Why would they walk into V's compound, knowing they would have to lose their guns, knowing they were outnumbered?
It was stupid.
Reckless.
The door slammed closed and I heard feet coming toward us.
I whipped around on my chair, facing the hallway just as the group walked in.
My eyes went immediately to Reign.
His went to me.
And aside from a tightening of his jaw, his mask of indifference put mine to shame.
“Vanessa,” a female voice said and my head snapped to find a tall blonde standing beside Cash (who was looking at me with absolute horror). Apparently he checked his mask at the door.
“Lola,” my mother's voice said. Warmly.
I turned to find her smiling fondly at the woman with my Henchmen.
And then, to my absolute, complete, overwhelming horror... the women crossed the room toward one another and kissed cheeks.
My eyes went again to the Henchmen who seemed suddenly tense.
Holy fuck.
I was pretty sure things had just went from holy shit to holyfuckingshitballs in the span of ten seconds.
Wolf's eyes went to mine and there was fire behind them.
And I knew.
I knew.
Something was wrong.
Fuck.
Twenty-seven
Reign
“She's out of her fucking mind,” Cash said, close to my ear as we watched Lo walk around, tapping various men on their shoulders and telling them to meet her in 'command'.
After seeing 'command', I was pretty fucking sure I agreed with Cash.
'Command' was the brick building in the center of all the shipping containers. And I guess I had been half-expecting it to be Lo's house. But, no. Lo live in a barracks style room with the rest of her men. And the two other women she had in her ranks as well.
'Command' was a normal, brick home from the outside. From the inside, the brick walls were reinforced with pieces of shipping containers. The windows, I noticed after knocking on one of them as I passed, were polycarbonate. Bullet resistant. And from there, it only got worse.
Because the walls were plastered with poster boards. Poster boards that were covered with pictures, plots, plans for all their current projects.
Two hits. One was a fucking senator. He was a shitbag slimelord. But a senator nonetheless.
Three plans to surveil places. One, a government agency. One, a fortune five-hundred energy company. And one was a dog park. No fucking shitting... a god damn dog park.
And then there was a collection of pictures of crime operations with small thumbnail pictures of each member of the organizations.
“That's the fucking compound,” Cash said, nodding his head in the direction of the picture.
And it was. She had been keeping tabs on us.
As well as what seemed like every other organization in a two state radius.
Including V's.
And Lyon's.
I moved over toward the board, seeing a picture of Richard, in a suit, unsmiling. Beside him, a picture of Summer. A candid picture of her sitting at some outdoor cafe in a white sundress, a huge smile spread across her face.
I saw it with a kick to the gut.
Because she didn't smile like that anymore.
Open.
Unconcerned.
She smiled. Mostly with me. Different smiles. The lazy ones when she woke up and murmured something before snuggling into me. The sly ones when she was going to do something to get her way. The surprised ones when one of the men said something ridiculous and she wasn't sure if she could laugh or not.
But they were never like the one in the picture.
Because when she smiled now, it was full of the strong knowledge of how easily all the happiness could be sucked away from her. It was full of her demons.
I ran a hand down my face, staring at the picture, trying to memorize it, swearing to myself that I would do whatever was in my power to get one of those smiles out of her again. No matter how long it took.
“Dude, she's got a whole board full of government conspiracy theories. About like vaccines and the food supply and shit. She's fucking out of her mind.”
I sighed, looking away from the picture.
He was right.
She was crazy.
But it was too late to back out.
“Well I guess it's good that her crazy is on our side,” I said, shrugging.
“Alright,” Lo said, clapping her hands once as the men (and one woman) filed inside and took seats. Cash, Wolf, and I stayed standing. Legs wide, arms crossed over our chests. “We have a problem with V,” she delved right in. To their credit, there wasn't even a flinch among her people. I was pretty fucking sure I would get more than a few explosions from my men if I brought that kind of information to them.
“What kind of problem?” one of the men asked.
“The kind where I need to go in with these men,” she said, gesturing toward us though no one turned to look. They had all glanced at us when they walked in. “So I need six of you on the grounds. Two more from somewhere higher. And Janie, I need all the intel you have on her operation,” she said, looking at the tall girl with long black hair and pale skin, her eyes hidden behind cat-eye glasses. She was young. No older than early twenties and I couldn't help but wonder where the fuck Lo found her people.
“Honestly, Lo,” Janie said, shrugging, “eight men seems a bit much.”
“You fuckin' serious?” Cash interrupted, making the girl turn casually around and look at him. “She lives in a fucking fortress.”
Janie smiled slowly, like something he said was ridiculous but she was trying to spare his feelings. “I live in a fortress. She lives in a house with a fence.”
“And her own army,” Cash shot back.
“Oh, please,” Janie said, rolling her eyes, then turned back to Lo.
Cash turned to me, brows raised. “The fuck? They're all fucking nuts.”
“Anyway,” Lo went on, “The Henchmen and I will walk up to the gates at oh-nine-hundred tomorrow. You will all have already been long in place. They'll take our weapons then we will be led inside. I will try to negotiate something peaceful. If that fails, when we walk out, if my hand goes up... you go in. The only person who needs to make it out alive is Summer Lyon.”
“Summer Lyon?” Janie asked again, her head snapping up. Then she turned, her eyes falling on me. Intense. Way too intense for someone so young. “Because he's fucking her?” she asked bluntly.
“Because he loves her,” Lo corrected. “V is trying to gain control of Lyon's containers to bring girls in. She took their daughter as leverage. You yourself told me yesterday that the Henchmen took Lyon, Janie. V is going to start getting itchy with him gone. There's no telling what she'll do to the girl. We need to get her out. She's an innocent. You know that.”
Janie sighed, nodding her head. “Alright.”
“Alright,” Lo agreed, nodding.
Then it was hours. Fucking hours of them planning and plotting.
Everyone seemed to be allowed to have their say, to contradict anything that Lo said without her so much as raising a brow. Twice, it got heated between two of the men until Janie made a weird growling noise and told them to take it outside and measure them or quit it with their 'macho testosterone bullshit'.
After that, we were led into the kitchen again. Fed. And then shuffled toward the gates by Lo.
“Try to get some fucking sleep,” she said, looking at me. “You'll be no good if you're tense and unfocused. She'll get out tomorrow. One way or another.”
With that, the gate was opened, and we made our way to our bikes.
I looked at Cash who shook his head.
Then to Wolf who shrugged. “Gotta get her back.”
I nodded.
He was right.
We had to get her back.
Even if that meant we needed to put her safety into the hands of some conspiracy theorist with her
crackpot team who thought eight of them could take on three dozen of V's men.
Fuck.
I slept for about an hour and a half, waking up swearing I heard Summer screaming. But my bed was empty.
I showered and made my way toward the main room, finding equally showered and haggard-looking Cash and Wolf chugging down coffee. I was handed one. And we sat and waited in silence until ten before nine and made our way outside.
A black van pulled up outside the gates and Lo nodded at us from the passenger seat. The other girl, Janie, was driving.
Cash's hand slapped down on my shoulder. “Let's get your girl back,” he said, and we all made our way to their van
“Hop in,” Lo said, gesturing toward the back of the van.
Wolf pulled the door open, revealing three rows of seats and a collection of guns all over the floor.
“Guess you guys didn't take the sleep advice,” Lo said as we pulled away.
We pulled up to the gates a while later, the air in the van noticeably thick.
“Alright,” Janie said, unlocking the doors, “you guys have fun. I'll be here waiting.”
With that, Lo got out. Wolf and I followed. Cash paused. “You think it's a good idea for you to stay out here alone? With V's men everywhere?”
At this, she laughed, the sound husky. “Because I'm a poor defenseless woman?” she asked, rolling her eyes. “Worry about yourself. I'm fine.”
Cash hopped out, slamming the door, muttering, “Crazy fucking bitches,” under his breath as Lo fearlessly walked up to one of the men standing in front of the gates and announced herself.
The man nodded, moving toward the house and going inside. He came back a few minutes later, instructing one of the other men to frisk us and confiscate weapons. Lo had come with four guns strapped on. Why, considering she knew they would be taken, I had no idea.
But then in we were walking.
The closer we got, the more tense my body got. And, I noticed, Cash's and Wolf's.
We were led down a hall and into an enormous kitchen. Men were there. A woman was there. All of whom I didn't even see.
Because all I could see was Summer.
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Her face was openly bleeding, the drops slipping off her jaw and landing on her shirt. And then there was the eye. The black and blue eye. The blood filling it. And her neck. Fuck... her neck. With the imprint of someone's fucking hand.
My jaw clamped hard enough for my teeth to hurt as I tried to keep myself from flying across the room. To stroke her cheek. To beat the man behind her to a bloody fucking pulp.
Because I knew who he was. He was Martin. The man she was more afraid of than Deke. She'd told me about him, wrapping her whole body around me in bed like she was trying to disappear into my skin. “He has dead eyes,” she said, shivering.
And the fuck behind her had dead eyes.
He had to die.
Slowly.
Painfully.
With knives.
I wanted to skin the mother fucker alive.
But then V's voice reached through my anger, greeting Lo (aka: Lola) like an old friend. Like she had stopped by for tea.
Then Lo was crossing the floor toward V.
And kissing her fucking cheek.
If the air was thick in the van, it was fucking lava in the kitchen.
“It's been too long,” Lo said, holding V's hands and smiling.
“It has. I'm glad you came for a visit. I am less pleased about the guests you have brought to my house,” V said, her face slanting toward us and landing on me.
And, fuck, she was a perfect older version of Summer. Same hair. Same face. Summer was smaller, more delicate. And while Summer had her mother's gray eyes, V's were as hollow as Martin's.
“Yes, unfortunately, this isn't a social call. We have some business here.”
“Business?” V asked, her tone going glacial.
“Yes.”
“I wasn't aware you were in business with Henchmen,” she said, dropping Lo's hands.
I felt Summer's gaze on me and it was taking everything in me not to look at her. But I couldn't. Because if I saw her perfect face all beat and broken again, I was going to lose the small amount of control I had over myself.
“I haven't been. Until I learned they had taken someone important to you hostage.”
V's eyes cut to me again, then back to Lo. “Rich?”
Lo nodded. “Yesterday. Saw an opening. Got him.”
“Trying to step in on my business?” V asked, her tone lethal, her eyes boring into mine.
“I don't deal in skin,” I shot back, my tone matching hers.
“So what then? You want my daughter back? That's it, isn't it?” she asked, throwing her head back and laughing. The sound at once happy and so batshit fucking crazy that I felt my blood run cold. “Oh, that's just... pathetic.”
I felt my body jerk forward. But then Lo turned and her eyes pinned me. Fucking pinned me.
And it was then that I knew that everything was still under her control. It was all part of her plan. So I forced my body backward, my hands un-fisting.
“You don't think, perhaps, you wouldn't want her anymore?” she asked, looking over at Summer. And I couldn't help it, my eyes followed. “I believe Martin has been... visiting her at night,” she said, her words heavy with meaning that had the bile rising in my throat, the rage turning into something else. Something stronger. Something I didn't even know existed. Something that felt like it took all the blood out of my system and replaced it with fire. “She's used goods now...”
As if on cue, Martin grinned, moving forward and pushing Summer hard. Unprepared because her eyes were glued to mine, she fell forward off the stool, landing hard on her knees.
If Wolf's hand hadn't reached out and grabbed my arm, I would have been there. I would have been beating the ever loving shit out of the mother fucker's face.
But all I could do was watch as Summer paused. Oddly. Like she was thinking. And then her cuffed hands were moving downward and into her boot.
It happened so fast I almost missed it. I had never seen her move like that. One second, she was on the floor, hand in her boot.
The next, she was on her feet, her body half-turned away from me, my Glock-19 in her hands, finger on the side, the aim right between Martin's eyes.
“Oh,” Martin said, smiling, “you don't have the balls.”
Summer's shoulders pulled back.
Her legs spread.
Then her finger moved to the trigger.
Twenty-eight
Summer
My mother made one mistake that morning.
It wasn't trusting a woman who, it was painfully obvious to me, absolutely loathed her.
It wasn't insulting the Henchmen.
It wasn't even showing her weakness in needing my father.
No.
Her mistake was underestimating me.
It was in overestimating how much I was willing to take. How often I was willing to be beat down. How often she could poke at me before I finally lost it.
And I fucking lost it.
My eyes had been on Reign when she delivered the blow that made me finally decide I wasn't going to be a victim again. When she insinuated that Martin had been raping me. When I saw the absolute, soul crushing fury overtake Reign. Not disgust. Not sadness. Anger.
He didn't think I was damaged.
He didn't care.
He just wanted vengeance.
Then Martin sealed his fate by knocking me onto the ground.
For the last time.
The. Mother. Fucking. Last. Time.
I was done.
My knees hit hard, the pain jolting through my system. And I knew what I had to do. For my own sanity. To take back my control.
I pulled my leg up, turned, reached in.
My fingers brushed against the gun for the second time that morning.
Inside, I slipped off the safety.
Then I was flying onto my feet, the gun grasped between my two hands and turning to aim it at Martin, my finger still off the trigger.
Martin's head jerked back slightly, surprise registering on his face at the sight of the gun.
Then the idiot opened his mouth.
If he hadn't, well, things would have gone differently. Because I could feel the weight of the decision weigh on me. It wasn't the rush of relief I felt when I had decided to end my own life. No, this was different. This was heavy. This was full of some feeling I wasn't familiar with that had my throat closing up, the saliva drying in my mouth.
“Oh,” Martin said, giving me one of his cold, condescending smiles, “you don't have the balls.”
Three months worth of torment flew over my eyes. His fists in my face. His feet in my center. His knife in my back. His hands on my throat. His hand in my hair as he reached to pull his dick out of his pants, intent on shoving it down my throat.
And my legs spread.
My finger slipped to the trigger.
“Go to hell,” I growled.
And I pulled.
I pulled the trigger.
The jolt of the gun was met with the exploding sound of a bullet firing.
And I watched in fascinated horror as it tore through the center of his forehead, red splaying out in a shocking burst. His body jerked, wobbled, then fell.
He was dead.
His eyes never lost life.
Because they never had it to begin with.
“Bravo,” V's voice said and I heard her start clapping. My eyes, and therefore, my gun, turned to her. Her gray eyes were bright in... what? Enjoyment. Oh, holy hell. It was enjoyment. She was so fucking insane. “I was wondering when you would hit your limit. I didn't think it was because he knocked you onto your knees though.”
“No?” I asked, my hands starting to shake a little as I kept the aim on my mother. “Maybe it was because he had me in that very same position up in the bathroom before Daniel called me down here.”
For a second, something flashed in her eyes. And I knew she knew that Martin had stopped having access to my room at night. Her taunt was meant to incite Reign.
Reign (The Henchmen MC Book 1) Page 20
