Cash (The Henchmen MC 2)

Now, Lex... Lex was a whole other fucking story. Lex was the closest thing to evil that walked the face of the Earth. He was a murdering, woman beating, sadistic rapist pig. The day someone took him out would be the day all the women in the area could breathe a sigh of relief. I prayed to fuck that his card was finally punched.

“What about Lex?” Lo asked, recovering before me, but her eyes had a strange sort of haunted I didn't understand.

“Well, all the places: here, their compound,” he said, nodding his head at me, “Chaz's bar, Lyon's estate, it was all minimal damage. Lex's place? It was blown the fuck up, Lo.”

“Interesting,” Lo said, but a guard had gone down over her face. I didn't know her well, but I knew her enough to know that if she was putting a guard up, there was no way she was going to share with me why it was there. I had a feeling, though, that she and Lex Keith did not have the cordial kind of love/hate relationship she had with the awful human trash that was V. Lo hated Lex Keith with a fiery passion.

I found myself wanting to know why.

“We sending out feelers?” one of her men asked.

A brow raised and a smirk toyed at her lips. “Are you really asking me that?” she asked and the black guy, obviously more senior in some way than the others, nodded his head at the other guy who ran off to, I imagined, 'send out feelers'.

“You gonna keep us in the loop?” I asked, making Lo start like she had suddenly forgotten I was there.

“I'll meet you in command,” she said to her man who nodded at her, then me, then walked off. “That depends,” she said, closing some of the space between us.

“On what, babe?”

“On whether The Henchmen are going to share their information with us.”

“I'll have to talk to Reign,” I said, for the first time in my life regretting the fact that I had to defer decisions to someone else. In the past, I always liked that Reign was in charge, that he was the one to shoulder the burden. I had taken on that role once, for half a day, and I felt physically weighted by it. But standing in the yard of Hailstorm with their leader, asking me if me and my men would keep her informed, yeah, I wanted to be able to give her an answer. It made me feel beneath her to admit that I had to ask someone else for permission.

Lo nodded her head. “Let me know.”

Christ, that felt like a kick to the balls.

I couldn't walk away feeling like I was beneath her. That shit just wouldn't play. Things needed to even out a bit.

Unfortunately, the only card I had to play was up my sleeve and a dirty way to win a game, but it was all I had.

I took a breath, closing the remaining few feet between us, my hand raising to move to stroke next to the cut on her cheek. Her entire body went stiff, her eyes went to mine, her lips parted. Oh, yeah, she wanted me. She might dislike me as much as I didn't like her, but her body was into me. I liked that in a sick sort of way.

“What are you doing, Cash?” she asked, attempting firm, but her tone came off a bit breathless.

“You need to stop being boss lady and go take care of this.”

“It's nothing,” she said, trying to jerk her head so I would drop my hand, but my fingers slid down her jaw to nab her chin instead.

“Gotta take care of yourself, gorgeous,” I said, my thumb moving upward to rub the very edge of her lower lip. Her body softened slightly, her eyes going hazy. Meanwhile I was fucking hard as a stone just from touching her god damn face. Whatever it was between us, whatever kind of attraction that we had going on, it either needed to be ignored completely or given into, because toying with it was going to give me the worst case of blue balls in history.

“Cash...” she murmured, her voice taking on a husky edge that I wanted to hear saying all sorts of dirty things in my ear while I fucked her.

My finger slid up, despite my better judgment, and stroked across the crease in her lips. Her body wavered toward mine and I felt myself leaning in, watching her brown eyes with an avid sort of fascination. The sound of a car rumbled up, making Lo spring away from me, her eyes wild, looking out at the road. I watched her hope crash as the car that showed up was a police cruiser, not whoever she had been expecting.

“Great,” she grumbled as she made her way toward the gates that were still open from when we drove inside. I followed behind, watching the two cops climb out of the car- one younger, attractive, one older, stomach spilling over his waistband, looking very much uncomfortable at having to be at Hailstorm.

“Lo,” the older cop said, nodding his head at her, surprising me that he actually knew who she was. From what I understood, no one but other criminals knew Lo by sight. She was a 'reputation only' kind of criminal. No one even knew she was a woman: hence her name, Lo, as in... on the 'down low'.

“Detective Collings,” she said nodding at him. “Rookie,” she said to the younger guy, giving him a smile that made him clear his throat.

“Seems you had a little trouble tonight,” Collings observed.

“Seems like a lot of people had trouble tonight,” Lo countered.

Collings nodded, looking over at me. “Reign's brother,” he half-asked, half-declared.

I was proud to have Reign as a brother. That being said, it didn't exactly bolster a man's pride to be referred to as another man's brother.

“Cash,” I supplied with a brow lift.

“Just over at your... compound,” Collings said. “Seems no one has any idea who could be going around setting off bombs.”