Man of the House(206)

But we still had questions, lots of fucking questions. Fortunately for us, we had someone to ask.

I rode back to the clubhouse and parked outside. The place was mostly empty, which was surprising for one in the morning. Larkin must have cleared it out. I climbed off the bike and spotted Noble pulling the van around the back. I headed over and watched as he pulled it into the alley.

“Help me with him,” Noble said, climbing out.

I opened the back door to the clubhouse and then slid the van door open. Noble came around and grabbed the guy’s feet, yanking him toward us. I grabbed his arms, and together we carried the heavy bastard inside.

The weapons locker was just down the hall. The door was already open, so we carried the fuck right in there. Larkin was leaning up against the wall, and there was a single chair in the middle of the room.

“Place him there, boys,” he said. We managed to get the guy upright and sitting in the chair, and Noble began to tie him up.

I walked over to Larkin. “How is she?”

“Better,” he said.

“You know the fucking wedding is off now, right?”

Larkin gave me a look. “Let me worry about that.”

“Come on, prez,” I said. “The fuckers tried to kill her. She’ll never be safe, married or not.”

“I know,” he said softly. “Shit got fucked faster than I expected.”

“So let’s finish it.”

“We talk to him first. Then we’ll decide.”

I nodded reluctantly. “Fine. Where is she?”

“My office.”

“Get me when he’s awake.”

Larkin nodded as I walked off, back down the hall. I passed the conference room where the council met and paused outside the side door to Larkin’s office, knocking twice.

“Come in,” she called out.

I pushed the door open. “You okay?” I asked her.

Janine was sitting in a chair, staring at the ground. She looked up at me. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“You did good back there.”

She stood up. “Clutch.”

“No need to thank me,” I said, grinning at her. “Just did my job.”

“You’ve saved me twice now.”

“I’m very good at my job.”

She stepped toward me. “What do we do now?”

I shook my head slowly. “I don’t know. We’ll find out soon, though.”

She looked like she wanted to say something else, but I couldn’t take this shit anymore. I closed the distance between us and pulled her against me, kissing her mouth hard.

She melted into my kiss. It felt right, fucking safe, to hold her in my arms and to kiss her deeply. For the first time in my life, I felt like I had something outside the club worth fighting for.

We kissed for what felt like hours, but it was probably only a minute or two. Finally, she pulled away, resting her head against my chest.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay. I think I’m ready to let it go.”

“Let what go?”

“Everything.”

I wanted to ask what she meant, but the door opened and Larkin stepped in.

If he thought it was strange that I was hugging Janine, he didn’t say so, didn’t even miss a beat actually. “He’s awake,” he said. “You coming?”

“Yeah,” I said, stepping back from Janine.

“I’m coming too,” she said quickly.

Larkin went to argue but just shook his head. “Okay. You’re in this now I guess.”

We followed him back down the hall and into the weapons locker. It was a pretty big room, about the size of a one-car garage. It was soundproof and full of weapons hanging on the walls in racks, plus ammunition and bulletproof vests.

Noble was leaning against a rack, absently picking at his nails. The Rebel was awake and looking around, clearly a bit groggy.

I shut the door and locked it.

“Well, Leeroy,” Larkin said, “you’ve made a fucking mess.”

“Where am I?” he asked, slurring his words.

“You’re in a locked, soundproof room,” Larkin said, “surrounded by men who want to do you harm.”

He slowly seemed to wake up a bit, looking around. “Ah, shit,” he said.

“That’s right,” Larkin said. “Shit.”

“What do you want from me? Just fuckin’ kill me if you’re gonna.”

“We want answers first,” I said, stepping toward him. “You can save yourself a lot of pain if you tell us what we want to know.”

“Why bother?” he asked. “You’ll just kill me anyway.”

“Maybe, but we might let you live if you play along. You like being alive?”

“Yeah,” he said, “I do.”