Duke (The Henchmen MC 5)

"Did you come from a violent background?" I asked, knowing I was prying but wanting to ask regardless.

He turned back at me, eyes a little guarded. "Yeah, babe."

"I'm sorry," I said as he grabbed some stuff out of the fridge and moved it to the counter.

"Long time ago," he said, back to me.

"What are you doing over there?" I asked several minutes later after all he seemed to do was shuffle items around.

To that, he half-turned to me, shaking his head with a somewhat boyish smile. "Fuck if I know," he admitted with a grin.

I laughed too, crossing the room toward him and checking out the food he had laying there. "In what universe did you think that broccoli, feta cheese, and yogurt would go together?"

"I have no fuckin' idea what chicks eat. I can throw some meat on a grill and that's about the extent of my cooking skills."

"Well, allow me to bring you into the twenty-first century, caveman," I teased, bumping into his shoulder with my arm to push him over slightly. "Rule number one," I said, picking up the cheese and yogurt. "Just because the food all goes to the same place does not mean you can eat it all together."

So then I taught Duke how to cook.EIGHTDukeShe taught me how to cook.

Really, I could give fuck-all about learning how to cook. That was what takeout was for. But she seemed to brighten up at the idea of teaching me and I'd be damned if I soured her mood just because I didn't really ever think I would have the need to know the difference between white and red onions.

It was nice to just hear her talk honestly. I was starting to wonder if she wasn't more traumatized than any of us realized with how tight-lipped she had been since she showed up.

And when she did speak, she seemed to trip over her words, like she was nervous.

Like I made her nervous.

I didn't like that shit.

But as she prattled on about cheddar jack cheese, there was none of that. Her voice was strong and even. Her moves were more effortless, less clumsy. Her shoulders relaxed. Her eyes lost some of their hollowness.

It was a fuckin' sight to see.

After she had talked to Lo earlier, Lo had talked to me. Which had me and Wolf over at her apartment, collecting her mostly-packed boxes and piling them into the back of Wolf's pickup.

I had sent him ahead and ran back in, pounding on the useless super's door for five minutes before he dragged his lazy, fat ass out of bed and answered the door, rubbing his stomach with one hand while tipping back a beer with the other. "Yeah?"

"Apartment 2B," I said.

"Need to get into it?" he asked and I felt myself stiffen.

"If I said I did?"

"I got a key here somewhere," he said, looking inward at his apartment.

"You realize I don't live there, right?"

"Yeah. No. That pretty blonde chick does. The one with the ass," he added, making my hands curl into fists at my sides.

"But you'd let me in?"

"The fuck do I care?" he asked, reaching for something inside and pulling out keys.

I reached out and grabbed the front of his shirt, dragging him out into the hall then slamming him against the wall hard enough for his teeth to knock together audibly. "Listen you fuck," I growled, getting close enough to smell garlic seeping through his pores. "I fucking care. And because I fucking care, you are going to fucking care from this day on. No one gets let into her apartment but her. In fact, if someone so much as lingers in front of her door for more than two seconds, you better the fuck know about it. And when you know about it, you let me know."

"Listen, I don't know who..." he started and I reached into my back pocket and shoved an envelope into his chest.

"That is the next two months of rent for 2B. You see anyone sniffing around her place, you can find me at The Henchmen compound," I said, dropping that bomb and watching realization etch fear into his face. "Yeah, thought that might change your mind about the situation," I sneered, pulling back and shoving him back again harder, making the beer slip from his hand and hit the ground with a thud, rolling a few feet to our side. "Got it?"

"Yeah, yeah man. I got it."

With that, anger churning like acid in my stomach, I went back to the compound and unloaded her stuff. I hadn't been lying when I said I warned the guys off of her. Most of the guys would probably never even make eye-contact with the shit I had threatened them. It was so that even Wolf hadn't ventured into my room. He had taken it all out of his truck bed and piled it in the hall right outside, standing beside it, waiting for me.