Renny (The Henchmen MC #6)

by Jessica Gadziala

  "There was an explosion across town. We're fine here. No threats. Go back to bed."

  "Renny," I said, raising a brow at him. From what I understood, probates were the low men on the totem pole and subject to crazy or demeaning jobs, but they were still members of the club for all intents and purposes. They were supposed to be in the loop.

  He looked at me, likely reading all that on my face and sighing.

  "Fine," he said, shaking his head at me. "Apparently my woman here thinks you need to be in the loop."

  My woman.

  I felt my belly go a little liquid at that.

  Granted, I was supposed to be his woman in front of the probates, to keep up appearances and keep them from realizing we were vetting them, but it was more than that now. I was, in a way, his.

  Normally, I would recoil from that.

  Fear of intimacy was my thing after all.

  But somehow, it almost felt right to be claimed. Back in that bed, he had claimed my body. And whether I fought it or not, prolonging the process, I knew it was only a matter of time before he claimed other parts of me- most notably, my heart.

  "We'd appreciate that," Reeve said carefully, his eyes unreadable and I realized again how much we needed to look deeper into him.

  "We figured out who the threat is and Reign, Cash, Repo, and Duke are heading to deal with it once and for all. Me, Mina, Lo, the women, kids, and a huge army of men and women from Hailstorm will be by to keep an eye on things around here. That means that Laz will be on kitchen duty and all of you better put your thinking caps on and come up with ideas on how to keep the kids occupied and the women calm. It's going to be a long couple of days. Get dressed and come out."

  With that, he reached his free hand down to take mine and pull me with him out of the room and down the hall to our room.

  He slammed the door, put his gun down, and turned to me, his hand going behind my neck. "You alright?"

  I felt my brows draw together. "I think that's my line in this situation. None of my people are going off to exact vengeance and leaving the whole safety of the club on my shoulders."

  "Who are you kidding," he asked, smiling a little humorlessly. "I might be the last standing Henchmen here, but as soon as Lo is done yelling at Janie about going off without her, she's going to be back here and barking orders. She's more of a leader than I am. I'm just here to keep an eye on the probies and be a familiar face for the kids."

  "I think you underestimate yourself," I said, not liking that he somehow thought he was less than the rest of them. From my understanding, he had taken out a threat the night that Shredder and Vin were killed, saving Duke's life. That was no small thing.

  His head cocked to the side, watching me. "Think I like having a woman trying to defend my honor," he said, moving to grab clothes then kissing me on my cheek as he made his way to the bathroom.

  I took a deep breath, going into the closet and digging for some clothes, settling on the jeans Ash had packed and slipping into a bra, but throwing Renny's shirt back on over it. He came back out a minute later in jeans, a black tee, and his leather cut, his hair a little damp from where he must have wet it to get it back in order.

  I scooted in while he sat down to slip into socks and boots, quickly brushing my teeth and tying my hair up.

  When I came back out, he was still sitting off the edge of the bed. He looked up and held an arm out in invitation. I didn't overthink it. In fact, I didn't think about it at all. I just went to him. As soon as I was close, he grabbed my hips and pulled me down until I moved to straddle him.

  "You alright?" I asked when he said nothing and I couldn't read anything from his expression.

  His smile curved slowly upward, meeting his eyes and making his whole face look devilish. "I didn't get my breakfast."

  "What?" I asked, confused. "Laz hasn't even made it yet."

  "Not what I meant, sweetheart."

  "What did you... oh," I said, feeling my cheeks heat as I remember what he said he wanted to have for breakfast every morning- me. "Well," I said, my own smile moving to match his, "you know they generally recommend three meals a day and two snacks..."

  "Meet you for lunch then. Can't say that lunch won't roll into dinner... and maybe dessert," he said, his hand going behind my head and pulling me to him, kissing me long and hard and deep until my lips felt electric.

  Then, before I could even fully open my eyes, he was standing, an arm around my lower back. "I'd be happy to walk out there like this sugarlips, but I don't know if you want the new puppies to see you clinging to me," he offered and I finally snapped out of it, realizing he was walking across the room with me wrapped around him, and settling my feet on the ground.

  "Right," I agreed, reaching down to make sure my clothes were straightened.

  "Hey Mina," he called, stopping half in the hall.

  "Yeah?"

  "Have I mentioned how fucking worth the wait this was?" he asked, turning and walking away without waiting for a response.

  I followed behind him agreeing whole-heartedly.

  Except, unlike him, the wait hadn't just been a couple months.

  I had been waiting to open up for my entire freaking life.

  And I had the gut feeling that he was absolutely right; it was so worth the wait.

  THIRTEEN

  Renny

  Lo left shortly after the guys filed out, no doubt going to see what was going on with Janie, how much she was going to suffer for keeping the notoriously mercurial and volatile Janie out of the loop.

  Two of the Hailstorm guys were with Summer, Maze, and Penny along with Cyrus in the basement. Cyrus was apparently a big hit once he brought the guitar out and luckily had the laid-back, fun-loving personality to be able to handle children without getting flustered, something that was bound to get him a seal of approval from the women. Fact of the matter was, the kids were a very present part of the group suddenly and that wasn't something that was going to change until the numbers were bolstered and the members trustworthy.

  Things would be too up in the air for a while.

  Even if Lazarus, Reeve, and Cyrus worked out and became patched, the process was just starting. Three new men would hardly be enough. We needed a dozen new men within two years if we wanted to survive. And knowing Reign, he would continue to be as selective as he had always been. He wanted men with their own particular skill sets, men who would be loyal, and men who would respect the way he ran his club.

  "Damn it," Mina hissed, snapping my attention back to where she was standing next to Laz at the stove. Reeve was making a pot of coffee, looking over at her exclamation as well.

  "The first two always come out like shit," Laz consoled as she swiped the very pale, very doughy-looking pancakes into the garbage.

  I liked Laz for a new addition. He was young enough to be capable but old and experienced enough to bring his particular knowledge to the club. Repo would likely pick him too seeing as Laz would give him a break from doing all the fucking cooking.

  The fact that Mina took to him, my initial jealousy aside, was also another thing working for him. She wasn't exactly the type of woman who willingly set herself up for failure. She was too tight, too controlled for that. But she had signed up to cook with Lazarus twice, an act that pretty much guaranteed some screw ups as she learned what she was doing. And had it been just about anyone else teaching her, she probably would have concluded that it wasn't her thing and that she would leave it up to people who knew what they were doing. But because it was Laz and because he seemed as perpetually laid back as a mother fucking sloth but also the ability to encourage you without being condescending, had her reaching for the batter again, dropping a couple dollops down, and trusting in his words.

  I wondered right about then how the ever loving hell he worked as a fighter. Even if the fighting was just on occasion, when it was needed. Maybe, if Ross wasn't in a snit about Laz joining our team and fired him, I would show up and see him in action- just to better under
stand him.

  I'd bring Mina along too.

  Because, quite frankly, now that I had her, I had no fucking plans on letting her go. Maybe that made me sound like a neanderthal, but the fact of the matter was, when a man who had been so committed to non-commitment found a woman who made him want to lock her down, well, he fucking locked her down.

  So we were going to have a date at a goddamn underground fight club because that was about as romantic as a guy from an arms-dealing MC and a girl from a lawless army got.

  "Hey Lo, what's up?" Mina asked, bumping Laz's shoulder and pointing to her pancakes. He nodded his head at her as she moved away, stopping short a foot to my side. "What?" she asked, her mouth falling open. "Really?"

  Then she looked at me and her face split into the biggest smile I had ever seen her have.

  She reached out, grabbing my bicep. "Wolf is awake," she told me and there was really no good way to describe what that kind of relief felt like.

  Where Reign was the spine of the club and Cash was the heart, Wolf, yeah, Wolf was the fucking soul.

  We had been walking around missing a chunk of ourselves for months, no one willing to admit it, but every one of us terrified we would have to learn to live with that absence in our lives forever.

  "Yeah. Thanks. Of course. Tell Janie how happy I am for her," she said, ending the call and pushing it into her back pocket.

  And her first instinct right then?

  It was to wrap her arms around me and squeeze me tight.

  She didn't really even know Wolf, couldn't have shared more than a few words with him ever, so her gesture was entirely for me, not herself.

  That, well, it was fucking telling.

  She was thawing.

  And my theory on her was right. She was every bit as warm as I suspected.

  "How is he doing?" I asked, only loosening my arms enough to let her pull back to look up at me.

  "Lo said he's pissed and wants out of the bed and doesn't want to hear shit about needing more time to heal, that he has spent 'enough fucking time healing' and that he wants to sign out and come back here."

  "Of course he does," I said, smiling at the image.

  While Reign, Cash, and Repo were known to drop in and visit, try to console Janie, I hadn't been able to get to the hospital much. The last time I had seen him had been two weeks before and he had lost a lot of weight and, to me, just seemed like he was fading.

  I had almost resigned myself to the seeming inevitable.

  I was never more happy to be wrong in my life.

  "He's not leaving yet, obviously," Mina added. "Janie won't hear of it until the stitches are all out and they are sure the swelling in the brain is better. So he has at least a week or two more there unless he gets stubborn and signs himself out when Janie isn't paying attention. Which, well, sounds like him."

  "Yeah it does," I agreed, giving her a squeeze. "Does Janie want to tell Malc herself or one of us to do it?"

  "Tell Malc what?" Maze asked, walking in, purple hair tied in a careless knot on top of her head, her belly hinting that she wasn't too far from delivery.

  "Wolf woke up," Mina told her, making Maze stop halfway inside the kitchen, frozen in shock for a long second before letting out a sob loud enough to startle both Laz and Reeve who looked over at her like they were terrified she had gone into labor and they might have to assist in delivery.

  "Get over here, Violet," I said, tucking Mina to one side and holding the other arm open for her.

  And Maze, hardass, badass, ex-probate she was, was a complete emotional mess when she was pregnant. And, given that she and I had prospected together, we had a bond and she didn't even pause before she flew at me, burying her face in my neck, and started crying almost uncontrollably.

  When I chanced a look over at Mina, she quickly jerked her head away, but not before I saw the unmistakable glimmer in her eyes.

  Oh yeah, big warm, softy alright.

  "Lo said to tell him, that he has been as worried as she has and that she doesn't want him to have to wait another minute."

  "Think you should do it, sweetheart," I told her, making her jerk back, brows drawing together.

  "I think I'm the last person who should tell him."

  "It's gotta be one of you women. He's been raised in an MC. He does the stiff-upper lip thing really well and if I tell him, he's going to hold it all in which isn't good. He's gotta cry it out and..."

  "I can..." Maze started to offer, but stopped immediately when I gave her a hard squeeze. "Yeah, you know what," she said, sniffling once and wiping her eyes, "Renny is right. You should tell him."

  "I know him the least," she objected. "I work with Janie and I see Malc all the time around Hailstorm, but I haven't really bonded with him."

  "Well, nothing like telling him the dad he's been worried is going to die...isn't, to bond you guys. Come on, you got this."

  She opened her mouth to object again, but must have picked up on the united front of me and Maze and known that Summer would easily jump on our side and that Penny wouldn't pick a side because she was too new, too unsure of her place still. "Alright," she said, nodding and pulling away from me. "I'll go tell him," she added as she turned and went out of the room.

  "Is this some kind of test?" Maze asked once she was gone.

  "Test?"

  "Yeah, a test. You know... you being an asshole and poking at people. What are you trying to prove here?"

  "I'm not..." I started to object, but Maze maybe knew me a little better than that. "She avoids the kids as much as possible," I said with a shrug.

  "You know how they say that a maternal instinct is ingrained?" Maze asked. "Well, it's not. Some women have to work at it and some women won't show any signs of it until they have a kid of their own. We don't all want to pick up a crying baby or make funny faces at them for hours. And many of us don't have a ticking clock or that uterus-squeeze thing when we see a cute kid. We have shit to do and a life to live. Until one bursts its way into that life, sometimes they just aren't something we are drawn to."

  "I get that, Violet, but I also think that Mina steers clear because she doesn't understand kids. And for someone like her, that is unsettling."

  "So what? You're going to force exposure therapy on her every time you think she needs to get over something? Hate to tell you this, Renny, but she's going to catch on and she's going to get pissed about it." She wasn't wrong. It hadn't even occurred to me that what I was doing was pushy until she brought it up. That was something I had to work on obviously. "For a smart, observant guy, you can be a little dense and clueless. Hone your conversation skills, Renny. You're going to scare her away if you don't."

  And with that sage little bit of advice, she moved away from me and over toward Laz who she promised to name her baby after if he gave her the first couple pancakes.

  I didn't bother to mention that the baby was a girl and they already had a name picked out.

  I heard Mina walk back down the hall toward our room a couple minutes later and gave her a few minutes alone before I called one of the Hailstorm guys in to watch the probates as I went to see why she was hiding.

  I barely got the door closed before she was charging at me, jamming her finger into my chest hard enough to make me slam back against the door.

  "That was bullshit, Renny. I didn't want to make a scene in front of Maze and the new guys, but don't you ever fucking try to test me like that again. I get it. I'm not all sunshine and roses and I don't sit for hours and play Barbie with Ferryn or watch cartoons with Malcolm, Seth, and Fallon. I get that I am not Susie freaking Homemaker. But that doesn't mean something is wrong with me and it doesn't mean you get to try to push me into being something I am not."

  "Mina, I didn't realize I was testing you until Maze called me on it," I said, shaking my head. "Hand to fucking God. I didn't even think it was fucked up. I'm not saying that it's okay that I didn't see that it was wrong, but I'm asking if maybe you can understand that I didn't know."


  Her finger stopped bruising into my chest as she took a deep breath. "I like kids."

  "Okay," I said, shrugging. "And if you didn't, okay too."

  "I like them," she said again, almost a little desperately. "They just..."

  "They scare the shit out of you," I supplied, smiling a little.

  Her shoulders dropped at that, exhaling. "Yeah," she said, nodding, looking relieved that she didn't have to say it.

  "Because they don't have hidden agendas and they don't have motivators you can pick apart and use to predict their behavior."

  "It must be terrifying to be a parent," she said, shaking her head. "You get this thing that you made or you adopted or whatever and it's... blank. It has nothing but basic human urges and only the two innate fears of falling and loud noises. That's it. That's all they are. You turn them into who they become. Every word you say, every word you don't say, every look you give and every touch you offer them and everything you do as a person... it shapes them. That is... that is so crazy that anyone takes that on. I mean you are genuinely to blame if they come out to be little psychopathic narcissists or well-rounded individuals. And no one really has all the answers to tell you how to mold them right. You can screw it up so easily. Don't smile at me like I'm being silly," she said, crossing her arms over her chest and small-eyeing me.

  "It's not silly. Actually, it's a fucking shame that people don't consider those things."

  "Then why are you smiling like that?" she asked, still wary.

  "Because, I gotta be honest here, pumpkin, you're the cutest fucking thing when you're having a near panic attack over something that isn't even a factor in your life."

  "Well," she said, clearly thrown off, "you brought it up."

  "And you gave me a little piece of yourself without me having to pry it out of you," I said, pushing off the door and moving toward her.

  "What are you doing?" she asked, brows drawing together, backing up as I advanced.

  "Know what's a good meal?" I asked as she hit the bed and couldn't retreat any farther. "Brunch. And I am fucking famished."