“But this isn't done, right? We're not going to let this fuck walk, are we?” Honestly, even if she told me that that was exactly what she wanted, no fucking way was I going to let that happen. I'd keep her out of it, keep her blind, but I was going to hunt the bastard down and slaughter him like the animal he was.
“No. This isn't done. But I also just... I don't know. I don't feel the need to be the one to do it, to take him down. You know?”
“Honest, honey, no I don't know.” I still wanted his blood.
“You know he's a war hero, right? He's been honored and all that. He has buddies still in the Marines. They wouldn't let his disappearance go without an investigation. Too much leads back to me and, through me, to you. We can't risk that.”
“You want to bring someone else in on this.”
“It's the smartest option.”
“Wolf would be itching for the job,” I offered.
“Wolf leads back to you who leads back to me. Same problem. It can't be people in our organizations. I know a lot of people who can do contract work like this if...”
“Shooter,” I supplied with a shrug.
“What?” she asked, picking her head up to look at me.
“Shooter. Used to work for Breaker. He's a friend. He gets word of this, he'll be all over it.”
“You're sure you trust him? I haven't really done any work with him or Breaker. I know the jobs they pull, but personally...”
“I'll bring him in,” I shrugged easily. “You talk to him, get a feel for him. You don't like him, we call in one of your guys. But, babe, he's the best fucking shot I've ever seen. If there's anyone who can clock him and take him out without Damian getting a scent of him, it's Shoot.”
She nodded, no doubt having heard the stories of the insane, impossible shots Shooter had pulled off. “Call him in,” she agreed, moving to stand up. She reached inside the nightstand and pulled out a necklace. At my curious look, she shrugged. “My mother's.”
I gave her a small smile, knowing her mother wasn't even much of a memory to her, but losing mine young, I knew that kind of wound. It was a kind of hollow inside that never felt filled. “You ready to head back, babe?”
“Everything hurts,” she admitted, leaning her forehead into my chest.
My hands moved up and down her arms, wishing I could wrap them around her. “Then let's go get you all drugged up.”
“Know what I was thinking?” she asked, following me up the steps.
“What?”
“That maybe I could use that... alternative cure for pain you introduced me to.”
I turned back, my cock twitching to life at the thought. “This time you let me eat you, though,” I said and she let out a surprised yelping laugh. “Been too long since I tasted you. Got a taste for that cunt, baby.”
“Okay shut up,” she said, stopping for a second on the step below me and I realized she was pressing her thighs together.
“Like that idea huh?” I teased, taking her hand and pulling her up the last step.
“Cash...” she said, looking downward, pushing against my chest.
“You're all wet thinking about my tongue sliding up your wet slit, teasing over your clit until it's throbbing then sucking on it 'till you come hard, screaming out my name.”
“Shut up and get me back to Hailstorm.”
I shut up, then I got her back to Hailstorm, made Mike check out her back, then I fucking delivered on my promise.
–
Later, Lo asleep on her stomach, flat on the bed, zonked from a handful of pills Mike had tossed at her an hour before, I moved into the bathroom and pulled out my cell.
The call rang and went to message, as I expected to, as it always did with professionals. His voice said simply, “Shoot,” then the beep for the message chimed.
“It's Cash,” I said simply then hung up.
I didn't call him often. Hell, I think the only time I ever actually did call him was one night when we were all drinking at Chaz's and one of the guys from the club went home with a chick who ended up having a dick and that shit was too fucking funny not to pass on.
I waited, five, ten minutes before my phone started vibrating in my hand. “Yo,” I said as greeting.
“You're just full of pleasantries tonight, huh?” he asked back, his voice teasing, sarcastic, as it almost always was.
“Where the fuck you at, man?”
“What?” he asked and, if I wasn't mistaken and I fucking wasn't, there was a guarded sound in his tone that I had never heard there before.
“All hell breaks loose around here and I hear you are off on some road trip with Breaker and some chick.”
“Winter, man,” he said, sounding lighthearted again. “Fucking miserable, coming on fast. We wanted a change of pace.”
Fuck. He was still out of town.
“Please tell me you aren't off in the Canary Islands somewhere.”
“Fuckin' wish,” Shoot laughed. “Mexico, man. Place is a hellhole right now, but fuck there are some ripe, lush ladies down here.”
I laughed, surprised when it felt like it had been forever since skirt-chasing seemed like my top priority. “You set on staying there?”
“Why? What's up?”
“Got a job.”
“What kind of job?”
“Your kind of job. Need someone who is air and can hit a target from as far as possible.”
There was a short pause. “What'd you get yourself into that your brothers can't get you out of, man?”
“Ain't my shit. It's Lo's shit. And since she belongs to me, it's by proxy... my shit and I want it handled by someone I trust.”
“Lo? As in... Hailstorm?” he repeated and I heard surprise in his voice.
“That'd be her.”
Another pause, followed by a low whistle. “Fuck, man. That's some grade-A pussy. Best tits I've ever seen...”
“And you ain't even seen 'em,” I added with a smile.
“Lucky fuck,” he added and I could practically see him smiling. “So you're like... with her?” he asked, his tone similar to how mine would have been a week or so back if he came up and told me he got himself shacked up with some chick. That wasn't what we did. We partied, drank, fucked. We took life as it came and we took it easy, no strings, no stress.
“First Shane, then Reign, then Breaker, now you... who the fuck am I gonna skirt-chase with when I get the fuck back there?” he laughed.
“I think Repo's got a few years left in him,” I mused.
“Christ,” he laughed.
“What?”
“Man, he's like eight years younger than me. Can't have young bloods as my competition.”
I rubbed a hand up the side of my head. “Guess we're getting a little old for that shit, huh?”
“Speak for yourself, Cash. How is Repo gonna handle all of these hunnies by himself? I have to do my part... for womankind.” He paused. “I'll talk to Break and see if I can get a plane into the city tomorrow then I'll rent a car and drive back. Meet day after tomorrow?”
“Sounds good. Hailstorm?”
“With bells on,” he agreed and disconnected.
Twenty-five
Lo
“Sugar, honey, darlin',” were the first words Shooter mysterious-no-last-name said to me as he stood at the gates sliding open, “you sure you want to be with this guy? You can do so much better.”
With that, I was charmed. Putty in his hands charmed and I didn't know a damn thing about him. I felt bad for all of single womankind. They didn't stand a chance.
And not just because he was good looking, but he was. Tall and a lean kind of strong in his black jeans, worn on the tight side, just shy of hipster, a v-neck white tee, a beaten up black leather jacket, and black creepers. Yes... creepers. Though it was cold out and he was mostly covered up, I could see ink on his hands, creeping across his chest, and culminating in an eagle tattoo, wings spread wide, across
his throat. His face was on the thinner side, his eyes a sharp, dark green, his hair teetering between blonde and brown, cut close on the sides and slicked back down the center. His ears were gauged. His eyebrow pierced.
Hot.
He was insanely, unfairly hot in his weird modern punk kind of way.
But it wasn't the hotness. It was the way he carried himself- calm, casual, sure of himself without seeming too cocky, and there was a sweetness underneath it all that made you want to let him put an arm around you and whisper sweet, sweet nothings in your ear, fully aware that was all you would ever be to him- a sweet nothing.
“I think maybe Cash is the one getting the short end of the stick in this situation,” I admitted honestly. I was a mess and I came with so much baggage and he was just so... good. So sweet. So giving.
“Barely know you, but I know that ain't the truth,” he said, moving toward me, shocking me when he reached out and grabbed my pinkie with his and pulled me along with it. I looked over at Cash who was wearing a huge, amused grin. Seeing my confusion, he shrugged. It didn't bother him in the least that his friend was sort-of holding hands with me. He wasn't the jealous kind. I liked that. I liked that a lot. Because that meant he trusted me, even with his charming as all hell, attractive as all get-out friend, he trusted me... and there was nothing more important than that. “So I hear you got yourself into some trouble,” he said, flawlessly skirting around mentioning that he could see that I got myself into some trouble, saving my vanity. God, he was smoothe.
“That would be an understatement.”
It didn't escape my notice that he was walking me into my own compound like he owned the place, not me. That was how at-ease he was with himself and his surroundings. He even made walking down one of my many dead-end halls look like he meant to do it, dipping his head down to my ear and pretending to whisper (though he was talking in his normal voice so he was sure Cash could hear), “I see what you did there, walking me down to a private place,” he teased and I found my smile making my bruised cheeks hurt. “But I am a good, Christian boy,” he said, dropping into a Southern accent that sounded natural, surprising me, “I will not be tempted by your wicked womanly wiles.”
I felt my giggle well up, uncontrollable. I looked over to see Cash rolling his eyes, but his lips were twitching. “Alright alright,” he said, finally breaking in for the first time since before his friend showed up. “We get it. You're slick, now get your face away from my woman's neck.”
“Hand to God,” Shooter said, dramatically putting a hand to his heart, “I can't help myself. Look at her.”
“I have. Extensively,” Cash said, his smile in place but there was a bit of steel in his words. I found myself liking that. He trusted me, he'd let me hold hands with his friends. But he also felt possessive and had no problem making that point clear.
“Point taken,” Shooter shrugged, nodding at Cash and winking at me. He dropped my pinkie then, no joke, he booped my nose, like people do to kids, but somehow, it managed to be both sweet and sexy. “Now lay it on me, sweetheart.”
With that, I did, and I didn't wince or shrink away from the truth like I would have done a week before, desperately trying to save face, to not let anyone see my damage. I just... gave it to him like I gave it to Cash over the days spent in my hospital bed.
Done, Shooter hissed out a breath, looking down at his feet for a second so I couldn't see what was going on with his face, what he was thinking or feeling. Then his eyes slid up to mine again and I saw a sort of fierce determination there. “Nothing fucking worse than a man who raises his hand against a woman. Even worse when the bastard gets away with it. So you give me a name and a picture,” he said to me, then turned to Cash, “and you get me the kind of gun I can work with.” Cash nodded and Shooter pinned me again with his intense gaze, “And in twenty-four fucking hours, he won't be breathing easy anymore. Mainly because the fuck won't be breathing at all.”
It was then that I saw the professional underneath the real man. I saw him for what he was. I saw how he earned his name. Shooter. That was what he was. That was what he did. It was easy to forget that when he was smiling and touching you and being sweet-sexy enough to make a nun blush. It was easy to forget what he was: a killer. A very good, very experienced killer.
It wasn't the skin he lived in. It wasn't something he wore on his sleeve, but it was a part of him.
“Unless you want him plugged but breathing. I can make that happen too. I don't like to do that, but in this case... I can make an exception.”
“I want this over,” I said with a simple shrug. I was over it. I wanted the loose ends tied off so I could finally move on.
“It won't trace back to me or Cash or you,” he assured me, then added, “I don't collect bodies.”
Meaning, he was going to shoot him and leave him. He didn't do the hands-on work. “That works for me.”
“Okay,” he said, the professional persona slipping away immediately as he clapped then rubbed his hands together, a devilish smile playing with his lips. “So where are the rest of these femme-fatales hiding?” he asked, slipping an arm through mine and leading me back out of the dead end.
“Don't do it, gorgeous,” Cash warned, falling behind us. “'Less you're stocked up on tissues and ice cream and whatever the fuck you ladies need when a guy hits and quits.”
Shooter craned his head over his shoulder, smirk still intact. “Oh, come on, Cash. You know me better than that. I always leave the ladies with a smile.”
Somehow, I did not doubt that in the least.
Cash snorted, shaking his head as we stopped in the front yard again. “Can't wait to see how you're smirking when some chick gets you by the balls, man.”
I felt my lips quirking up at that. Suddenly, I wanted to see that too.
Shooter let go of my arm as he stepped in the gateway, turning to face us, smile wide. “That's never gonna happen,” he said, booped my nose again, and was on his way.
“What's so funny?” I asked, watching Cash chuckle at his friend driving away.
“Babe, I used to say the same thing,” he said, smiling down at me.
“You're saying I have you by the balls?” I asked, grinning big.
“Baby...” he said, as if that was answer enough.
“Well,” I demanded, brows going up expectantly. I wanted to hear him say it.
He exhaled his breath through his nose, shaking his head up at the sky. “Fuck me,” he said to no one in particular before letting his eyes land on mine. “Balls, dick, heart, brain, baby, you got it all.”
Heart.
He said heart.
He'd kinda snuck it in there. But it was in there.
He said I had him by the heart.
At that, I felt my own trip over itself frantically.
It wasn't those words, but it was.
I opened my mouth to respond, to tell him that I felt the same, that he was the only person I had ever felt safe around, the only man I could let myself care about, the most surprising, wonderful person I had ever met.
But the front door burst open and Malcolm was running out, phone pressed to his ear. At the silent question in my eyes, he called, “It's Janie.” At that, my heart, already pounding, went into a near attack. Janie. Janie was calling Hailstorm. Maybe she was coming back. Maybe... “She needs to talk to Cash.”
Oh.
I tried to hide the disappointment in my eyes. At this, I failed judging by the small shrug Cash gave me as he took the phone.
“Hey kid, what's up?” he asked, his sweet smile in place and I liked that. I liked that he got on with Janie, that he got on with Malcolm and Mike and everyone else in my life. But then his head snapped up and his eyes pinned me. “Calm down.” Okay. It wasn't weird for Janie to be, well, not calm. She was mercurial. She went from calm and focused to off the handle in two-point-five seconds. Then she went from off the handle to laughing in two-point-fifteen. So it wasn't unusual fo
r her to be worked up. What was unusual was the fact that Cash went from calm and happy to stern and worried.
“What's going on?”
He shook his head at me, a plea for silence.
“When? Fuck. Shit god damn it,” he said, the words savage. “Be there as soon as possible.” He paused, looking at me. “I'm bringing Lo to sit with you.” With that, he hung up. But he didn't talk to me. Instead, he turned his attention back to the phone and dialed fast. His eyes found mine as the phone rang. “Reign. Get Repo and get your fucking asses on your bikes. Wolf went AWOL. No... he's hunting. Yeah, the human kind. I know. Yeah. His place. Thirty minutes.”
Not many people knew Wolf's background. I, on the other hand, did. So if he was AWOL and he was hunting the human kind of prey, it absolutely warranted the stony, resigned worry taking over Cash's normally carefree face.
“You need to sit with and calm down your girl,” he told me, already making his way over to the cars.
“Okay.” I could do that. “Do you need me to bring Hailstorm in to back up you and your guys?”
“Only the three of us on this. Anyone else would be potential collateral damage.”
I understood that too. So I silently got my ass into the passenger seat and let him have the silence he needed to get himself together. We parked at the bottom of Wolf's hill and I grabbed his hand before he could swing out and talk to Reign and Repo, already parked with their bikes, looking every bit as anxious as Cash did.
“Yeah?” he asked, the sound a little clipped, but I understood too well what he was feeling to be offended.
“You'll be careful.” It wasn't a question or a plea. It was practically a demand.
“'Course,” he said, reaching out to touch my face. We turned and got out of the car. “I need to walk her up and then I'll be down,” he said to Reign and Repo who both looked at me with angry eyes, taking in my busted face.
Cash (The Henchmen MC Book 2) Page 20