Reign (The Henchmen MC 1)

But whatever passed his face, it didn't belong to the man I had known for twenty- some-odd years.

“You're a sharp girl, Summer,” he said, surprising me. “Always were.”

“Sharp enough to know that if someone was coming for me, that having the door locked from the inside is the only way to keep them out. Having it locked from the outside, Dad, that is how you keep someone in.”

The look was back.

But that time, it was stronger.

No longer needing the Dad mask.

He was just... another person.

Someone I didn't know at all.

“I can't have V getting you back. And I can't have you running back to that lowlife Henchmen you are in love with either. I am covering my bases.”

What.

The.

Fuck?

“Lee,” he called and Lee appeared out of nowhere, nodding at him.

I noticed a small wince as he moved and felt my spine straighten, felt my pride surge. “How's those ribs, Lee?” I asked, smiling over my coffee cup.

To my surprise, he winked at me.

“I raised you better than that,” my father shot at me, making me almost shrink away from his disappointment before I remembered what was going on.

“You didn't raise me,” I clarified. “A man who was sweet and good and loving raised me. I don't know who the fuck you are.”

“I see you've picked up the crassness of those base creatures.”

If he was looking for a compliant hostage, he was going about it wrong by calling my saviors names.

I looked down at my cup and before I thought about it, I flung it hard across the room toward him, watching it shatter directly behind his shoulder, pouring the rest of the hot liquid over his suit. He didn't even flinch. “Rot in hell, Dad,” I spat.

“Lee,” he said calmly, “I think it's time my daughter went to rest.”

And with that, I was grabbed and dragged toward my room, fighting it the whole way, managing a few elbows to his center, rewarded with grunts of pain from his busted ribs.

“You've got spirit, I'll give you that,” he said calmly.

“You're going to be sorry you're working with him,” I warned as I was thrown into my room, slamming hard against the pillar of my bed.

“Who is gonna make me pay, princess? You? For trapping you in your little girl bedroom?”

“Reign is going to make you pay,” I supplied and saw the slightest trace of worry mark his eyes before it got pushed away.

“Reign won't be a problem for long.”

Shit.Twenty-twoCash“Cash! Mother fuck fuck fuck!” Vin's voice yelled and I flew out of my bedroom, down the hall, into the main room. Because Vin sounded freaked. And Vin was a tough old fuck, he never sounded freaked.

“What's...” I started, seeing him dragging a beat and bloodied Repo in from outside. “What the fuck?”

“They got Flee too. Q found him out in front of the gates, bleeding the fuck out. Got him to the hospital.”

“Who was it? Did they get...”

“Cash,” he broke in.

“We need to know what the threat is. We need...”

“Cash!” he hollered.

“What?” I asked, looking over at him.

“She's gone.”

“What? Who is gone?”

“Summer. They got Summer,” he said through clenched teeth.

And that, I was pretty sure, was how I died. Heart stopped. Right then and there.

“What?” I asked, my voice a strange raspy whisper.

“They got Summer. She was out back. She's gone. She's fucking gone.”

“Fuck!” I yelled, turning and slamming my fist into the wall, watching it slip under the plaster past my wrist. I pulled it back out, reaching into my pocket for my phone.

It was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. The worst news I had ever had to bring to someone. And he was still fucking a day out. A day away. Fuck.

“What?” his voice growled at me, impatient.

I sucked in air. “Someone got in the grounds, fucked up two probies and, fuck,” I said, lowering my head, “they got Summer, man. They got her.”

The silence on the other end of the phone was the worst sound I had ever heard in my life. It was the loudest kind of noise.

It felt like it lasted forever.

Then, “No.”

And there was so much in that word. Desperation. Anger. Disbelief.

“Yeah, yeah, man. She's gone. She's fucking gone.”

“I'm on the road.”

Disconnect.

I turned back to Vin, feeling the weight of leadership in a way I never had before. That was always on Reign. Even when he was out of town and I was technically in charge, it had never been real. I had never needed to make decisions. I never had to deal with consequences alone.

“What the fuck we do?” Vin asked, mopping some of the blood off of Repo's face with a torn piece of his shirt.

I ran a hand over the shaved side of my head.

Shit.

Fuck.

What the fuck were we going to do?

Reign was a day out.

A whole fucking day.

A day where fuck-all knew what was happening to Summer back at V's. Reign told me about the scars on her back. I'd seen the ligature marks on her wrists and ankles myself. When she had her hair pulled up, I'd seen the whisps where her hair was growing back after being pulled out.

She had been through fucking hell.

And she was going through it again.

And we had to fucking sit on our hands for a whole day?

“We need to call in all the men. Tell them we had a break-in. We need to double up men on the perimeter. Not just fucking probies. The men too. We need to find out how the fuck they got in. And we need to see if we can find any leads. Tire treads. People who saw something. Anything we can. When Reign gets here, we need some fucking answers,” I concluded, going through my phone and shooting off a group emergency text. I turned back to Vin. “How bad is he?”

“Looks like broken eye socket and nose. A rib or two. Prolly a concussion. He'll pull through.”

“He need a hospital?”

“No. Doc can deal with him when he gets here.”

I nodded, going behind the bar and grabbing one of the semi-automatics. “I'm checking the mother fucking grounds.”