Reign Read online

  Cash's attention must have been elsewhere because he plowed into my back, making me stumble forward on a weird 'omph' sound.

  “Sorr...” Cash started, but then Reign's arm went around my waist, pulling me tight up to him, and Cash and everyone else fell silent.

  Apparently that was more of the weird biker no-words-needed conversations.

  “Get everyone in here,” Reign demanded. “We have church in ten,” he said, then hauled me away.

  He walked me through a doorway then down an amazingly long hall, all the way to the end where he unlocked a door and led me inside.

  “You're tense,” I observed as he stepped inside, letting my waist go. “I'm getting you guys in trouble,” I said, my voice small as I looked around. Huge bed, dresser, door to the bathroom. TV. That was it.

  “Couple cops snooping around. No big deal. Don't worry about it.”

  “But I am worried about it,” I countered, dropping my bags. “This is my mess. Not yours. You shouldn't have to do this. To drag your men into this. It's pointless. You can just call that K guy. Disappear me. I'll take care of myself.”

  “Not an option.”

  “You said it was an option.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “That doesn't make any sense, Reign,” I said, trying to catch his eyes but he kept his gaze lowered. “No one else should have to deal with V because of me.”

  “Did you ask me to?”

  Augh. This again. “No.”

  “No. You didn't ask. You have no part in this. This is my business. And I see you don't know much about my kind of business, babe. But I can tell you one thing, we don't involve women in it. So keep your opinions to yourself. Stay in here. Lock the door. Don't open for anyone but me.”

  With that, he was gone.

  And I was alone feeling my feminist heckles rising, and staring at the giant bed that I had absolutely no plans on sitting on. Lord knew how many different deposits of bodily fluid were on those sheets.

  So I went into the bathroom and sat on the edge of bathtub.

  And waited.

  But I'd be damned if I got up and opened the door whenever he deigned to show back up again.

  Fourteen

  Reign

  I started off small, soothing their nerves about the cops snooping around, about the heavy presence of V on our streets. Then I launched into a cover story for Summer. Because they'd seen her. They'd see her again. They needed to know she was under our protection.

  “Cops want her. She's got a past,” I said vaguely. It was true enough.

  “You been keeping shit from us?” Vin, an old timer, a man who had practically helped raise me and Cash when Pops was busy, also the only person with balls enough to question me, asked.

  Alright. I had been. I had been keeping a lot from them. And I was going to continue doing so. Because this wasn't going to involve them.

  “I know they got pictures of her going up all over, calling her a missing person. But she ain't a missing person. She's my bitch.”

  My bitch?

  My bitch?

  What the fuck?

  She wasn't my bitch. She wasn't anywhere close to my bitch.

  I glanced over at Cash who had his arms crossed over his chest and was giving me the biggest fucking shit eating grin I'd ever seen.

  Vin nodded.

  It was that simple.

  No one fucked with a Henchmen's old lady. No one. Not even the cops.

  The only problem being that soon, and there was no telling how soon, but soon, I would have to explain why she wasn't my old lady anymore. And that just wasn't going to go over well.

  “Anything else we forgot to discuss on Friday?” I asked.

  “We got a big run in two weeks,” Vin reminded me. “Meeting with the Russians. They need to see your face.”

  Yeah, they did. Unfortunately. “I'll be there. Cash will stay behind and keep an eye on things.” Vin nodded, satisfied that I was handling business as usual. “Anyone have any other concerns?”

  “What the fuck are we supposed to say to the pigs, man?” Dean, a headstrong kid in his mid-twenties, just patched-in a few months ago, asked.

  “The cops ain't a problem since there ain't a real missing persons report. They're on a fishing mission. Don't give um shit and we won't have an issue with them.”

  “Aight,” he said, looking less than comforted. He needed to be toughened up. It had been too long since the club had any real trouble. The young bloods hadn't had enough action to harden them.

  “I want you guys on the probates. Keep an eye. Make sure they don't fuck up. Now's not the time to find out we have weak links.” This was met with some table banging and beer raising.

  Cash grabbed a bottle of Jack and raised it in the air. “Time to party. Call the bitches!”

  I stayed with them for two rounds before slipping away, everyone occupied with the women or pool or conversation.

  I knocked on the door. Waited. Knocked again. Waited.

  Nothing. No noise inside. No nothing.

  My heart started to slam in my chest as I reached for the key, jabbing it in the lock, mind running to the worst possible scenarios. Someone getting in while we were all busy in the meeting. Or, possibly, her sneaking out. It hadn't escaped my notice that she hadn't been very happy about moving. And she seemed obstinate enough to actually think she could make a go of it alone.

  “Summer!” I shouted as soon as the door was open. Empty bed. Empty bedroom. “Fucking hell. Summer!” I rounded the corner to the bathroom. And there she was. Sitting on the edge of the tub. Pretty as you please. Looking up at me with a haughty chin lift. “Didn't fuckin' hear me knockin'?”

  “I heard you.”

  That was it. She heard me. Her tone with a very strong 'so what' underneath it.

  “Couldn't get off your ass and let me in?”

  “You obviously had a key.”

  “Fuck's your problem?”

  “No problem,” she said, her voice with a strange edge to it. “Just sitting here... keeping my opinions to myself. As instructed.”

  I snorted, watching the fire rise in her eyes. So that was it. She didn't like taking orders. Well, that was just too fucking bad.

  “Fuck you doing on the tub?”

  Her head tilted. “I'm not sitting my ass on that science experiment you call bedding.”

  Well, she wasn't exactly wrong there. But I didn't fucking wash sheets. “Really? Then where you sleeping tonight?”

  “You're an asshole,” she said, standing up, and brushing past me. No, not brushing past. She plowed into my shoulder as she went. And, well, I couldn't very well just let her get away with that, could I?

  Fifteen

  Summer

  One minute I was walking out of the bathroom, the next I was slammed against the bedroom wall. Hard enough to see stars for a second. But only for a second because the next second, Reign's lips were on mine. Hard. Hungry. Bruising into mine until I whimpered against him and his tongue slipped between my lips. His hands were planted on either side of my head, caging me in, his hips pinning mine to the wall.

  And I kissed him back.

  With everything I had.

  Until my hands were grabbing the front of his shirt.

  Until I was moaning and writhing against him.

  Only then did he pull away.

  My eyes opened slowly to see him looking down at me.

  “Now go wash the sheets or you'll be sleeping on the floor tonight.”

  Then he was gone.

  As I was still sputtering.

  Sputtering.

  Because what the hell was that?

  Also, no way was I sleeping on the floor. So I did actually have to wash the sheets. Without knowing where the washing machine was. Or how to use it even when I found it. But I guess I didn't have a choice.

  I walked over to the bed on wobbly legs, cursing Reign No-Last-Name seven ways to fucking Sunday. Because, really, who kissed you until your damn toes t
ingled and then told you to wash the sheets and then left? Assholes. That's who. So much for thinking he was a decent guy.

  I stripped the bed, gathering the sheets inside out and still feeling like I was going to need to burn my clothes after they came in contact with his skanky bed clothes. I walked along the hallway Reign had led me down earlier, trying to ignore the strange sense of unease in the unfamiliar area.

  “Oh yeah, fuck, yeah. Fuck me, harder. Harder!” My eyes widened, my head snapping to the side and then immediately regretting doing so when, inside one of the rooms with the door open, there was a woman spread eagle and a man clothed from the waist up and naked from the waist down plowing into her.

  My head dropped immediately, a blush creeping up my cheeks, as I ran forward. And plowed into someone.

  I struggled straight, my head snapping up when two hands landed on my shoulders to steady me. My eyes met the hollow honey ones belonging to Wolf and I almost wanted to cry in relief. He looked down at me for a second. “Laundry?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, finding myself gushing yet again. “Reign went all bossy asshole on me and told me to clean them since I said I wasn't sleeping on his disgusting sheets. Then he neglected to tell me where I could go to do the cleaning of the sheets because, as I said, he's being an asshole.”

  Wolf's head tilted and for the barest of seconds, I thought I saw light in his eyes before it got quickly extinguished. “Basement,” he said and lumbered away.

  Basement.

  The word left me frozen in the spot for longer than I cared to admit.

  Basement.

  And I was sure it wasn't going to be the comfy finished kind. It was going to be the cinderblock and cement kind. And, knowing their illegal status, likely barred.

  I could do it.

  Hell, I had to do it.

  I took a deep breath, moving toward the far end of the hallway where I had seen a staircase when we came in. I reached up, flicking on the light, and very slowly descending the narrow wooden steps, my heart wedging further into my throat with each step. I reached the bottom landing, seeing the two sets of washers and dryers. Keeping my focus on them, I quickly went about figuring out the buttons, putting the sheets in one machine and the comforter in another. I stared at them for a long time before I turned back around.

  And froze.

  Froze froze.

  Because there at the other end of the basement, was a metal chair. And that metal chair had three sets of handcuffs attached.

  **

  “You're only making this harder on yourself, Summer,” V said, raising a hand to Martin who had me by my throat on the chair, pushing my neck so far back I was worried it was going to snap. “All you have to do is tell your father you changed your mind. To go along with the deal.”

  Martin's hands were pressing hard enough to bruise and make my throat feel like I swallowed razor blades, but not hard enough to be of real concern. They didn't want me to pass out. They wanted me to suffer. His hand lifted and my head snapped to face V.

  “Fuck you, V. He's never going to take your deal.”

  “All this could stop,” he offered, waving a hand at Martin and Deke.

  Deke had already had a go at me and was standing against the wall, smoking, enjoying the show. If you looked, you could see how hard he was through his jeans.

  I tried to not look.

  “Doesn't matter what you do to me. He won't agree,” I spat.

  And it was the wrong thing to say.

  I knew this when V nodded at Martin and suddenly the ropes were gone from my wrists and Martin was pulling handcuffs from his pocket. Three sets.

  “No where obvious yet,” V warned, his voice unaffected.

  Martin nodded and I was dragged out of the chair, turned around, and made to straddle it.

  The handcuffs opened.

  One set for each of my ankles, the metal way too small, cutting painfully into the skin there. And then one set for my hands which were pulled forward to hug the chair, but cuffed so low down that the pressure of the chair on my chest made it hard to breathe.

  This was new.

  There had never been cuffs before.

  I had never been restrained to the chair before.

  So I knew it wasn't going to be good.

  Then Martin reached into his boot and came back with a knife.

  A knife.

  He flicked it open, the blade long and dangerous.

  Then he was coming toward me.

  Nowhere obvious.

  My tank top was hauled up my back, tucked up near my shoulders. I barely had a moment to register the genuine fear before the blade started slicing into my skin.

  And it burned. It burned.

  And it was everywhere.

  It was unrelenting.

  I clamped my eyes shut, forcing the tears away, biting the insides of my cheeks until they bled to keep myself from screaming.

  But it wouldn't stop until I screamed.

  Then the knife found a spot it had already torn open and slipped back into the cut, digging it deeper.

  I screamed.

  **

  “Cherry? Hey, Cherry. Summer!”

  I was vaguely aware of the voice. Newly familiar. Close to me. But my focus was on the chair and the cuffs. My body felt unbearably cold, goosebumps all up and down my arms and over my chest. On my back, the scars felt raw. They felt like they were new and bleeding. They felt like they were being aggravated by my tank top rubbing against them as I was strapped back to the bed on my back.

  “Summer!”

  Then I was being pulled away, back toward the stairs, my head twisting over my shoulder to stare at the chair as it slowly slipped out of my field of vision.

  But that didn't make the memory fade. It didn't make me hear the sounds of music and men and women as I was pulled into the main area of the building where everyone was happily partying.

  “Reign!” Cash's voice called and it was then that I realized who had been pulling me along. Cash.

  A silence fell.

  Followed by, “What the fuck?”

  Reign.

  That was Reign.

  And, for some reason, that slipped through.

  My head snapped upward to find him storming across the room toward me, his eyes hot, his brows drawn together.

  “She was washing the sheets,” Cash supplied.

  “So why the fuck does she look like she's seen a fucking ghost?”

  “Reign,” Cash said, waiting for his brother's eyes to find his. “She was washing the sheets. In the basement.” Realization started to dawn on Reign, but Cash continued. “The chair. The cuffs...”

  “Fuck,” Reign growled, turning back to me. His hand reached out, rubbing his knuckles against my jaw. “Fucking stupid,” he said to himself. “Come on,” he said, his hand moving behind me to slide up my back and I shrieked, arching away from him.

  Reign's eyes flew to Cash who shook his head, confused.

  “Okay,” Reign said to me, pulling his hand away, putting it on my arm instead. “Okay, babe. Come on. Let's go back to my room. Okay?”

  He didn't give me time to answer as he started steering me back toward the hallway, pulling me into his room and locking the door.

  He paused, looking at me for a minute, before he came toward me, turning me, and pulling my shirt up.

  “Fuck,” he said quietly. “Fuck,” he repeated, louder, his fingers moving out to stroke over the raised scars. “Babe... talk to me,” he said, letting my shirt fall, and turning me again.

  I swallowed hard wanting, yet again, to purge it all to him. “The handcuffs,” I said.

  “The handcuffs,” he prompted.

  “In your basement,” I went on. “They had handcuffs in the basement. But only...” I took a shaky breath. “But only on the days when the knife came out.”

  “I'm so fucking stupid,” he said, shaking his head, not able to look at me.

  “It's not your fault,” I said, shrugging.
/>
  “I told you to wash the sheets,” he countered.

  “Yeah but you weren't the one to cuff me to a chair and cut me up.”

  He sighed, running a hand over the scruff on his cheek.

  Then he came at me. Fast.

  So fast that I expected to be crushed to his chest.

  But his arms went slowly around me. He moved us toward the stripped bed, sitting on the edge and pulling me into his lap. “He's gonna pay,” he said into my hair.

  I felt myself straighten. “Reign...”

  “He's gonna pay. No one fucks with what's mine.”

  His?

  His?

  What was that supposed to mean?

  I wasn't his.

  I wasn't anybody's.

  “Reign...”

  “What'd I say about you sayin' my name?” he asked.

  My brows drew together. “You like it?” I asked.

  “Like it a lot,” he agreed. “So now you're going to go plant your ass in the bathroom. And I'm gonna go get the sheets. Then you're gonna plant your ass on the bed. With me.”

  With that, I was pushed off his lap. And he was gone.

  And I was left with the distinct impression that being in bed with him, this time, didn't mean sleeping or watching TV reruns.

  Sixteen

  Summer

  Reign came back an hour later, slamming the door, locking it, and not even bothering to look my way. So I had been worrying myself to near ulcers about him potentially wanted to have sex with me (okay... maybe it was less worry and more... anticipation) for no reason.

  He shuffled around. I imagined, making the bed. Then I heard his boots hit the floor.

  “You sleeping in there tonight or what?” he said, his voice a casual.

  I got up, pulling off my sweatshirt, and moved back toward the bedroom where Reign immediately flicked off the light and laid still.