"But why?" I demanded, a bit of pleading in my tone.
He straightened the wonky gauze for a second, settling it all into even lines before he looked me in the face again. "Have reasons."
"Care to share?"
"Why'd you bomb Hailstorm?"
I wanted to smile, because I knew what he was doing. But I kept my lips in a straight line. "Have reasons."
"Care to share?" he threw my words back at me and I felt myself smiling.
"No."
"So you get it," he said on a shrug as he moved away from me.
I sat up slowly, mouth opening to remind him that the situations were in no way similar, when I heard a voice outside. "You better be shacked up in here with some grade-A pussy if you're not showing up at church," it called through the door. My head snapped in Wolf's direction to see him silently contemplating the ceiling. I didn't have to ask who it was. I knew that voice. I had talked to him the night of the dinner party where he and Wolf were going so they would be safe... while I went out and created chaos. Cash. It was Cash. He was Reign's, the leader of The Henchmen MC, brother. He was also second in command, vice prez, one position above Wolf.
I liked Cash. That wasn't surprising because literally everyone who met him liked him. Especially women. He was charming as all hell, good looking, sweet, funny. And, when the situation called for it, he was a vicious, capable fighter and killer.
I wanted to ask Wolf where he had been the day before if he hadn't gone to church with the rest of the men. But then Cash's voice called through the door again, "Oh you fuck. If I
have to hunt you down..." he trailed off mainly because Wolf had rushed across the floor and flung the door open.
"Cash," he said as I moved to sit up on my knees on the bed, shamelessly eavesdropping.
"The fuck you doing up here when bombs are going off?" Cash asked.
"Anything I can do?" Wolf countered, sounding almost... bored.
"That's not the point, Wolf. You don't miss church. Reign was worried. Now that he knows you ain't dead in one of your fucking tree stands or something, he's gonna be pissed."
"I'll deal with him," Wolf said with a shrug, rendering Cash momentarily speechless. Because no one 'dealt with' Reign. Reign had a soft spot for his woman but that was about it. He was hardened from all the years being in charge of a group of ruthless men. He didn't take well to disloyal members and that was exactly what Wolf was sounding like right then. Why? What was he doing messing with his brotherhood?
"What the fuck did you get yourself into now, man?" Cash asked after a moment.
"Nothin'," Wolf lied.
"There are fucking bombs going off all over. No one has a god damn idea who is setting them. Repo is up my ass about not being around enough and I can't be around because I got fuckin' Lo begging asylum at my house 'cause she got trouble and she won't involve Hailstorm in it..."
Lo.
He had Lo begging asylum at his house?
Because she had trouble that she wouldn't involve Hailstorm in?
I was pretty sure my heart stopped on the spot right then, the pain was so acute and cutting that my hand rose to the left side of my chest and pressed in.
Lo was a lot of things: strong, capable, smart, ruthless, enterprising. She was a woman in charge of a group of men who had never taken orders from a woman before. She ran Hailstorm with a whip and a unshakable spirit. She was not the kind of woman to beg. She was certainly not the kind of woman to turn to someone outside her organization for help if she somehow needed it.
Whatever she had going on, it didn't take a genius to know it was bad.
"Lo?" I heard myself ask before I could stop it.
Wolf's head tilted up, looking at the ceiling as he let out a breath and shook his head. It was then that I realized he didn't want Cash to know I was there. That was why he had been blocking the door. I was his dirty little secret.
"I fuckin' knew you had a skirt in there," Cash chuckled as he ducked under Wolf's arm and made his way inside the cabin. He was tall and a thin kind of strong with colorful tattoos up his arms. His blond hair was left long on one side and shaved to a buzzcut up the other. His deep green eyes were amused until his eyes landed on me, quickly taking in the cuts on my face and the gauze on my arm. "Jesus fucking Christ," he said, rolling his eyes as Wolf moved back into the room, leaving the door open as if telling Cash he could get a move on at any time. "Well well well," he smiled, too amused for any of our good. "Look at this little development..."
"Cash," Wolf's deep voice warned, but Cash completely ignored it.
"She's not your usual type, man," he said, nodding at me. "But, hell, if you can put
up with that smart mouth," he said, winking at me.
And well, two days of frustration came to a head right in that moment and I felt the anger well up strong and insistent. And Cash, well, he was just a perfect outlet for it.
"The operative word there being 'smart'," I started, moving toward the end of the bed and hopping off. "I know. It's a foreign concept to someone who barely has two brain cells to rub together and when he does, all they do is scream out 'pussy, pussy, pussy', but some of us actually have..."
"Retract the claws, kitten," he laughed, winking at me as he chucked me under the chin. "I was messing with you."
"Oh," I said, immediately deflating. Of course he was. That was how he was: carefree, jocular, fun. I sighed a little, deciding to change tactics. "Why is Lo staying with you?"