“You alright?” I asked, brushing her hair out of the way as Lo flung herself down beside me.
“Gale? Shit, you're bleeding...”
“She's fine,” I said, reassuring her though her voice was calm, even, like she was down in the trenches of war all the time and blood didn't phase her.
“What the fuck is going on?” Lo asked herself, looking up around her grounds with intense eyes.
“Lo, you need to go get some triple antibiotic on your head if you're...”
“Yo, you're a Henchmen, right?” another voice asked and we both turned our heads to see a tall, good looking black man standing over us, a streak of blood over his white thermal, but looking otherwise unharmed.
“Yeah, why?” I asked, getting to my feet as Lo helped Gale up, watching us.
“Shit, man,” the guy said, shaking his head.
“What is it?” I asked, feeling my entire body tighten.
He inclined his head at me, turned, and pointed down the hill. I followed his direction, looking, and seeing... fucking... fire at the place that had to be The Henchmen compound.
“Fuck!” I shouted, already running toward my bike, saying a silent prayer that she was still capable of running.
“Cash! Cash!” I was vaguely aware of Lo's voice calling me, and, damn if my name didn't sound good on her lips, but I was too busy pulling up my bike and trying to turn it over. “Cash, call them,” Lo called, grabbing my arm in a vice-like grip and yanking hard until I turned to look at her. “Call them,” she repeated, taking my hand, turning it, and slamming her cell into my palm.
I looked down at the pink case holding her cell, feeling my lips quirk up despite the situation at seeing a hint of the softness underneath all her sharp edges. “Right,” I said, taking the phone and dialing the number for the compound. It rang four, five times, before I heard background noise and a curt growl.
“What?”
Repo. That was Repo. Thank Christ. If there was one person guaranteed to be at the compound (since he lived there and was young, single, and childless, and therefore all but married to the club) it was Repo.
“Repo. What's going on?”
“Cash? Fuck man,” he said and I could hear shouts in the background. “It's fucking chaos.”
“Is everyone around and accounted for?”
“Everyone was home but me, Jazz, and Shredder. You and the boss and Wolf alright?”
“Far as I know. Reign is home with Summer. Last I saw Wolf, he was on his way home. I'm up at Hailstorm,” I supplied, looking down the hill at the fire that seemed suddenly less ravaging as it had a moment ago.
“They're fucked too,” Repo observed as if he was looking off in the distance at me. “So was Lyon's place, the Mallick's bar, and Lex's McMansion.”
“The fuck?” I asked, turning to look at Lo and her men who were watching me aptly. “Who the fuck would bomb all of the big players in town?” I asked, looking at Lo with a raised brow. She nodded her head at a few of her men who ran off toward the inner courtyard where a brick house stood, which was their command center. I'd been in there before when Reign, Wolf, and I first came to Hailstorm begging them to help us get Summer back.
“Dunno, man. But they just fucked with the wrong fucking people,” Repo said with a sort of fierce determination that Reign really appreciated in him when he had been nothing but a probate to us. Even now, fully patched, he hadn't lost any of his youthful exuberance.
“How's the compound?”
“Fire got the shed out back,” he said, the words weighty because that was the shed where we brought people who needed to... learn a lesson. It was old and way overdue for a tear down, but there was a sort of nostalgia attached to the damn thing and we never got around to it.
“That's it?”
“This place is a fortress,” he reminded me with more than a little pride.
“Right. Is Reign in the loop?”
“He's on his way. You comin' in?”
I looked at Lo, still watching me, the cut on her face still bleeding half-heartedly. “Soon as I can. You'll tell my brother I'm alright.”
“Right. See you when you get here.”
“Break out the fucking whiskey,” I said, running a hand over the shaved side of my head as the reality of the situation started to settle in. Things had just settled down in town. There hadn't been any real warring in a dog's age. Hell, the last shit that got stirred up was started by us. Since then, there had been relative peace, everyone minding their own fucking business.
But bombs went off at not one, but five of the biggest criminal organizations in the area. Someone was trying to send a message. That message seemed to be: you might be big and bad, but we're bigger and we're badder and we're coming for you. The fact that there wasn't any damage just meant it was a maneuver meant to scare us.
They were rattling our cage. Stupid fucks didn't know that all of us, every single one of us, even the Mallicks who didn't play dirty with any of the other organizations, were big fucking dogs and we were more than willing to come out snarling.
“Right, man.”
I ended the call, holding the phone out toward Lo who took it, looking like she was about to say something. Her men ran back, one of them with a walkie near his ear.
“Lo,” he said, shaking his head.
“What is it?”
“Lex,” he said, letting that name settle in.
There were a lot of crime organizations around our parts. The Henchmen were gun runners who generally didn't fuck with anyone unless they fucked with us. The Mallicks were a family of loan sharks (the dad, then five sons). Vicious, ruthless, but otherwise good, upstanding citizens who owned a dozen or so legitimate businesses that kept them busy, including their bar that was bombed. Then there was Summer's dad, Richard Lyon, who, while being a cocaine kingpin, somehow managed to run his empire with next to no bloodshed. Hailstorm had connections seemingly everywhere, alliances I never would (and didn't want to) understand, but they didn't hurt people for the hell of it (just for the paycheck apparently).
Now, Lex... Lex was a whole other fucking story. Lex was the closest thing to evil that walked the face of the Earth. He was a murdering, woman beating, sadistic rapist pig. The day someone took him out would be the day all the women in the area could breathe a sigh of relief. I prayed to fuck that his card was finally punched.
“What about Lex?” Lo asked, recovering before me, but her eyes had a strange sort of haunted I didn't understand.
“Well, all the places: here, their compound,” he said, nodding his head at me, “Chaz's bar, Lyon's estate, it was all minimal damage. Lex's place? It was blown the fuck up, Lo.”
“Interesting,” Lo said, but a guard had gone down over her face. I didn't know her well, but I knew her enough to know that if she was putting a guard up, there was no way she was going to share with me why it was there. I had a feeling, though, that she and Lex Keith did not have the cordial kind of love/hate relationship she had with the awful human trash that was V. Lo hated Lex Keith with a fiery passion.
I found myself wanting to know why.
“We sending out feelers?” one of her men asked.
A brow raised and a smirk toyed at her lips. “Are you really asking me that?” she asked and the black guy, obviously more senior in some way than the others, nodded his head at the other guy who ran off to, I imagined, 'send out feelers'.
“You gonna keep us in the loop?” I asked, making Lo start like she had suddenly forgotten I was there.
“I'll meet you in command,” she said to her man who nodded at her, then me, then walked off. “That depends,” she said, closing some of the space between us.
“On what, babe?”
“On whether The Henchmen are going to share their information with us.”
“I'll have to talk to Reign,” I said, for the first time in my life regretting the fact that I had to defer decisions to someone else. In the past,
I always liked that Reign was in charge, that he was the one to shoulder the burden. I had taken on that role once, for half a day, and I felt physically weighted by it. But standing in the yard of Hailstorm with their leader, asking me if me and my men would keep her informed, yeah, I wanted to be able to give her an answer. It made me feel beneath her to admit that I had to ask someone else for permission.
Lo nodded her head. “Let me know.”
Christ, that felt like a kick to the balls.
I couldn't walk away feeling like I was beneath her. That shit just wouldn't play. Things needed to even out a bit.
Unfortunately, the only card I had to play was up my sleeve and a dirty way to win a game, but it was all I had.
I took a breath, closing the remaining few feet between us, my hand raising to move to stroke next to the cut on her cheek. Her entire body went stiff, her eyes went to mine, her lips parted. Oh, yeah, she wanted me. She might dislike me as much as I didn't like her, but her body was into me. I liked that in a sick sort of way.
“What are you doing, Cash?” she asked, attempting firm, but her tone came off a bit breathless.
“You need to stop being boss lady and go take care of this.”
“It's nothing,” she said, trying to jerk her head so I would drop my hand, but my fingers slid down her jaw to nab her chin instead.
“Gotta take care of yourself, gorgeous,” I said, my thumb moving upward to rub the very edge of her lower lip. Her body softened slightly, her eyes going hazy. Meanwhile I was fucking hard as a stone just from touching her god damn face. Whatever it was between us, whatever kind of attraction that we had going on, it either needed to be ignored completely or given into, because toying with it was going to give me the worst case of blue balls in history.
“Cash...” she murmured, her voice taking on a husky edge that I wanted to hear saying all sorts of dirty things in my ear while I fucked her.
My finger slid up, despite my better judgment, and stroked across the crease in her lips. Her body wavered toward mine and I felt myself leaning in, watching her brown eyes with an avid sort of fascination. The sound of a car rumbled up, making Lo spring away from me, her eyes wild, looking out at the road. I watched her hope crash as the car that showed up was a police cruiser, not whoever she had been expecting.
“Great,” she grumbled as she made her way toward the gates that were still open from when we drove inside. I followed behind, watching the two cops climb out of the car- one younger, attractive, one older, stomach spilling over his waistband, looking very much uncomfortable at having to be at Hailstorm.
“Lo,” the older cop said, nodding his head at her, surprising me that he actually knew who she was. From what I understood, no one but other criminals knew Lo by sight. She was a 'reputation only' kind of criminal. No one even knew she was a woman: hence her name, Lo, as in... on the 'down low'.
“Detective Collings,” she said nodding at him. “Rookie,” she said to the younger guy, giving him a smile that made him clear his throat.
“Seems you had a little trouble tonight,” Collings observed.
“Seems like a lot of people had trouble tonight,” Lo countered.
Collings nodded, looking over at me. “Reign's brother,” he half-asked, half-declared.
I was proud to have Reign as a brother. That being said, it didn't exactly bolster a man's pride to be referred to as another man's brother.
“Cash,” I supplied with a brow lift.
“Just over at your... compound,” Collings said. “Seems no one has any idea who could be going around setting off bombs.”
“Imagine that,” I said, nodding.
Collings shook his head slightly, looking over at Lo. “Don't 'spose you have any information to share with us, Lo.”
Lo gave him a soft, almost conspiratorial smile, “Do I ever have any information to share with you, Collings?”
“If that ain't the damn truth,” Collings said, gesturing his younger officer toward the car. “Well, you got anything, you let us know, you hear?” he asked, looking at Lo, then at me.
“You're on my speed dial,” I agreed with a grin that, surprisingly, made him chuckle.
“Right,” he nodded, making his way back to his door and slipping inside his car.
“Old friend?” I asked Lo's profile as she watched them drive away.
“Something like that,” she agreed, her eyes still on the road, scanning.
“Right,” I said, rocking back on my heels, knowing the moment was gone. I needed to get back to the compound. “I have to get going,” I said, making my way toward my bike and climbing on. Lo shook herself out of her stupor and made her way toward the side of my bike as well, watching me settle in. “So were you fucking with Collings or do you really have no idea who this was?” I asked, sensing something off about her, but not able to put my finger on it.
Lo took a breath, met my gaze hard, and said in a strong, firm voice, “I have no idea who set off the bombs, Cash.”
I nodded, turned over my bike, and drove away.
Four
Lo
It was Janie.
Janie, my sweet little Jstorm.
She was the one setting off the bombs.
I knew it the moment Lex Keith's name was brought up. Everything fell into place. That was why she didn't pick me up from Reign's house. That was why all the other sites: Chaz's bar, The Henchmen compound, Lyon's place, and Hailstorm all had minimal, if any, actual damage. She was trying to create chaos. She wanted everyone to be scrambling to find explanations for every major criminal organization in the area being targeted.
Shit.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
I needed to find her.
I turned, going into the main shipping container, holding shoes and jackets, then through to the ones holding the living room and kitchen, through again until I got to the barracks. We could have made an attempt to all have our own personal space, blocking off rooms for one or two people. We certainly had the land to expand and shipping containers could be gotten on the cheap. But a large majority of my people were ex-military, they found barracks comfortable, familiar, somehow less stressful than trying to acclimate to normal living conditions.
There were only a few of us women in Hailstorm and while we took the sets of bunks at the furthest end of the room, we shared the space with the men. There was simply no reason not to.
I walked past the empty bunks, moving toward mine which was below Janie's with a growing sense of trepidation. I stopped by the ladder, climbing up two rungs and looking up. Her bed was made perfectly (as they all were), complete with hospital corners. But her books were missing. She always had a pile at the foot of her bed within easy reach when her nightmares that were actually memories came back too strong to let her sleep.
I hopped down, stooping down beside her trunk and flinging it open.
Empty.
“God damn it!” I yelled, slamming it shut, the sound echoing across the empty room.
All my men mattered to me, every last one. They all had their own horror stories; their own reasons they needed to disappear; their own reasons for not being able to leave the life of war and violence behind them. Many were vets, some just streetwise kids who got sucked in early and ran before they could be spit out dead before thirty. They all had little pieces of my heart.
But Janie had a huge chunk of it. Janie was like a little sister to me, or like the daughter I would never have. She was rough and tough and prickly and she wore her intelligence like a shield, but underneath it all was the little sixteen year old girl I came across one night, a girl I had taken in and raised for eight years.
She was... everything.
And she had just bombed five powerful organizations in the course of one night.
There would be repercussions.
People would want payment.
The worst of them would never forgive, the rest would never forget.
/>
And because Janie was Hailstorm, we would never again know the same kind of alliances we had before. We would never be able to enjoy our drama-free reputation again.
But all that, well, it didn't matter. What mattered was Janie. What mattered was the fact that she had planned and orchestrated such an intricate plot and I had somehow not even known she was going off the deep end. That never should have been able to happen. I should have seen the signs. I should have been able to talk some reason into her.
And if Janie was gone, if she packed all her stuff and took off, then she was g-o-n-e. She had the skills to disappear. I taught her how to do that shit. I had coached her on getting off the grid, becoming someone new. She had stood by my side and watched me do it for other people. Christ, had she been planning it all along? Had she been standing up with me, taking every bit of knowledge I could throw around, and cataloging it for later?
A part of me didn't want to think I was that blind. The other part of me, though, knew she was perfectly capable of being that smart and calculated.
What the hell was I supposed to do?
“Lo?” Malcolm, an older man, mid-forties, tall, lean, fit, graying in an attractive way, with the sharpest ice blue eyes I had ever seen, ex-military, ex-private security, ex-PI, ex-everything, came up to me. “What's up?”
Malcolm had shown up at Hailstorm one day at the very beginning after having me screw up one of his PI cases, spitting mad and ready to beat 'that fucking Lo guy' into a bloody pulp. Finding out I was Lo, well, his anger drained, he threw his head back and laughed, and a month later, he was living at Hailstorm and teaching me everything he knew. He was like a father figure to all of us (even though he was only a few years older than myself). And he knew me pretty damn well.
“I can't say yet, Malc,” I admitted, knowing better than to even try to lie to him.
He nodded, accepting that, sitting down on a foot locker across from me. “Is it bad?”
Cash (The Henchmen MC Book 2) Page 3
