“No,” she said, her blue eyes boring into mine as she ran a hand through her long dark hair. “And she can't know.”
“Janie...” I tried to reason, noticing a slight tremble in her words. If she was doing something on her own, without Lo and the rest of Hailstorm behind her...
“I just need you to invite your dad, Cash, Wolf, and Lo here one night, Summer. That's all I need from you. Just throw a fit until they all agree and get them here. That's it.”
“Janie if you need help...”
“This is as much for you and your people as it is for me, Summer. Just say yes. All you have to do is invite them here and keep them here for a couple hours.”
“Are you going to be safe?” I asked, lowering the gun finally but keeping it in my hand.
Janie took a slow breath, one of her small shoulders rising and falling in a casual shrug. “Probably. Hopefully. I don't know. But that's not your problem,” she said, standing, and slipping her hood back up. “Here,” she said, slipping a piece of paper out of her pocket and placing it on the dining room table.
“Janie. Seriously... if you are in over your head...”
“Don't worry about me. I'll get by. I always do,” she said, pulling the door open and disappearing into the night.
I walked over to the dining table, grabbed the piece of paper which gave me a date and time, and locked the back door.
It looked like I had a dinner party to plan.
And an epic fit to throw if I was going to get anyone to agree to come...OneCashReign's driveway had never held so many cars before. Up until a year ago, no one even knew where his place was except me. I pulled my bike up to the side of Wolf's mammoth truck and climbed off. I pounded my fist into the side of a black rape van as I passed, making Janie jump and turn toward me, gun raised. It was a dick move, but she was fun to rile up. I mean, who didn't enjoy poking a sleeping bear once in a while? And Janie, the twenty-something, tatted, dark-haired, blue-eyed slip of a girl who was actually one of the best tactical minds inside the survivalist camp known as Hailstorm, yeah, she was a sleeping fucking bear.
“Jesus Christ, Cash,” she sighed, shaking her head. “I could have shot you in the head. I mean... not that I think the brain damage would be noticed or anything but...”
“You coming in?” I asked, nodding toward Reign's house.
“No. I was just dropping Lo off.”
Lo was her boss, as in Lo was the woman behind Hailstorm which, along with being a weird survivalist camp, also did work catching skippers, did private security, and carried out contract killing.
“Lo is here?” I asked, feeling my smile fall slightly.
I liked me a whole smorgasbord of pussy. Tall, short, thick, thin, blonde, brunette, purple-haired. Twenty. Forty. I didn't give a fuck. I loved them all.
All except fucking Lo, man.
While I might have admired the way that woman held a gun and spoke her mind, I couldn't get behind the fact that she and her people engaged in hits on any civilian for money. I'm okay with killing: for family, for friends, for brotherhood, for business, hell, even for your country. But killing just for the fuck of it, because the paycheck was high enough? Hell fucking no.
Granted, I had friends that did that shit. I had friends who broke kneecaps or worse. I had a friend who was the best god damn sniper in the country and used those skills. And I could go out with them, I could pound drinks, I could place bets on which one of us would land the hottest chick, but I didn't get involved with that shit.
And fucking a woman, even just for a night, meant you were involved.
“You know,” Janie said, cutting into my thoughts. “I watched you shoot a man right between the eyes. You didn't even flinch.”
I reached into the open window and chucked her chin. “It's different, kid. You and I both know that. Lo doesn't.”
I turned to keep walking but heard Janie say quietly, as if to herself, “Maybe I don't either.”
I shrugged it off as I made my way to the door, pulling it open and walking in.
“I'm just going to go ahead and say what everyone else here is thinking,” I said as I looked around. “This has got to be the weirdest fucking dinner party that has ever happened.”
And it had to be.
We were in the home of a my brother, gun running biker leader with his wife who had an almost alarming love of said guns. Her father, a notorious cocaine crime lord was standing in a corner in a three-thousand dollar suit looking wholly uncomfortable. Wolf, Reign and my oldest friend, was leaning against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, looking scary as fuck with his long dark beard and haunting eyes. It didn't help that the fucker never said more than a handful of words at a time. I turned my head slightly to find Lo watching me.
Seeing her was like a kick to the gut. First, because she was gorgeous- tall, long blonde hair, a face full of sharp edges and keen brown eyes. She had long legs, great hips, and a fucking phenomenal rack. She was a couple years older than me and she was probably the sexiest woman I'd ever seen. She was just not the kind of person I wanted to have anything to do with. Unfortunately, my cock did not get the message about that second thing. I was half hard just looking at her in her tight light wash jeans and white tee with a gun strapped around her thigh.
Holy fucking shit she was hot.
A slow, knowing smile spread across her features as she watched me looking her over. “Tuck your tongue back in your mouth, Cash,” she said, tipping her beer up at me before taking a swig.