Duke (The Henchmen MC 5)

She nodded, handing me one of the cups of coffee. "Take it. You're gonna have a long night," she encouraged and I did. "Well, they went with the thing about Bella's and asked about her. Luckily, Bella doesn't exactly employ the Secret Service as employees and they were quick to cough up the information. Her name is Penny Williams. Her parents, Bette and Brian Williams live in the City. Her grandmother, Patty Weber, was recently moved into Blue Horizons after a hip break which, we figure, is why she uprooted her life in Florida and moved here. She only got here two days ago and moved into Miller's Grove Apartments. As far as they can tell, she has no connections to any organization in Jersey or Florida. Everything points to her being a normal, upstanding citizen who got caught in a shit situation."

"Because of me and Shred."

"Because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time," Lo went on, brushing away my feelings of guilt. "It sucks. It shouldn't have happened to her. But it did and you will find the fucks and have fun making them pay for what they did to her. She will, after a while, move on, chalk it up to a random act of senseless violence, and continue on her life."

"You make it sound easy. But you forget, Lo, that she isn't like us. She's not used to the violence."

"There was a time, Duke, where I wasn't either. But shit happens. You deal. I think you forget that unlike most men, women live with the threat of violence every day of their lives. We pee in packs. We have boyfriends who make us call to make sure we got home safely. We ask people to walk us to our cars because the lots are dark and you never know what kind of monster is hiding in the shadows. We hope it doesn't ever happen, but are acutely aware that it is always a possibility for us. I think you overestimate how much of a shock this is. Granted, this scar on her back will not be easy to explain, but I think you'll be surprised how resilient she will be."

"Maybe you're right," I allowed, but I didn't like it. I didn't like our filth touching someone it shouldn't have. It wasn't supposed to work that way.

"Duke, you'll find them and trust me," she said, drawing my attention away from Penny and back to her, "Reign will let you spill all the blood you feel you need to to make this right. Though, I think you and Wolf will be fighting for that privilege. Hell, Shred even seems torn up about it and nothing gets to him."

I raked a hand down my face and took a deep breath. "Yeah, well at least that's something to look forward to."

"Go talk to your brothers. I promise I won't leave her side until you get back," she said, kicking off her shoes and climbing in the bed beside her, reaching for her phone, already shooting off some rapid fire text.

I looked over at Penny again, not realizing how long I did so until Lo's voice cut into my thoughts again. "Go."

"Right," I said, moving toward the door and stepping into the hall.THREEDukeI almost tripped over Alex and Janie who were sitting on either side of the hall, Alex with her long legs straight out, Janie with her shorter ones curled under her. Both had giant state-of-the-art laptops on their laps and fingers tapping frantically on keys or the click buttons. Alex had a giant coffee beside her and Janie had one turned over and empty energy drink and another one already cracked open.

"Whoa there, Hercules," Alex said, not bothering to look up. "You spill my coffee and there will be consequences of the Eunuch variety."

"Nice to see you too, Alex," I said, smiling at her typical ball-busting attitude. It was an attitude that matched, and was maybe at times surpassed, by the tiny as a bird, tattoo-covered, black-haired, blue-eyed badass bomb and hacking expert protege of Lo's... Janie. When she was working, she was known as Jstorm and she was Wolf's woman, the only chick wild enough to tame that beast.

"Did they knock her out with something?" Janie asked, still moving around on her laptop, not looking at me.

"Yeah, they gave her some Vicodin. She's out."

"Good. She will sleep for hours while we try to suss this shit out," Janie said, voice a little tense. I wondered a bit fleetingly if it was out of anger for the random girl getting mixed in club business or because she knew that this was a declaration of war on some big and bad's part and that she and her husband and most of the people she loved would be at risk because of it. She looked up at me then, dark brows slightly drawn together. "I tried to convince Wolf that this was your kill if it comes to that."