Repo (The Henchmen MC Book 4) (23 page)

Hell, even that very afternoon, before being sent off on some top-secret errand, he had caught me alone in the basement, coming up behind me and rubbing my shoulders while he whispered in my ear all the filthy things he had planned to do with me that next morning while I was 'working'.

I closed my eyes tight, deep-breathing through the sting in my chest at the realization that I would never get to experience those things with him, that I would never know his casual touch, or his dirty words, or his sweet ones, or see his dancing eyes or his boyish smile again.

I listened to the sounds around me for a long while: the horns on the street, the doors in the hall opening and closing, the muffled sound of a game show in the room to my left and a porn in the room to my right, the clock ticking above my own TV set, informing me it was barely nine at night. But every ounce of my tired body and achy heart told me that sometimes, all there was to do was sleep.

--

I woke up disoriented the next day, my heart slamming so hard in my chest that I felt it up my throat. I shot up in the unfamiliar bed in the unfamiliar room, my sleep-foggy brain taking an embarrassingly long time to remember where I was.

In Philly.

In a cheap hotel.

Because Viktor was meeting with Moose.

Moose who knew exactly where I was and the best ways to get into the compound.

Right then, I felt panic seize my system.

Moose knew the best ways to get into the compound.

I should have... warned them somehow.

There was no real good reason not to.

It didn't matter if I blew my cover; I was long gone.

If something happened to any of them, especially Repo or Duke or, hell, even Renny, I'd never forgive myself.

I took a deep, steadying breath, reminding myself they were grown men. Not only were they grown men but they were highly trained and criminals. They knew how to look out for trouble and they knew how to handle it when it popped up too. Besides, Viktor against the whole of The Henchmen MC? Yeah, the odds were definitely in their favor.

Hell, Repo could probably get a literal bullseye shot on him from a hundred yards off before he even penetrated the perimeter.

At his name, the stinging sensation shot through my chest again, sharp and shocking enough for me to raise my palm to the left side and rub across my heart.

"K would kill me himself if he saw me right now," I grumbled to myself.

Then I shot off the bed, heart slamming for a whole other reason at the thought of K and how he hadn't responded the night before.

My eyes flew to the clock on the wall and I got another wave of panic. It wasn't morning. I was expecting it was eight or nine in the morning. But it wasn't. Oh, no. All the weeks of near-sleeplessness at the compound must have finally caught up with me because I went to sleep before nine and slept clear through to one in the afternoon.

One in the afternoon.

When I was supposed to text K before noon each day.

Shit.

Shitshitshit.

I scrambled across the room to the small, seemingly mandatory mini-desk all hotel rooms possess and grabbed for the burner.

K.

I needed to get in touch with K.

Fifteen

Repo

"You guys seen Maze?" Reign asked, walking in from the kitchen.

I looked around at Duke and Renny, wondering the same thing myself. I had expected to see her when I got back, but she was nowhere around.

"Nah," Renny said, shaking his head.

"I sent her out for food hours ago," Reign said, brows drawn together.

"How many hours..." I started when Cash walked in through the front door.

"Bro, what's the Explorer doing at the train station?" he asked, moving over toward the bar to get a beer out of the fridge.

Reign froze and I felt myself doing the same. "The Explorer is at the train station?" he repeated, making Cash straighten, putting his beer down on the bar.

"So... it shouldn't be there?" he asked, sounding suddenly more serious.

"Sure as fuck shouldn't," Reign said and I was already on my way toward the door.

Reign was quickly on my heels, calling over his shoulder to the probies, "Call if Maze shows up." We both got on our bikes and Reign turned toward me. "You're with them the most. How much do you trust Maze?"

"More than Renny, about the same as Duke," I said honestly as I tried to talk myself out of the uncharacteristic panic that was gripping my system.

With that, he tore off down the road and I followed behind, a lump the size of fucking Texas in my throat. The train station was a short five minute drive. We made it in three. The lot was packed and it took us a few to locate Reign's SUV. When we did, the ticket on the window said it was paid up for another couple of hours. Reign fished the spare key out of his bike, unlocking the door where we were assaulted by the smell of all the food left inside the trunk to bake in the heat for God-knew how long.

"The keys were locked inside here," Reign said, coming out of the front seat with said keys. "The fuck is going on?"

"She bought groceries then... paid for parking and left?" I asked, and even I could hear the slightest trace of worry in my tone.

"What do we know about Maze, Repo?" he asked, watching me move away from the truck to stand by my bike.

"Not much. A small work history. That was kind-of all we got."

"No record?"

"Nothing."

"No connections to any organization?"

"Fucking nothing, Reign," I snapped, immediately closing my eyes at my tone. I needed to get it together. I couldn't lose it. I couldn't talk to him like that.

"Alright, Repo," he said, his tone oddly calm. "I figured you weren't just making googly eyes at her," he said, shaking his head a little. "You guys got something going on?"

"Reign I know you said..."

"Fuck it," he said with a casual shrug. "Doesn't matter. What matters is you know her better than the rest of us. She said anything about old connections?"

"No, Reign. She's... quiet about her past."

"Shit," he said, slamming the door to the Explorer. "Now we gotta figure out if she ran because she was in trouble or ran because something is about to come down on us."

"I told her she wasn't gonna get a patch, Reign. I don't think she'd stick it out if this was some covert shit when I told her there was no chance to actually get in the ranks."

"So you think she ran because of trouble?"

"I don't know what the fuck to think," I admitted, raking a hand down my face. "She didn't act like someone in trouble."

"Yeah, but you told me yourself that she had some kind of training. And she was living behind a gate with a group of men who run guns. If there was anywhere she probably felt safe, it was in the compound."

"Yeah."

"Nothing else really makes sense at this point. This was the first time since she showed up that she went outside the compound alone. Maybe she ran into someone or saw someone, got spooked and ran. Otherwise, she'd take the fucking car, not park it in a lot, pay for parking, and take a train."

He had a good point. "Did she seem freaked when you asked her to get food?"

"No. She didn't even hesitate. I told her to get the shit you usually get, gave her cash, gave her keys, and she headed out." He was quiet as he got back on his bike. "Was she close with the other probies? Would they know more than you?"

"I dunno. They were competition, ya know? She hated Moose and Fox but seemed to get along with Duke and was friendly with Renny."

"But if they knew something they thought we should know about her past, they probably would have told us."

"Exactly. Especially Duke." Renny might too, but not until he got every single God damn detail he could. He was anal as fuck about things like that. But I guess when you had the fucked up childhood like he did, that shit made sense.

"Alright, let's get back to the compound and make sure. Doubt either would lie right to our faces to protect her when she's already gone. And gotta get one of the guys over here to deal with that mess," he said, waving a hand toward the SUV.

With that, we headed back to the compound.

Reign was as calmly in control as ever while I freaked out.

What if he was right? What if she ran? What if she had been running all along? What did that mean that she kept that kind of shit from me? Not to be a chick about it, but that was kind of screwed up that she hadn't trusted me with that. But, if I were being honest with myself, she shared very little with me. There had been little things here and there, usually after sex when we were just sitting with our own thoughts. She'd been facing away from me, watching the tree line, her back to my chest, when she admitted that her mom was locked up for some social security shit. It didn't sound much like a wound, but I hadn't been able to suss out if that was because she was trying to convince herself it didn't hurt or if it genuinely didn't.

Then when handing me tools one afternoon and I had commented on how much she knew about them, she'd laughed humorlessly and shook her head. "I dated a guy once who I thought was a mechanic."

"Thought?" I asked, turning my head from under the hood of the car to look at her.

"Yeah... he actually ran a chop shop. It was a bit of an ugly surprise when the cops informed me of that. But, before then, I had spent some time around the so-called mechanics and they taught me some stuff. They said it was important for people to know at least a little bit about how to take care of a car. They'd actually been pretty nice guys. Who'da thunk they'd be big criminals?"

"Honey..." I said, giving her a smile.

"What?"

"I'm a fucking one-percenter here..."

"Oh, ha," she'd said, shaking her head at herself like she had genuinely forgotten how The Henchmen made their money. "Yeah, I guess. I must just... have a thing for the bad boys then."

"So he never told you he wasn't working above-board?" I'd asked. "He got you wrapped up in his shit without you knowing what you were getting wrapped up in?" She'd shrugged, nodding. "Dick."

"Well, I mean. I can't be considered faultless there. I was naive."

"You liked the guy. You trusted him to be honest."

"Yeah, therein lied my mistake."

There was a kind of sadness in her tone that I didn't like, like she had convinced herself that trust was some kind of fault instead of a virtue. Only a real asshole made a woman feel that way. "Hey," I'd said, dropping the wrench I was holding and turning to look at her fully. "You can't just assume that everyone you meet is trying to fuck you over. You trusted, you had that shit thrown in your face. But that's on him, not you. You didn't do anything wrong."

"I don't think everyone is trying to fuck me over," she'd objected, but only half-heartedly. "It's just... it's easier to make people prove they are trustworthy than just... automatically trust them without question."

"That's a pretty cynical way to live, Maze."

"Do you just... trust people?"

"I trust my brothers here. That's all I got."

"Even after the people who you and your uncle saw as brothers screwed you guys over?" she'd asked bluntly, surprising me. It was a topic I expected her to pussyfoot around like everyone else did. I appreciated that she didn't.

"They were disloyal. The men here, they've proved time and time again that brotherhood and the old ladies and the kids, they're more important than anything else."

"But did you trust them immediately when you came here?" At my sigh, she'd smiled. "So this is a 'do as I say, not as I do' kinda thing?"

"Maybe it's a 'because I fucking said so' thing."

"Oh, you think you can boss me around, huh?" she'd asked, head tilted, eyes challenging.

"Think I've done a pretty good job of that so far, don't you? Now why don't you be a good girl and hand me that ultra short gear wrench?" I'd asked, ducking under the hood again.

It didn't surprise me in the least when the God damn thing went sailing past my head, landing with a loud clank against the engine.

Nor did it surprise me that as I reached for it, I was smiling.

But that was the most she had ever really given me all at once. She hinted at other things, she gave me bits and pieces. She hated cologne. She liked watching documentaries. She once broke her leg in three places falling out of those trees she liked to hide in. And, apparently, she maneuvered crutches the way a newborn foal maneuvered their legs, meaning not well at all and with a lot of falling.

We parked the bikes outside the fence and Reign threw the keys at two of the guys standing around. "You two go to the train station. The Explorer is there. Clean it out and get it back here," he instructed, moving across the yard toward the door to a waiting Cash. "She paid for parking with a car full of groceries," he said, shaking his head.