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A minute or two later, still in the middle of a barrage of questions, the door flew open and there was Lo. "Jstorm, I swear on all that is holy, if I didn't love you so much I would... oh my God," she stopped, her jaw going slack, her eyes going wide.
"'Sup, Lo?"
Her mouth opened and closed twice before she shook her head as if to clear it. "'Sup Lo?" she repeated scoffing. "Got ten hours?" she asked.
"Take her," Wolf said, squeezing my hand again before releasing me. "Go on. Got enough sleep," he added when I stubbornly planted my feet.
To that, I gave him a small smile and followed Lo out of the room.
"Why didn't you call me?"
"He just woke up. Like... just. I didn't even get that far," I added as she reached for her phone to, no doubt, call Cash.
"Wolf is up," she said, then clicked the call off. "Bathroom," she said to me, leading me down the hall until we found the public one. We went in and she looked around before taking up guard just inside the door. "What the fuck, Janie?"
"I was upset, Lo," I snapped. "I wasn't broken. I wasn't weak. I wasn't too fucking fragile to be able to handle what was going on. I had nothing to do up here but sit and worry and wonder who might be next, who I would be mourning over, why we couldn't get a drop on anyone. And meanwhile, you've known for days who it was and that they were in town and you did nothing?"
"We didn't do nothing. We had everyone we could on it."
"You had everyone but me on it!" I snapped. "I love the people at Hailstorm and I love Alex but you and I both know that none of them hold a fucking candle to me, Lo. And you just got lucky that nothing else bad happened between you finding out and me handling it. How could you and Reign put everyone at risk like that? My son is in that compound."
"Janie, I know you think you were handling it, but you weren't handling it. You were a shell. You weren't eating or sleeping and you were always crying. We didn't think you had what it would take to power through and get answers."
"That wasn't your decision to make. And it wasn't Reign's either. This was not okay. And I am pissed at you for this. But right now, I'd rather go ahead and be happy that my husband is awake after two and a half months and that my son has his father again and that most of the bastards who did this to him and to me and to the rest of The Henchmen are in pieces right fucking now."
"I have to say," she said, calm, almost eerily calm despite the crazy situation and the fact that I was mad at her, something that hadn't happened in our friendship in many years, "for someone with no sleep and tear-swollen eyes... that was some fucking epic work, my little Jstorm."
"Was there collateral damage?" I asked.
"It was perfectly controlled. Eight bodies. It was a good hit to their organization."
"So what now?"
"Well, now... most of the men are on their way to Long Island right now. Renny stayed behind to watch the probates and the women and kids."
"Wait... probates?" I asked, stiffening.
It seemed so soon, but I guessed, it was necessary.
"Long story," Lo said, smiling. "And wait till you hear about Renny and Mina..."
"Renny and Mina?" I asked, face scrunched up. "No fucking way."
But her very distinctive, romance-obsessed smile was all that I needed to know to realize that yes, yes fucking way.
Apparently there was a new power couple in Navesink Bank.TWELVEMinaHis story didn't shock me.
That was probably the worst part about the whole ordeal. It spoke a lot to the darkness I had seen in my line of work that genuine psychological and emotional abuse toward a child by their parents who were even professionals in the field didn't phase me anymore.
It didn't mean I wasn't horrified by it. I was. It was despicable. It was absolutely unforgivable that someone would use their child like a lab rat. It was even more troubling to know that they were highly trained and must have known that detachment parenting and using negative reinforcement and withholding affection were possibly the worst methods they could have used for rearing a child.
But, then again, they themselves sounded genuinely cold. Maybe they didn't think anything of it. Which was just sad.
Really, it was amazing Renny was as warm as he was the vast majority of the time. I guess a lot of that was thanks to him getting out as early as he did. Seventeen with the world at his feet; he must have gone buck wild. He must have indulged in women and booze and lawlessness. And, eventually, he made real connections. He learned how to interact appropriately. For the most part.
