Repo (The Henchmen MC Book 4) (24 page)

"Well shit," Cash said, sighing.

"Renny, Duke, get your asses out here," Reign called into the door and all of ten seconds later, both men moved outside. "We need to know what you know about Maze that we might not."

"Is Ace alright?" was Duke's immediate question and I was reminded again why I was happy to have him on the team. He didn't immediately condemn Maze. And his knee-jerk reaction was to ask after her well-being.

"Fuck if we know. She's gone," Reign said, his tone a little dismissive, but his shoulders were tense.

"Gone?" Duke repeated, brows drawn together. "No fucking way. She wanted this more than the whole lot of us. And I can't speak for Renny or the recently excommunicated Moose and Fox, but I want this a whole fuckuva lot."

"That's why we're here. We need to know what you guys know. You live with her. You sleep near her. If anyone aside... aside from Repo," he said, giving me a brow raise and a smirk that any idiot could decipher, "it's you guys. What do you got?"

"She's got a sister," Renny supplied, making me start.

"What?" I barked before I could stop myself. She'd never said shit about a sister.

"Yeah," Renny shrugged. "She called her a fuckton of times the night of the BBQ. Apparently there was some issue with the sister's fiance cheating or some shit. She lives in the city."

Reign turned to me with a shrug. "Maybe her sister needed her?"

"So she just left groceries to rot in your truck at a train station?" I shot back, dubiously.

"I dunno. Bitches can be weird like that when the other needs her. Remember Lo when Summer went into labor?"

I felt my lips quirk up despite the pit in my stomach. I remembered that shit alright. Me and Cash had been in the waiting room of the hospital, Reign giving us a short update when Lo walked in with two rifles crossed over her back, completely oblivious to the fact that they were even there despite the worried looks all the nurses were giving her, until Cash walked over and removed them for her. Hell, Janie had showed up half an hour after that with Alex in toe, Janie bleeding profusely from her nose and Alex's lip swollen from, presumably, grappling practice.

He was right, women seemed to quite literally drop everything when another was in trouble.

"Alright. So this sister..." Reign started, "is there any way for us to get in contact with..."

The rest of his sentence drifted off when all of our attention went to the open gates where a behemoth black SUV with black-out windows came barreling to a stop, the engine barely getting a chance to cut off before the door was thrown open and a man jumped out.

"Who the fuck..." Reign started, reaching for the gun in the waistband in his jeans, me and Cash doing the same. Renny's hands curled into fists and Duke went for his knife.

The man was tall and black with a distinct boxer's build that he had dressed in slate gray slacks with a thin black plaid pattern and a black dress shirt, tucked in, black loafers and an expensive silver watch. It was a fucking ridiculous outfit given the heat, but he didn't even seem to be sweating.

It was Renny who spoke next as the man stopped advancing, jerking his chin up at our raised guns like they didn't intimidate him.

"She fucking lied to me!" he declared, sounding genuinely offended.

"The fuck you talking about?" Reign asked, not taking his eyes off the stranger.

"Maze. She lied to me about her sister. That number that was calling her? It was K.C.E Boxing Emporium."

"Start making some fucking sense or shut the fuck up," Reign demanded.

"She said her sister worked there when I grilled her about it. She lied."

"How the fuck do you know that, kid?" Cash asked.

"Because the guy who runs K.C.E Boxing Emporium is standing..."

"Right here," the man said in a deep, smooth voice. "Now lower the fucking guns and tell me where the fuck Maisy is."

Maisy?

Maisy?

Sixteen

Repo

I was the first to drop my gun. Mainly out of surprise.

"Who the fuck are you?"

"K."

Reign and Cash lowered their guns in unison. "K?" Cash asked. "As in
the
K and his
disappearing women?
"

"That'd be me."

K and his disappearing women.

His fucking disappearing women.

Jesus Christ.

"Hey, he was ready to send his woman to you a coupla years back," Cash supplied, nodding his head toward his brother.

"That's great. Where the fuck is Maisy?" he asked, looking directly at me for some reason.

"She's gone," I said, shaking my head. "And that's all you're gonna fucking get until you explain yourself to us."

"Repo," he said, nodding at me. "I fucking knew she had something going on with you."

"You sent her here, didn't you?" Reign asked.

"Did you assholes have to give her such a hard time?" K shot back, shaking his head at us.

"Alright, let's move this inside. It's hot as balls out here," Cash announced, holding the door open.

With that, everyone turned and headed into the clubhouse.

"Explain," Reign demanded, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the wall inside the door.

"Got a call from Maisy about four hours ago. She checked in with my receptionist and said she was bugging out. That's a serious call. It means the shit hit the fan in a big way and she had to run. She's instructed to toss the phone and board a train to Philly where she was to call me immediately after getting her bug-out bag. That should have happened almost two hours ago."

The shit hit the fan.

And it was serious.

"Who is she running from?" Reign was calm enough to ask while my fucking brain felt like it was swirling.

"The Kozlov brothers."

"Who the fuck are the Kozlov brothers?" I asked, the name meaning absolutely nothing to me.

"They arrange Green Card sort-of marriages, but a bit more murky than that. Maisy worked as their book keeper for years without knowing who they were or what they were up to."

Jesus Christ.

She couldn't get a break.

The mom with the social security fraud.

The ex with the chop shop.

Then the bosses with the trafficking?

No fucking wonder she had trust issues.

"Until..."

"Until she realized they were laundering money through their legit businesses. She took the info to the cops who couldn't and wouldn't do shit. They pushed her in my direction."

"How long did you have her?" Reign asked.

"Six months." He gave us an almost wistful smile. "The Maze you know was nothing like the soft little blond that literally came crashing into my life six months ago."

So she was a blond. That was also news.

Obviously I knew she wasn't fucking naturally purple-haired, but she had dark brows and, well, no carpeting so there was no other way for me to tell.

I couldn't picture her blond. It didn't seem to suit her.

But then again, I guess I didn't fucking know her at all.

"Why us?" Reign asked, shaking his head.

"You're safe. You're a very insulated group. You hate the fucking Russians and wouldn't be too receptive to a couple of them sniffing around at all, let alone after one of your members. If you patched her in, you'd protect her."

"So you were just going to plant her here?" Reign asked, brows together. "Indefinitely? Just play-acting at being someone she wasn't for, what, the rest of her fucking life?"

"Better pretending to like riding that bike she used to curse seven ways to fucking Sunday than end up garroted in some alley somewhere, don't you think?"

"They're that dangerous?" Reign asked. "'Cause I gotta be honest, I ain't ever heard shit about them."

"Yeah, well from what I hear you're pretty happy with your arms dealing. You're not looking into selling poor Russian girls to the highest bidders. There's no reason you would know about them. They're a city problem anyway. They don't cross the border."

I was still rather caught up on the image that got conjured at the phrase
garroted in some alley somewhere
to pay them much attention.

"Why do they want her so bad? She didn't fuck them over with the cops."

"She had a copy of the files she gave to the cops."

"I'm assuming you have those copies."

"Yeah. But only until I find some cops I trust to hand it all off to to bring them down. The Russians are always a brutal lot though. They'll kill someone just for stepping on their shoes. So her trying to stab them in the back? They aren't going to let that go. And then a coupla days ago, they closed shop. Their offices are gone. Their legit businesses are still operating but they aren't present. So I don't know what the fuck is going on at this point. And I don't like that one fucking bit."

"Alright," Reign said, uncrossing his arms. "I sent Maze to go food shopping a couple of hours ago. When I noticed she still wasn't back, I started to ask around. Then Cash said he saw my truck at the train station. We went. The trunk was full of festering groceries. She paid for fucking parking for hours and she locked the keys inside. That's all we got."

K nodded then looked to me, brow raised. "You're sleeping with her. You got anything to add?"

I could feel everyone's eyes fall on me. Reign was just looking. Cash was grinning. Renny didn't look surprised. Duke had his brows drawn together, but I had fuck-all any idea why. "I got nothing, man. You trained her well. She didn't let any of that shit slip. All I really know about her is the ex with the chop shop thing and the mom thing and that she has trust issues. Guess now I know why."

"She told you about Thato and her mom?" K asked, looking surprised.

"Thato?" I repeated, almost laughing. Fucking bitch-ass name for a bitch-ass man. "If that's the ex's name, yeah. Why?"

"Because she knew better. She wasn't supposed to tell anyone anything about her past."

"Yeah well, she's human. She screwed up," I growled, shoving away from the rest of them and making my way toward the door. Where I found my arm snagged in a strong grip. I turned, looking over at K. "Get your fucking hand off me, man."

"Where are you going?"

"We aren't doing any good standing around here bullshitting. I'm heading to Philly."

"Repo..." Reign said in a warning voice that I knew him well enough to read into. He was telling me I didn't have permission to go. And yeah, well, fuck him.

"Be smart," K cut in before I could really fuck myself by tearing into Reign. "We can't go to Philly until we're sure she's not still around here. What the fuck were you gonna do? Walk every street? Talk to every person? Focus."

He was right.

"Janie and Alex," I said, turning back to the group. "Get them on the cameras at the train station."

"Repo..." Reign said in that voice again.

"Don't you fucking dare try to tell me this is any God damn different than what you did with Summer and Cash with Lo and Wolf with Janie. You all broke rules when your women were in trouble and I don't want to hear a fucking word about this," I said, I think momentarily shocking them all silent before Reign nodded slightly.

"She's yours?" he asked.

"Hell fucking yeah, she's mine." It didn't matter that she'd kept so much from me. It didn't matter that there was so much to her that I was in the dark about. What mattered was the connection we had despite all the secrecy. She melted against me when I reached for her. She sparked when I touched her. She smiled and laughed and bitched and joked with me. She couldn't fake those things. That was real. What we had, however little it was, was real.

"Alright, Cash see if you can get in touch with Breaker and get Alex on this. I'll call Wolf and see if Janie is at the cabin or Hailstorm. Duke, Renny..." he trailed off for a minute. "I dunno. Make yourselves useful. Go ask around in town or something."

"What? Am I supposed to sit on my fucking hands?" I asked, my hands clenching up into fists at my sides.

"You and K can have a talk until we have a direction we can point you in."

With that, the room cleared out, leaving just me and K and the weight of worry between us. It wasn't lost on me that the two people who genuinely gave a shit about Maze were the ones left twiddling their damn thumbs.

"Don't know much about you," K said, breaking the tense silence, "but I doubt you deserve her."

"Why? Because I'm a biker?"

"Because after what she's had to deal with, I don't think anyone does."

"I respect what you've done to get and keep her safe, but fuck off. Just because some asshole lied to her and her mom was a deadbeat and her bosses were dickheads doesn't mean everyone she crosses paths with plans to screw her over. I've had nothing but good intentions with regard to Maze."