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Chapter Twenty-Two
Henley
H auling ass into church, Hael huffs behind me as he sits next to me. Ruel has his laptop fired up and clicking away.
“Men, Blood Reapers contacted us. They are anticipating nearly double the number than what they originally planned.”
“What’s the cause?” One of the guys asks from the back of the room. Rolling my eyes, I keep my sarcasm to myself.
“They are infamous for taking down child trafficking rings. It’s been a while since they have had any contact from what I remember, but Shark has been pressing heavily on the issue recently,” Hael answers smoothly, not skipping a beat to inform him that if he were listening to any of the other damn meetings, he would know.
“You mentioned getting me pulled into this. I thought we agreed that you and I would stay back to man the fort,” I add.
“Ah, yeah. Where is Deimos?” Hael calls out, squinting his eyes and looking at the sea of men. The man himself raises his hand, the colorful tattoos lining his body allow him to pop out in the crowd. “You will work with Ruel to gain exact information. Location, time frame, ammunition counts, the whole thing. Henley, I need you to figure out who is all going to go and what groups they will ride in. While we are out, we need to make a couple of runs.”
“You want to make a fucking run?” I ask lowly, the frustration easily pushing through my voice. He doesn’t comment on it, instead moving on to logistics.
“According to Shark, there are two separate compounds that they are planning on hitting. He needs half and half, which is where our double numbers come into it. When Deimos can figure out what that looks like, we can split our numbers accordingly.”
I don’t comment, instead waiting for everything to blow over.
Everything suddenly becomes clear as day for me, and the fact that I have to leave Elodie behind, even for a short period, has my anxiety rising through the roof. Fuck, should I be worried about my blood pressure at this rate?
I need to figure out who is going to stay behind, and who is going to work at both of the clubs while we spare men. I need to get more collateral information regarding the ring we are collaboratively working with.
Too much shit, and not enough brain space for it.
Rising out of my chair, I don’t wait for the end of the meeting to get started. Walking quickly to my office, I get started on figuring out shipment schedules and when the runs need to be. Fuck, I don’t even know where these compounds are. How the hell do they expect me to get shit done?
A soft knock on my door has me stopping. “What?” I call and immediately regret it when a soft voice calls back, “nevermind.” Long strides to the door and I yank it open to see my sweet bunny on the other side.
“I’m sorry, bunny,” I murmur, grabbing her hand and dragging her into the room. “Hael has us working on a lot of shit right now, and I can’t even think straight. Did you need something?”
“No…I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You flew up the stairs and right past me. Definitely looked like you were ten feet deep inside of your own head.” A small smile casts her lips as I band my arm around her waist and drag her over with little resistance. She is caught off guard, but that doesn’t stop her quip. “Oh, careful not to pull a muscle, old man.”
“My muscles are fine, baby. Plus, I definitely didn’t hear you asking me to stretch before I fucked you-”
“Okay, I concede!” She raises a single hand while waving it around, which I presume is her pretending to wave a surrender flag. “So, are you leaving? Or am I allowed to even know that?”
“Yeah, I don’t know how long I will be gone. There is a lot of shit that still needs to happen before we can hit the road, and Hael wants us to do additional things that will take time away from here.”
Her gaze drops from my eyes to my chest, her hand crushed between us turns as she runs a bright pink nail over my covered chest.
“Please just be safe, okay? I need you to come back to me.” Her voice is soft and warm, thick with emotion as her face gets red. Shit.
“Don’t cry, baby,” I mutter as I bring my other hand to the back of her head and cradle her into my chest. “I don’t know how long I will be gone, but I will be back.”
“You better come back alive, or I swear to all things living I will bring you back from the dead just to kill you again.” With a booming laugh, I hold her even tighter. I’m not even sure she can breathe at this point.
“I promise I will come back alive, don’t worry.” Pulling away, I lean down and kiss her gently. It’s soft and chaste, a slight lingering as we finally break apart. “Unfortunately, I can’t have you looking at the paperwork or knowing any real details of what’s going down, but I will let you know when the guys and I are planning to go.”
“I will take that as my cue to leave.” She gently pats my cheek before turning on her heel and leaving the room. Her ass sways as she walks away, and I definitely can’t complain at the sight.