West (The Henchmen MC 19)

This place, with its isolated location down a side street, its old penny brick front, its cheesy painted-over windows in an old pub scene, complete with barmaids with heaving tits serving beer, the dark parking lot, the shrieking metal music, yeah, nothing about it said 'women welcome.' Unless maybe those women were pros.

But maybe women around these parts were more daring, less concerned about dark, creepy bars.

Or, more likely, these guys didn't know a fucking thing about how to kill two birds with one stone.

Get their drink on with their friends.

And find some hot women to take home.

It looked like I had some things to teach these guys.

I shrugged on my cut, tucked a gun in an ankle holster seeing as no one was going to pat me down, and made my way in.

I wasn't wrong.

Sausagefest.

I spotted Huck first. He was hard to miss. Six and a half feet, square jaw, stern forehead. The man had a presence. Anyone who walked past him seemed to give him a wide berth.

He sat at a table with three other guys, all nursing beers, bullshitting.

"You eye-fucking us, or are you joining us?" Huck's voice boomed over the music. His arm was raised, waving, ushering me over. "West," he greeted when I moved in at his side.

"Huck. Nice shithole you have here."

To that, he gave me a small smirk. "We like it. Guys, this is West from Navesink Bank. West, these are my guys."

"McCoy," the one to his left told me.

McCoy was just slightly shorter than Huck, dark-skinned, dreadlocked past his shoulders, bearded, and fit, with a nasty scar on the side of his throat.

"Che," the man next to him said, and I thought I detected a slight accent. I was shit at them, though. And he barely said anything anyway. Nothing to go on to try to place it.

Che was thinner than Huck and McCoy with an angular face, a slight, short beard, brown eyes, and black hair.

My gaze slid to the last guy. Again tall, strong. This one was heavily tatted with a short beard, dark hair that he had bleached, and dark blue eyes.

"Yo, Genius, fucking focus," Huck demanded, kicking the guy's chair, making his gaze shoot around until it landed on me. "That's Remington," Huck explained.

"A man who needs no introduction," the man in question agreed. "Remy, though."

"Remy," I said, casting a gaze around. "The fuck you guys doing hanging out in a place without any women?"

"Blame the boss man," Remy said, looking over at Huck. "He wanted to size you up without 'distractions,'" he said, throwing up air quotes.

"You wanted to size me up?" I asked, brow quirking. "I was sent here to size you up."

"Thought your boss already did that."

"President, not boss," I corrected, cringing a bit at having to do such a douchey thing. "And he has his thoughts. He wanted second opinions."

"Thought an MC president had the first and last say on everything."

"They do. But Reign doesn't mind feedback. We have to circle back to why we are here. There's not a single woman in this place."

"I've gotten enough shit from Remy about it already. We'll meet up with Teddy in a bit. He should be surrounded by women. You can have your pick there. For now, sit," Huck demanded, nodding his head toward Che who got up to grab an extra chair. "So, West. You're here to spy on us."

"So, Huck, I'm here to see if you guys are Henchmen material." his brow raised at that, aggravated that I would challenge him. Which was probably a notch in his favor if Renny were here to analyze him. Pride was something you almost always found in a leader. "No offense, but a chop shop is not in the same league as arms dealing."

I expected an outburst of some sort, but all I got was a long look from Huck before he raised his beer bottle, took a sip. "Yeah, you're probably right," he agreed, nodding.

"So, it's just you four?" I asked.

"And Teddy," Huck reminded me. "But, yeah, it's more than enough for what we do."

"Any competition in town?"

"For my business or yours?"

"Either. Both."

"For mine, nah. Knocked them out five years ago."

"By force?"

"When necessary," he agreed. "But for your business? Yeah, we got a couple Russians."

"Organized?"

"Nah. Couple brutes with sand for brains. They're violent fuckheads though. Wouldn't give it up easy."

"It wouldn't be fun if it was easy," McCoy piped in, smirking.

"I'm sure by now you had those survivalist freaks check out my men," Huck said, blunt to a fault.

He wasn't wrong. We would run his men by the people up at Hailstorm. As soon as I got the names up to them. If anyone could dig up skeletons, it was them. Especially with Chris's dogged determination while she occasionally moved behind the helm to steer the ship.