NINE
Edison
I stopped in the abandoned stairwell, dealing with the condom, tossing it into the bin that countless Johns had used judging by the pile of condoms found inside, zipped up, and headed out into the crisp Autumn air, feeling it bite at my skin, bring my anger back a few notches.
It wasn't even right to be pissed.
Not at her anyway.
I knew damage. I had seen it in countless variations all through my life. I had it myself.
Lenny genuinely couldn't help it. Not when confronted like that.
I called her on something that she didn't want to believe about herself. I forced her to confront a reality she tried to avoid.
And I did it while I was still inside her.
It was as vulnerable as a woman like her could be, and I went ahead and pushed anyway.
The argument was expected.
Hell, maybe it was even good.
I had a feeling that she was way too comfortable with the fact that that sharp tongue of hers could slice anyone open, sending them running to nurse their wounds.
And she could get the distance that she thought she wanted.
But I didn't shy away from some cuts and scrapes. Hell, I wouldn't shy away from someone trying to gut me.
She had met her match finally.
And that scared the shit out of her.
I couldn't fault her that.
But the fact of the matter was, back in that apartment, shit changed for me.
I was in.
All in.
I didn't know nearly everything about her yet, but I knew enough. I knew enough to want to know more. To want to know it all.
So that was the plan.
But I was done.
If I wanted to get what I wanted from her, I needed not to be one of the pushy men she had known in her life. She would be quick to shut that shit down. She had too much practice.
So I told her I would be there for her. And, what's more, I meant the words. And she knew that I meant them.
If she called, if she texted, if she showed up, I would answer, I would text back, I would open the door.
And whatever she needed, she could have it.
Except for more illusions, delusions, or lies.
When she came back to me, she would know that I wasn't above calling her on her bullshit. That if she wanted to take me up on an offer to show her that a man could be there, then she had to do it with some honesty for a change.
I knew it wouldn't happen tomorrow.
I knew she would convince herself that she was done with me, but it would happen eventually.
I'd get the text or the call, I'd get the announcement that there was a woman at the compound for me.
And that was when shit was going to change.
Until then, I was really fucking curious to see how she was going to handle our last session.
She was too stubborn and prideful not to show.
I guess I only had a few hours to see how that whole situation would play out.
"Lone survivor, huh?" I asked Reeve as I walked in the front door, watching him systematically gather empties into an old milk crate to toss into the recycling.
"Roan is up on the roof," he countered, though that was hardly newsworthy anymore. It was more unusual to see him anywhere else."Strike out?" he asked, slanting a look my way with his lips tipped up slightly. He wasn't one for small talk most of the time, but when he was alone with his own thoughts for too long, he tended to try to strike up some conversation when someone happened by, like he knew he would get too dark if he didn't.
"No," I countered, going behind the bar to grab the bottle of vodka, twisting off the cap, raising it up, and fucking chugging.
He let out a soft chuckle as he watched, shaking his head.
"Must be a hell of a woman to be drinking like that after not striking out."
"She is," I agreed, swiping the back of my hand across my mouth, swearing I could still taste her there even after all the vodka.
Sweet.
She was so fucking sweet.
I had just gotten my fill, and I somehow wanted more.
He nodded at that. "Hope it works out for you," he said, voice going guarded again. "It'd be good for you to have a woman in your life."
With that, he put the milk crate down for me to deal with, and walked off in the direction of his room.
Women, you would find if you paid close enough attention, were a trigger for Reeve. Why? Well, no one but Cy knew that, and he wasn't about to share his actual brother's secrets, not even to his biker brothers who never kept many of their own.
Whatever it was that went down, it put a dark mark on his soul.
I wonder if it was one that could have light shined on it again.
I finished most of the clean-up, figuring the newer bloods were likely out getting their rocks off, and wouldn't be back until morning. And then Summer would get up and start to clean up her own party.
In the end, I got maybe an hour of sleep before it was time to get up, shower, head to the gym, and see what was going to happen with Lenny.
Five minutes into the session, I was starting to think I was wrong, that she wasn't going to show.
I went to walk out toward reception, wanting to see if she had canceled, or just chosen not to show up, when my eyes caught sight of her.
In the ring with fucking Pagan, of all people. I had to stop myself from asking aloud What the fuck is this shit? and firmly planted my feet, watching as Pagan slammed her backward when she advanced.
When it came to old-fashioned street fighting, there was hardly anyone who matched him. He had been soaking the floor of the ring at Hex for years, taking down men who had a hundred pounds of muscle on him.
But Pagan had a leashed beast that he let out.
And, it seemed, each time he shoved Lenny back, her own yanked at its chain.
"Yeah, get fuckin' angry. This shit isn't gonna do dick in a fight, girl."
It was the girl that did it.
And I knew Pagan well enough to know he had said it on purpose.
Just to piss her off.
Just to see what she would do.
And Lenny, well, she delivered.
But she didn't do some LINE or Krav Maga or Jiu Jitsu.
Oh no. She moved in just at arm's length, used two fingers, and brought Pagan to his knees with a pressure point move that I taught her.
My slow clap was what made her finally release him, whipping around to face me.
"Nice," I told her, meaning it, but she took the praise with a scowl.
I didn't really expect anything different.
"Fuck," Pagan hissed, rubbing at his muscle. "Yeah, sorry. Know she had a class with you, but she got caught up watching me and that new kid from Hex fucking around in here. I know an eager look when I see one. And she was willing. Guess maybe she'd rather put her hands on me than you," he mused, smirk devilish, knowing exactly what buttons he was pushing. I hadn't said shit to him, but I had given a vague answer when Sugar had asked when he rolled up this morning. Fuck what you heard about women, men spread shit like wildfire just as quickly as women did.
Pagan obviously heard, then saw an opportunity to fuck with me about it.
Oh, brotherhood.
It wasn't real if they didn't make you fucking hate your life at times.
"Fuck off," I told him, tone casual, like I was telling him good morning, making him chuckle. "You about done avoiding me, love? Can we get our lesson over with?"
"I wasn't avoiding you," she was quick to correct, too quick for it to be the truth. "I saw an opportunity to learn something from a good fighter. I took it. That's all."
She moved to brush past me, but my hand grabbed her wrist gently, stopping her right at my side. "Remember how I feel about you lying to my face, Lenny."
"That sounds a whole lot like your problem," she shot back, yanking away, then charging back into the session room.
I had a feeling I was about to be in a world of fucking pain.
I suddenly regretted teaching her all the spots I had.
I looked over at Pagan, grinning like the devil himself. "That's about to hurt, man," he told me, sounding like he enjoyed the idea.
"Yeah," I agreed, reaching up to stroke a hand down my beard.
"Hell of a woman though."
"Yeah," I repeated, turning away, "I know."
Considering the purple smudges under her eyes that spoke of even more sleeplessness than usual, she was on her game when I walked into that room. She managed to keep me just barely at arm's length for the next fifty minutes, then curled away from me, declaring she had somewhere to be before tearing out of the gym like it was on fire.
"Yeah, that went about as could be expected," I said to myself, reaching up to rub at a bunch of the sore spots she had inflicted.
I walked out with a coiled feeling in my stomach, realizing our classes were done, wondering how shit was going to shake out if she chose not to call, if whatever she had going on was enough to keep her mind occupied, if she could easily just move on.
"Who pissed in your Cheerios?" Sugar asked as I walked into the compound, now empty save for the newer members, everyone else heading to bring their kids home and settle them back in.
"Didn't get a chance to tell them," Pagan said, twisting the top off a beer.
"Tell us what?" Roderick asked, looking up from his cell, eyes clearly excited about anything other than sitting around doing nothing, even if all it was was a chance to pile-on.
"I went to the gym this morning and... who the ever loving fuck are you?" he demanded to know, drawing a gun so fast that the motion blurred.
We didn't even see who he was raising his gun on, but all of us who had them - not including me - reached for guns as we turned toward the doorway to the kitchen where a man was standing, leaning against the doorway, a goddamn sandwich in his hand, looking at a group of armed bikers like there wasn't a worry in the world.
"Are you eating our fucking lunchmeat?" Roderick asked, face an almost comical level of confused by the situation.
And, well, it was fucking strange.
Who broke into an outlaw biker compound, made a sandwich, then just stood there waiting to be noticed?
He looked to maybe be in his late thirties with brown hair pulled up much like mine, somewhat European features, and gray eyes.
"Ya might consider adding some turkey or roast beef to yer selection," he said, bringing his sandwich up to take a bite.
Even with how much I had traveled, I couldn't quite place that accent, meaning it must have been a combination of several different accents. Army brat? Who else traveled that frequently?
"Gee thanks for the shopping advice, Martha Stewart," Sugar drawled in that accent of his, dropping many of his end sounds. "Now we are going to need to know who the fuck you are, where the fuck you came from, and how the fuck you got in here."
Burning questions all, but the latter was the one that was bothering me the most.
Once we had been trusted enough to get such details, Reign and Cash had walked us around the grounds, explaining in painstaking detail all the steps they had taken to ensure that nothing like their ambush that had taken out most of their men could ever happen again. And, thanks to the input from Hailstorm who had insisted on the DARPA glass room on the roof. Hell, there was even a safe room in the basement with enough supplies to weather the end of the world thanks to Duke's obsessive planning brought on by his upbringing with racist, zealot, preppers.
There should have been no holes, no weak spots to exploit.
"Yo," Virgin's deep, smooth voice said, drawing my attention to where he was on the phone. "You, Cash, and Wolf need to get back here. Someone broke in. Everyone is fine." There was a pause, Virgin looking almost a little uncomfortable, something I had never seen on his face before. "Making a sandwich. No, I'm not shitting you. Yeah. Okay." He hung up, tucking his phone away, doing all of this without the aim of his gun moving from a perfect third-eye target. "Five minutes out. Start talking, asshole."
"That's Adler," Roan's voice said out of nowhere, making everyone stiffen, wanting to look at him, but unwilling to look away from the man casually finishing his sandwich.
"Would ya look at that. My reputation precedes me. Who the fuck are ya?"
"Roan. You capped my informant in Turkey ten years back."
"And ya found out it was me. Obviously fucked that one up, eh?" He rolled his shoulder. "Informant, eh? Cop? A cop as a gun-running biker? That one doesn't line up."
"So he's what, Roan?" Pagan asked. "Rival?"
Coming from the gym, I had no gun to raise, so I could look over to find Roan shaking his head, his eyes keen. "Contract killer."
"Figure if you're here to kill someone, you wouldn't make your presence known first," Roderick mused, looking no less confused than he had been a few moments before. I think we were all feeling that way as well.
"If I were here to kill anyone, you'd all be dead without anyone even seeing where the bullets came from."
"Not exactly inspiring any trust here, man," Pagan said, shaking his head.
It was hardly a minute later when you could hear the bikes rumbling in. If they were at their places, they had to be pushing ninety on the way over.
"Can't figure he needs four guns on him when the yard has no fucking protection," Reign said as he came in.
Without needing anything further than that, men used to orders, Sugar and Virgin lowered their guns to their sides, and moved out toward the door.
Roderick followed.
Roan moved to leave as well, but Pagan shook his head. "Roan knows a bit about this guy," Pagan explained. "Adler. Contract killer."
Wolf came in a second later, his massive form taking up the space both Virgin and Sugar had vacated.
"The fuck is this?" he asked, just as Cash strolled in, more tense than usual.
"Lo is on her way."
Five minutes later, the room was packed with people who wanted answers from the man who seemed perfectly at-ease even as Janie threw herself down, frantically typing away on her laptop, digging up dirt on the man who had somehow managed to get into a compound protected by some of the brightest ex-military minds around.
"How did you get in?" Lo demanded almost as soon as she was in the door.
"Got a lot of practice getting through security systems. Tried yours up on the hill," he told her, managing to shock a woman who had seen and heard it all. "Don't worry. I failed. The gates are high. The dogs were a great deterrent. You should look into some dogs," he went on, talking to Reign.
"Yeah, I'm real fuckin' interested in taking advice from some two-bit contract killer."
"Got a hole in your system that I could drive a herd of buffalo through, but sure, let me walk out of here without telling you how and where."
Reign's smirk was slow, wicked, promising. "Who said you're walking out of here?"
"It's the tree," Adler supplied, completely unworried about being held against his will. Hell, maybe he had been in his past. "In the back corner. Might want to consider taking some fuckin' pruning sheers to that every once in a while. I could grab it from the other side of yer fence, and haul my arse up over it with no trouble. Waited for that one to look off toward the front yard," he said, meaning Roan, "and made my way to the side, sliding in the back door that was unlocked because that one was taking out some more bottles from your party last night," he went on, meaning Pagan. "Simple really."
Said a lifelong criminal.
Reign shot Wolf - who was perhaps a bit more familiar with chainsaws than the rest of us - a look that had him nodding, then heading outside to deal with the problem we had all overlooked.
Lo and Janie's shoulders relaxed slightly, like they were relieved it wasn't their original design problem, but instead a maintenance issue.
"Alright. And how about why the fuck are you in my compound?" Reign asked.
"Ya know, heard some things. Wanted to check ya out."
"Heard things about us how? And wanted to check out what? And if you keep fuckin' dragging this shit out, we can try getting the information in the old-fashioned way. Pagan, Roan, and Edison are particularly brutal fucks when on a job."
If he wasn't wrong about me in that - and he wasn't - then he wasn't wrong about the others either. I mean, anyone who had seen Pagan in a ring knew he was capable. I had also seen him back when Lazarus needed our help dealing with the scumbags who ruined Bethany's life. So if the two of us were violent fucks when we needed to be, then so was Roan. That was more information than we had gotten from the man since we heard that he was a spy - a concept already cloaked in a thousand questions. This was the first answer we had been given.
"Think we all can agree that Pagan only uses it in the ring, and when some fuck asks for it. Roan hasn't spilled any blood stateside. And Edison," he said, turning his gaze to me, "Well, we all know his deal." He let that rest for a minute, making the eyes of those who didn't know my deal look over at me.
There were going to be questions now.
A lot of them.
I wasn't ashamed of my past, far from, but keeping that shit close to my vest was what kept me out of third world country jails. I needed that anonymity to protect me. I wasn't exactly comfortable letting that go. Not just yet anyway.
"So I think my torture would fall in yer hands, Prez," Adler went on, lips tipping up at one side. "Think we both know ya have done plenty of blood spilling in yer day. But I won't let ya have yet another body on yer hands. I'll answer yer questions. Is that Johnnie?" he asked, actually moving past us all toward the bar, like it was the most normal thing, like we weren't a group of men one command away from taking his life. "Everyone has heard of ya," he said, twisting off the top of the Johnnie Red, grabbing a red Solo cup off the stack from the party. "Got the most solid arms trade in the country. I mean you don't have dick on places like Russia, the Ukraine, or Southern Nigeria, but considering the fucking heat ya got here with the ATF constantly sniffing around, you're doing pretty well for yourself. Gotta love a corrupt police force, eh?"
"Okay. So you've heard of us," Reign said through gritted teeth, clearly losing his patience. "Explain why you're here, or you'll be bleeding through your teeth in another minute or two."
The threat rolled off Adler's back as he refilled his cup, putting the bottle back on the counter, rolling the cap back on. "I was over in Boston when I heard through the wire about what went down with yer club. Fuckin' two-bit wanna be mobsters, amirite?" he asked, but no one seemed willing to play into his charm right then. "Came back to town. Got a friend here. Figured maybe I would stop in, see about bolstering you up."
Reign looked almost taken aback at that. "You want to prospect here? And you fuckin' thought the best way to go about it was to break in?"
"Showed ya I got a skill ya clearly need, didn't I?"
We couldn't exactly argue with that.
"Who is your friend?" Lo piped in, knowing it wasn't her place, but zeroing in on the thing that might be most helpful.
"Friend of yours too," Adler went on, nodding his chin at Pagan. "You like to paint his floors in red."
"Ward?" Cash asked, looking confused.
"Ward doesn't have fucking friends," Pagan shot back. "Try again."
"Call 'em up," Adler said casually, too casually for it to be a bluff, knowing Reign and Pagan would absolutely check into that.
"Alright, gotta ask," I cut in, making Adler's gaze move toward me. "Why would an international contract killer want to become a member of an MC? At your age, you doing your job, if you were any good, you'd be retired in Turks and Caicos, chasing bikinis half your age right now."
"Retired from that line of work. Too much travel, not enough roots. Got Ward here, figured this would be as good a place as any to settle in. I might be older, but I'm not fucking geriatric. I'm not ready to sit in a lawn chair and yell at kids for not using the fuckin' path just yet. Checked into the local options. Third Street is a fuckin' joke. Could use a decent leader, but drugs have never been my thing. Mallicks, well, that is too similar to what I've been doing for the past twenty some odd years. Besides, they like to keep it in-family. I'm not quite Italian enough for the Grassis. That leaves you and Lyon's former, Marco's current empire. But, like I said, I don't do drugs."
"So it's us by default?" Cash asked, looking both amused and insulted at the same time.
"Ya are an interesting group. Not so much in the past. Yer father's men were the utter cliche greasy, misogynist, bastard bikers. But the crew you've been building, this is interesting. Lifers," he said, meaning Reign Cash, Wolf, Sugar, and Virgin. "A couple nobodies with their own skill sets." That, I believed, meant Roderick, Reeve, and Cyrus. "An ex-spy and an ex... whatever he wants to call himself," he said, meaning me. "Interesting. I like interesting. I can share a drink with interesting. Won't be bored to fuckin' tears with interesting."
"We don't let just anyone in," Reign said, but there was a curiosity in his voice.
Adler wasn't wrong. Reign was carefully choosing his crew. That was why out of the twenty or so serious prospects that came to the open house a while back, he had only brought in four. He didn't want an organization like his father's. I figured he had suffered enough growing up in a place like that, and didn't want his own children to be around influences like that.
"Got time for ya to vet me," Adler graciously offered, making Reign's brow raise.
"Regardless of if I would even consider you or not, your ass needs to stay around until we can find out more about you."
"Oh, am I about to be yer prisoner?" Adler asked, almost sounding giddy at the prospect. "I haven't been held prisoner since, fuck, a small time cartel kept me in a spare room about five years back. Stupid fucks, they were. Walls were fuckin' plaster. I could literally kick my way out. Faces were fucking priceless."
"No windows and concrete walls," Reign told him, meaning the prospect room we had all needed to bunk in while Reign vetted us. "Can try to kick your way out, but you'd have two broken legs for your trouble," Reign went on, holding an arm out for the man to move with him, flanked by Cash, then followed by Pagan.
As soon as we were alone, Roan walked across the room, grabbing the bottle of Johnnie with a napkin, then walking it over toward Lo. "Fingerprints won't bring you shit," he told her, shrugging. "But test the liquid."
"You think he poisoned it?" Lo asked, carefully reaching for the napkin as well.
"Never know. He sounds like he's been a lot of places. Poison isn't common in the States, but it's big overseas. If he meant us harm, this would be an easy way to do it without anyone finding out."
"Sounds like you know from experience," Roderick said, coming in from outside, a bit of sawdust in his hair.
"I do," Roan surprised us all by admitting.
"Okay," Lo said when Reign and Cash walked back out after locking Adler in. "I will test this. Janie and Alex will get on tracing any bit of him across all the wires. Pagan, will you let me know what Ward says so we know if we should look that way or not?"
"Will do."
Reign looked around, taking a breath.
"Edison, Roan, Pagan, Virgin, Sugar, and Roderick are on lockdown. You eat, sleep, breathe, and fuck in the compound now. You don't even go out for a fucking beer run. Duke and Renny will come to keep an eye as well. Until we know this is legit, that he's just a weird fuck who wants in, all guards need to be up. Lo, I want some of your guys back to check for any other weak spots. It's been a while. We were obviously slacking. Cash and I are gonna go check and see if the Grassis or Mallicks have heard from or heard of this fuck. Wolf, well, sounds like he's out there cutting down every fucking tree," Reign mused, shaking his head. "We'll have church at ten to see what we have to go on. Don't fucking open that door until then," Reign demanded, moving off toward the door, tapping his brother in the gut as he did so to follow him.
"Maybe he was the storm," Sugar mused, shrugging, when he moved inside. "We kept saying something was coming, maybe it was him."
Hell, maybe it was.
We would have to see.