had thrown in our way the past couple years, I'm gonna go ahead and sit this out. I think all these fucks would agree," he said, meaning Cash, Wolf, Repo, Duke, and Renny. "But feel free to bring some of your probie brothers with you and handle it. Don't wear your cuts and don't get fucking caught. But put an end to it."

  With that, he pushed off the bar, gave me a chin jerk, and moved outside. It was barely ten seconds until I heard his bike fire up. He had a wife and three kids at home. I didn't blame him for having had enough action to last a lifetime.

  "Wait, I have to tell Beth..." Lo started as Cash moved to drag her away.

  "She can hear it some other time. Right now, we have some... reacquainting to do," he said, leading her into the hall toward his room.

  "Right. Oh, here," she said distractedly as Cash leaned down to say something in her ear, reaching into her pocket and tossing the keys to the SUV at Alex who she had, presumably, picked up and was carless.

  Alex snatched it and gave us a nod as she moved toward the door.

  "Thanks for everything, Al."

  Her brows drew together at that like my thanks were completely insane. "Ah, okay."

  Then she was gone as well.

  Soon after, Wolf grabbed Janie and left. Repo and Renny filed out and Duke went back to his room where, I imagined, Penny was waiting.

  "You okay?" I asked as soon as we had a little more privacy, just Reeve sitting in the living space, flicking through channels. "I know that was hard."

  "I think I was choking on my heart," she admitted, making a small smile creep up on my lips. "But it felt kind of good to get it out there, to not have some giant secret I was keeping from everyone."

  "It's the hardest but most important step," I agreed, wrapping my arms around her body and pressing a kiss to the top of her hair.

  "I don't want to know what you're going to do. About Mitchell, Chris, and Sunny," she clarified. "But I don't want you to do anything if there is even a chance of you getting hurt. Or any of the other guys for that matter."

  "Sweetheart, you saw me fight. And I know you haven't seen Edison in action, but he's a force too."

  "And I'm about one step up from a rabid dog," Pagan supplied as he walked behind us to go into the backbar to grab a bottle of whiskey.

  "One step?" she asked, pulling against my hold to send him a wry smile.

  "Alright, half a step," he admitted with a wink as he took a swig.

  "Come on, you hungry?" I asked, pulling her with me toward the kitchen where some much-needed coffee was waiting for us.

  "My stomach is a little off," she said when I offered chili for an option.

  "Right. Plain is probably better for the next week or so. "Eggs?"

  "I can..." she started to object when I started cracking them into a bowl.

  "Sit your pretty ass on the counter while I make my woman some food? You sure can do that."

  Her smile was the likes I had never seen before on her face- completely unguarded, open, warm, unafraid. I decided right then and there that it was my fucking mission to make her have a reason to smile like that as much as possible until it became as natural to her as breathing.

  Whether she knew it or not, she deserved that.

  She had led a hard life. Not by the standards, maybe, of my fellow Henchmen or their women, but by normal standards because she was, at the root of it all, just a normal girl who got caught in a shit situation. But she had a fuckwad of a father who taught her to be distrustful. She had a mother she loved deeply and had to stand by helplessly and watch as her body turned on her before inevitably killing her. She tried to put her life on track, got hurt, and got caught in an impossible situation.

  And because she was just a normal woman, there was a bone-deep kind of shame in that for her. Guilt because she knew she was raised better, because she knew better, because she never believed herself the kind of person who could become an addict.

  It was going to take time to get her to a place for her to see that it was just a small part of the bigger picture of her life.

  "What's that look for?" She was perched where I directed her, right beside where I was standing at the stove, her feet swinging a little restlessly, likely because her body was still trying to adjust to sobriety.

  "Nothing, babe."

  We ate.

  I took her to bed.

  I fucked her until she came too many times to count, until her body was too drained to do anything but to slip into a deep sleep.

  Then I climbed out of bed, got dressed, and headed out to round up Edison and Pagan.

  We had some wrongs to right.

  FOURTEEN

  Bethany

  I woke up groggily, too tired, too sore in delicious places to even open my eyes for a long time as sleep slowly pulled away. Then and only then, I remembered where I was- in Lazarus' bed at The Henchmen compound.

  My eyes sprang open to find the room dark. That meant nothing, though, because the bedrooms of the compound were completely windowless. It could have been three in the morning or three in the afternoon for all I knew.

  But one thing was painfully clear- I was alone.

  My hand went instinctively for the spot beside me where I had fallen asleep beside Lazarus, his arm heavy over my hip, his hand stroking lazily up and down my back.

  But the sheets were cold.

  He hadn't been there for a while.

  But, again, I had no idea what time it was. Maybe he had gotten a full night of sleep and went out into the clubhouse to eat or hang with his brothers or whatever.

  I climbed out of bed, took a shower, redressed, found out it was only about seven at night, and headed into the main room.

  In doing so, conversation halted between Penny and Duke and Reeve.

  And I knew.

  I knew.

  He left me.

  Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised. I knew he was going to handle the situation with Mitch and his sons. But I had figured there was no hurry in that. I thought he was going to spend some time with me. He needed to rest. If he had reached me the day before, it obviously meant he hadn't slept the night before. He was going on forty some-odd hours with no rest.

  It wasn't like Mitchell, Chris, and Sunny were going anywhere.

  And it wasn't like they were an immediate threat.

  We had been safely inside the walls of a seemingly impenetrable building with fences and guards and guns and big, scary biker guys.

  Suddenly, I cursed myself for saying I didn't want to know. Maybe if I demanded details and he told me his plan, I could have talked him into giving it some time, not going in so hot.

  Not sure what to do, I went into the kitchen, got some cof
fee.

  And I paced.

  I had never been a pacer in my life before. In general, I was a 'throw myself in bed and lose myself in mindless TV' kind of person when I was stressed out. It was likely my body's new response to withdrawal to flood me with adrenaline. My stupid, confused body.

  So despite it not being like me, I paced the floor of that small, stark kitchen until I'd swear I wore treads into the floor. Then, not feeling any better, I went in search for cleaning supplies and gave my mother's old stress habit a try.

  Nothing like a clean house to make you feel better about life, she used to tell me as she scrubbed dishes and I sat at the kitchen table doing my homework.

  But three hours later, my nose was burning from the smell of bleach; my hands were pruny and red; blood was crusted around my nail beds from the merciless scrubbing of the kitchen floor.

  "Hey, you alright Beth?" Penny asked, her tone a little hesitant as she stood in the doorway, a worry crease between her brows.

  "I'm worried about Lazarus," I admitted, surprising myself. "And I don't really handle stress as well as I used to anymore so I'm just..." I trailed off, my voice catching on a sob as ridiculous tears stung at my eyes.

  My emotions had been flip-flopping for hours- anxiety and fear and anger and hopelessness. I practically had whiplash from how quickly I could whip from one to another.

  "Okay," she said a little tightly as she backed away, reaching for her phone.

  I had no idea until about half an hour later that she had just called in reinforcements.

  Meaning... the girls club.

  Times a bunch because there were faces I had never seen before.

  There was Penny, Lo, Janie, Summer, Maze, and Mina- the Henchmen women. Alex was also there. But there was also a short, curvy brunette who was introduced as Amelia, and tall, drop-dead gorgeous blonde they called Elsie.

  "So, since no one else is willing to be blunt with you," Alex piped up, being shushed by at least three of the other women who she promptly ignored, "Penny called us because you're freaking out and she doesn't want you to fall into a bottle of pills. We're here to... what was it, Amelia?" she asked.

  "To support and listen to her," Amelia said, big-eyeing Alex who shrugged.

  "Amelia is a drug counselor," Penny explained. "She's the wife of one of our friends, Shooter. We figured maybe you would want to sit down with her for a while and talk about how you're feeling."

  "Or we can all just hang out and do like... makeovers or something," Janie added, her face curling up in complete and utter disgust, obviously not a girlie girl at all.

  "You didn't even try to make that sound fun," Maze said, rolling her eyes at her.

  "Sorry that nail polish doesn't interest me. I'm only going to chip it off when I throw someone over my shoulder and beat the ever loving shit out of them anyway."

  "I think we have gotten a bit off track here," Summer tried to wade in, being a voice of reason. "We're here to help Beth feel better. And maybe not convince her that we're all complete whack jobs."

  "Give it up, Summer," Lo said with a smile, shaking her head as Maze and Janie started getting louder and louder. "There's no stopping this and you know it."

  "You wanna go?" Janie said suddenly, making my attention shoot to her and Maze. "You're all healed up now. No sore lady bits. I will take you down."

  Were they really going to fight?

  Right there in the kitchen?

  Maybe even a teensy part of me that was very much my mother added: on my nice clean floor?!

  But then Cyrus was there behind the group, throwing a friendly arm over the shoulders of Amelia and Elsie who were on either side of him. "We're all hanging out? Why wasn't I invited?"

  Then everyone was talking at once, female voices to varying degrees of loud, Cyrus butting in-somehow out of place but still welcome. Some point during everyone pouring into the kitchen, making coffee, and making food, Amelia broke away from the rest, her head ducked to the side. "Come on, let's go talk," she said, touching my hip then turning away, leaving me to follow her toward the hall and down the stairs to the basement, seemingly the only empty space in the whole clubhouse.

  There were two sets of bunks to the left at the bottom of the stairs and Amelia took one and motioned to the other.

  "So, how are you holding up?"

  "Honest?" I asked, shrugging. "Not as good without Lazarus here."

  "He's a safe place. You only just told everyone else and it is too soon to really gauge how they are going to react. It's natural to want to have him here to lean on and talk to. He doesn't just sympathize; he understands."

  That was true.

  No one who hadn't been an addict could truly grasp the overwhelming powerlessness of it all, could know what daily strength it took to not go out and put an end to the jumpy feeling inside, the swirling emotions, the aches and pains.

  Lazarus got that.

  "I'm worried about him."

  I wasn't exactly the type to share that kind of information easily and openly. I tended to be a more 'suffer in silence' type. But I was also self-aware enough to know it wasn't healthy, it wouldn't help anything, and it was likely how it had been so easy to fall into an addiction.

  "Not therapist to client here, but girl to girl who is with a guy in a dangerous job too- they can handle themselves. You're never going to not worry about them when they are on a job, but after the first five or six times, you start to realize they generally don't even come back with scratches on them."

  "He shouldn't even be handling this. This is my problem."

  Her smile spread slowly, making her look a little wicked. "That's something you're going to have to get used to about these men too. You don't get to have a problem without them sticking their nose in it and trying to fix it. Johnnie once tried to like Life Hack my period. In case you're wondering, that pressure point thing for cramps does not work. Though him coming home from work with a bag full of chocolate and a pizza for the kids really does."

  There was no mistaking it.

  It was in the way her eyes went all melty, the way her voice took on a softer tone, the way her smile threatened to split her face.

  She and Johnnie were the real deal.

  There was a strange longing feeling in my belly right then.

  It was new to me, always being someone who cut the strings before they could wrap me up. But I realized with blinding clarity that I wanted what they had. I wanted what Reign and Summer had, what Wolf and Janie had, what Cash and Lo had, what Maze and Repo had, what Duke and Penny had, what Renny and Mina had and what I imagined Alex had with Breaker and Elsie with Paine.

  I wanted that 'can't imagine a life without you' love.

  I want that love that could still give Amelia that look even after two kids and years together.

  I wanted that.

  With Lazarus, my heart added.

  Don't get ahead of yourself, my brain chimed in, you might love him, but he doesn't love you yet.

  "On a scale of one to ten, how bad do you want to use today?"

  I shrugged at that. "I don't ever want to use again. But the urge is maybe stronger than it has been since when I was actively withdrawing. A five? Six before you guys all showed up."

  "Well, six isn't that bad," she said, shrugging it off. "And it might seem like the cleaning behavior was over the top, but it's normal to find a crutch like that to fall back on. It's not unhealthy. But I do think you need to find someone other than Laz who you can lean on when you're having a bad day. I don't think I have to tell you that this isn't the only one you will have. And there are going to be times when Lazarus can't be around. I'm, of course, always around and literally any one of those women out there will drop anything for you should you need it- drag you up to Hailstorm and teach you self-defense, take you into town for coffee or shopping, take you out for target practice. Anything to get your mind onto other things."

  "It's a pretty incredible thing, this girls club."

  I had
never seen such a large number of very different women get along so well. And it was amazing how they all managed to play off of each other. It also said a lot about each and every one of them that they so willingly opened their arms to any new woman who came along, brought them into the fold, helped them get acclimated. Even though I was practically a stranger to them, they knew I was struggling and they just showed up.

  Just the thought of that made tears sting at the backs of my eyes. I blinked hard against them, not wanting to open those floodgates because with how high-strung I was feeling, I knew it would lead to ugly snot crying and no one needed that.

  "Some of the girls kind of are in this lifestyle like Lo and Janie and in a way, Maze. But for the rest of us, we normal chicks, it really helps to have them around to help normalize a situation that otherwise is anything but normal. They're all truly the best women I have ever met."

  I didn't doubt that.

  And while a part of me felt like an outsider, felt like someone who maybe they would see as an interloper, I really liked the idea of having that kind of support system. Amelia was right; it would help to have an array of people to choose from to call on a bad day, to just help me get out of the house and out of my own head.

  It would take some time, but I was pretty sure I could get to the point where it would be natural to pick up the phone and call any of them.

  And, honestly, I was kind of interested in learning some Krav Maga.

  "Come on, let's go back up there and see what they have planned for the rest of the day."

  Then we did.

  And they had a lot planned.

  And, albeit briefly, I stopped worrying about Lazarus.

  Until the girls all eventually had to file out to go home to their husbands or kids or boyfriends.

  I climbed into bed and, after a short reprieve, the worry came back stronger, a tidal wave that grabbed me and pulled me under, not letting me up for air until sometime in the darkest hours of night, the door to Lazarus' bedroom creaked open and he walked in.

  I hadn't been sleeping so I hadn't shut out the light.