I fell down at her side, at once realizing first, that she was much sturdier in frame than Janie and, second, that she was also breathing. There was a nasty gash across her forehead where she had collided with the side of a solar panel stand.
“You alright?” I asked, brushing her hair out of the way as Lo flung herself down beside me.
“Gale? Shit, you're bleeding...”
“She's fine,” I said, reassuring her though her voice was calm, even, like she was down in the trenches of war all the time and blood didn't phase her.
“What the fuck is going on?” Lo asked herself, looking up around her grounds with intense eyes.
“Lo, you need to go get some triple antibiotic on your head if you're...”
“Yo, you're a Henchmen, right?” another voice asked and we both turned our heads to see a tall, good looking black man standing over us, a streak of blood over his white thermal, but looking otherwise unharmed.
“Yeah, why?” I asked, getting to my feet as Lo helped Gale up, watching us.
“Shit, man,” the guy said, shaking his head.
“What is it?” I asked, feeling my entire body tighten.
He inclined his head at me, turned, and pointed down the hill. I followed his direction, looking, and seeing... fucking... fire at the place that had to be The Henchmen compound.
“Fuck!” I shouted, already running toward my bike, saying a silent prayer that she was still capable of running.
“Cash! Cash!” I was vaguely aware of Lo's voice calling me, and, damn if my name didn't sound good on her lips, but I was too busy pulling up my bike and trying to turn it over. “Cash, call them,” Lo called, grabbing my arm in a vice-like grip and yanking hard until I turned to look at her. “Call them,” she repeated, taking my hand, turning it, and slamming her cell into my palm.
I looked down at the pink case holding her cell, feeling my lips quirk up despite the situation at seeing a hint of the softness underneath all her sharp edges. “Right,” I said, taking the phone and dialing the number for the compound. It rang four, five times, before I heard background noise and a curt growl.
“What?”
Repo. That was Repo. Thank Christ. If there was one person guaranteed to be at the compound (since he lived there and was young, single, and childless, and therefore all but married to the club) it was Repo.
“Repo. What's going on?”
“Cash? Fuck man,” he said and I could hear shouts in the background. “It's fucking chaos.”
“Is everyone around and accounted for?”
“Everyone was home but me, Jazz, and Shredder. You and the boss and Wolf alright?”
“Far as I know. Reign is home with Summer. Last I saw Wolf, he was on his way home. I'm up at Hailstorm,” I supplied, looking down the hill at the fire that seemed suddenly less ravaging as it had a moment ago.
“They're fucked too,” Repo observed as if he was looking off in the distance at me. “So was Lyon's place, the Mallick's bar, and Lex's McMansion.”
“The fuck?” I asked, turning to look at Lo and her men who were watching me aptly. “Who the fuck would bomb all of the big players in town?” I asked, looking at Lo with a raised brow. She nodded her head at a few of her men who ran off toward the inner courtyard where a brick house stood, which was their command center. I'd been in there before when Reign, Wolf, and I first came to Hailstorm begging them to help us get Summer back.
“Dunno, man. But they just fucked with the wrong fucking people,” Repo said with a sort of fierce determination that Reign really appreciated in him when he had been nothing but a probate to us. Even now, fully patched, he hadn't lost any of his youthful exuberance.
“How's the compound?”
“Fire got the shed out back,” he said, the words weighty because that was the shed where we brought people who needed to... learn a lesson. It was old and way overdue for a tear down, but there was a sort of nostalgia attached to the damn thing and we never got around to it.
“That's it?”
“This place is a fortress,” he reminded me with more than a little pride.
“Right. Is Reign in the loop?”
“He's on his way. You comin' in?”
I looked at Lo, still watching me, the cut on her face still bleeding half-heartedly. “Soon as I can. You'll tell my brother I'm alright.”
“Right. See you when you get here.”
“Break out the fucking whiskey,” I said, running a hand over the shaved side of my head as the reality of the situation started to settle in. Things had just settled down in town. There hadn't been any real warring in a dog's age. Hell, the last shit that got stirred up was started by us. Since then, there had been relative peace, everyone minding their own fucking business.
But bombs went off at not one, but five of the biggest criminal organizations in the area. Someone was trying to send a message. That message seemed to be: you might be big and bad, but we're bigger and we're badder and we're coming for you. The fact that there wasn't any damage just meant it was a maneuver meant to scare us.
They were rattling our cage. Stupid fucks didn't know that all of us, every single one of us, even the Mallicks who didn't play dirty with any of the other organizations, were big fucking dogs and we were more than willing to come out snarling.
“Right, man.”
I ended the call, holding the phone out toward Lo who took it, looking like she was about to say something. Her men ran back, one of them with a walkie near his ear.
“Lo,” he said, shaking his head.
“What is it?”
“Lex,” he said, letting that name settle in.
There were a lot of crime organizations around our parts. The Henchmen were gun runners who generally didn't fuck with anyone unless they fucked with us. The Mallicks were a family of loan sharks (the dad, then five sons). Vicious, ruthless, but otherwise good, upstanding citizens who owned a dozen or so legitimate businesses that kept them busy, including their bar that was bombed. Then there was Summer's dad, Richard Lyon, who, while being a cocaine kingpin, somehow managed to run his empire with next to no bloodshed. Hailstorm had connections seemingly everywhere, alliances I never would (and didn't want to) understand, but they didn't hurt people for the hell of it (just for the paycheck apparently).