Fallon (Henchmen MC Next Generation #3) - Jessica Gadziala Page 0,15

working out. You're putting a permanent ass imprint on the ring mat," Janie said, but she was smiling.

"I spilled jelly on it," Dezi admitted with a shrug.

"Jelly?" Janie asked, brows knitting.

"From the fourth donut he ate this morning," Cary said, coming in from the heavy weight room in the back. It was a somewhat recent addition. We all used to hit the Mallick gym, but my aunts and uncle decided to upgrade to be all-inclusive.

"I had to eat something to wash down that poison you gave me," Dezi said, looking a little gray at the memory of it.

"It was a green juice," Cary explained, reaching up to push his wet salt-and-pepper hair off of his forehead.

"It tasted green too, let me tell you," Dezi said. "Life is too short to eat liquid spinach."

"It's much shorter if you eat four jelly donuts every day," Cary shot back.

The two were an interesting pair. What with Dezi's insatiable appetite for everything bad for him, and Cary's steadfast determination to stick to a healthy diet. I mean, the guy had been around for a while, and I'd never even seen him steal a piece of pizza when we ordered it. The only real vice he seemed to allow himself to have was alcohol. And after he drank, he felt the need to "sweat it out of" his system.

Hence the gym.

The gym was almost always Cary's idea, even if most of us did try to hit it up at least every other day too.

I'd been up to go with him, having had a night of uneven sleep thanks to intrusive thoughts about Danny and the basement, and other places I'd like to be alone with her in.

And Dezi, well, I wasn't entirely sure he was up for the day, but rather that he hadn't been to bed yet from the night before.

"How are you?" my Aunt Lo asked, giving me a once-over, making sure my Uncle Cash hadn't lied to her about not getting hurt in the shooting.

"Fine."

"Physically," Dezi mumbled under his breath, then did a lock motion to his lips when I glowered at him.

"I'm assuming the cops were useless," Lo said, shaking her head.

"Well, with a national average of less than half of crimes solved each year, the odds weren't in their favor," Cary said.

"Says the guy who just got out of jail," Dezi mumbled, but was ignored.

"And that's why you have us," my Aunt Janie, still one of the best hackers in the area, said. "We are working on it. Aside from Chaz's, though, that isn't a great part of town for cameras, unfortunately. And it is a lower-income area too, so the chance of getting personal security camera footage isn't super high, either, but we are double-checking that."

"Did you guys come up with your list?" Aunt Lo asked, looking at me, expectant. "Chris is going to pounce on me the second I get into work," she added, referencing my cousin, the daughter she'd been grooming to take over the paramilitary organization she herself had built and been running most of her adult life.

But where my aunt had always been a strong, capable leader, her daughter was a bit more Type-A with a superhuman work ethic. And she expected that from everyone else.

So if she wanted us to come up with a list of all potential threats and enemies, she wanted it hours ago.

"We're working on it. I will send over what we have so far, though. I really don't think any of the names we have are real threats, though. No one has been coming for the arms trade in this area. That's all down in the Florida chapter with Huck and his never-ending issue with it. We've been stable here."

"Except for the Vultures," Janie said. "Could it have been them? Making it look like it was for both of you, when you were the real target?"

"No. No way. Danny just barely managed to miss taking a bullet. The gunshots were everywhere. If it was her people, they nearly killed her."

"So it sounds like they just so happened to luck out by catching two major players in the gun trade together in one place, and took their shot," Janie said.

"Literally," Dezi piped in.

"Chris will be all over seeing who might be flexing their muscles. I'm sure it's not the mafia, but you might want to reach out to the Grassi family to check. But even if it isn't the Italians, organized crime from every background has been growing lately. Russians, Ukrainians,