Cyrus (The Henchmen MC 9)

"You mean how Tig is looking at you now?" I asked, nodding my chin to the huge, hulking man who was in a conversation with Amelia, Shooter, and Paine, but whose gaze kept slipping over toward Kenzi.

"Oh, please. That's his 'don't say it, Kenz' look," she said with a smirk. "He didn't want me coming over here and threatening you or something."

"Are you? Threatening me?"

"Oh, babe, if you so much as make one goddamn tear slip out of her eye, your balls will be bronzed and sitting in my store. But, I don't think I even needed to tell you that. Any man who will take her to Bookjam must be in love with her. I once brought her to Books-a-million because she had never been there before when we were in PA. Cy, we were there for five and a half hours. She's my sister. I think she's the greatest thing since sliced bread. But that was a true testament to my love for her. So you willingly signing up for that? Psh."

"I like that you are protective enough of her to possibly bronze my balls some day, Kenz. That's the kind of sister she deserves."

It was that exact moment, when Kenzi shot me a smile and bumped her shoulder with mine, that Reese looked over.

She'd never admit it to me, but having her family approve of me meant the world to her. So looking over and seeing her sister giving me that smile and some casual contact, it was what she needed to know it was going to work out in the long run.Cyrus - 2 weeks"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Duke exploded at the news, the words bursting from him before Reign even fully finished saying them.

And, well, we all had to kind of agree.

Even those of us who weren't around for the worst of it like Reign, Cash, Wolf, Repo, Duke, and Renny.

To them, the name meant more than a crazy story that happened before their time. To them, it was a name that was attached to the worst event in Reign's entire spell as president of The Henchmen MC.

Abruzzo.

They were supposed to be an extinct species.

Reign had taken a crew and wiped them out after they killed the majority of his men.

"Take a breath," Reign demanded quietly, holding up a hand at Duke who was about to launch into some tirade about it not being a situation to calm down over. "Let me talk," he added. "The Abruzzos didn't just pop up out of nowhere when they started picking off our men. The Abruzzos had had one of their men go through the police academy to get a job on the NBPD. That Abruzzo was relatively harmless except for getting Wolf locked up for a crime he actually did commit," Reign said, smirking a little. "The thing was, back then, we sicced the Grassi family on them, them not wanting more Italians trying to step in where they have had a foothold for generations. They had taken care of it. I visited with them to confirm. Unfortunately, apparently, Marco Abruzzo is a hard man to kill."

"And now he's back, running the cocaine trade," Repo concluded.

Reign nodded. Apparently, Roan had made the man several days before, a fact that was kept from the rest of us. Had I maybe been around as much as I should have, I likely would have found it weird that one day, Reign, Cash, and Wolf had all come to the clubhouse early, gotten in a SUV, and headed out.

Reign, unbeknownst to us, had had a meeting with the man.

"That about covers it," Reign agreed.

"I get that it's not my place to question you," Sugar said, making it clear he was about to. "But how the fuck could you go off to a meeting like that without backup?" There was a shared look between the prez and the vice, making us all realize he had had backup. "Roan on that too?" Sugar asked, looking over at the man.

"Contracted out," Reign admitted, pulling back his shoulders, readying himself for the objections he knew were coming at that.

And come they did.

"Alright, shut the fuck up for a minute," Reign interjected a moment later, cutting through the arguments of the men. "I have two men in my club capable of what I needed that morning - a long-range sniper - and I wasn't taking Repo since, if shit went down, I needed him to step up in my place if me, Cash, and Wolf got taken out. And Virgin, well, I don't know you well enough to put the lives of all three of us on the line. So I contacted Shooter, paid his metric fuckton fee, and had him keep an eye while I had a talk with Marco. Marco, the part you all should be fucking focusing on right now, not how I chose to protect my fucking self."