Renny (The Henchmen MC #6)

by Jessica Gadziala

  It meant she was finally going to stop fighting the attraction between us.

  She wanted to take things to the next level.

  "Mmhmm," she murmured, pushing forward so I rolled onto my back and she rolled onto my chest. Her arms planted beside my chest and she pushed up slightly to look down at me. "So about these world-class pussy eating skills..."

  I smiled then, bigger than I had in a long fucking time.

  "Oh, babycakes, you're in for a treat."

  ELEVEN

  Janie

  I was a mess.

  Really, that was the kindest way to put it.

  I mean my eyes actually hurt. Every time I blinked, it felt like sandpaper scraping across my eyeballs. This was thanks to the crying I had been completely unable to stop the past several weeks.

  I hated crying.

  But when the person you trusted most in the world, the person who knew all your dark and twisted and ugly, the person who taught you that you could be loved because of them, was laid up in a hospital bed for an extended time, showing no signs of getting better, well, you fucking cried.

  They told me to be patient. The doctors, that is. Yes, plural. I wasn't about to trust some two-bit emergency room doctor with Wolf's wellbeing. So I took his advice and that of the cranial specialist and the neurologist and the dean of medicine. And, then when I still wasn't sure, I had Lo find me the leading specialist in head trauma and had him flown down to Navesink Bank to give me his opinion as well.

  They all pretty much said the same thing.

  The bullets did damage, sure, but they got them out and he was healing. The real problem was the force with which his head whacked off the ground.

  I had tried to be light about it at first; I even made a joke about how hard-headed he was. Because, quite frankly, in my head, there was no way he wasn't waking right up. There was no way he was going to be laid up in bed for weeks, wasting away.

  But that was exactly what happened.

  The brain swelled, they told me. You had to give it time to go back down. Then and only then would we know if he could wake up. They told me to not get my hopes up for the first few weeks, that it was rare for someone to wake up that soon. Give it three months, the specialist told me. If he showed no signs of consciousness, he would come back then for a follow-up.

  It was a waiting game.

  And, well, anyone who had ever met me knew that I was not, in any shape or form or stretch of the definition... a patient person. And being a person of action, I was having a really hard time sitting on my hands and doing nothing.

  Well, not nothing. I bossed the nurses and doctors around. I gave Wolf his sponge baths because no one fucking else was going to do that. After the first few days of shock and devastation passed, I tracked down our son and I made it a point to spend time with him, even though a huge part of me was still wanting nothing more than to spend every single second beside or on that bed with him.

  Malcolm needed me.

  He was a good, strong, adaptable kid and he had all of The Henchmen and their women and their kids for company, but he needed his parents and being down one, he needed me more than ever. Whether he'd admit that or not. Malc had, in many ways, taken after both of us. He was often quiet, a silent observer, a thinker, like his father. But just as often, he was loud and opinionated and a bit headstrong like me. He looked like Wolf too- broad, stocky, rugged, even at his age. He would be bigger than me by his first year in middle school.

  So every afternoon, I would leave Wolf for an hour or two and would meet up with Malcolm and, usually, Lo at a playground or restaurant or movie. Whatever he wanted to do that day. He never asked about Wolf, because even though he seemed too young to know, he knew, he understood.

  And maybe a part of him wanted to protect me from having to explain.

  Again, so much like his father it was almost painful at times.

  But all the rest of the time, when I was usually on my laptop or on a mission or training, I was holed up in a sterile hospital room listening to the beeps on Wolf's machines and getting more hopeless by the day.

  "A coffee and three energy drinks," Alex's voice said, making me jerk out of my thoughts, turning away from where I had been staring out the window at the river.

  "Hey, what are you doing here?" I asked, not bothering to force a smile like I did for Summer or Maze or Lo when they visited. Or even the men for that matter. Alex knew better. Alex knew me best.

  "I was actually supposed to be here yesterday but Breaker got all growly on me and I, ah, well... we got distracted and lost track of time. Anyway, here," she said, handing me the coffee and putting the bag of energy drinks down on the windowsill.

  "Supposed to be?" I prompted, flipping the tab on my coffee and taking a long drink, making a small moaning sound. "Where the hell is this from? It's amazing." I had been drinking so much hospital coffee that it was almost starting to taste alright to me.

  "It's from some new place in town called She's Bean Around. When Wolf is back on his feet, we are so bringing the girls club there from now on. The girls who own it are fucking hysterical. Anyway, yeah. So... I was called in on this whole Henchmen thing. Lo brought me up to Hailstorm to work with Mina and L on this new lead."

  Right then, right that very second, I got the first surge of emotion that wasn't frustration or bone-deep sadness.

  Because that was all it took.

  I knew.

  I fucking knew they were all in on a plan to keep me out of the loop.

  Poor little heartbroken Janie, we can't tell her what is really going on.

  "Those mother fuckers," I hissed, every muscle in my body going tense.

  "Reign's idea, from what I understand."

  "But Lo and everyone else just went along with it," I bit out, my jaw so tight that it was hurting. "What is the lead?"

  "This is some kind of long-planned, premeditated attack from the Abruzzo family."

  I felt my stomach drop then, falling onto the edge of Wolf's bed near his feet.

  "The Abruzzo family? The Abruzzo family? As in Marco and Long Island and pimping out prostitutes?"

  "As in Little Ricky, ironically named, getting too big for his britches, that's also a bad pun..."

  "The guy is fat is what you're saying," I said, feeling a small smile tease my lips.

  "No. No. He's not fat. He, ah, well he might break whatever scale they use to weigh blue whales. He's a planet to himself. Anyway, yeah, he took over and he for whatever reason set his sights on the arms trade here. I guess he thought The Henchmen were an easy target."

  To be perfectly honest, that wasn't an unfair conclusion. The Henchmen, before they did all the renovations I had only heard about, were a little lax security-wise. The gates were manned, but hardly ever closed. Anyone could prospect. Anyone with tits or a familiar face could get into the club on a party night. They had people watch the grounds, but the grounds themselves were too easily penetrated. As proven the night someone took Summer.

  And, well, they were a relatively small operation. Granted, they certainly had more numbers than, say, The Mallick family or even the Grassis, but there was no going after the mob and while there was money to be made in loan sharking and Charlie and his sons lived good lives, it wasn't quick or easy money.

  If they could come in, kill off the competition, then just move right in and take over, yeah, it would be a big payout in a short period of time.

  The Henchmen, for all their street-like roughness and almost cheap look to their clubhouse, had bank. They had a fucking boatload of money. So much so that Reign didn't even blink when Lo gave him the totals for expensive, rare shit like DARPA glass.

  There was a lot of money to be made in guns. Small militias and criminal organizations all over the world needed guns. And it wasn't as easy as one might think to get connections that could supply that many guns. But Reign had them. And half the eastern United States syndicates used weapons bought directly from The Henchmen MC.

  "You h
aven't been watching TV, have you?" Alex asked, jerking her head toward the small thing hanging in the corner from the ceiling.

  I waved my hand to the pile of books on the windowsill. There was an endless supply always coming in from the people at Hailstorm who knew that was how I generally preferred to spend my time. It was useful too, because I hadn't been sleeping.

  Apparently, even though he was still alive and I could crawl into the bed with him, him not being able to wake up meant that I started getting the nightmares again. Worse, more often, and much more vivid. It got to the point where nurses would come running from the screaming I had started to do again and I just got a mix of frustrated with my memories and embarrassed by the open display of them that I stopped sleeping.

  Alex came in on my third full day of no sleep.

  "No, why?" I asked, brows drawing together.

  "The Henchmen had a visitor a few nights ago from this guy named Lazarus who said he saw people breaking into the gym..."

  "The gym?" I exploded, jumping up onto my feet. "My gym!"

  "Yeah. But by the time Reign and the others got there, someone must have tipped off the cops because they already had two of Little Ricky's guys in custody. Lo had some guys go in once the cops were done and they found bugs and..."

  "And?" I prompted, impatient.

  "And a very badly made bomb," Alex supplied, tone cautious.

  "How badly made?"

  "Like a teenager finding plans online bad."

  I felt myself snort at that, finding it equal parts insulting and amusing. You don't hire amateurs to build bombs. And you don't plant bullshit baby bombs at a place partially owned by a bomb expert.

  What the actual fuck?

  "Janie," Alex said, lips tipped up slightly, "tell me I didn't just fuck up by telling you."

  "Fuck up?" I asked, smiling humorlessly. "No. You did the smart thing. I can finally... help out now. No disrespect to L, but he's clueless dark web-wise. And I know you know what you're doing, Al, but you don't have the kind of time I currently do," I said as I went over to my messenger bag in the corner and dragged out my laptop and a charging cord. "I will find these fuckers."

  "Alright, doll, I gave you ten. We gotta go get Junior from Paine's before he breaks anymore of Elsie's expensive shit," Breaker said, stepping into the doorway, all tall, blond-bearded handsomeness. "Hey, Jstorm, how you holding up?" he asked, giving me a sympathetic smile with sad eyes.

  I was getting really sick of that look. And that whining-type voice people used when they asked how I was.

  So long as I wasn't rocking in a corner, I was fucking fine. Even if I was a mess. Even if I was raging. Even if I was crying. Even if I was yelling at Wolf to wake up.

  Even then... I was fucking fine.

  I wasn't a goddamn China doll.

  "I'm holding up," I said, giving him a small smile, already half-distracted with all the work I needed to do. "Malc is really excited for the sleepover this weekend. Thanks again for having him."

  "He keeps Junior from driving us up a wall," he said as his wife walked over toward him. "We're happy to have him."

  "We'll drop in again in a day or two," Alex said, giving me a smile. "Text me if you want me to drop anything off for you."

  "Will do. And thanks, Al. For being the only one who didn't think I was too weak to handle the truth."

  "You? Weak? Never," she said, jerking her chin at me and walking out.

  I dropped down on the window seat, put my laptop on my lap, the coffee and the energy drinks at my side, and got down to work.

  Really, it didn't take as long as one would think. But maybe that was only because I was personally invested, determined, hyped up on way too much caffeine, and with a desperate need to put an end to the chaos.

  Because while personally, for me, it was all about Wolf. He wasn't the only victim. In fact, he was the luckiest so far. He was the only one who had been targeted who was still alive. There was over a dozen dead.

  And they weren't going to stop, not when the strongest members were still alive and willing to fight it out to protect them and theirs.

  It needed to end.

  By early the next morning, I had been able to track them via traffic cams.

  "Where you going?" Digger asked from the doorway, him being Wolf's guard for the day. He also knew me well enough to know I was too wound up to just be running for coffee.

  "Malc has a school slip I forgot to sign," I lied, internally cringing at using my own kid as a cover, but it was for the greater good.

  He was the son of a Henchmen.

  He would never be safe until the situation was settled.

  So mama had some business to handle.

  I left the hospital, hopping in Digger's car, and driving to the outskirts of town, up the obnoxious hill toward mine and Wolf's cabin, expanded from where it used to be a small one-room structure. It currently had two bedrooms, since we had no plans on more children, and a goddamn ever-loving laundry room. In the house, not in that freaking shed a mile away. That shed was a clubhouse for the kids when they came to play.

  I parked, climbed out, and grabbed a pair of gloves out of the house that almost felt unfamiliar it had been so long since I had been there, then went back outside and started walking.

  Wolf was maybe the only person who knew the exact location of where I went when I needed to do some building. And he only knew because he helped me build it- ten feet under ground with reinforced walls, a hidden door, and several booby traps to keep anyone from stumbling upon it.

  Because I wasn't the kind of woman to build dollhouses or model ships.

  No.

  I built bombs.

  And when there were times that I couldn't work at the place Hailstorm had set up for me, like back when I blew Lex's place to kingdom come and didn't want anyone to know I was in on it. And like right then.

  Because if Hailstorm knew I was there, they would know why, and then the calvary would come to stop me.

  And fuck that.

  I wasn't poor little heartbroken Janie. I was mother fucking Jstorm and someone was coming after half of the people I held near and dear and that shit would never fly.

  I was not going to be that girl. I wasn't going to break. I wasn't going to sit around and woe-is-me and wring my hands and bemoan how unfair the world was.

  I was going to right the wrongs.

  I was going to make them pay for thinking we were weak, that we would lie down and take the fucking, that we weren't going to fight back.

  Because, for all the fanfare, for all the carefully plotted attacks, Little Ricky's organization wasn't as bulletproof as he thought it was. At least not to me, not to someone hellbent on finding them.

  Little Ricky himself, who was every bit as gigantic as Alex had said, was still in Long Island. Because just like he was power and money hungry, he was a coward. He sent others to do his dirty work.

  I would leave him be.

  First, because a vindictive part of me wanted him to suffer, wanted him to know what it felt like to lose his organization, to worry for his own life, for a while.

  Second, because The Henchmen would never forgive me for stealing the chance for them to get their vengeance.

  I was just thinning the herd, culling the sheep.

  They would get to land the final, devastating blow.

  I opened the door, the joints whining from disuse, and made my way down, flicking on the battery-powered lights, and closing the door.

  I wasn't a fan of small, dark, underground spaces, but when it came to things as dangerous as the ingredients in a good bomb, it was safety-wise to be as far underground as possible, to prevent any collateral damage if something went wrong.

  But nothing was going to go wrong.

  I could build a bomb in my sleep I had been tinkering at it for so long.

  They always underestimate in shows and movies how long it takes to make a bomb. They sit a guy at a table, have him throw some pipes together and sprinkle some
powder inside them and they're done.

  Truth be told, it was a long, tedious, painstaking process that you needed to get absolutely perfect or you had a bomb that didn't detonate or only detonated partially. You only got one chance to create the impact you wanted so you needed to do it right.

  So while I was impatient and I wanted to get things handled, I took a deep breath, I compiled all the working parts from the stopwatch to the ammonium nitrate, I sat down at the table, and I slowly set to work.

  Hours later, I sat back, rolling the tension out of my neck and shoulders. It was probably the longest I had gone without sick to my stomach worry about Wolf since the bullets ripped into his body.

  Even remembering it, even just having the quick flash move across my mind, I had to get up and move, I had to try to take slow, deep breaths.

  Nothing had ever compared to that moment.

  I had lived through a lot, a sickening, disgusting lot in my time with Lex, but Wolf had been the one to finally show me a good side of life again. He had helped me sleep. He had brought me back to life. And to stand beside him, a smile still on my face because he was home finally, and hear the bullets break out, to feel him push me behind his solid form, to watch as he went down, as the blood bloomed from the holes in his body, as he slowly slipped unconscious...

  I had felt gutted.

  I had felt like someone had reached into my chest and ripped my heart out of my ribcage.

  I had felt like my world had crashed down around me.

  I had felt truly and utterly devastated.

  I didn't even understand the meaning of that word until that moment.

  I just... lost it.

  And I didn't stop losing it for a long time.

  Hell, I was pretty sure I was still a little lost.

  But at least I wasn't useless anymore. Wolf wasn't the kind of man who would have wanted me at his bedside, tending to him like a baby. He would have much preferred I was getting shit done, getting justice, protecting his people. What was left of them.