Reign wasn't usually in the compound first thing in the morning, meaning that he was likely there just to confront me.
Someone had filled him in.
And that should have been my place.
"I know I am supposed to clear shit with you..."
"What?" he cut me off, smirking. "Like Laz and Pagan came to me first? I get shit comes up in life sometimes that needs to be handled in the moment. Can't expect you to call me in the middle of a crime scene clean-up. I just want to make sure it is all handled. And that Lenny isn't a loose end."
"Lenny's plan was to kill him herself. She won't be ratting us out if that is what you're worrying about. She just froze."
Reign nodded at that. "Satisfy your bloodlust for a while?"
"His abuse drove Lenny's sister to suicide to get away from him."
"So yes," he concluded, nodding. "And the scene? I heard he was a cop. Not one in our pockets, but a member of NBPD regardless."
"If I heard right, he was in Third Street's and Abruzzo's pockets. But they won't know to be pissed at us. It just looks like the good officer disappeared."
"Alright," Reign agreed, shrugging.
I wondered often what the man must have been through in his life to make him so accepting of all the crazy shit that surrounded his club and the men and women inside it. But when it came to sharing, Reign was about as tight-lipped as Roan and Reeve.
I guessed when you had seen more than two-thirds of your men lying dead in the place that was supposed to be the safest spot in the world for them, it was easy to think of everything else as no big deal.
"Church tomorrow. We all gotta talk about Adler."
Adler who was no longer cuffed around the compound.
But before I could ask anything, Reign was gone.
"Ugh! Who the fuck left boots in the middle of the fucking floor!"
I felt my lips curling upward, not giving a fuck how whipped that made me seem.
My rabies-riddled raccoon was up.
It was time to get some caffeine in her.Lenny - 4 months"Ya just don't want to do it 'cause you're worried yer mad skills won't match up."
Adler liked Meryl's.
The other newer bloods had happened in once, noted the complete lack of pussy frequenting the establishment, and headed off to more women-laden pastures.
Not Adler though.
He said it reminded him of some rundown watering hole he had frequented in Ireland, full of drunk old men talking bullshit for hours.
Meryl might have been disappointed that the entire Henchmen clan didn't come bursting down the doors every night, but when he found out that Adler had a strange penchant for buying the house rounds at least once a night, he warmed up to Adler who was more receptive of his ass-kissing than Edison had ever been.
"No. I'm saying you are going to be a bitch about losing, and blame it on how drunk you are tonight, instead of taking your defeat like a man."
"Big words from a woman who won't even pick up a dart... oh," his sentence cut off when I whipped the blade out of my boot, flicked it open, and tossed it across the room at the board, hitting just outside the bullseye as it always did, beating all his other throws from the night, even before he got drunk. "Well," he said, lips twitching as he turned back to me, "the sun was in my eyes," he told me, deadpan, looking right at the window behind me, pitch black as it always was at one AM.
"Yeah yeah yeah," I said, shaking my head at him. "So how are things going with your girl?"
A guardedness came up over his eyes, but not quite before my trained gaze could find a bit of sadness first. "She's not my girl. And her story ain't mine to tell either."
With that, he moved away, going back toward the bar, buying a round, and drowning it in cheap whiskey.
Maybe she wasn't his girl. Yet.
And maybe she was going through some serious shit.
But I had a feeling there would be a new girl around the compound soon.
After both Reeve and Sugar got their chicks, we had been placing bets on who was next to fall. Reeve's girl had her money on Roan, who she had a soft spot for. Sugar's girl went with Virgin because he was 'too damn fine not to have some chick blindside his ass.'
Me, I was sure my money was on the right brother.
Try as he might to hide what was going on, there was no denying Adler was finding out that his own damage could be lovable... by finding himself falling for a woman just as scarred.Edison - 6 months"You're letting me win," Lenny hissed down at me, where she had knocked me on my ass just a second before.