Colson (The Henchmen MC Book 20)

by Jessica Gadziala

  I had to.

  No matter what it took.

  Even if I had to send him kicking and screaming to his father for a while, as much as my heart ached at the idea. Whatever it would take to get him on the right path again, that was what I had to do.

  "I guess there are always those juvenile crime prevention programs to enroll him in," I mused. "Give him an hour of inmates screaming at him, and he will realize just now not-tough he really is," I added, smiling.

  "You're joking, but it is an option. Hell, I could probably scrounge up a couple guys to scream at your kid for a few hours," he offered. "I know this crazy bastard named Pagan who would make that kid piss himself if he got in his face."

  If you'd have told me a year before that I would actually seriously consider contracting out discipline to some one-percent biker by the name of Pagan to deal with my difficult son, I would have laughed.

  Now, though, it didn't sound so funny.

  It sounded like a last-ditch option if nothing else I could come up with worked.

  "You know all the cool people, huh?" I teased. "A woman named Gus. A man named Pagan..."

  "Hey, Dad, what do you think?" Jelena's voice joined us in the kitchen, turning her head side-to-side, her braids swinging around.

  "Lookin' beautiful, baby. This is Miss Eva," he said, nodding his chin toward me, giving his girl a 'don't forget your manners' look I knew all-too-well.

  "Eva," I corrected, giving her a smile. "It's nice to meet you, Jelena. Thank you so much for letting my mom do your hair. She gets confused sometimes."

  "It's cool. She was telling me about her wedding. Did you know there was a flood?" she asked, eyes bright, excited to hear the story that had fascinated me once upon a time as well.

  "And that her fiancé carried her across town so her dress wouldn't get wet? Isn't that sweet, Dad?" she asked, tone almost too bright, too cheery, too... suggestive?

  She was up to something.

  And, judging by the brow raise her father had, I figured he sensed it too.

  "Yeah, baby, very sweet. Now go on back home and get that book report finished, okay?"

  "Okay," she agreed. "Nice to meet you," she told me, giving me an enthusiastic smile, big enough that I bet her cheeks hurt.

  "You too, sweetie. And thanks again."

  "I'll get out of your hair too," Colson said, and I just barely resisted the urge to tell him I'd very much like his hand in my hair, giving a good pull. And that was saying something. Because I didn't let anyone mess with my hair. Clearly, three hours of sleep was just not going to cut it.

  "Thank you so much for helping me out. If you ever need a hand with Jelena, I promise I am not the terrible parent Jacob makes me out to be," I told him, giving him a wobbly smile.

  "Here," he said, walking over toward my fridge, grabbing the grocery list pad stuck there, flipping to a clean page that did not have a shopping list that included 'max flow tamp,' and I prayed to God he didn't see that before he flipped the page, and jotted down his number. "That's my number. If you need anything, let me know. I'm usually around. And even if I'm not, I can almost always get away if there is something going on. Don't hesitate, okay?" he asked, giving me a hard look. "I mean it, Eva. Don't be proud. We parents are in this shit together. Call if you need me."

  "I will. I really appreciate it."

  "Text me so I can have your number," he demanded, giving me a chin jerk as he made his way out of the kitchen.I moved into the doorway, watching him as he made his way out of my home, then turned to watch him walk past the kitchen window on his way to his home.

  Sighing, I moved back into the kitchen, filling a pot with water, and putting it on the stove for pasta. Gourmet, it was not, but it was fast and easy and would keep us all going. Somedays, that was the best you could do. Maybe I had some frozen veggies I could toss in the microwave to assuage my mom-guilt.

  "Harriet's man is handsome," my mother told me, walking into the kitchen.

  I never corrected my mom when she got confused on little things like names. It only confused and stressed her more, which made everything worse.

  "He really is, isn't he?" I asked instead, smiling a little.

  "Tall."

  "Very tall," I agreed.

  "Nice voice."

  "He smells divine too," I added, wishing I knew what cologne that was so I could spritz my pillowcases with it. It didn't look like I was going to find any time with a man in my near future, I figured smelling one could ease the disappointment of that.

  "You keep your hands to yourself," she snapped, suddenly angry. "You always were a little whore."

  "Mom!" I said, half laughing at the absurdity of that comment.

  "I wouldn't want to be your momma, Diane."

  Oh, yeah.

  That made more sense.

  My mother's half-sister Diane had been a black sheep of the family ever since she stole the husband of one of her cousins right from under her.

  "Don't worry. I have no time for a man right now. I have an ungrateful son to deal with."

  To that, she had nothing to say as she took a chocolate pudding out of the fridge, then brought it back out to the living room.

  "Mom," Jacob's voice called a couple moments later, making me jolt, realizing I had drifted to sleep. "The water is boiling," he told me, sounding apologetic for waking me.

  "Shit," I said, popping out of my chair, going to turn the heat down as I dug around for whatever pasta we had on hand.

  "I finished my homework."

  "Good. How is history going? I asked, knowing he struggled.

  "It's fine. Mom, I'm sorry I didn't tell you where I was going."

  "Not telling me wasn't really the point in this instance, Jacob," I told him, throwing some bow ties in the pot since that was all we had. "The point was that you know I didn't want you there, but you went there. And then you made me go there to bring you back. That was the point. And we haven't even talked about that bullshit stunt last night. You made the freaking neighbor sit up until I got home."

  "He should have minded his own business," Jacob insisted, chest puffing up.

  "Watch it," I told him, leaning against the counter, crossing my arms over my chest. "Listen to me. You are fourteen-years-old. You have four years until you are free to do shit like making stupid decisions and hanging out with dangerous people."

  "He's your brother."

  "Yeah, and he's an asshole, okay? Only an asshole tries to get his teenage nephew to hang out with a gang."

  "So the gang is bad, but the arms-dealing bikers are cool? Hypocrite much?"

  Oh, the little bastard.

  "The difference is, our neighbor isn't trying to recruit either of us into his arms-dealing biker club. He's just being a halfway decent human being. I don't understand what I have to do to get this through to you—" I broke off on a choke. Angry tears strike again!

  "Don't cry," Jacob said, looking stricken. "I won't go anywhere tonight. I promise."

  Tonight wasn't the promise I wanted. But it was what I had at the moment. And that was better than nothing. At least I could get through my shift without worrying about him getting into who-knew-what kind of trouble on the streets.

  "Thank you," I said, nodding, and reaching up to wipe the tears off my cheeks, deciding he didn't need to know they were angry, not sad, tears. Sometimes you just had to lie to your kids. That was life.

  "I'll set the table," he offered, piling on the apology.

  Maybe I should have taken the opportunity to have a serious talk, to do the lecture thing.

  But I was just too tired.

  I remembered to text Colson back when I was pulling up to work at ten-forty-five that evening.

  - Sorry. I hope I'm not waking you up. Totally forgot to text you. This is my number. It's Eva, by the way.

  -- Yeah, got that, babe. I don't go giving my number out all the time. Have a good night at work.

  Was that a little flutter across my chest?

  It sur
e felt like it.

  I forgot what it was like to talk to another adult. And have them talk back. And make sense. And care about how my shift went.

  It was nice.

  Maybe even too nice.

  It was something a woman could get used to.

  And that was dangerous.

  Because nothing could happen between Colson and me.

  THREE

  Colson

  Things seemed to quiet down next door.

  And I was a complete asshole for being disappointed.

  Of course, I wanted Eva's life to be easier. I thought I had my hands full with Jelena. I couldn't imagine needing not only to care for a headstrong teen, but also an ailing mother who was slowly losing her grip on reality.

  She deserved a break.

  But it also meant I had no reason to run into her again.

  Christ, I even caught myself trying to get up earlier than usual to casually drink my coffee on the porch the next day as though that was the most normal thing in the world while I had never done so before, hoping to catch sight of her on her way in from work.

  Thank God I realized how pathetic I was being before she got there, and took my ass back inside.

  We did, however, have a casual text conversation, that was choppy because of our mismatched schedules.

  I just found myself craving more.

  While I tried to convince myself that having more was not an option.

  So, with Jelena off at school, I took myself over to the clubhouse, ready to jump into the investigation about the supply chain, inwardly hoping it was just some fluke, not something sinister like everyone else seemed to be figuring it was.

  "'Sup, Colson?" Brooks greeted me, rising up from a crouch, hands soapy. I was pretty sure my bike had been cleaned more over the past week than it had in the rest of its life.

  "Who's hanging around?" I asked, jerking my chin toward the clubhouse.

  "Edison, Roan, Laz, Pagan, and West right now," he told me.

  "And Sugar and Virgin," Tyler, the other non-related prospect, piped in, materializing out of nowhere.

  I couldn't get a feel for the kid.

  I couldn't tell you why.

  I guess we just hadn't clicked.

  He was around the same age as Brooks, but shorter, slighter, and so pale that he was almost translucent—his blue veins prominent in his neck and wrists, though he was steadily covering them up with bright blue and gray tattoos.

  Reign had liked his history in some form of martial arts or another, that he came from a rough area, that he was just reckless enough to be a good one-percenter, but with enough respect not to drag the club's name down.

  And everyone else seemed to treat him with the same sort of teasing disregard as the other prospects.

  "No Reign?" I asked, surprised. Sure, over the years, he stepped back, stayed home with his woman more when he wasn't needed at the clubhouse, letting those under him pick up any slack.

  But this was something he'd been pretty serious about at church.

  "Nah. Haven't seen 'im," Tyler said, shrugging, putting my helmet on the seat of one of the other bikes so he could soak mine with the hose.

  "I'm supposed to give you some shit about how it better be clean enough to eat off of," I told them, waving at the bike. "But I really don't give a shit," I added before moving off into the clubhouse.

  "We already compiled the list Reign wanted," Sugar told me when I came in, waving toward the notebook on the coffee table. "We need him to look over it before we go taking road trips."

  "So there's nothing to do?" I asked, feeling useless.

  I felt somewhat useless in the club a lot of the time. I didn't do the long runs to do drops because I didn't want to leave Jelena. And Reign didn't ask for that very reason. I pulled guard shifts on nights when Jelly had a sleepover with her aunt or uncle or, more and more often lately, one of her friends. But I wasn't there every single week like some of the other guys were.

  It was hard not to feel inferior at times, not to feel guilty for taking the same share that everyone else took even though I clearly did less work. I had a lot of pride. And I believed in hard work.

  I think that was why Reign would sometimes throw the jobs at me that no one else wanted. Cutting down trees that were dead in the yard, cleaning the gutters, organizing the supply closet in the basement.

  I tried to tell myself that it made me an equal. But, clearly, these guys had stayed the night, had put their heads together, had done the work. While I sat my ass at home.

  "You figure shit out with Jelly?" Virgin, my sister's man, asked.

  "She called to talk to Freddie?" I asked, sighing.

  "Freddie agreed with you about special circumstances when it came to the babysitter situation," he told me, shrugging. "But if you ever need her, you know Freddie is around."

  "Alright," a female voice said, making us all turn to find Summer standing in the doorway, the sun making her red hair look like it was on fire. "Where is he?"

  "Where's who?" Edison asked in that growling voice of his.

  "My husband. Your president? Where the hell is he? I've been calling, but you know how he is about that phone if no one reminds him to charge it."

  "Reign went home," Sugar said, stiffening in his seat. "Around midnight last night."

  "Well, seeing as I was home around midnight last night, and he didn't come home, no he didn't. You're sure he's not sleeping it off in his room?" she asked, already moving toward the hallway to go check, still light, calm.

  While everyone else was moving to stand, shoulders getting tight.

  Reign didn't just disappear.

  He never took off without telling someone.

  "Call Cash and Wolf," Pagan demanded, nodding toward West who got up, moving outside to do just that.

  "You're right," Summer said, coming back into the common area, eyes getting big, jaw going tight.

  "Maybe he had bike trouble on the way home," Roan suggested.

  "I came from home. I didn't see him."

  "Accident?" Virgin asked, the only one with the balls to suggest it to his wife. "Did you see any debris on the road?"

  "No. And, I mean, the hospital would have called. Unless, I don't know. Unless he got driven off the road? Is in the woods. Oh, God."

  "I'm on it," Edison said, already making a beeline for the front door.

  "I'll call around to the hospitals," I offered, reaching for my phone.

  "What if he's not in the woods? And he's not in the hospital?" Summer asked, looking over at Lazarus who had been silent so far.

  "Let's not go there yet," he said, but I could see him swiping through his contact to find Lo's number.

  Because if Reign was not in the woods and not in the hospital and not at home or in the clubhouse, something had to be wrong.

  "What's going on?" Fallon asked, moving in from the backyard, picking up on the tension in the air immediately.

  Summer's gaze went to her son, shaking her head. "I don't know. Dad never came home last night. And no one has seen him. Fallon—" she called when he threw the door open again and disappeared.

  "He's just going to look. Which we are going to all do," Lazarus said, trying to be a calming voice of reason. "We are going to call everyone in, and then we are going to go look. Maybe you should call Ferryn?" he suggested.

  "Right," Summer agreed, already reaching for her phone.

  Over the next twenty minutes, the men filed in. Cash, uncharacteristically serious, barking orders out as the other men showed up. Because in Reign's absence, Cash was in charge. It wasn't a role he necessarily was made for, but when the situation called for it, he got the job done.

  "Nothing," I told Cash as he moved in beside me, looking down at the list of hospitals I had called. All of them in the area plus the two closest trauma centers. No one had anyone matching Reign's description.

  "Shit," he hissed, raking a hand down the side of his head, an old tic from back when he had long hair on one side.<
br />
  "Hey, Cash," West said, moving in at his side. "Florida is on their way up. They want to be here in case we need a hand with anything."

  "Yeah, good," Cash said, only half paying attention. "Tell them we'd be happy for their help."

  "What are you thinking?" Repo asked, moving in.

  "I'm thinking we need to send the wives and kids to Hailstorm. At least until we know something."

  "Right," West said, nodding. "I will get Gus to tell everyone. And have Chris arrange it."

  "Jelly," Cash said, looking over at me.

  "In school right now," I reminded him. "Armed guards at the gates. She's fine for now. Freddie can bring her up to Hailstorm later."

  "Okay. Good. Shit. Where's that list?" he asked. "We need to go through it and figure out who could possibly have the balls to take Reign."

  "Why don't you just let me take care of them all?" Janie asked a few moments later as we were all trying to decide who could possibly stand to gain something by going to war with the entire club.

  "Janie, you can't just go around and bomb all the competition," Lo tried to reason.

  "I'm pretty sure I can, actually."

  To that, Lo let out a small laugh. "Yes, true, but since we don't know where Reign is, bombing them could end up killing him too," Lo reasoned in a quiet voice, not wanting to scare Summer who was standing in the kitchen with Finn. Ferryn had blown in, heard the news, and rushed right back out, Vance trailing behind her. If I knew anything about Ferryn, and I was starting to, she was going to hit the streets and bash some heads together until she got some answers.

  "Fine. But I reserve the right to blow something up once we know Reign is safe."

  "Like anyone could stop you," Malcolm, Janie's son, agreed, smirking.

  Generally speaking, the prospects didn't get involved with club business. They hadn't earned the right to go on rides or drops. Those were privileges earned.

  That being said, most of these prospects weren't just kids off the street, they were family. Reign's two sons, Wolf and Janie's son. More would be to come, I was sure, as the kids kept aging up.