My breath was wheezing past my tight throat as I listened to her bullshit, and almost overpowering my fear was the absolute certainty that she was lying.

“We only had you two months before she took you back.”

My ears started ringing.

“Didn’t trust lawyers back then, hadn’t signed adoption papers or any of that shit, so when your mother came with the police saying Slider’d kept ya against her wishes, we had no choice. Then she just . . . she just disappeared and took you along with her.”

“Had to flee in the night like one a those Lifetime movies. Just like it. Your daddy woulda let her do it, I saw it in his eyes. He hated ya, and you were just a poor little baby then. He’s a bad man, Farrah. Don’t you ever go looking for him, ’less you wanna die.”

“We hoped that she stayed clean, we thought maybe she’d just changed her mind. She never asked for more money or contacted us again. Back then, dads didn’t have a whole lot of rights to their kids, so even if we would have found you, there was a good chance we wouldn’t get you back. After a couple of years we stopped looking, hoping you were okay, that she’d proved us wrong and gotten her shit together.”

She was looking at me, I could feel it, but I couldn’t make myself look back. My chest felt like someone was sitting on it, and my arms had gone completely numb from the elbows down by then. It took all I had just to keep standing.

“Please get the fuck out of my room,” I choked out, my voice weak and shaky. “You’re a liar and I don’t want to hear any more.”

“I named you Cecilia, for my mother. Your dad called you CeeCee his bumblebee—”

“Stop! Stop it, you cunt! You know what my name was? Kid or asshole or little shit or piece of shit or goddamn-it-Farrah or get-the-fuck-back-in-your-room.” I heard her sob, just once. “She hit me and yelled and had junkies in and out of the house at all hours—and that was before I was twelve years old. I was yours? Fuck you. You didn’t find me, you stopped looking. I was within miles of an Aces chapter. Fuck you and fuck your piece-of-shit husband.”

She stood up from the bed and took a step toward me.

“Stop!” I wheezed. “Get out!”

I wasn’t sure what finally made her listen, whether it was the way my body started to shake or the way I struggled for breath, but after a few seconds she raced out of the room. I took two shaky steps before falling heavily onto the bed, focusing on moving my hands so I could grasp my quilt. By the time I’d pulled it over my head, I was on the verge of passing out.

It wasn’t bullshit. Fuck. It all made so much sense.

Oh God, she’d been telling the truth. They’d had me, they’d loved me, and when shit got hard, they’d given up on me. It was worse than believing that Slider just hadn’t wanted kids. So much worse.

I was barely coherent when Cody found me.

Chapter 21

Casper

“Vera’s in your room,” Cameron told me quietly as I sat at the bar with a few of the boys. I looked at him in surprise for a moment. “With Farrah.”

I was off the barstool and striding toward the door before he’d finished Farrah’s name. Son of a bitch. Things had been going so well; at least, better than I’d expected. My girl had kept her cool. She hadn’t brought out the don’t-give-a-shit attitude or sarcastic comments, even though I knew she wanted to. The old ladies at the club weren’t exactly welcoming, and she’d taken that shit and kept her head high without causing any drama.

I knew, I fucking knew it would be bad when I ran down the hallway, but I couldn’t have imagined how bad it would be.

The room was silent as I walked inside, the door wide open. A quick sweep assured me that Vera was long gone, but I couldn’t be relieved because a familiar quilt-covered lump was hanging halfway off my bed.

“Ladybug?” I called anxiously, moving toward the bed.

“What’s she doin’?”

I hadn’t realized that Cameron had followed me, but I was thankful as all hell that he had when no reply came from under the blanket. Fuck me. The top half of her body was limp on the bed, but the bottom half . . . God. She was on her knees. She was on her goddamn knees and the bare soles of her feet were peeking out of the quilt, one of them twisted slightly to the side.

“Farrah!” I shouted, wrapping my arms around the entire quilt to move her completely onto the bed. “Cam, run and get my gram. I think she’s in the kitchen,” I ordered frantically, pulling at the quilt.

I worked my arms under her, trying to find the quilt’s edges, but she’d wrapped herself so tightly that it took me a few tries before I could start to unpeel it. I was scared as hell when she didn’t fight me, her body staying limp and pliant as I moved her around on the bed. When I’d finally rolled her onto her back, I took one look at her face and swallowed back the bile rising in my throat.

Her lips were practically blue and her skin was paler than I’d ever seen it. She looked dead, but I could see the pulse in her throat beating frantically.

“Hey, Ladybug,” I whispered.

She opened her eyes and gave me a slight smirk before her face crumpled.

“Think I might have passed out,” she rasped, her brows drawn in confusion. “That was a doozy.”

“Fuck, Ladybug.” I groaned, pulling her into my arms. “I’m so sorry, baby. What happened?”

She pushed her face into my shoulder without replying, and as I slid my hand into the hair at the nape of her neck, Slider stomped into the doorway. Goddamn it, she’d rather die than let him see her like this. Her makeup was smeared across her fucking face.