Duke (The Henchmen MC 5)

I didn't even hear my door open.

But I felt a hand on my arm, firm but gentle, like only Duke seemed capable of.

My head turned and I felt for the first time how hard my body was shaking. "Penny, hey," he said as my eyes found his face and the tears started streaming down mercilessly.

"I'm sorry," I said, swatting the wetness away. "They're your friends. I have no business..." I said, shaking my head.

"Alright," Duke said, moving inward enough to grab me and drag me down. As soon as my feet hit the ground, he had me against his chest, one arm around my hips, the other hand sifting through my hair. "It's okay. He's tough. He'll get through this."

"He was unconscious," I added, blinking hard to try to stop the tears. I needed to get it together. These were his people and I had no business taking comfort from him when he needed it from me.

"I know. But that happens when you lose a lot of blood. They'll take him in, pop out the bullets, and stitch him right back up. He'll be one-wording Janie in a matter of hours."

"Duke," Renny called and it was enough to make me break away from Duke. Renny was standing in the open emergency room door, hands and forearms and shirt blood-stained. "Janie," he added and Duke nodded, reaching down to grab my hand and pulling me inside with him.

I understood what that meant the second we walked inside and the tiny scrap of a woman was shrieking at the security guard that was blocking her from being able to follow her husband.

"Listen, Miss. I need you to calm down," the guard tried, obviously sympathetic, but having his orders.

"I need you to shut up and get the fuck out of my way!"

"Janie," Renny tried, reaching out to touch her, but she yanked her hand away.

"No," she hissed. "No. You don't get to try to be all calm and tell me everything is going to be okay. I need to see him. Do you understand me? I need to see him. He can't..." she started, her voice catching on a sob.

My hand dropped Duke's and I moved forward, doing something that wasn't particularly characteristic of me, but there were times when even my usual aversion to touchy-feely-ness slipped. Watching and listening to a woman break down about her husband being shot four times? Yeah, that was one of those times. My arms went around her and she sank into me, her body shaking as she cried silently against me for a long moment.

"Gotta be fucking kidding me," Duke said, sounding pissed.

My head turned and I saw a tall, moderately attractive man walking up in a cheap suit. I knew very little about such things, but everything about him seemed to scream cop to me.

Janie snapped up, pulling away from me.

"Get the fuck out of here, Lloyd," Janie growled at him, no less intimidating with tears running down her cheeks.

Janie seemed like the kind of woman I would want to be if the world ended. She was small, but tough. And everything about her seemed to scream grit and capability. She would outlive the freaking cockroaches.

"Janie, this is standard..."

"Take your standard procedure and shove it up your fucking ass. My husband has four bullets in his chest and you're coming in here to interrogate me? Fuck you, asshole," she seethed, charging toward him.

"Easy there, Janie. I don't want to have to lock you up for assault while your husband is in the hospital."

Janie's face went a mask of pure, blind rage. "You take me to jail, I swear to Christ I will blow up..."

The rest of her sentence was cut off because Renny was suddenly behind her. One arm went around her small waist, yanking her back and off her feet as his other hand clamped down over her mouth.

"Blow up like a Thanksgiving balloon," he quickly covered. "Prison food is full of fat, you know," he added as Janie tried to wrestle away and speak through the gag.

"What is going on here?" Lo's very authoritative voice asked, clear as a bell, as she walked up, chin lifted, every molecule in her body tense as her eyes moved over Janie then landed and stayed on the Lloyd guy. "Detective Lloyd, I know you have taken sensitivity classes as part of your training. Is your memory so bad that you don't realize that interrogating a woman five minutes after her husband was wheeled into the hospital might perhaps be in bad taste?"

Lloyd seemed to sigh out a breath, looking up at the ceiling for a second like he was looking for strength. "Lo, you are not needed here. This has nothing to do with you. You weren't even there."

"No, but you have three other people standing here who were there and yet you immediately singled out Janie. Why don't you take their statements while I calm Janie down."