Repo (The Henchmen MC 4)

To that, Renny's lips twitched slightly before they settled back into a straight line, and I saw for the first time that he wasn't the person I had originally thought he was. He wore his disguise really well: the lighthearted, funny, sweet, goofball with a good heart. He never slipped, save for the fight with Duke and, well, they were men and sometimes men just fought because it was in their instincts to settle things with fists, not words. Otherwise, he was one-hundred percent that Renny-disguise all the time.

But the man in front of me was a view of the man who was underneath that.

And he had a little coldness in his eyes, a little hollowness in his voice, a kind of sharpness about him that you'd swear could cut you to pieces if you got too close.

"Let's try this again. What business do you have with a boxing emporium?"

"Why the fuck would it matter? Would you question me if it was any run-of-the-mill gym calling?"

"Would any run-of-the-mill gym call you twenty-some-odd times in one night?"

"If I owed them money, probably," I mused.

"Cute," he said, shaking his head and I saw a struggle there between the two Renny personalities. In the end, the knife-like one won out. "But billing departments wouldn't be calling after hours."

"If they were in, say, California maybe they would."

"Nice try, Violet, but I'm not stupid."

"Why do you care who is calling me?"

"Because it's an anomaly and I don't like those."

"Christ, Renny, I never pegged you as the anal type."

"There's a lot you don't know about me, Maze."

It was that moment that Duke's words came screaming to the forefront of my mind, words he'd said when talking about Renny: "Not everyone is who they appear to be, Ace."

Had Duke known back then about Renny? Was whatever darkness that was in Renny the cause of that fight they had had?

Because, quite honestly, with the way he was acting, I kind of felt like going a couple rounds with him myself.

"Interesting. So you're allowed to have your secrets, but I can't have my own?"

"Something like that. At least not from me."

"What makes you so special?"

"K.C.E Boxing, Violet. Why them? Why so many calls? Why did you look so freaked after you called them back. And don't insult me by saying you didn't call them back and that you didn't look freaked because if there is one thing that I am, it's observant."

"Yeah, okay," I said, rolling my eyes. It was childish and it served no real purpose, but confronted with this side of Renny, I was forgetting all the training K had tried to pound into me.

"For instance, you climb trees when you're in a mood. You can cook, but it's not a task you particularly enjoy. So from that, I'm going to conclude that you grew up with someone who did like to cook and he or she, more likely she, was determined to pound that skill into you whether you liked it or not."

Well, he had my grandmother pegged right there.

"Why not a he?" I latched onto, being the only topic that didn't hit too close to home.

"Because girls like you, the take-no-prisoners, I-can-do-everything-a-guy-can, I-don't-need-no-man types... they generally don't come from households with strong male role models. When you have a strong male role model, you learn you can trust men, you can lean on them, you don't have to prove yourself or anything to them. So you, Maze, I very much doubt you had any men in your life. Single mom. Single grandmother. Something like that."

Both of those were true.

God.

God.

Was I such an open book or was Renny just a really good reader?

"Do you need more examples? From last Wednesday to three days ago, you had your period. You don't bitch and moan but you get cramps. I know that because you unconsciously rub your stomach. It's not something you do when you're hungry, so one would assume it was because of pain. You and Repo, you have a love-hate thing going on and the sexual tension between you could be sliced with a fucking knife. You..."

"Okay, enough. I get it, you notice things," I snapped, genuinely freaked out that any one person could derive so much factual truths from just... casually watching me.

"And I noticed you call them back and I noticed you fall against the fence like whatever you heard freaked you out."

"So, I got some bad news. Christ, Renny. It's none of your fucking business."

"Everything is my business. Especially when I know that K.C.E isn't just a boxing emporium," he said and I felt myself stiffen and I knew he noticed. "It's a boxing emporium run by the notorious, enigmatic K."

"So?"

"So why is K calling you?"

"Who said it was K calling me? Jesus, for someone so observant, you can be kind-of dense."

"Dense?" he asked, brows drawing together, his face losing some of its coldness, some of its certainty. Maybe that was his Achilles heel. He needed to be right, to be the smartest and most observant guy in the room. If something threatened that, the other Renny could shine through more.