Cash (The Henchmen MC Book 2) (28 page)

“That would be an understatement.”

It didn't escape my notice that he was walking me into my own compound like he owned the place, not me. That was how at-ease he was with himself and his surroundings. He even made walking down one of my many dead-end halls look like he meant to do it, dipping his head down to my ear and pretending to whisper (though he was talking in his normal voice so he was sure Cash could hear), “I see what you did there, walking me down to a private place,” he teased and I found my smile making my bruised cheeks hurt. “But I am a good, Christian boy,” he said, dropping into a Southern accent that sounded natural, surprising me, “I will not be tempted by your wicked womanly wiles.”

I felt my giggle well up, uncontrollable. I looked over to see Cash rolling his eyes, but his lips were twitching. “Alright alright,” he said, finally breaking in for the first time since before his friend showed up. “We get it. You're slick, now get your face away from my woman's neck.”

“Hand to God,” Shooter said, dramatically putting a hand to his heart, “I can't help myself. Look at her.”

“I have. Extensively,” Cash said, his smile in place but there was a bit of steel in his words. I found myself liking that. He trusted me, he'd let me hold hands with his friends. But he also felt possessive and had no problem making that point clear.

“Point taken,” Shooter shrugged, nodding at Cash and winking at me. He dropped my pinkie then, no joke, he booped my nose, like people do to kids, but somehow, it managed to be both sweet and sexy. “Now lay it on me, sweetheart.”

With that, I did, and I didn't wince or shrink away from the truth like I would have done a week before, desperately trying to save face, to not let anyone see my damage. I just... gave it to him like I gave it to Cash over the days spent in my hospital bed.

Done, Shooter hissed out a breath, looking down at his feet for a second so I couldn't see what was going on with his face, what he was thinking or feeling. Then his eyes slid up to mine again and I saw a sort of fierce determination there. “Nothing fucking worse than a man who raises his hand against a woman. Even worse when the bastard gets away with it. So you give me a name and a picture,” he said to me, then turned to Cash, “and you get me the kind of gun I can work with.” Cash nodded and Shooter pinned me again with his intense gaze, “And in twenty-four fucking hours, he won't be breathing easy anymore. Mainly because the fuck won't be breathing at all.”

It was then that I saw the professional underneath the real man. I saw him for what he was. I saw how he earned his name. Shooter. That was what he was. That was what he did. It was easy to forget that when he was smiling and touching you and being sweet-sexy enough to make a nun blush. It was easy to forget what he was: a killer. A very good, very experienced killer.

It wasn't the skin he lived in. It wasn't something he wore on his sleeve, but it was a part of him.

“Unless you want him plugged but breathing. I can make that happen too. I don't like to do that, but in this case... I can make an exception.”

“I want this over,” I said with a simple shrug. I was over it. I wanted the loose ends tied off so I could finally move on.

“It won't trace back to me or Cash or you,” he assured me, then added, “I don't collect bodies.”

Meaning, he was going to shoot him and leave him. He didn't do the hands-on work. “That works for me.”

“Okay,” he said, the professional persona slipping away immediately as he clapped then rubbed his hands together, a devilish smile playing with his lips. “So where are the rest of these femme-fatales hiding?” he asked, slipping an arm through mine and leading me back out of the dead end.

“Don't do it, gorgeous,” Cash warned, falling behind us. “'Less you're stocked up on tissues and ice cream and whatever the fuck you ladies need when a guy hits and quits.”

Shooter craned his head over his shoulder, smirk still intact. “Oh, come on, Cash. You know me better than that. I always leave the ladies with a smile.”

Somehow, I did not doubt that in the least.

Cash snorted, shaking his head as we stopped in the front yard again. “Can't wait to see how you're smirking when some chick gets you by the balls, man.”

I felt my lips quirking up at that. Suddenly, I wanted to see that too.

Shooter let go of my arm as he stepped in the gateway, turning to face us, smile wide. “That's never gonna happen,” he said, booped my nose again, and was on his way.

“What's so funny?” I asked, watching Cash chuckle at his friend driving away.

“Babe, I used to say the same thing,” he said, smiling down at me.

“You're saying I have you by the balls?” I asked, grinning big.

“Baby...” he said, as if that was answer enough.

“Well,” I demanded, brows going up expectantly. I wanted to hear him say it.

He exhaled his breath through his nose, shaking his head up at the sky. “Fuck me,” he said to no one in particular before letting his eyes land on mine. “Balls, dick, heart, brain, baby, you got it all.”

Heart.

He said heart.

He'd kinda snuck it in there. But it
was
in there.

He said I had him by the heart.

At that, I felt my own trip over itself frantically.

It wasn't
those words
, but it was.

I opened my mouth to respond, to tell him that I felt the same, that he was the only person I had ever felt safe around, the only man I could let myself care about, the most surprising, wonderful person I had ever met.

But the front door burst open and Malcolm was running out, phone pressed to his ear. At the silent question in my eyes, he called, “It's Janie.” At that, my heart, already pounding, went into a near attack. Janie. Janie was calling Hailstorm. Maybe she was coming back. Maybe... “She needs to talk to Cash.”

Oh.

I tried to hide the disappointment in my eyes. At this, I failed judging by the small shrug Cash gave me as he took the phone.

“Hey kid, what's up?” he asked, his sweet smile in place and I liked that. I liked that he got on with Janie, that he got on with Malcolm and Mike and everyone else in my life. But then his head snapped up and his eyes pinned me. “Calm down.” Okay. It wasn't weird for Janie to be, well,
not
calm. She was mercurial. She went from calm and focused to off the handle in two-point-five seconds. Then she went from off the handle to laughing in two-point-fifteen. So it wasn't unusual for her to be worked up. What was unusual was the fact that Cash went from calm and happy to stern and worried.

“What's going on?”

He shook his head at me, a plea for silence.

“When? Fuck. Shit god damn it,” he said, the words savage. “Be there as soon as possible.” He paused, looking at me. “I'm bringing Lo to sit with you.” With that, he hung up. But he didn't talk to me. Instead, he turned his attention back to the phone and dialed fast. His eyes found mine as the phone rang. “Reign. Get Repo and get your fucking asses on your bikes. Wolf went AWOL. No... he's hunting. Yeah, the human kind. I know. Yeah. His place. Thirty minutes.”

Not many people knew Wolf's background. I, on the other hand, did. So if he was AWOL and he was hunting the human kind of prey, it absolutely warranted the stony, resigned worry taking over Cash's normally carefree face.

“You need to sit with and calm down your girl,” he told me, already making his way over to the cars.

“Okay.” I could do that. “Do you need me to bring Hailstorm in to back up you and your guys?”

“Only the three of us on this. Anyone else would be potential collateral damage.”

I understood that too. So I silently got my ass into the passenger seat and let him have the silence he needed to get himself together. We parked at the bottom of Wolf's hill and I grabbed his hand before he could swing out and talk to Reign and Repo, already parked with their bikes, looking every bit as anxious as Cash did.

“Yeah?” he asked, the sound a little clipped, but I understood too well what he was feeling to be offended.

“You'll be careful.” It wasn't a question or a plea. It was practically a demand.

“'Course,” he said, reaching out to touch my face. We turned and got out of the car. “I need to walk her up and then I'll be down,” he said to Reign and Repo who both looked at me with angry eyes, taking in my busted face.

“No. Get going. I'm fine.”

“Lo...”

“It's not that far.”

“You got stitches all up your...”

“I said I'm fine. Go get your boy. I need to go calm down my girl.”

He nodded reluctantly, grabbing the back of my neck to pull me slightly to him and kissed the side of my head. “I'll call.”

“You better,” I shot back then pulled away. “You guys be careful too,” I said to Reign and Repo as I turned and slowly made my way up the hill with gritted teeth. I told him I was fine and I was determined to make it look that way, no matter how much it hurt. I was right, it wasn't
that
far... for a normal person. For someone with stitches tracing their back, well, it felt like fifteen football fields.

I got to the door and heard the bikes and, presumably, the car pulling away. I paused, hand raised to knock, finding myself suddenly nervous. To see her, which made no sense. She was the best friend I had in the world. We shared so much. Though, there was probably just as much that we kept from each other and it was time to come clean, it was time to admit that I had been hiding my past from her, that I didn't trust her with it before but that it was time for that to change.

So I forced my hand to knock.

When I heard nothing from inside, no moving, no TV, no nothing, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. I reached for the handle and found it unlocked, another thing that had me worried. Janie was practically OCD about locks. She checked every door inside Hailstorm before she went to sleep at night. I understood why. No one would blame her. Not once in all the years I had known her had she forgotten to check. And Hailstorm was a fortress, made of unyielding metal and surrounded by barbed wire gates and protected by guard dogs. So leaving the door open at some random little cottage in the woods? Yeah, so not Janie.

“Janie?” I called, pushing open the door and stepping in carefully. “You in here, babe?”

My eyes took a second to adjust to the light in the darkened room and when they did, I finally saw her, curled up in the bed under the covers, cuddled into a protective little ball, crying.

Crying.

Once. I had seen her crying once in all the years I knew her- the night I met her. After that, she tucked it away, she locked it up tight; or she dealt with the tears in private, but she never shared them. Not with me, not with anyone.

“Honey,” I said, my voice a worried whisper as I moved to sit down on the side of the bed by her body. My hand moved out to touch her shoulder and she shrieked and flew back from me, scooting up in the bed to lean up against the headboard. “It's me. Hey, it's me,” I crooned, holding my hands up, palms out.

Janie took a deep breath, closing her eyes, tilting her head to the ceiling. The air shook in her chest as she let it out, her eyes opening slowly as she focused on me. The tears were gone and I had a moment to admire the kind of self-control it took for her to go from the depths of hell of emotions to almost robotically blank in the course of a few seconds.

“You alright, honey?” I asked, knowing her response would be surface, would be empty and knee-jerk.

“Your face,” she said instead, choosing not to lie.

“Back is worse,” I shrugged, feeling the pulsing pain start up again. “Your arm,” I said, gesturing toward the white gauze. Her eyes flew down to the limb in question, her eyes closing again for a moment. “Burn, right?” I asked and her head snapped up, surprised. At that, I let myself smile. “Know you like a little sister,” I explained. “Did you really think I'd miss the Jstorm signature? No one does explosions like you, babe.”

Her hand rose, shaking a little as she ripped it through her hair roughly. “You knew,” she accused quietly and I nodded. “How long?”

“Since about the minute after I picked myself up off the ground.”

Janie exhaled loudly. “You weren't supposed to be there. You were supposed to be at Reign's. I told Summer...”

“No effing way,” I laughed, unable to help myself. “Oh, that makes so much more sense now.”

“What does?”

“That ridiculous dinner party. None of us understood why the hell we were there except that Summer threw a holy fit at any of us who said we weren't going to be able to make it.”

“I wanted to keep you all safe.”

“While you created chaos.”

“I didn't want any of the friendleys thinking it was any of the other friendleys doing the dirt,” she said, using the silly term she always did for The Henchmen or the Mallicks. Summer's father, Richard Lyon, was not included in this list, but I imagined she felt the need to protect Summer's feelings by protecting her father.

I paused for a second, trying to find the right words, trying to not push the wrong buttons. “That night, babe, that night is burned in my memory,” I started, knowing she knew I didn't mean the night of the bombs. I meant the night I met her, the night she became the biggest part of my heart.