The Henchmen MC: Renny Part 10

"Kitchen Sink Soup?"

"Yeah, meaning everything but the kitchen sink," he let me in on, reaching for the spinach and ripping it with his hands and dropping it into the pot. "Funny thing, no matter what she threw in, it was always good. Not even you can f.u.c.k it up," he said with a smirk that I found I really liked.

"So what can I do?" I asked, looking at the pile of food.

"Peel carrots and then slice them."

"I can handle that," I agreed, looking through all the drawers before I finally found the peeler.

Then we set to work, talking occasionally.

"Your mom didn't cook?" he asked as I dropped some of the onions I had been chopping into the pot.

"My mom was into appearances. So she would order in and plate the food then toss the take-away containers and pretend she cooked."

"Why the f.u.c.k would she do that?"

"Because she was looking for any way to make her husband love her," Renny supplied, making me jump hard, jerking my head over to find him leaning in the doorway, looking like he had been there a good long time.

He was right, d.a.m.n him.

And that was personal.

"Don't worry, Mina," Laz said, as if sensing the tension between me and Renny, "there are other ways to a man's heart than through his stomach."

"Laz, the back bar needs to be cleaned," Renny said dismissively.

Lazarus stiffened at the same time I did. Because Laz was in recovery. Renny knew that. And he was making him go clean the back bar? For no reason?

"Not a problem is it?" he went on, his tone dead.

And there he was- cold, unpredictable Renny.

I had started to forget he existed.

"Nope, not a problem," Laz said, shaking his head as he went to the sink to wash his hands. "Just let it simmer and don't touch it," he told me, giving me a small smile. "It should pull through just fine."

"Thanks for your help," I called to his retreating form as Renny pushed off the doorway and moved in. I advanced on him immediately, shoving my finger into his chest. My voice when I spoke was low and livid. "What the f.u.c.k was that about?" I hissed.

"He does what he's told to do. I told him to clean the back bar."

"He's a recovering alcoholic, you a.s.s!"

"And now we will see if he has self-control around those bottles," he shrugged.

I exhaled hard. Anger wasn't going to work on this version of Renny. I had seen him and Duke go at it several times and it never changed anything. Better to approach him with calm.

"Why are you being a d.i.c.k right now?" I asked, tone even.

"I'm doing my job. You're supposed to be doing your job too. Or did you forget that?"

"I believe I just stood here and listened to a long part of Laz's back story. So, no, I haven't friggen forgotten to do my job. What is with the att.i.tude?"

"No att.i.tude. Just making sure you're earning your paycheck."

My blood was boiling. Boiling. I didn't do anger often so when it coursed through me, I was ill-equipped to handle it properly.

So I lashed out.

"I don't know who the f.u.c.k you think you're talking to right now," I started, advancing him, pleased when he actually went back a step. "But I am not one of your probates. I am not beneath you. I have a job to do and I have to do it while you are grab-a.s.sing and insulting and demeaning me to the men around here. I am not going to put up with you turning into a G.o.dd.a.m.n jacka.s.s to boot. Check your f.u.c.king att.i.tude when you speak to me."

"Careful, Mina," he warned, his voice even colder.

"Careful or... what, Renny? You might be a genuine a.s.s when you're in one of these moods of yours, but you won't put your hands on me. So, what? You'll make comments about my unhappy upbringing? Oh, wait, you already did that. You have nothing on me. So keep your threats to yourself and do your d.a.m.n job and leave me the h.e.l.l alone."

"You're right. I don't have much on you. Funny, that. Seeing as I have known you for months, have been trying to get to know you for months and you won't give me s.h.i.+t. You barely even give me a smile. But five minutes in the kitchen with some n.o.body fighter and you are spilling all kinds of s.h.i.+t to him."

"Seriously?" I asked, mouth falling open slightly. "You can't be serious right now. You're... jealous?"

"You went from soaking your panties for me in my room to melting into me as we sat in the main room and you zoned out to spilling all your secrets to a guy you don't know from Adam? So, what? I'm good for a f.u.c.k but not some background information?"

"So this is insecurity," I concluded. "That's interesting." If he wanted to play cold, well, he was out of his depth. Because women, yeah, we could freeze your d.i.c.k off when we wanted to.

"Oh f.u.c.k off with that," he said as I turned to go stir the soup.

"f.u.c.k off with what? A taste of your own medicine? It's bitter isn't it? And I bet no one else is willing to shove it down your throat. I'll be happy to freaking gag you with it."

"You're being..."

"An a.s.s?" I supplied, brow raised. "Cold? Detached? Insulting? Hey, Kettle, it's Pot again... and you're still f.u.c.king black."

To my surprise, he froze for a long second, watching me. It happened gradually. I would have missed it if I hadn't been watching him so closely. But the skin around his eyes softened. His jaw stopped being so clenched. Then a slow, familiar smirk tugged at his lips.

"You curse a lot more when you're riled," he observed, clearly enjoying that little tidbit.

Really, it was unsettling how he switched back and forth between the two versions of himself. And, being that I wasn't used to it, I was finding it hard to let go of the anger I felt, the offense I took to everything he had said. It wasn't exactly fair of me. I knew he had some issues and I knew that, in a way, his moods like that weren't really him. They were his monsters, his damage, his scars all wearing his face and talking with his mouth.

But that knowledge didn't make it easier to accept the cruelty he was capable of.

Because, fact of the matter was, one afternoon when I was sitting with L feeling useless, I had finally looked into him.

And a search of Renny Renolds West led me pretty immediately to a Roland West and a Katherine Renny-West. And the scary thing about that, going in knowing he ran away and he was dealing with some psychological issues, was the fact that Roland West and Katherine Renny-West were both shrinks.

You would think that two people in the mental health field could easily produce a very well-rounded and stable child. But, more often than not, in my career, I had found just the opposite to be true. Especially when both parents were in the mental health field.

As I read through all the articles and accolades for the power couple, I got a sick, twisting, G.o.d-awful feeling of dread in my stomach. I could find no proof of it, but I knew I just knew they had somehow used that innocent little boy of theirs as a guinea pig. They poked his b.u.t.tons to see if he screamed or laughed or raged or peed himself.

And they created a monster that did the exact same thing.

Circles, vicious, awful circles.

We were all seemingly doomed to them.

Even people like me and Renny who made our lives figuring out why people were the way they were, who understood human frailty, who knew how to take those predispositions and use them against people or use them to try to help people understand them too.

We were still caught in our own circles.

"See, now you know something about me," I said, turning away to the soup again, knowing I didn't want to mess with it, but stirring it to distract myself.

"So what did you find out about him then?" he asked, all easy charm again, leaning against the counter beside the other side of the stove.

I took a breath and turned my head to him. "You're allowed to have your dark moods, Renny. And I'm allowed to be resentful about what you said when you were in one."

"Sweetheart..." he said, eyes going just a little sad and I found I didn't like that look there, but that didn't change anything either.

"No," I said, shaking my head. "I understand that you maybe can't help it, Renny, but it doesn't make that behavior okay. I know you can turn it off like a light switch, but I don't work that way."

"So what you're saying is..." he prompted, tone cautious. Worried, he was worried.

Maybe that was a good thing.

"I am saying you need to walk away and leave me alone and I will talk to you again when I want to talk to you again."

"Mina, I don't want..."

"Too bad," I cut him off. "You don't get to have what you want when you want it all the time. And right now you don't get my forgiveness. You'll get it eventually. When I am ready to give it. Until then, a wide berth would be appreciated."

I said it.

I even sounded like I meant it.

But the last thing I truly wanted was a wide berth.

In fact, a strange, prominent part of me actually wanted to walk over to him, curl into his chest, and feel his arms wrap around me.

But that wouldn't work.

Because if things progressed with me and him, as they seemed like they would be doing, despite my better judgement, then there needed to be ground rules and there needed to be an understanding about what was and was not acceptable. Then there needed to be consequences to actions outside of those boundaries.

If I gave in, if I forgave him like it was no big deal over something small like the confrontation we just had, then it would give him permission to keep doing it, to let it escalate.

And that wasn't okay.

So as much as I felt like I was choking on my own tongue when I said it, I got the words out.

Renny watched me for a long minute, looking for a fracture he could dig into and use to collapse my anger.

But he found none.

So he nodded, eyes even sadder. And his tone when he spoke was almost defeated. "Whatever you need, sweetheart."

With that, he was gone.

And I tried to convince myself that that was what I wanted.

NINE.

Mina I went to bed early.

But only in the literal sense.

I brought myself into the room and climbed into the bed early.

I didn't sleep.

Of course I didn't. Because after Renny left and Lazarus came back into the kitchen and declared that I hadn't f.u.c.ked up the Kitchen Sink Soup, we called everyone to dinner and everyone took their bowls to various spots to eat.

Renny respected my wishes. He took his bowl and sat with Reeve and Lazarus on the couch, watching some kind of survival show on TV and all having strong opinions on the survival methods used by the contestants.

I sat with Cyrus who was, as one would expect, and easy conversationalist. He went on and on about the new coffeeshop, She's Bean Around, and the 'crazy a.s.s chicks' who owned it. He told me some stories about growing up around The Henchmen compound, though unlike Reign, Cash, and Wolf's mothers, Cyrus and Reeve's mother tried to keep them as far away from the place as possible. From what I heard about the way Reign's father ran things in his day, I didn't blame her. And once her husband was gone, she took them as far as fast as she could.

"Why didn't you guys come back to prospect sooner?" I asked, taking my last spoonful of soup and deciding it was my favorite recipe. And I was even pretty sure I could make it again.

"Eh, you know how it is. Reeve had moved out when he was eighteen, got an apartment, started training and working. As soon as I aged up, I just showed up at his door. We were young and liked the independence and lack of rules. Our ma was a real harda.s.s. We had ten o'clock curfews even on Friday nights in senior year. We were just having fun. We would see the guys around from time to time and talk about 'maybe one day' but it never felt right."

"But it felt right now? When there's a real danger involved? And when, for all intents and purposes, you guys have a good, crime-free life going?"

It wasn't normal for grown men with decent jobs and their s.h.i.+t together who had grown up with a strong and law-abiding mother to just suddenly decide to become arms dealers.

"Our little sis just moved off on her own about a year ago so we didn't have to worry about her anymore. It just seemed like a sign, y'know? And we did some research and found out that Reign had kinda turned s.h.i.+t around to be less twisted. Figured it was now or never. A bucket list kinda thing, I guess? Besides, I work at a d.a.m.n coffee shop. Not like I am giving up a whole h.e.l.l of a lot by prospecting here."

"You guys have a sister?" I asked, surprised it was the first I was hearing of it.

"Yeah, Wasp is a little..."

"Wasp?" I cut him off, smiling. Granted, Reeve and Cyrus weren't common names, but they're weren't off-the-wall either.

"Nickname," he explained. "She's a h.e.l.lion. My mom once told her she acted like a queen bee and she objected and said she wasn't a bee because bees died after they stung you and that she was a wasp instead, because they just kept on stinging all they f.u.c.king wanted. It just stuck."

"She sounds like a character."

"Yeah, she took after Pops earlier than we did."