Perish (Henchmen MC: Next Generation #15)

Chapter One

Gracie

“Shit,” I murmured, looking down at the ice sculpture’s penis in my hand. Why, oh why, did I have to throw my hands out when someone knocked into me?

“Oh, no! I’m so sorry!” one of the servers said. Pretty and blonde, her cupid’s bow mouth opened in a pouty O. “Is that his…”

I stared down at the severed member in my palm, already starting to melt from my body heat.

Okay.

Alright.

This wasn’t a complete catastrophe.

Yet.

There was still time to… reattach the castrated erection to the almost comically chiseled ice man.

“Damn, the fuck the guy do to you?” a familiar voice asked, making me look up to spot Perish (yes, that was his real name) standing in the doorway to the barn. As wide as the space was, Perish seemed to swallow it up. He was massive. And, likely, as chiseled as the ice guy. More, probably.

Also… he did not belong here.

At my first ‘Back to the Streets’ party.

Basically, a divorce party. The theme? Penises.

Penises everywhere. In decor form. And cake form.

And cup form. Hard ones. Flaccid ones. Circumcised ones.

Natural ones. My Aunt Peyton and cousin Billy would be absolutely delighted.

Though would likely gripe about the lack of vaginal representation.

The penis fell from my hand back onto, thankfully, a small tray of pebble ice that allowed it to not shatter and stop actively melting.

“Perish,” I said, feeling my cheeks heat as I looked to the side of him, where a ‘Pin the Junk on the Hunk’ poster of a naked muscular man was hung. A table full of various penises waiting to be chosen sat to the side of it. “What are you doing here?”

“Always knew you were a closet badass. Didn’t know you had it in you to cut a man’s dick off, though.”

A strange sensation moved through my chest at those words. Like Pop Rocks. A dozen little explosions.

Because, yes, damnit, I was a badass. But because I wasn’t as outwardly kick-butt like Hope, Vi, and various other members of my extended family, people tended to underestimate me.

It was kind of nice for someone—especially someone I knew so casually—to see that.

“I can’t believe I broke it,” I admitted, moving closer to him. “Is something wrong? Is there a club issue?”

While things were relatively tame for a long time, I knew from growing up inside the club that safety could be ripped away with little warning. That all our lives could be changed in an instant.

“Is everyone okay?” I asked, my mind already going to worst-case scenarios. I had dozens and dozens of loved ones at risk. Each as dear to me as the last.

I glanced past Perish (no easy feat) to see if there were other men waiting around, gazes scanning the sprawling grounds of the event venue.

I knew from experience that if one of the bikers showed up with a whole protection detail, then that things were bad-bad. Like… everyone going up to Hailstorm for safety bad.

As much as I actually loved our little trips up to the paramilitary camp on the hill—especially since Chris started to make changes to warm the place up a bit—it was spring; my event calendar was absolutely packed. I wasn’t going to have a weekend off until after Halloween.

And, well, it was important. This was my first year of officially being in business after years of dreaming about it. I couldn’t be flaking. Not even for some life-or-death biker thing.

“Everyone’s fine,” he said, brows furrowed as he looked down, likely finally registering my panic—and the reason for it. “Yeah, no. I’m not here for club shit. Grassis got an issue.”

“Oh. Oh,” I added, what he was saying registering. Because, yeah, this might have been the premiere event venue in the whole state. It was also a mafia front to launder their money. It was easy to forget that sometimes, no matter how many times I’d been here for various parties I’d planned.

“Nah, not like that. Nut sedge.”

“Is that some kind of code?” I asked, pressing my clipboard—yes, it was pink and covered in cutesy vinyl stickers—to my chest.

“Code for what?”

“I’ve been alive quite a few years. I’ve never heard those two words put together before.”

“‘Cause you live in an apartment.”

“Oh! The lawn? There’s something wrong with the lawn?”

Perish, the ex-con, current arms-dealing biker who could be confused for an actual wall, had a weird obsession with the lawn at the club.

To be fair, said ‘lawn’ had been nearly nonexistent when he’d started to prospect. Too many long, hot summers with water restrictions, too many bikes driving over it, too many people who didn’t care about things like grass, weeds, and aeration meant it had withered away to nothing.

Until, over the years, Perish had lovingly brought it back to life. I’d never seen such lush green grass in my life. But also, for the life of me, couldn’t imagine why he cared so much.

To be fair, he would likely feel the same way if he knew about my scrapbooking obsession.

We all had our things, I guess.

“Nut sedge. Bad weed,” he explained. “Gardeners can’t get a handle on it.”

“And the lawn has to be perfect for the wedding season.”

“Yep. Thought I saw you when I was walking up. Came in just as you ripped the poor schmuck’s cock off.”

A little snort escaped me at that.

“It’s a disaster. They’re going to be here any minute.”

“No expert, but… slush plus time seems like it would turn to ice quick.”

“Right. Yeah. Like… ice glue. Okay. I can do that. Thanks.”

To that, he gave me a nod.

“I’ll leave you to your various dicks,” he said, gesturing around me.

“It’s a, uh…”

“Divorce party?”

“Exactly.”

“I’m out in these streets too. She hot?”

There was no stopping the eye roll at that. Even after a lifetime of being around the bikers, their borderline obsession with casual sex never ceased to amaze me.

“She sure is. She has the most gorgeous gray hair.” She was about sixty. With that effervescent gorgeousness I sincerely hoped I would possess at her age.

“Good pussy is good pussy,” he said with a shrug.

The slap to his chest was pure instinct, something I would have done to any number of my male cousins for the same vulgar comment.

His smirk was just as knee-jerk.

“While I appreciate that you are an equal opportunity hornball, I need to fix my sculpture before everyone gets here.”

“Yeah, better hurry up before he loses an inch. What is he, thirteen inches?”

“It’s… a book thing,” I admitted. “It’s why his skin is blue too.”

I went ahead and left out how the recent divorcee claimed in our first meeting that she hadn’t realized just how unsatisfying her sex life had been with her husband until she joined a local book club. Their first read? An alien romance with a giant penis and very impressive oral skills.

She was a changed woman.

A few months (and many books later) she was a single woman, ready to reclaim her sex life.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that, in my experience, book men were a lot more, well, generous than real-life men.

“Of course it’s a—” he started. Only to get interrupted when one of the servers came over with a tray full of cupcakes topped with painfully accurate penises on top. Veins and pink coloring and everything.

Perish looked down at them, over at me, huffed out a laugh, then turned and walked away.

It was just as well.

Because a moment later, the lady who was providing the sex toys started setting up her table. I would never admit it aloud, but I knew the function of each and every one of those items. Even the tentacled types.

Thanks, Aunt Peyton.

Besides, I had an ice penis to fix.

I rushed into the kitchen to throw the slushy mix together and ran back to the sculpture and said a little prayer as I started the process of reattaching the appendage to the ice man.

Was there a slight little uneven line? Sure. But the guests were quickly drunk enough not to notice. And when the penis eventually started to melt and fell off? Well, the divorcee went ahead and popped it into her drink.

It was a loud, hilarious, raunchy party featuring—mostly—the book club that changed the divorcee’s life. And I knew from personal experience with the bookish women in my own life that the book readers were the closet freaks. And their flags were flying high and proud all night.

My cheeks actually hurt from smiling by the time the lights dimmed. And the man dressed as a server came strutting out of the back to the first throbbing bass beats of some filthy song streaming out from the speakers.

Embarrassment crept up my spine as he started to thrust in the divorcee’s face, making me slowly make my way toward the kitchen, then out the service door.

The performer was supposed to be dancing for a solid twenty minutes. No one was going to need me while he was out there stripping off his clothes and doing impressively gymnastic dance moves.

The spring air still had that slight nip to it, which immediately chased the heat from my cheeks and neck.

I sucked in a deep breath, wiggled some of the tension out of my shoulders, and looked out at the sunset, casting the world in brilliant orange.

I never understood the hate orange got.

I guess we could blame that awful traffic cone shade.

But nature’s oranges? Sunrises, sunsets, leaves in the fall, butterfly wings? There were so many beautiful shades.

I took a few steps forward to change my vantage point, looking out across the sprawling, perfectly manicured lawns, the woods behind them.

I’d always loved this venue. Part of it was the raw natural beauty, including a gorgeous koi pond that acted as the backdrop to many a wedding or engagement photoshoot.

The other part was the fact that it felt like a whole different world in the middle of Navesink Bank.

I loved my town.

But I was officially at the age where I would point at some awful new construction and say, ‘I remember when all this used to be woods/farmland/a pasture.’

It was refreshing to still see natural beauty in an area that had become so built up.

I was still watching the sun slowly lower behind the trees in the distance when I heard a squealing sound. It was the kind that made your shoulders inch up toward your ears and your belly tighten as you braced for what seemed like the inevitable crunching sound of cars colliding.

But as the tires just kept squealing, my head whipped to the side to take in the parking lot.

It was fuller than when I’d first shown up, back when it had just been the staff of the main building. It had filled up with the vehicles of the catering staff, the guests, and, yes, still Perish’s motorcycle, despite it getting too late to work on the lawn.

I saw the car.

And was trained from infancy to take in the details as quickly and thoroughly as possible.

You never know what details might be important my Aunt Lo’s voice said in my head.

Black sedan.

Mismatched hubcaps.

Dark tint on the front windows. The kind that would get you a ticket in this area.

Because of that, my gaze flicked toward the plates, expecting to see them from out of town, but finding them completely missing instead.

Sure, a missing plate could also mean they were from out of state, since not all states required front license plates. But something had my spine tingling.

Missing plates.

Dark tint.

Squealing tires.

Everything in me screamed that it all added up to nothing good.

Then I watched in what felt like slow motion as the window rolled down.

As something shiny and metallic stuck out of the gap.

There was just a second for the panic to grip my system.

Then a giant body tackled me to the ground.