Craving Absolution
Page 45
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“The fuck is your problem?” he bellowed, causing Farrah to flinch before growing unnaturally still. “What the fuck did you do to my wife?”
“Boss—”
“None a your business, boy!” he interrupted. “I want to fucking know what your bitch said to my wife that’s got her fuckin’ hysterical in my room! This is the thanks I get for taking your skanky ass into my club? You can’t fuckin’ stay away, have to start fuckin’ one a my goddamn prospects, and now I’ve got a fuckin’ second-generation club whore as an old lady to one of my men?”
Farrah started shaking, her tears wetting my neck, and I tightened the hand at her nape to keep her where she was. I wished I could cover her ears while I was at it. I wanted to stand and make the fucker leave, but Farrah was on my lap and there was no way I was putting her down.
“I fuckin’ warned you to stay away from my wife!” Slider roared.
Farrah startled in my arms, making a keening noise that was so quiet I barely heard it.
Fuck it, I was done. I tightened my arms around Farrah and braced my legs to stand. That was when Gram walked in calmly, meeting my eyes before coming to a stop with her back to Farrah and me.
Slider’s bafflement was almost funny as Gram straightened to her full height of barely five feet, her curved back no match for the way she squared her shoulders.
“I appreciate you taking us in these past few days, but I’ll be taking my granddaughter out of here as soon as we can be packed.”
Farrah’s body relaxed into mine at Gram’s words.
“Woman, I ain’t got no fight with you.”
“Wrong,” Gram argued. “If you’ll step outside, I’ll get Farrah packed and out of your clubhouse.”
“Yeah, take that trash with you,” he blustered back.
“Be very, very careful with what you say next,” Gram hissed back, her voice taking on a tone I’d never heard before. “Your daughter is shaking and upset on that bed, and what you say next could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. She has a family now, she no longer has to allow trash into her life.”
“What fucking back? The little bitch has treated me like shit since the moment I met her and fixed her fuckin’ problems for her. As far as I’m concerned, the fuckin’ camel is dead.”
“Well then, you won’t mind stepping outside so we can get packed up. And Slider?” Gram’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You leave her alone or I’ll remember I’ve got contacts of my own.”
“Fuck this shit. Get that little cunt outta my clubhouse.” Slider sneered, spinning toward the door.
Farrah’s head snapped up then and turned to face him as he hit the doorway. “CeeCee the bumblebee,” she called out quietly.
She caught him midstep and he stumbled as he spun back toward us, his face a mask of horror as he met her eyes.
That was when Gram slammed the door in his face.
Chapter 22
Farrah
Gram had me packed in less than twenty minutes, but it took us close to an hour to figure out the logistics of leaving the club in broad daylight. After all, they were under lockdown for a reason.
I stayed on Cody’s lap for most of that hour, but we barely spoke. What was there to say, really? Slider had given up on me as a child, and any uncomfortable wishes that I’d harbored about one day having a relationship with him disappeared in a puff of smoke when he made his feelings known. I was nothing to him. A club whore spawned from another club whore, a designation that I assumed came from my long-ago relationship with Echo.
Grease and Callie came in not long after the blowup to see what the hell had happened, and she automatically decided to pack Will up and leave with us. There were few times I’d ever seen Callie so livid, as if she would burst out of her skin like the Hulk if anyone looked at her sideways. She was fierce in her protection of me, and all her mother bear instincts had risen up when she’d caught a glimpse of my face. I must have looked like shit.
Callie and Grease got into a huge fight, arguing about her and Will leaving the grounds, but after a few minutes I’d put a stop to it. Whatever the threat was outside, it was very real, and for once I completely agreed with Grease. It wasn’t safe for them to leave, no matter what Gram and I were doing. Frankly, it wasn’t all that safe for us to leave either, or we wouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Cameron wasn’t happy to be left behind. His anxiety skyrocketed when we told him I was leaving, and I was afraid for a moment that he was going to punch Cody in the face for telling him he couldn’t go with us.
It was harder leaving him behind than I imagined, but I knew that there was no way I could bring him along. His family had already been targeted, and even though we’d kept his survival pretty quiet, he was still in danger. I couldn’t stand the thought of something happening him. I doubted his father would have let him leave anyway. Tommy seemed to fade in and out of the parenting role, but I knew he still worried.
Gram and I were headed to her sister Lily’s house, on the outskirts of a little town called Sutherlin about an hour south of Eugene. It was so far off the beaten path that Gram was sure we’d be safe in the old farmhouse, but just to be careful we took two separate cars and two different routes to get there, with Grease and Gram in her car, and Cody driving me in mine.
The club didn’t do a thing to help with our departure, no plans were made to make sure we weren’t followed, and it was another nail in the father-of-the-year coffin. He didn’t even care what happened to me. It was as simple as that.
“Boss—”
“None a your business, boy!” he interrupted. “I want to fucking know what your bitch said to my wife that’s got her fuckin’ hysterical in my room! This is the thanks I get for taking your skanky ass into my club? You can’t fuckin’ stay away, have to start fuckin’ one a my goddamn prospects, and now I’ve got a fuckin’ second-generation club whore as an old lady to one of my men?”
Farrah started shaking, her tears wetting my neck, and I tightened the hand at her nape to keep her where she was. I wished I could cover her ears while I was at it. I wanted to stand and make the fucker leave, but Farrah was on my lap and there was no way I was putting her down.
“I fuckin’ warned you to stay away from my wife!” Slider roared.
Farrah startled in my arms, making a keening noise that was so quiet I barely heard it.
Fuck it, I was done. I tightened my arms around Farrah and braced my legs to stand. That was when Gram walked in calmly, meeting my eyes before coming to a stop with her back to Farrah and me.
Slider’s bafflement was almost funny as Gram straightened to her full height of barely five feet, her curved back no match for the way she squared her shoulders.
“I appreciate you taking us in these past few days, but I’ll be taking my granddaughter out of here as soon as we can be packed.”
Farrah’s body relaxed into mine at Gram’s words.
“Woman, I ain’t got no fight with you.”
“Wrong,” Gram argued. “If you’ll step outside, I’ll get Farrah packed and out of your clubhouse.”
“Yeah, take that trash with you,” he blustered back.
“Be very, very careful with what you say next,” Gram hissed back, her voice taking on a tone I’d never heard before. “Your daughter is shaking and upset on that bed, and what you say next could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. She has a family now, she no longer has to allow trash into her life.”
“What fucking back? The little bitch has treated me like shit since the moment I met her and fixed her fuckin’ problems for her. As far as I’m concerned, the fuckin’ camel is dead.”
“Well then, you won’t mind stepping outside so we can get packed up. And Slider?” Gram’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You leave her alone or I’ll remember I’ve got contacts of my own.”
“Fuck this shit. Get that little cunt outta my clubhouse.” Slider sneered, spinning toward the door.
Farrah’s head snapped up then and turned to face him as he hit the doorway. “CeeCee the bumblebee,” she called out quietly.
She caught him midstep and he stumbled as he spun back toward us, his face a mask of horror as he met her eyes.
That was when Gram slammed the door in his face.
Chapter 22
Farrah
Gram had me packed in less than twenty minutes, but it took us close to an hour to figure out the logistics of leaving the club in broad daylight. After all, they were under lockdown for a reason.
I stayed on Cody’s lap for most of that hour, but we barely spoke. What was there to say, really? Slider had given up on me as a child, and any uncomfortable wishes that I’d harbored about one day having a relationship with him disappeared in a puff of smoke when he made his feelings known. I was nothing to him. A club whore spawned from another club whore, a designation that I assumed came from my long-ago relationship with Echo.
Grease and Callie came in not long after the blowup to see what the hell had happened, and she automatically decided to pack Will up and leave with us. There were few times I’d ever seen Callie so livid, as if she would burst out of her skin like the Hulk if anyone looked at her sideways. She was fierce in her protection of me, and all her mother bear instincts had risen up when she’d caught a glimpse of my face. I must have looked like shit.
Callie and Grease got into a huge fight, arguing about her and Will leaving the grounds, but after a few minutes I’d put a stop to it. Whatever the threat was outside, it was very real, and for once I completely agreed with Grease. It wasn’t safe for them to leave, no matter what Gram and I were doing. Frankly, it wasn’t all that safe for us to leave either, or we wouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Cameron wasn’t happy to be left behind. His anxiety skyrocketed when we told him I was leaving, and I was afraid for a moment that he was going to punch Cody in the face for telling him he couldn’t go with us.
It was harder leaving him behind than I imagined, but I knew that there was no way I could bring him along. His family had already been targeted, and even though we’d kept his survival pretty quiet, he was still in danger. I couldn’t stand the thought of something happening him. I doubted his father would have let him leave anyway. Tommy seemed to fade in and out of the parenting role, but I knew he still worried.
Gram and I were headed to her sister Lily’s house, on the outskirts of a little town called Sutherlin about an hour south of Eugene. It was so far off the beaten path that Gram was sure we’d be safe in the old farmhouse, but just to be careful we took two separate cars and two different routes to get there, with Grease and Gram in her car, and Cody driving me in mine.
The club didn’t do a thing to help with our departure, no plans were made to make sure we weren’t followed, and it was another nail in the father-of-the-year coffin. He didn’t even care what happened to me. It was as simple as that.
