Judge (Shady Valley Henchmen 1)

“Me,” I said as my gaze fell on the bartender. The one who’d been side-eyeing me all night.

“Where is she? What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You came back without her, then left again.”

“I went back to see if she was alright,” I admitted. “I didn’t… she didn’t tell me,” I told her, shrugging. “Didn’t realize it until I got back here. So I went to check on her. She was gone.”

Some of the tension left the woman’s shoulders, but that fingernail was still digging in.

“I swear on everything illegal in this town, if I find out you did something to her, I will split you from dick-head to neck, pull up that skin, and make you wear it as a hat.”

“That’s… that’s fucking dark, babe,” I said, letting out a small laugh.

“Look at me,” she demanded. “Do I look like I’m making empty threats to you?” she asked.

I’d met a lot of cold-blooded killers in my day. I wasn’t sure any of them had eyes as dark as this chick did right that moment.

“No,” I agreed.

“I love that little girl like a sister. Now, what she does—and who she does—isn’t my business. But if there is any damage there, that becomes my business. Got it?”

“I got it,” I agreed, nodding.

“Good. Now get,” she demanded, taking a step back to let me pass.

And with that, I got going.

It had been an eventful day.

I went from being locked up to being free, employed, with a brotherhood, a home, a future, had gotten laid, gotten buzzed, and then been threatened with mutilation.

By the time I got back to the clubhouse, the music was thumping, the drinks were flowing, and two chicks already had their tops off.

It should have been a dream come true.

My cock had been neglected for years. It should have been rock-hard at the potential to get laid multiple times a night.

As I got myself a drink, though, I didn’t even feel a twinge of desire in my system.

“So, you’re the one who cooks,” I said as I wandered over toward the kitchen where Detroit was taking piles of food out of the fridge, and arranging them on the island.

“Not a whole fuckuva lot of food places to order from in this town. We need to eat,” Detroit said in that gravel-like voice of his. “Not in the partying mood?”

“Hate to admit this shit, but I’m a little beat,” I told him, shrugging.

To that, Detroit let out a humorless laugh. “Then I hope you sleep like a fucking brick. These parties go until morning most of the time.”

“I’m not heading up yet,” I said, shaking my head.

I went ahead and left out the fact that the only reason I didn’t want to was because I needed a distraction. I knew that if I went upstairs and got alone for the first time since it happened, that my mind was going to go back there.

To the alley, to the deli.

And it was all going to come rushing back.

The sweet little noises she made, the way her skin felt like fucking silk, the sweet taste of her pussy on my tongue.

And if my mind would go there, it would go somewhere else that it had no business going.

Like how some primal, irrational part of me liked the fact that I was her first, that it was my cock that introduced her to sex. That, for a brief moment in time, I was the only man to have touched her that way.

But that shit?

That was toxic as fuck.

And I didn’t need to let myself go there.

So I didn’t give a fuck how tired I was, I was planning on staying at the party until my damn eyes refused to stay open anymore.

Then, hopefully, I would fall into a solid, dreamless sleep that would help my mind stop thinking crazy shit about some chick whose name I didn’t even know.

“So what made you get into this lifestyle?” I asked.

“Slash dragged me into it,” Detroit said as he started slicing open an avocado. “He got an offer. And it was a good one. We’ve known each other since we were kids,” he said, gesturing toward waist height. “He knew I was struggling. He had a ticket out of the struggle, so he asked me if I wanted to come along. You?”

“Slash offered me a ticket too. But I’ve been in shit like this my whole life. Mostly extorting and enforcing.”

“Those are mafia words,” Detroit said, pausing what he was doing to give me a hard look.

“They are,” I confirmed.

“Slash know that?”

“Figure he does. All he would have had to do is run my rap sheet.”

“Who? The Italians? Irish?” he asked when I shook my head. “Russians?”

“Nah, before the Russians settled in around here, it was the Albanians. Started working for them when I was, shit, twelve?”