Duke (The Henchmen MC Book 5) Read online

  I liked kids. I think it was impossible to not like kids when you grew up and lived around literally dozens of them at all times. As a kid, it was great because friends and partners-in-crime were to be found everywhere. As an adult, I dunno, you were so used to the sounds and drama that you hardly even registered it. It was background noise.

  It was lucky that I had that past though, because the main guys of the club, yeah, they liked fucking their women a lot. This was proven by the fact that they each had a bunch of mini-thems running around the compound during daylight hours.

  Reign and Summer had the oldest one, Ferryn, someone that had all the bikers who could put up with kids wrapped around her bossy little nine-year old finger. And, being that she was her father's first born, she practically lived at the club.

  While I was tying up the balloons for Seth's, Repo and Maze's son, birthday, she was there at my side telling me all the ways I was fuckin' it up. My words, not hers. I apparently sucked at putting up balloons. Who knew that was possible?

  "Ferryn, come help me ice the cupcakes," Summer called, as if somehow knowing her daughter was getting a bit overbearing.

  Ferryn ran off to help her mother who was about six months pregnant with the president's third kid, leaving me to silently finish with the balloons. Everyone would be along in the next half an hour or so. All the men, their old ladies, the ankle biters. And there would even be some friends of the club and their families around as well. It was a pretty big event for a third birthday. But, then again, no one would ever pass up an excuse to party. Even if said party was cuss-lite and alcohol-free until the kiddos went to bed.

  Seth ran up to me when he and his mother showed up. "I'm three!" he declared, holding up four fingers.

  Maze moved in beside him, tucking one of his fingers into his palm. "That's three," she reminded him in a patient way that implied she had had to do so multiple times already that day.

  "Hey, Ace, how ya' feeling?" I asked, knowing Repo had knocked her up again recently.

  "Why do you call Mommy 'Ace'?" Seth asked, but ran off before I could answer to go play with Shoot and Amelia's girls, Bri and Alexis, who were closest to his age.

  "He still doesn't get that I was sort-of in the MC for a while," Maze said, shaking her head, making her purple hair catch the light.

  "No 'sort-of' about it. You were in. You pulled all the shit shifts to prove it."

  "Yeah, Repo was a dick back then, wasn't he?" she asked, smiling fondly because of the years between and the fact that she and that dick were happily married.

  "Take that back!" Fallon, Reign and Summer's second child, yelled as he ran past us.

  "Make me," came the reply from Malcolm, Wolf and Janie's first and only.

  Both were six and both were like siblings, forever crashing into each other and starting shit. They would be good bikers one day.

  "It's gonna be a long day," Maze said, watching Fallon tackle the much larger Malcolm.

  "Let 'em go at it. They'll stop before there's any real damage."

  Maze's head tipped to the side. "Is that how all you guys think? I swear someone is telling me that at every one of these kids' parties."

  I shrugged at that. "It's a guy thing, I guess."

  "Gotta toughen them up, huh?"

  "It's not a sexist thing. Bri, Alexis, and Willa will get toughened up one day too."

  "And Ferryn," Maze added.

  "Ace, have you met Ferryn? She doesn't need any toughening up."

  "Good point," she said with a smile. "Well, I have to go put these Spiderman tablecloths up before everyone else gets here."

  And then everyone else did a good fifteen minutes later, including the last three kids: Breaker and Alex's son, Junior, as well as Paine and Elsie's kids- Jackson and Willa.

  With them came the rest of the men and their women.

  "Know the best thing about this?" Cash asked, moving in beside me closer to the front than the backyard. Lo was talking to the rest of the girls club before moving off toward a playpen to fawn over Willa.

  "About what?"

  "Everyone having kids," he clarified. "We get to come here and enjoy them for a couple hours," he said, meaning him and Lo, "then we can go home and fuck on every surface without having to worry about little eyes watching us."

  "Can't argue with that logic," I said, the sound of a car catching my attention. I was barely half-turned when it happened.

  The car slowed, some nondescript black car with black-out windows and no plates. I immediately felt myself stiffen at that, knowing no one up to any good would be driving around without plates. Cops loved to ticket you for that shit around Navesink Bank. Then it crawled to almost a stop and the back door opened.

  Then a fucking body was shoved out mere seconds before the car peeled off.

  The woman's body rolled until it landed right outside our gates.

  "What the fuck..." I exploded, already running toward the woman as everyone else's attention turned to me. I could practically feel the movement going on behind me, likely everyone trying to wrangle and shield the kids as the men scrambled toward me.

  I was on my knees beside her body, pulling her half onto my lap, the blood already smearing over me. My heart was in my throat at her cut-open shirt and the crude, large Henchmen-style H carved into the perfect skin in her back. I grabbed her under her shoulders and pulled her up, careful not to touch the cuts, feeling my guts twist when she cried out anyway.

  I barely had her facing me and I knew who she was.

  It was the same blonde hair, the same milky skin, the same soft features, the same everything.

  It was the lost girl who needed directions to her appointment from the day before.

  Penny.

  "Fuck," I hissed, brushing her hair out of her bruised and busted face as Reign dropped down beside me, reaching for something in her pocket.

  "'You're all next'," he read, his tone cold and hard as a couple of the men fanned out toward the street. "What did you see?" he asked me.

  "Is she breathing?" Lo asked, stopping beside us, a phone already to her ear.

  "Yeah. She's breathing. Beat up and has our H carved into her back."

  Lo nodded, all business, as she called her people up at Hailstorm and ordered the medical personnel come and check her over.

  I put an arm under the girls' legs and moved to stand. "Black late-model. No plates. Black-outs. There was nothing to go on," I told Reign as I carried the girl into the clubhouse, knowing we needed to get her out of sight.

  I walked her through the clubhouse and toward the hall with the bedrooms. Then I walked her right into mine.

  Don't ask me why; that's just where my gut told me to take her.

  "Who is she?" Cash asked, everyone filing into my small space. It wasn't much, just gray walls, a black comforter, a couple black dressers, a big TV, and the door to the bathroom. But it was home.

  "Shit. Fuck. God damn it," Shredder said, skidding to a stop as I put the girl on her side in the center of my bed. "That's the girl from yesterday."

  "What girl from yesterday?" Reign barked, needing answers, annoyed that he wasn't getting them quickly enough.

  I half-turned away from her, knowing club business was more pressing to everyone around us than some random girl who was still breathing. "Shred and I saw her walking down the street yesterday. She was lost. We gave her directions to Bella's. That's it."

  Reign raked a hand down his face, looking around at his men who all had equally tense shoulders and faces. "Okay. First things. The women and kids need to get out of the yard. It's a party, but bring it inside. After that, I leave it to you all to get them home, check out your places, make sure all is tied up tight. Then I need you all back here for church. We need to pool the threats and see who the fuck wants to start war with us after all this time. The girl..."

  "Penny," I supplied, making Reign look at me hard for a minute. "I'll keep an eye and have Janie and Alex see what they can dig up about her. She's not a
threat though, man. She's innocent. Only reason this happened is because someone saw us talking to her and likely thought..."

  "She belonged to you or Shred," Reign finished for me with a nod.

  "My guys will be here in ten," Lo said, sitting down on the bed with me and Penny.

  "I'll send Janie and Alex in as soon as I can," Breaker said, disappearing, knowing this was club business and, while a friend, he was not involved.

  "Secure the property," Reign said to no one in particular, but five or six of the men filed out to do just that, all already charged for a possible confrontation.

  That left me, Lo, the girl, Reign, Cash, Wolf, and Repo in the room.

  "Fuckin' war," Wolf said after a tense silence.

  "Never again wouldn't be too soon," Cash said, likely remembering the last war that brought down half the organization and their own father. It had been a particularly brutal, unprincipled war too. Women got hurt. On both sides.

  "Won't be like last time," Reign promised, his voice firm.

  "Fuckin' innocent woman," Wolf added, his freaky honey eyes pinned on the prone body on the bed. See, when Wolf got pissed, bad things happened. And nothing pissed Wolf off more than men hurting women. Everything about the giant was tense, like his seams were going to burst from holding in his rage.

  Lo was running her hands over said woman, looking for other injuries. Unconscious, the girl cried out when her hands moved over her ribs but showed no signs of distress when Lo none-too-subtly ran her hand between the woman's legs. I think we all relaxed slightly at that, hoping that her medical team would come to the same conclusion- that she wasn't raped.

  I wasn't exactly sure I could handle that shit.

  Especially seeing as it would be, at least in part, my fault.

  "If I hadn't called her over..." Shredder said, mind moving in the same direction as mine.

  "You couldn't have known that helping direct some lost girl would end up with her beaten and carved up," Vin, one of the old timers, reasoned.

  "Lo!" a voice called from below.

  "Send them up!" she called back, moving off the bed so they would have room to do what they needed to do.

  Reign gave me a chin jerk and he and the others filed out, trusting me to keep an eye.

  "Duke, they'll need to strip her..." Lo reasoned.

  "I got orders to keep an eye on things here," I said with apology in my voice. I didn't exactly rejoice at the idea of seeing her body naked without her permission either.

  "And do a rape kit," she added, making me flinch. "Go into the bathroom, Duke. I will keep an eye on this. Let the girl have as much privacy as we can possibly give her under the circumstances."

  She wasn't wrong.

  I took a breath, looking down at Penny's gorgeous, busted face, and nodded as I climbed off the bed. "Okay," I said as the door opened, bringing in two of Lo's people- a man and a woman. They both carried bags and had active eyes as they looked her over.

  "Shit. Stitches," the man said, moving past me to sit behind her on the bed.

  I shared a look with Lo who gave me an encouraging nod as I moved into my bathroom. Feeling useless, I paced and eavesdropped, hands curling and uncurling.

  Regardless of what Vin said, there was guilt.

  And, for whatever reason, that guilt had turned into a strange, bone-deep need to take care of her, to repent for the sins of my association, to try to make things a little bit right. To help her get clean again.

  "You're sure?" Lo asked, making me pace closer to the door to listen.

  "Yeah," the other woman's voice said, sounding relieved. "There's no signs of any sexual activity whatsoever recently, let alone rape."

  "Thank God for small miracles," Lo said and I felt the words too, exhaling hard.

  There was some mumbling for a minute, like they were talking in hushed tones and facing away from me, making it impossible to make the words out.

  "Duke," Lo called suddenly, making me start.

  "Yeah?" I called, still not stepping out.

  "Hate to do this, but we need a hand."

  "Happy to help," I said, grabbing the edge of the door and pulling it open.

  Penny was on the bed, panties on, but shirt fully off, laying on her stomach so her back was on full display, the giant bloody H staring us all right in the face.

  "What do you need?" I asked, forcing my eyes over to Lo.

  "They need to stitch her. And they can do a little numbing but there's no way to..."

  "You need me to hold her down," I guessed, guts twisting a bit at the idea, but understanding the necessity of it.

  "We're not sure if she's unconscious from the beating or if she was drugged," the other woman said, shrugging a little. "If it's the latter, she might just go on sleeping through it. If it's the former, though..." she said, face getting tight.

  "Yeah," I said, nodding, knowing there was going to be screaming and writhing and God-knew what else. "How do you want me to do this?"

  "We could have you hold down her upper body and Lo do the lower, but..."

  "But?" I prompted when she trailed off.

  "Honestly," Lo started, "you're a lot stronger. It makes more sense to have you hold her against your chest tightly. It gives them room to do what they have to do and you can sort-of pin her in place."

  I took a deep breath, looking over at the bed. "Right."

  "If you don't..." Lo started.

  "I got it," I said, moving over toward the bed and sitting back against the headboard then reaching down to grab Penny under her armpits and dragging her gently up my body, trying not to jar her too much to hurt her ribs or anywhere else she might have been hurt while simultaneously trying to allow her to keep at least a semblance of modesty by not having her tits all on display. Lo moved in behind me as I put an arm across the top of her shoulders and low on her hips, to push her legs around my back.

  "Okay. That should do it," Lo said with a nod. "I am going to go check on Jstorm and Alex and see if they are onto anything. Holler if you need extra help with her legs," she said, moving toward the door, giving me a look in those warm, but guarded brown eyes that I couldn't quite decipher. It was almost a sadness and a resignation mixed with determination. Like maybe she understood what the girl had been through and what it would take to bounce back. Hell, maybe she did. That wasn't my business.

  "I know you're trying to be gentle," the woman said as she and the guy moved onto the bed, spreading out a load of supplies on a towel, "but you need to hold her tighter."

  I nodded, slowly squeezing her, building the pressure until I was sure there was no chance she could squirm. Her face was tucked into my chest, her blonde hair mostly fallen out of her braid. I released her shoulders for a second to collect it all and swipe it to one side of her head so it wouldn't get in the way, finding almost immediately that it had a strong scent of some honey and vanilla shampoo or something. I wrapped her up again, worrying momentarily that I could snap her little bird bones with the strength in my arms, but knowing that people were capable of a lot of strength when they were in serious pain.

  I'd know.

  I'd delivered pain like that before.

  I squashed those memories before they got a chance to surface, exhaling hard as the guy looked at me. "Ready?" he asked.

  "No," I said honestly and he nodded but proceeded to grab the bottle of peroxide and pour it down Penny's back.

  Her body jolted against mine as she cried out, but it was a far-off, sleepy sound and I figured without being able to see her face that she was still mostly unconscious. I hoped, but knew better, that she would stay that way through the lion's share of the procedure as I watched the girl stab something into a few spots on her back, likely something to try to numb the area.

  I wondered as I watched them silently work, picking up various items, how the fuck Hailstorm got the supplies they had. From what I understood, they had an entire hospital room set up at their compound on the hill and that it was stocked like a real God d
amn hospital room too, all the same supplies as you could find in any emergency room. Doing the shit they did on the daily, I understood the need for that.

  "You guys sure you know what you're doing?" I heard myself asking, completely out of character for me. What could I say? I was worried for her. It was bad enough that she would be branded for life; I was hoping she wouldn't have a raging infection to go with that.

  "I was a paramedic," the guy said without looking up, threading the stitching scissors.

  "And I was a nurse in the army," the girl added, grabbing the tweezers. "Don't worry. We have seen and dealt with a lot worse than this," she said, looking up at me for a second before they moved in on her back.

  After that, the only conversation was between the two as they slowly worked.

  Me, yeah, I was occupied trying to keep Penny's body as still as possible as she writhed in her unconscious state.

  "Ow!" she shrieked a few minutes later, the Hailstorm guys only about halfway done stitching. Her head shot up and her wide-open, confused, and pained eyes were on me, tears making them blurry. "Ow," she whimpered again, shaking her head at me.

  "You're getting stitches," I told her, trying to keep my voice calm as the tears welled up and slipped over her lashes and slid down her cheeks. "You have a nasty cut on your back and it needed to be stitched up."

  "It hurts," she said, voice deep with feeling. "Everything hurts," she added.

  "I know, baby," I said with a small nod. "Just hang on a couple more minutes and it will be over. They'll give you some pills to cut it," I added, not knowing if they would, but figuring if they came equipped with a full fucking medical kit complete with a numbing agent, that they likely had some damn Oxys or Vikes in their bags too. And if they didn't, hell, I'd hit the fucking streets and buy some if I had to.

  "Here," the guy said suddenly, drawing my attention as he left the woman to continue and moved toward us with two pills in his hands. Penny looked at him, shaking her head as she looked at them. "Look," he said, putting the pill closer. "See? It says Vicodin right on it, sweetheart," he encouraged. And, sure enough, the oval pills did. "Take them. Don't be a hero. Let us finish without you screaming through it."