Lazarus (The Henchmen MC Book 7)

by Jessica Gadziala

  The bastard.

  "Um, excuse me? Fuck my attitude out of me? I don't know who the hell you think..."

  I lost the rest of my sentence when he stalked suddenly toward me, hand going behind my neck hard, lips crashing down on mine and cutting off whatever I had been planning to say.

  It wasn't a quick, hard kiss either.

  It was hot and long enough to burn deep until my entire body was lapping flames, very much needing the fuck he promised a few moments before.

  He pulled away, leaving my lips feeling swollen and sensitive.

  My eyelids fluttered open to find him grinning, not smiling or smirking, but freaking grinning like a boy on Christmas morning.

  "We finally had our first fight."

  "That wasn't a fight," I insisted, stomach clenching painfully as I realized it totally, totally was.

  "Sure as fuck was. With yelling and throwing shit to boot."

  "Lazarus, I didn't mean..."

  "I'm still here."

  "What?" My brows drew together, completely not comprehending what that meant.

  "We had a fight. You shrieked and yelled and threw shit at me. And I'm still here."

  Oh.

  So he picked up on my fear of fighting with him.

  Not surprising seeing as he seemed to pick up on every damn thing.

  "You gotta bitch at me sometimes."

  "I'm pretty sure no guy likes being bitched at."

  "Sure they do. Know why?"

  "Why?"

  "Because it proves you feel safe with them."

  Oh again.

  That actually made a lot of sense and I almost felt guilty for spending the last several months not arguing for things I wanted or didn't want.

  "And," he added, his smirk taking a turn toward wicked, "there's the make-up sex too."

  "Oh, really?" I asked, my own lips twitching for a long minute before the smile broke free.

  "Mhmm. We should probably get on that, don't you think?"

  Oh, I thought alright.

  So then we did.

  And it was as hot as I always heard it could be.

  Lazarus - 1 year

  "It's a shithole."

  That was Pagan.

  He apparently had very strong opinions on the house I just bought.

  It wasn't exactly pretty, sure. But it was definitely a step up from my old apartment.

  Fact of the matter was, I didn't spend much time there. First, because it was easier being at the compound. Second, that Fixer firm thing Janie warned me about was finally up and fully functioning which brought with it a lot more traffic, some sketchy clients, and the kind of overly paranoid surveillance that made me nervous even though I didn't do a fucking thing wrong.

  It was time to move.

  Besides, Bethany and I needed our own space.

  My apartment and the room at the compound, while she settled into both, were definitely sort-of mine still.

  We needed a new place we could work on together, build a future in. Which was why the place I chose was on the same street as Repo and Maze's, one street away from the compound, and perfect starter home sized with three bedrooms and one and a half baths and just enough of a yard for kids or dogs but not enough to be a real chore to take care of.

  It was old.

  And dated.

  And maybe a little bit shithole-ish.

  "It's a fixer-upper," I corrected.

  He shrugged at that. "It's gonna take a lot of goddamn work."

  "Never been afraid of rolling up my sleeves and getting to work, man. I see a lot of potential here."

  Bethany- 2 years

  Pagan once told me that when Lazarus showed him our home, before I even knew it existed, before there was even a ring on my finger promising things like houses and white picket fences and babies, that when Pagan called it names and said it was a lot of work, that Lazarus hadn't balked at that.

  No.

  That wasn't my Lazarus.

  He said instead that he wasn't afraid of hard work and that he saw potential.

  It came back to me then, sharp as if she had said it to me that very morning.

  Find a man who buys the half-dilapidated fixer-upper, she told me, and not the guy who buys the brand new model. The guy who can see potential and is willing to roll up his sleeves and get to work and make it the best it can possibly be, who will love discovering all the hidden gems hidden inside, all the history, all the layers, that's the kind of man you want to settle down with; not the guy who only sees the pretty, the perfect. Because one day, that pretty and perfect will need work. And he won't want to do that. He will just move on to the newer and prettier.

  I think I had scared the shit out of Pagan when a giant, uncontrollable, loud as hell sob escaped me and I threw myself into his arms and cried through his shirt.

  "Jesus fuck, alright," he had said, sounding lost as his hands went awkwardly around me for a second before he relaxed and just let me work through the realization that there absolutely, positively, one-hundred percent for sure were signs.

  My mother said those words years before.

  And Lazarus had almost repeated them back to me.

  I had never told him that story.

  That was mine. My perfect memory of my mother that I simply didn't want to share. I wanted to selfishly hold onto it.

  So him saying it?

  As if I needed one anyway.

  But it was definitely a sign.

  It was as sure a sign of his rightness as the fact that he had sat beside me twice a week for two years at meetings, as him telling me I could do it when I got up for the first time and told my story, as him getting down on one knee in the middle of a Henchmen cookout, making a embarrassingly perfect scene in front of all our loved ones, and asked me to give him the rest of my life.

  I never even knew a hint of the feelings I felt for him before.

  It was new and scary and strange and wonderful and beautiful and the best possible outcome that I could have never seen coming.

  "I dunno. I think I liked the green better."

  That shocked me out of my thoughts, having been staring out the window of the small bedroom for a long couple of minutes. I did that a lot more than I ever had before- remember, plan for the future.

  Before, my past had been full of sadness and pain.

  And I had no future.

  So much had changed.

  "You said the green was too greeny," I sighed, throwing out an arm that I forgot had a paintbrush in it and managed to splatter a streak of blue across his face, making my mouth fall open, ready to laugh.

  When he reached up, swiped a bit of it, and looked down at it and declared, "Yeah, but this blue is too bluish," I did- throwing my head back and laughing until my belly hurt.

  His arms went around me tight, pulling me against him, smiling down at me.

  When I finally got ahold of myself, my paint-smeared hands moved up his arms and went around his neck. "How about a blue-green and we call it a project done already? We've been working on this room for three weeks already."

  When Lazarus said 'fixer-upper', bless him, he meant that literally everything inside of it needed to be pulled out and replaced from the floor and the walls to the wiring and heating system. Really, all said and done, it ended up costing as much to fix it as it cost to buy it in the first place.

  But our touches were in every single square inch, as well as the touches of those we loved. Reeve was behind the walls where he had carefully replaced our wires. Pagan was in the floorplan because he apparently had a knack at it. Edison, Reign, Wolf, Repo, Cash, Duke, and Renny were all in the new Sheetrock and hardwood floors. The girls club was in all the furniture and curtains and towels and all the house stuff. Except Janie. Her housewarming gift was a sand a speed bag in the basement. Ross Ward was in the fence he had bought and help build, insisting that fences made good neighbors, because Ross Ward was all about his literal and figurative guards.

  It was worth every penny
and every ounce of 'sweat-equity' we and our friends had put into it.

  Because pretty soon, in about seven months, we weren't going to be the only ones living there anymore.

  As if sensing my train of thought, his arms slowly slid down to my ass as he lowered himself to his knees in front of me, resting his head against my still-flat belly. "Blue-green is more neutral," he agreed.

  We hadn't exactly been trying to get pregnant.

  We both agreed we wanted to get the wedding in the works and then we would talk about babies, but both agreeing that we wanted a couple of them.

  We had always been careful too- condoms because I couldn't do the hormones of the pill and the other options made me kinda cringe.

  And one night, coming home with a brand spanking new box of condoms in a reputable brand and putting it on exactly how he was supposed to and not having it leak... we had still somehow created a baby.

  "Maybe it means we're supposed to have a little flower girl or ring bearer at the wedding." His arms folded around me from behind, his chin resting on my shoulder as we both looked down at the stick on the counter that was, essentially saying: ready or not, here I come!

  That phrase was so perfectly Lazarus that in the moment, I felt tears sting at my eyes.

  Because he just took things as they came- no fighting, no worrying.

  And he was always able to see the reason any situation meant something in the bigger picture.

  Lazarus - 3 years

  "I still think Cyrus is a great name for a kid," Cyrus said, sitting on the windowsill in the hospital room strumming his guitar and humming quietly which was literally the only thing that stopped my son from crying. We had tried, when Cyrus left the night before, to put some soothing guitar music on my cell to quiet him down for the night so Bethany could get some rest, but it was no use. If it wasn't the real deal, he wasn't having it.

  "Edison, Reeve, Cash, Pagan, and Renny all declared the same thing," Bethany insisted, her dark eyes purple-rimmed from lack of sleep and her voice small. "We're not picking favorites."

  "Right," he agreed with a nod. "That is all very... diplomatic. Besides, we all know it's no contest. I'm the favorite. It just goes without saying. I have the magic fingers," he added, stopping strumming and it was only a matter of seconds before the baby started screaming again.

  "You do realize you have just booked yourself a full-time gig at our place, right?" Bethany asked, smiling warm if a bit defeated-looking.

  "Sure. We'll be there," he agreed, moving closer to the little incubator thing they kept the babies in and starting to sing quietly.

  Yes, we.

  Cyrus was part of a we.

  And his girl, well, let's just say him deciding to date her caused major conflict with some allies of ours in Navesink Bank and the outside world as well.

  But that was a story for another day.

  "What's that look?" I asked, moving up and sitting on the side of the bed before she scooted, wincing a bit as she did so, to make room for me.

  "What about Charlie?"

  "Charlie?" My brows drew together, trying to place the name, but coming up blank.

  "Chaz's."

  Where we had, for all intents and purposes, met

  "No. Never mind. That wouldn't be a fun story to explain," she said, rolling her eyes at her momentary loss of sanity. "Ross? I mean, he's the reason you stayed in Navesink Bank in the first place."

  That wasn't wrong.

  But I knew Ross enough to know he wouldn't like that one bit.

  That just wasn't his style.

  "Or... Nave?" she suggested. "Like the town itself? Where I grew up. Where you felt led to. Where we met and where we fell in love and where we created a family out of our friends and a baby out of it all..."

  "Fucking perfect," I agreed, wrapping an arm around her gently, not wanting to squish any sore spots.

  "Hear that, kid? You finally got a name. Three days later," Cyrus informed our son who let out a shrill cry. "Well, I think he wants the boob, Mama," he declared easily, putting down the guitar and picking up the baby and bringing him over to us before excusing himself so Bethany could have some privacy as she helped our son latch on.

  The second he did, she looked up at me, her hand going to the side of my face. "I love you."

  My smile was warm, knowing that no matter how many times she said it after I practically had to drag it out of her six months into our relationship, I would never get sick of hearing it, of knowing every godawful shitty thing I had been through, had done in my life was exactly what had to happen and what I had to do because it led me to her. And in leading me to her, it led us both to Nave.

  My hand moved out, stroking down the side of her cheek then sliding down the cleft in her chin. "I love you back."

  XX

  DON'T FORGET

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  ALSO BY JESSICA GADZIALA

  The Henchmen MC

  Reign

  Cash

  Wolf

  Repo

  Duke

  Renny

  The Savages

  Monster

  Killer

  Savior

  --

  DEBT

  For A Good Time, Call...

  Shane

  Ryan

  The Sex Surrogate

  Dr. Chase Hudson

  Dissent

  Into The Green

  What The Heart Needs

  What The Heart Wants

  What The Heart Finds

  What The Heart Knows

  The Stars Landing Deviant

  Dark Mysteries

  367 Days

  Stuffed: A Thanksgiving Romance

  Dark Secrets

  Unwrapped

  Peace, Love, & Macarons

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jessica Gadziala is a full-time writer, parrot enthusiast, and coffee drinker from New Jersey. She enjoys short rides to the book store, sad songs, and cold weather.

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  <3/ Jessica