Niro (Henchmen MC Next Generation 1)

They would all be settled in the basement in the section that had been changed over many years from a small sleeping area for anyone prospecting into a sprawling barracks-style room with rows of bunk beds, dressers, a small kitchenette, bathroom, and even an area with tables to play cards or board games if the boredom started to get the better of everyone.

To an outsider, it might have felt a bit like a low-level prison. But to all of us who had needed to shack up there many times in the past, it was just like a mini family reunion. You know, one with the threats of possible street war attached.

Maybe it was all overkill.

Maybe none of it was necessary.

But no one was willing to risk it.

"This room is getting too fucking small for everyone," Reign decided when everything had settled down and all the men—and Andi—were gathered in the common area of the clubhouse for church.

"Can I start by wondering how the fuck one of our own could be kidnapped without a fucking one of us knowing?" my father demanded, waving his hand out.

And, really, it was a good question.

But the answer seemed simpler than you would first think.

Namely, that it had been a lot easier to protect the children of the club when they were just that... children. When they grew up and got their own lives, moved to their own places, got their own jobs, it became a hell of a lot harder to keep an eye on everyone every moment of the day.

You could see the looks of concern on the faces of all the men, wondering how they were going to be able to keep their adult children safe in this new world we were living in. One where new enemies were getting smarter, sneakier, harder to track down and protect ourselves against.

"Let's stick to what we can fix now," Reign suggested, looking over toward where Andi was half-hidden behind my shoulder. "We need to know what you know about the cartel, babe," he said, always one to cut right to the chase. It wasn't typically a style Andi responded to, but she knew she really had no choice in this situation.

Andi mumbled through the first minutes, her gaze focused on the ground, giving answers to anyone who asked for clarifications, but not telling the story the way she typically did where she would recount every little detail, would go off on side tangents for a while before she circled back to the original story.

"Just A. And the guy that got shot. Marco. That is all they said," she explained when someone asked if she had gotten any names.

"Okay, I have a question," her father said, making her head shoot up. "Baby girl, why didn't you come to me?" he asked, his voice a shattered sound.

I understood his confusion, his frustration, but watching her eyes go glassy made a protective urge rise up.

"We weren't there," I reminded him, putting an arm around Andi. "We don't know exactly what they said or how she felt. And if she thought silence could save you and her mom, I think we both know Andi would choose that. Even if it was, clearly, eating away at her."

Reeve's gaze slid to me, holding, and I couldn't help but wonder if he was reading into what I said, if he was putting things together. If he was looking at my arm around her and thinking of it as something innocent, or reading more into it than that.

It didn't exactly escape me that pretty much everyone in our world knew my feelings for Andi. Except Andi.

I never talked about it with her parents, of course, but I had wondered more than a few times when I was younger what Reeve thought about the idea of me with his daughter, if he would approve, if he thought I was worthy, if he knew there was no one in the world who could love his little girl like I could.

Now, though?

Shit.

After years of him watching me turn into more and more of a dick with a violence problem? I was pretty sure I knew the answer to all of those questions.

But that was a problem for another day.

"Alright, back to the facts," Fallon said, and, for a change, I was glad the asshole wasn't one for giving a shit about feelings. "We need a map to the house. And then your best layout of the inside."

With that, Andi was set up with someone to draw up the sketches of the maps while the rest of us talked about possible strategies, which cartels might be trying to move in, what possible the repercussions of starting shit with someone who possibly had ties to the bigger cartels in Mexico or anywhere else in South America. There were some empires you simply didn't fuck with, no matter what had gone down with Andi. It would mean brutal murders for everyone in the club and everyone they'd ever been connected to.