Reign (The Henchmen MC 1)

“Who'd you approach?” I asked.

Richard shrugged. “Everyone. O'neils. The Alamanis. Even the Changs. They want to run the skin trade. But even they don't want to go to war over this.”

I shook my head. “You approached the families?” I asked. The Irish. Italian. Chinese. They were old school operations. Families that survived because of caution and ironclad rules. “What about the MCs or the...”

“I don't associate with the likes of motor clubs and low life criminals.”

So we were back to that.

“Lo,” Wolf mumbled. Low. So I ignored him.

“This is your fucking daughter we are talking about and you can't swallow your pride and approach...”

“Lo,” Wolf said, louder, making me turn to him.

“Lo?” I asked, my brows drawing together.

“We'll get Lo,” he added.

My eyes went to Cash and I saw a look there that mirrored what I was feeling inside.

There were criminals. Me. Cash. Wolf. We were criminals. There were crime lords. Lyon and V and the families, they were crime lords. And then there were just plain old crazy mother fuckers.

Lo was a plain old crazy mother fucker.

Some kind of ex military or shit like that. Had a massive compound. Acres up in the hills with electric fences and a dozen long, low, buildings made of shipping containers, meant to withstand any kind of natural disaster or most bullets. He had men stationed everywhere. Guns strapped across their backs. Guns that I had sold them. And then there were the dogs. Dozens of them. Vicious breeds. Pitbulls, rotties, dobermans. Dogs meant to instill fear. Dogs capable of being trained for security.

He lived like he expected the government to declare a permanent Marshall Law and he wanted to be able to fight them off.

And, like I said, he was a crazy mother fucker.

I had been hearing stories about Lo for the better part of a decade. Slowly building up his personal army, full of ex military and street brats who needed some way to harness their anger.

He didn't run drugs or guns or girls.

No one really knew what the fuck he did.

All anyone knew was that he took lives easily and in new and inventive ways.

“I don't think bringing in a lunatic like that would be the best bet,” Richard pitched in, as if he was part of a board meeting, not cuffed to a chair in my blood stained shed.

“Why not?” Cash asked. “You said yourself, your wife is crazy. What better way to fight crazy but with more crazy?”

“No one has even met Lo,” Richard tried to reason. “We know nothing about him. If we can't control him, then we can't get Summer out.”

Another not altogether stupid point.

His dedication to rationality was starting to piss me off.

“We'll go,” Wolf tried, looking at me.

“Go where?” I asked.

“To meet Lo.”

“That's not a bad plan,” Cash offered. “Meet him. Get a feel for him and his loyalties. See if we want to get involved with him. Then go from there.”

“We're wasting fucking time,” I growled.

Richard's eyes found mine, and I saw the same kind of hollowness that I felt inside. He wanted his daughter back. As cold and detached as he was being about the whole affair, he wanted her back just as badly as I did.

“She's not who she was four months ago,” he said, watching me.

“What are you talking about?”

“Summer,” he clarified. “I raised her soft and sweet and compliant. She was a good girl. The kind of girl who never learned to fully stand on her own. She's not that girl anymore. She's stronger. She's resilient. She survived three months under V. And we both know what happened to her there. Three months. And when I got my hands on her again, she was ready to fight. V didn't break her. Three months and she didn't even get close to breaking her. It's only been three days.”

I swallowed hard. He was right. Even after what she had gone through, she was steel. “She screams,” I said, the sound piercing in my ears.

“I've heard her,” he agreed.

Fuck.

“Fine. Tomorrow,” I declared. “We'll go to Lo's tomorrow. With or without him, I want Summer back the day after. I don't care what the fuck we have to do to make that happen.”

I started toward the door when Cash's voice stopped me. “Ah, Reign...”

“What?”

“What are we supposed to do with him?” he said, motioning toward Richard.

“He looks comfortable enough,” I shrugged. “Put Repo on his watch. He's dying for responsibility. Oh,” I said, turning back, a smirk at my lips. “Repo is one of my men who got busted up pretty good at your hands. I'm curious to see what kind of self control he has when he learns that fact,” I said, watching Richard pale.

I went into the compound, ignoring the curious eyes of the men who were hanging about and went right up to my room. Kicking off my boots. Lying down on the bed. I needed to sleep. Even for a few hours. I needed to be sharp. I needed to get my fucking head on straight.

But as I tossed and turned, sleep didn't come.

Memories did.**“What is this one for?” Summer asked, lying on my chest, her fingers tracing over my tattoos, asking what they stood for, bitching at me if she found out they meant nothing. That I just liked the design. Apparently if I was going to ink something into my skin permanently, it should have some kind of personal meaning.

Her finger was running over the edge of a dark anchor.

“That one is for Cash,” I supplied.

“Really?” she asked, pushing up on my chest to look down at me, her hair falling forward and I reached up to tuck it behind her ear. “An anchor?”

I nodded. “And he has the wheel.” Her brows drew together, trying to make sense of that information. “It's an old sayin',” I provided. “The one with the wheel means 'be the one who guides me', and the anchor means 'but never hold me down'.”

“Oh,” she said, her eyes dropping to my mouth.

“Keep lookin' at my mouth, babe, and I'm gonna start thinkin' about what I can do with it.”