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“What the fuck?” I heard myself hiss.
I knew Lo was a badass. She had a reputation that made most men's seem warm and fuzzy. She had done some shit in her life, she had ordered things done in her life, that most people couldn't fathom. She was trained, she was ruthless, and she was accustomed to being down in the trenches with her men. It stood to reason that she had gotten herself into sticky situations before, that she had gotten herself roughed up.
But... fuck.
It looked like someone had used her face as his own personal punching bag.
Now, if there's anything anyone knows about me: it was that I loved me some women. I loved them in all their pain-in-the-ass perfection. And to see that someone dared raised their hand to that perfection? Yeah... that shit would never fly with me.
“I'm calling it in, Cash,” she said, raising her chin slightly.
“Honey, what happened to your face?” I asked, getting close.
“Call Reign,” she said, ignoring my question.
“Lo, what happened to your face?” I pressed again, hand raising and brushing across her bruised jaw. She flinched and I felt the kick to my gut again.
“You have to help me,” she said, her eyes looking almost glassy for a second. “Please call Reign.” There was a hint of genuine desperation in her voice that was so very much unlike her that I knew there was no way I wasn't going to help her.
“Lo, let's get you out of here for a bit, okay?” I asked, reaching for her arm, glad when she didn't flinch away from my touch.
“I need to talk to Reign.”
“I'll talk to Reign,” I agreed as I led her back toward her little hatchback, but steering her toward the passenger door, opening it for her. “Get in,” I said, my tone soft. When she attempted a brow raise and opened her mouth to object, I shook my head. “Get in the fucking car, babe.” She huffed, but slowly lowered herself in. I moved around the hood, nodding at the probates. “Tell Repo I will text him about the Mallicks when I deal with this shit.”
“Should we call the Prez?”
“You keep this shit to your fucking selves until I say otherwise, understood?” I asked, my voice dipping low and threatening and it was so unlike the Cash they knew that they immediately straightened.
“Yeah, man. No problem.”
“Won't say shit,” the other agreed.
“See that you don't,” I agreed, getting behind the driver's seat and adjusting it back. “Keys, Lo,” I said, extending my hand to her.
“Where are we going?” she asked, handing them over without a fight.
“Can you get the belt on?” I asked instead, knowing she wouldn't like the answer to her question. Her arm cocked back but her breath hissed out of her mouth.
“I'm fine,” she said, waving her hand.
I gave her a tight-lipped smile, leaning across her body to grab the belt, making our faces close. Her eyes immediately fell to her lap. It was so submissive that I started to imagine all the awful ways I could make the fucker who made her act like that way. The belt clicked. “You alright?” I asked, not moving away.
“I'm fine,” she said immediately, knee-jerk.
“Lo,” I said and paused, waiting for her gaze to lift. It did, hesitantly. “Are you okay?”
Her eyes searched mine for a moment and her lip trembled slightly when she finally admitted, “No.”
Shit.
“Well, we'll see what we can do about that, yeah?” I asked, winking at her, then moving back into my seat. She needed the space to pull herself together. She would never forgive herself if she broke down in front of me.
So I put the car into drive and I drove away while she took as deep of breaths as her ribs would allow and pulled it together.
I kept my mouth shut despite having a dozen questions I wanted to ask: Who had beat her? Did she know them? Was this linked to the bombings? Why wasn't she going to Hailstorm for help? What could I do to erase that haunted look in her eyes?
The list went on and on.
In the end, all I could do was drive. She didn't need my questions. She needed a bed to lie down on, some pain medicine, maybe a shot or two, and some sleep.
I could wait.EightLoI wasn't going to cry. Hell to the no. That was not going to happen. It was certainly not going to happen in front of fucking Cash... no matter how nice he was being to me. Actually, the nice thing might have been why I was all teary-eyed in the first place. If he would just be his normal cocky, flirty, pain in the ass self, I probably would have just felt irritated and sexually frustrated. But, no, he had to go and be sweet. The bastard.
I blinked away the tears and worked through the hitch in my breathing, watching out the side window as we passed through the industrial side of town where The Henchmen clubhouse was located, through the part that was sketchy, but not scary, then into the 'burbs.
My eyes slanted toward him, my brows drawing together. Where the hell could he possibly be taking me in the suburbs? Then, like the beginning of some really awful sitcom, he pulled past a huge wooden sign boasting the name “Oliver Grove Townhouses” and we drove down a seemingly endless winding road of connected, identical half-homes.
By the time Cash pulled my car up in front of one that was no different from the others except for its empty flowerbeds, well, my mouth was hanging open.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, turning slightly to look at him, hearing one of the girls across the street playing a game of hopscotch (yes, hopscotch... I did say it was like a bad sitcom!) squealed loudly.
“Got a problem with my house, baby?” he asked, giving me a boyish smile as he unbelted himself and then me.
“You live here?” I asked, my tone a complete accusation.
As an answer, he just grinned bigger, getting out of the car and waving at the girls across the street.
