Pagan (The Henchmen MC 8)

Of course it looked important; it was on stationary that cost more per sheet than a latte at Starbucks. I didn't even have to open it to know who sent it... or why.To "Pagan" Richard Scott,I was starting to think you would never touch that money again, until the accountant called me to tell me you acquired, and then sold, a building which was half-abandoned and the other half a beauty salon.

It doesn't take much thought to come to the conclusion that a woman was involved. Especially after hearing it was sold to a lovely young lady named Kennedy for five dollars.

Also, I hear you are a Henchmen now.

When you aimed to fall far from the tree, you didn't seem to mind rolling all the way into a minefield.

I wish you nothing but the best.With regards,

Richard Scott, Sr.If you asked, and when I finally came clean to Reign, Cash, Wolf, Repo, Duke, and Renny about my past, they had, I couldn't really tell you what my sudden compulsion was to visit him.

Maybe it was as simple as growing the fuck up, losing some of the resentment which, while not unfounded, certainly got blown out of proportion thanks to too much testosterone and not enough good sense.

And, to be perfectly fucking honest, maybe it all had something to do with Kennedy. Maybe she had, whether I realized it at first or not, whether I even wanted it or not, started to put ideas in my head. Ideas about futures and families and traditions.

We never talked about it of course. It was too soon. Things were too new. But that didn't stop my brain from wondering since she was the only woman I didn't feel 'done' with after one fuck. She was the only woman who had ever managed to pop into my head in quiet moments with enough of an impact for me to realize I was smiling like some fucking sap.

My first impression about her in the coffeeshop had been right; she looked like possibilities.

I just didn't realize at the time that those possibilities could mean a future for me. With her.

Then, as it often happened, when I thought enough about the future, it had me mulling on the past.

Once I did that for long enough, I felt something sneak in that was so foreign that I almost didn't recognize it at first. It was a swirling sensation in my stomach, a bitter taste in my mouth.

Guilt. Or regret. Or a cocktail of the two.

Because, at the end of the day, my Gramps sending letters, that was his very old school way of trying to reach out, trying to tell me I was still important to him. The poor fuck had no one left- a smattering of great-nieces and great-nephews and a full staff of people to cater to him. But no one close. No one who gave a shit.

Maybe being with The Henchmen, being surrounded by people who gave a shit, often whether they wanted to or not, had created a shift in my mindset. I saw for perhaps the first time how fucking nice that was. Didn't matter what I needed, someone always had my back.

Gramps probably only had that because he paid for people to give that to him.

It had to have been a lonely goddamn life.

His wife was long dead; his son was gone. I was all he had left.

Fact of the matter was, the guy was knocking at death's door. I was pretty sure there was a part of me that wouldn't ever feel right about letting him meet his maker without having cleared the air with me first.

Not necessarily for my peace of mind, but his own.

All things said and done, you had to understand the man came from a different generation. Men were supposed to go out and work, provide for their families. The wives, in turn, took care of the house and children. He, for all intents and purposes, did his job and did it phenomenally in his lifetime. I couldn't blame him for the lack of interest my father took in me. I couldn't even blame him for the estrangement of my mother who was pushed away, I was sure, by my grandmother. Just like my own father, Gramps was never home enough even to know what his wife was up to.

I couldn't put everyone else's faults on his back.

It was time for us to get together.

His house was the same one I had known as a child, a massive red brick building on too many acres of land. I knew from running up and down those halls as a kid that there were six bedrooms on the second floor and three on the third. Each had a bath because, well, money. The dining room was grand enough to fit twenty at the table. I parked out front, rolling my neck. And maybe, for the first time since I left my family behind, I actually fucking fretted over my goddamn clothes.