Man of the House: A Dark Bad Boy Romance(187)

“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, f*cking 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 f*cking 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 f*ckin’ 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.”

“Okay,” Larkin cut in. “Then tell me who put you up to this.”

Leeroy stared at him for a second before shaking his head. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

Larkin nodded at Noble, who pushed himself upright and walked lazily over to Leeroy. Noble slowly unsheathed a long, wicked-looking knife.

“What you doin’?” Leeroy asked.

Noble took the knife and slowly ran it down Leeroy’s thigh, cutting a long, thin red line into his flesh. Leeroy screamed.

“Ah f*cking bastards!”

“Leeroy, come on now,” Larkin said as Noble stepped back. “Our boy Noble here is very good with that weapon. He can do this to you all night long, and trust me, it only gets much worse.”

“I’m very creative,” Noble added. “Been wanting to try some stuff out lately.”

Leeroy shook his head. “Fuck, please. I can’t tell you.”

Larkin nodded at Noble, who stepped up and looked over at Janine. “You might want to look away,” he said to her.

She looked back defiantly. “I’d rather watch.”

Noble grinned and then took the tip of one of Leeroy’s ears. With a smooth motion, he lopped it off, and Leeroy screamed.

“Now don’t move,” Noble said. “If you do, I could make it worse. I have to get the other one.”

He moved around Leeroy, took his other ear, and cut him again. Leeroy just screamed and screamed.

Larkin stepped up to him again. “I can make it stop. Tell me who put you up to this.”

“Burke! It was f*cking Burke!”

“Does Jetter know?”

“Yes! Yes, he knows. Fuck, he knows.”

“Why?”

“They didn’t explain this shit to me,” he said.

Larkin nodded at Noble, but Leeroy started talking fast.

“Okay, okay. Boys think Jetter wants to take the Demons back. We kill the girl, make you weak, and then take you out and put Jetter in your place. I think that’s the plan, just please stop.”