Wolf (The Henchmen MC 3)

If they were smart, they were already on their way to Canada or Mexico. They needed to lie low and let things blow over. If I lived long enough, that was my plan too. The only difference was, I could never come back to Navesink Bank once everyone found out what I did.

But I couldn't think about that.

I tore through the door that led to the finished side of the basement, going behind the fancy bar he had set up and flinging the bottles of alcohol onto the floor. I wasn't stupid. I knew the point of panic rooms was that they were virtually impenetrable, but there had to be a switch to open it somewhere.

"God damn it!" I screamed as I threw open the last cabinet and ran my hand over the smooth surfaces inside.

"Help." My ears were ringing and his voice was barely above a whimper, but I heard it. I flew upward, eyes darting around the room and landing on the prone body of someone in a suit in a corner. His face was busted, bloody, swollen, but I imagined he was good looking before he took his beating. The one eye that wasn't swollen shut was a piercing shade of green. I was ready to shrug and say 'fuck em' when I noticed his hands were cuffed.

"Damnit," I growled, moving around the bar toward him. I'd have been fine with one of his guards dying down there, but not some prisoner who probably did nothing but look at Lex the wrong way. "Why are you down here? The place is going to collapse in on itself soon."

"I think my leg is broken," he hissed as he moved out the leg in question. Through the leg of his slacks, I could see the edge of one of his bones sticking through the material and, therefore, his skin.

"You think?" I snorted, shaking my head.

I wasn't getting into the panic room. There was no way I'd have had the time to get the dude out and find the switch to unlock the door. I sighed as I lowered myself down beside him, wrapping an arm around his back and taking as much weight as my significantly more slight frame would allow. It was one thing that always pissed me off. No matter how much I trained, how good I got, I would never be able to best most of the men at Hailstorm, the lawless military camp I lived and worked at. I was small. I might have been fast and had good instincts in a fight, but when it came down to it, most of the time you won out of brute strength which meant I lost... a lot. And this guy had a good foot and seventy-five pounds on me so when he leaned on me, I had to lock my knees so they didn't buckle.

"I'm Joshua," he said as he hopped alongside me across the basement.

"I'm not exactly in the making friends mood, Josh. You just fucked up my plans."

"Which were?" he asked, his face twisted up in pain.

I figured he needed to talk to distract himself from the fact that an inside part of his body was suddenly halfway outside, so I decided to humor him. "To kill Lex Keith."

"Was this you?" he asked, waving his free hand around. At my tight nod, he let out a laugh/snort hybrid. "Guess I owe you a thank you then, huh?"

"For?" I asked, wincing as we started up the stairs, my free hand a death grip on the railing so I didn't topple over.

"If this place didn't blow up, I'd be dead," he ground out as we surfaced back on the grass.

From a distance, I could hear sirens. I needed to get the hell out of there. "Better a cripple than a corpse I suppose."

"There's no hope of walking without a limp is there?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"No," I told him honestly. I was never the kind to sugarcoat anything. "But I'm sure you'll be able to pull off a cane. I need to drop you off by the gate," I told him as we hobbled down the driveway. "And then you need to forget you saw me."

"You're just going to leave me?" he asked and I could feel his eyes on me, accusing me, silently calling me heartless.

"Would you prefer I stick around and get my ass locked up after saving your life... twice?"

"I see your point," he conceded as we stepped through the blown-open gates.

"The cops are already almost here. They'll be coming up the hill in five, maybe ten. I need to get out of here. You never saw me," I reminded him, propping him up against the guard booth.

"Saw who?" he asked and I nodded, giving him one last look.

"Chances are, he's still alive. He obviously has it out for you. My advice? Turn State's Evidence or get the fuck out of here as soon as you're out of surgery." With that, I tore off down the road, praying I still had enough of a head start to get shot of the cops.

I was fifteen minutes outside of Lex's area when it came over me. That's how it was at times. I didn't have to be over-thinking, stressing about it. Sometimes it crept up unexpected and crippling. My lungs felt on fire from running and I dropped to my knees on the side of the back road on a loud sob.

I failed.

I failed and now I was never going to feel like I could breathe free.

My hands moved up to cover my face, trying like hell to fight back the tears. I didn't cry. I couldn't. I wouldn't let myself. If I started, I knew I was never going to stop. So for eight years, I choked them back.

And that was exactly what I was trying to do when I heard the rumble of a truck move past me then idle a few yards ahead of where I was still knees down in the dirt.