“Do you think he’ll be okay?” I asked tearfully, wishing that Cody weren’t somewhere else in the club dealing with that shit by himself.

“He’ll be fine, darlin’. Probably in your bed before morning.” He leaned forward to kiss my head before standing from the bed. “Gonna sleep here at the club for the night if you need me or Vera.”

“Okay,” I answered as he left the room, pulling the broken door mostly shut behind him.

I unlatched a sleepy Cecilia, making her cry as I pulled back the blankets and sheets on the bed so I could cover us up. As soon as I’d turned off the light and was comfortable on my side, I cuddled her up next to me and gave her the opposite breast, rubbing her head softly as she latched back on.

My head throbbed as I worried about Cody and thought about how all the puzzle pieces fit together.

My man was a protector; there was no doubt about that. I thought about how hard it would have been for him when his parents were killed, knowing that the sister he had been taught to protect was in danger and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. The men they’d been up against would have swatted fifteen-year-old Cody away like a pesky fly, and I gave a quick thank-you to God that he’d been too smart to go against them alone. It must have galled him to leave the protection to Grease while he was away at school, and been scary as hell for him knowing that Gram was still in San Diego where the murderers lived.

I wondered vaguely if he’d started protecting me during my downward spiral because he knew it was something he could do. Protect Farrah from herself—piece of cake. Only, I hadn’t made it easy for him. I’d fought him and snuck around and generally made his job infinitely harder whenever I could, determined to prove that I could take care of myself.

As my mind wandered through the different threads of Cody’s words, I suddenly realized that my best friend, Callie, wasn’t the only one in that family dealing with survivor’s guilt. Cody was obviously feeling it too, but not only for his parents.

The situation Callie had gone through, my idiocy that he’d witnessed and tried to stop, and not being able to do anything during the attack on Brenna had built up the idea in his head that he wasn’t doing enough. That he was failing somehow at protecting his family.

Killing Carmella had just been the icing on a shit cake that had been baking for years. No wonder he’d finally lost it.

I hoped that Slider and the rest of the guys would be able to help him out. They had a ton of experience with problems like that—the ones that kept them up at night because of the things they done and hadn’t done.

“Your daddy is having a hard time,” I whispered to sleeping Cecilia, pulling my nipple out of her mouth so I could smooth down my halter. “You’re just gonna have to give him lots of love tomorrow, okay? Mama will too.”

I fell asleep hoping that at some point in the night he’d crawl into bed with me.

But he didn’t.

Chapter 44

Farrah

Cody’s bike was gone the next day when Cecilia and I woke up.

Slider told me that they’d had a good talk and he thought they’d gotten shit straightened out, but I didn’t buy it. If Cody had his shit straightened out, he would have come to me. He wouldn’t have left the club without a word at the ass crack of dawn.

I felt . . . defeated. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do to help Cody deal with the shit in his head. If the men who knew the life best hadn’t been able to get through to him, I didn’t think anything would.

“Hey, Farrah!” a voice called behind me as I latched Cecilia’s car seat into the base in the backseat of my car. “You mind giving me and Cameron a ride to our apartment?”

I turned away from the car to find Tommy striding toward me, his hand on Cameron’s shoulder, almost dragging the poor kid with him.

“Sure,” I replied dully, my gaze shooting to Cameron as he made a weird noise in his throat. “Hop in.”

Cameron was trying to tell me something—his eyes were huge—but I couldn’t tell if he was just pissed at his dad, which was a normal occurrence, or something was actually wrong. I watched them round the hood of my car, Tommy speaking quietly to Cameron until they reached the passenger side doors. Then he gave Cam a little shove, as if reminding him to climb in the car.

Weird.

“So, where are we going?” I asked calmly, my eyes moving from the road in front of me to my rearview mirror, where I could see Cameron shaking in the backseat. We’d just passed through the gates when I felt something hard press into my side.

“You’re going to keep driving and go north on I-5. Once you’re doing that, we’ll talk again,” Tommy answered in a cold voice, making my head snap sideways.

“What are you doing?” I gasped in surprise.

“Makin’ sure you don’t do anything stupid.”

“I never do anything stupid. It doesn’t take a gun in my side for me to make that choice,” I said, my mind racing. What the hell was Tommy thinking? Cody was going to kill him.

“Shut the fuck up,” he shot back, jabbing me in the side. “Don’t wanna hear your smart mouth.”

I closed my mouth quickly, my eyes meeting Cameron’s in the rearview mirror. I finally understood the wide eyes. It was fear.

“Where do you want me to go?” I asked quietly as I heard Cecilia start making noise in her car seat. “North or south?

“North,” he ordered.