His head swiveled, eyes finding me, and exhaled a ragged breath. "Right." He climbed off of Marco's prone body, cracking his neck. "Was it just me or was something off there?"
"I need to find out who the fuck he is, because he's not just the squeaky clean cop I was thinking."
"Fights like a street kid," Eli said, reaching up to rub his jaw through his mask. We walked back out of the alley, Eli keeping his head ducked until we passed the last of the cameras, when he ripped off the mask and looked over at me. "Think this is a good or bad thing for you?"
I shrugged. "Why is he so gung-ho to take down Wolf if he's crooked or connected in some way? Is he trying to take out possible competition? If so, that's definitely a bad thing. Especially if whoever he works for is after The Henchmen in particular. That means they want the gun trade. The last thing this area needs is another war over the gun trade. Last time it was disastrous," I said, thinking of Reign and Cash's dad and half of the other members getting killed or locked away. In the end, they managed to push out the competition, but I wasn't sure if the club had ever recovered enough to take on a new threat. They had systematically been vetting and adding new members over the years, but their numbers were still depleted, Reign being much more particular in the kinds of members he would accept.
"He saw your face," Eli reminded me as we closed in on his car, parked several blocks away. Mine was a block down a side street.
"Yeah."
"If he's connected..."
"Yeah," I agreed. I never much worried about being seen by the bad guys. It was kind of hard to be afraid of anything when you lived at Hailstorm with dozens of other people ready to defend you at anytime. "I'm staying at the compound until this blows over," I informed him.
"Smart move. You need anything else..." he extended and I gave him a tight smile.
"I appreciate it, Eli."
With that, I turned and jogged off down the side street, suddenly a little more paranoid than I liked to admit. I threw myself into my car and drove onto the main street, seeing that Eli had waited to leave until he was sure I was safe.
I was surrounded by good men, I realized with a warm feeling in my chest.
The compound was buzzing when I returned, loud music blaring, alcohol flowing, club whores on full display. I felt my lips curl up slightly, wondering how many of them Wolf had slept with in the past before I reminded myself that that was ridiculous. He was a man. He had a sexual history. I couldn't be pissed about that.
"It takes some getting used to," a familiar female voice said beside me as I realized I had been standing there staring.
I turned, taking in the long, wavy red hair, the delicate face, the big gray eyes. The last time I had seen her, I had asked her to hold a dinner party and invite Cash, Wolf, Lo, and her father. I didn't tell her why, just that it would help keep them safe. In a way. She fed them as I set bombs at all their headquarters.
Summer.
She was Reign's woman.
"What does?" I asked.
"The women mostly. I mean the music and the drinking can get old, but the women... they can eat at you. Doesn't take a genius to know our men have slept with most of them," she said, her lip curling much the same way mine had. As she said that, my eyes landed on one of the women in particular who whipped off her top while she sat on the lap of one of the men. Yeah she wasn't wearing a bra. And no one else seemed the least bit phased. "Reign is faithful. Cash is too," she added, nodding to where the two in question were sitting at the bar, chatting with a few of the older members of the club. "But you get it, it never sits right that they are around all this."
"That why you're here?"
"No, I usually avoid coming when the women are here. I come earlier in the day and leave before they call them in. But Reign is worried about Wolf so I thought I should be around." While she was speaking, her eyes were on Reign, looking soft and warm. As if sensing her, he looked over and gave her a small smile before turning back to his men. "Come on," Summer said, tugging the sleeve of my shirt. "I'll take you to Wolf's room. I put all your stuff up there when they started showing up," she waved a hand to the place as a whole. "They're nice guys and all but sometimes they forget that they can't rest an open beer on a laptop."
She led me up a hallway past a dozen or so doors, some open, some closed with unmistakable noises coming from behind them. I was hit with a stab of longing so strong it was a wonder my legs could keep me moving forward. Summer fished a key out of her pocket and unlocked the door. "This is yours now," she said, handing it to me as we went inside.
The room wasn't huge and it was dominated by another giant bed like at the cabin. This one had a black and gray plaid comforter and I felt the tears sting my eyes at seeing it. The room smelled like him too. I had been so busy working on trying to get him free that I hadn't given myself much time to think about him, miss him. It all hit me right then, standing in the doorway, making my heart hurt and the air hard to breathe.
"I washed the bedding," Summer supplied, snapping me out of my sadness. "When Reign first stuck me in his room, he didn't think twice about sleeping on the skeezy sheets. Figured I'd save you from having to strip the bed and bear the basement."