Craving Absolution (26 page)

I
’d slept through all of their visits. Giving birth was exhausting.

Farrah

“
Why the fuck are we doing this, again?” Cody complained, hanging cloth diapers on a little wooden rack I’d found at the dollar store.

“
Because your daughter has sensitive fucking skin, and we can’t use any of the disposable brands,” I snapped back.

We were
. . . struggling. A little. Okay, a lot.

Things hadn
’t been easy since we’d come home from the hospital, and we were both feeling the lack of sleep. Gram had helped out, and for the first couple of weeks the women of the club had taken shifts, bringing dinner and staying to hold the baby so we could shower and nap. But the help had gradually tapered off, and now that Cecilia was almost three months old, we were pretty much on our own.

“
I can’t believe she’s still sleeping,” he said with a sigh. “This must be a record . . . and it’s the middle of the day.”

“
I know.” I sat down hard on the couch as he hung up the last diaper. “God, I don’t know if I want you to bend me over the kitchen table and fuck me, or take a freaking nap.”

“
I vote kitchen table,” he mumbled before looking at me, then changed his mind. “Ah, a nap would probably be better.”

“
I hate this.” I sniffled. “I just want a little time and energy to have sex.”

“
She’ll figure it out, baby,” he reassured me. “She’s only two and a half months old.”

“
She’s three months!”

“
Right. Practically an old lady.”

“
Shut up. I’m going to take a shower. Want to share?” I asked, dragging myself off the couch.

“
Sure.” He followed me to the hallway, but paused when someone knocked on the front door. “I’ll be right there, Ladybug. Start the shower.”

I gave him a kiss and dragged myself to the bathroom. I didn
’t care who was at the door; I just hoped he could get rid of them fast. We’d barely had any time alone since Cecilia was born, and we needed it. I was tired as hell, but even if we didn’t have sex, I’d be just as happy to touch his skin and feel him against me.

I was completely naked and waiting for the water to heat up when Cecilia started to cry.
Shit
. My boobs started leaking all over the place, and I scrambled to grab a towel off the rack so I didn’t drip all over the floor.

Fantastic.

I wrapped the towel around myself and headed toward where she was screaming in the living room. Why hadn’t Cody picked her up?

When I got to the end of the hallway, I slammed to a stop, taking in the scene in front of me.

Cody was frozen, staring at the woman whose husband had been killed as a traitor. Roberta. She was speaking, but I couldn’t hear her over Cecilia’s cries, so I hustled into the living room to calm the baby down. It only took me a second to get her latched on and a receiving blanket tossed over my shoulder. I was getting pretty damn good at the whole breast-feeding thing.

“
I want to know why you killed her,” Roberta pleaded with Cody, her hands raised in supplication. “I know it was you, I hear the talk. I just don’t understand why she was there. Please, make me understand why my baby was in that place.”

“
Go home, Roberta,” Cody said flatly, his tone making my stomach drop. “You know all there is to know.”

He started to close the door in her face, and she braced her hands against it.
“Please, what if it was your baby? You’d want to know, right? Please! Please tell me what happened.”

Cody
’s entire body flinched at her words, before tensing again. “Get the fuck outta my house,” he growled, slamming the door in her face as she cried.

“
The fuck was that?” I whispered, tightening my hold on Cecilia.

“
Not now, Farrah.” He brushed past me, walking toward the bedroom, and I spun to follow him.

“
What the hell?”

“
I gotta run in to the club for a little while,” he said as he sat down on the edge of the bed to pull on his boots. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

“
Are you serious right now? I’m standing here practically naked with a baby attached to my boob and you’re leaving?”

“
You got it under control, Ladybug,” he murmured, kissing my slack mouth. “Not like I can help ya anyway.”

“
Uh, yeah, I guess,” I mumbled as he stepped away and started putting his keys and wallet into his pockets. “Why was Roberta here?”

“
Nothing for you to worry about, baby,” he answered dismissively.

Things had been good between us for the last few months, great even. We
’d been stressed, sure, but who wouldn’t be with a newborn baby? Underneath that stress had been something solid and sure. A safe place to land, a security net that I’d been so sure would hold.

As I watched him move around the room, I felt that security net start to fray.

I was losing him. Something was happening that I didn’t understand, but I could feel it, like the way the hair on my arms prickled during a lightning storm. He was going to run, and I had no choice but to stand there in a towel, feeding our daughter, and let him do it.

As he walked out the door, the security net snapped.

Casper

What the fuck was Roberta thinking, coming to my apartment like that? I was so pissed I was shaking as I climbed on my bike. I’d wanted to hit something, to tear apart the house with my bare hands, and that was when I knew I had to get out of there.

Roberta was asking questions none of us had the answer to, and it brought up the questions that I hadn
’t let myself think of in weeks. What had Carmella been doing there? How the fuck had she hooked up with the McCaffertys? Why the hell had she shot at us? It was a never-ending list of questions that we’d never have the answer to.

Farrah didn
’t deserve to be fucked over by my mess, and I tried to shield her and Cecilia the best way I knew how—keep her entirely in the dark. I knew she worried. She’d looked at me more times than I could count with questions in her eyes, but I’d ignored it.

What would she think of me if she knew what I
’d done? It didn’t matter that it was something I’d had to do. It didn’t matter that I’d probably saved her dad’s life. I’d shot a woman and killed her, no excuses erased that fact. Shame burned like fire in my gut. Women were supposed to be protected.

I
’d been doing okay, trying to put that shit behind me and moving on with our life, but the fucking moment I’d dropped my guard down, it came back to haunt me.

Fucking Roberta.
The club had given her more than enough money to live on—more than her traitorous old man had deserved—to keep her mouth shut and go away. It wasn’t that they didn’t care about her and her daughter; they did. They just knew that nothing good could come from her hanging around the club after her man had been branded a traitor.

I shot out of the parking lot and made my way to the club. I needed a fight and a drink
, not necessarily in that order. Shit, I wondered if I should call Gram when I got there to let her know that Farrah was home with the baby alone. She’d been fine on her own while I’d worked before, but the look on her face as I’d left made me question what was going on in her head.

She wanted answers that I wouldn
’t give her.

“
Hey, little brother!” Grease called out from one of the bays as I parked my bike in the forecourt. What had him so fucking chipper?

“
Fuck off!” I called back, turning away from him to start for the main doors. I didn’t want to deal with his happy ass, or anyone else’s for that matter. I just wanted a fucking drink. I wanted to forget Roberta asking me how I would feel if it were Cecilia in Carmella’s shoes. It had sounded like a threat, even though I knew she hadn’t meant it that way.

“
Whiskey,” I told the prospect standing behind the bar, shaking my head as he pulled out a glass. “Bottle.”

Then I sat down on one of the couches facing the pool table, and proceeded to drink myself into oblivion.

Farrah

I was going to kill Cody.

He
’d been gone all day, with no word to let me know when he’d be home or if he’d be home. By eight o’clock that night, I was practically climbing the walls.

He always did that
shit, completely shutting down whenever something happened, leaving me standing there with a stupid look on my face and wondering what the fuck was going on. I was over it.

I glanced over at Cecilia
, sleeping strapped into her car seat, and picked up my phone.

“
Hello, best friend,” Callie said when she answered after the first ring.

“
Are you at the club?”

“
Yeah, the boys are having some pool tournament or something, so we’re here for the night. What’s up?”

“
Is Cody there?”

“
Uh, yeah.”

“
What’s ‘uh’? What’s going on?”

“
My brother, your baby daddy, is falling-down drunk, or would be if he ever moved from the couch he’s been sitting on for the last few hours.”

“
That piece of shit!” I whispered.

“
What’s going on, Farrah?” she asked seriously, her voice dropping.

“
Nothing,” I mumbled, walking toward the bathroom. “I’m on my way. Can you keep CeeCee when we get there?”

“
Sure . . .?” The word was drawn out, turning it into a question.

“
Okay, give me half an hour.” I hit
End
on my phone as I stared at myself in the mirror. For the first time since Cecilia had been born, I’d gotten myself dolled up.

I was wearing the shortest pair of shorts I owned,
with a high waist and frayed legs, and a crocheted halter top that left little to the imagination due to the fact that my boobs were still huge from breast-feeding. I’d feathered my hair away from my face, leaving it in long curls down my back, and completed the look with a headband across my forehead, ten bangles, and a toe ring that you could see through my sandals.

Yep, that should work.

Cecilia slept the entire way to the club, and didn’t stir as we entered the noisy main room. I felt a little conspicuous as I walked in carrying the baby and all of her stuff, but the smiles I saw as I walked farther into the room put me at ease. It was a long way from the reception I’d gotten the first time I’d walked through those doors.

“
I’ll take her,” Cameron called, rushing to my side to grab Cecilia’s carrier. “Where do you want me to bring her?”

I searched the room
, looking for Callie, but I couldn’t see her. “Can you take her to Grease’s room? I think that’s where Callie and Will are.”

“
Yeah, Will started whining so they just went back there. Want me to take her bag?”

“
Sure, bud. Thank you,” I answered, handing him the diaper bag. “Have you seen Slider?”

“
Yeah, he’s over by the pool tables,” he called back over his shoulder as he made his way through the crowd.

I watched him go until he hit the back hallway
, and then turned toward the tables. There were a group of guys over there that I didn’t know well, but sitting with them were Dragon with Brenna on his lap, Poet, Tommy, and Slider. Shit, I really didn’t want to have to deal with Tommy’s drunk ass. As I got closer to the tables, I saw the back of Cody’s head resting against the couch, his Mohawk flat against his scalp.

I clenched my jaw in annoyance.
“Hey, remember me?” I asked as I rounded the couch.

“
The fuck are you doing here, Farrah?” he asked emotionlessly.

“
Heard there was a party,” I snapped back.

“
Go home. Where’s our kid?”

“
Our kid has a name, dick.”

“
Whatever. Go home.”

I stood motionless as
he looked away. What the hell was his deal?

“
Come home with me,” I said quietly, trying a different tactic. “We can leave your bike here for the night. Come on, handsome.”

His
gaze moved slowly back to where I was standing, his face never losing its composure. “Go home, Farrah. I’ll be home in the morning.”

Just like that he dismissed me, and my blood boiled. Fuck him.

He wanted to ignore me? Well, he could sure as hell try.

I walked over and gave Slider and Brenna a hug hello while Cody kept his face turned away from me, making my irritation grow even stronger. Then I searched the room for Vera. Perfect. She was standing right next to the sound system.

“You might want to go to your room for a while,” I warned Slider, nudging him with my elbow.

“
Why would I wanna do that?”

“
’Cause I doubt you wanna watch your daughter shaking it on top of the pool table,” I said dryly, making his jaw drop before snapping shut again. I turned my head to Brenna. “Clear the table, would you?”

Her lips pulled up into a devilish grin while Dragon chuckled, but I
ignored them both as I started toward Vera.

“
Hey, girl,” she called out as I got close.

“
Hey, Vera.” She leaned in to give me a hug, and I squeezed her back. It was kind of amazing how far we’d come since the baby was born.

“
Hey, listen. Can you put something on I can dance to?” I asked quietly.

“
Dance?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Not sure we have a whole lotta shit like that, but I’ll see what I can do.” She looked around the room. “There a reason for this?”

“
Yep.”

“
You gonna tell me what that is?”

“
You’ll see.”

“
Oh shit.”

Oh shit
was right.

She started fiddling with the stereo as I walked away, and by the time I
’d made my way to the now empty table, Awolnation’s “Sail” was blaring over the surround sound.

“
Oh, this is a good one,” Brenna said as I passed her, making Dragon growl against her neck.

I pulled myself on top of the
pool table, and flicked a glance toward Slider as the men in the clubhouse started to cheer. He was very deliberately looking down at the table in front of him.

Ha.

I took a deep breath, and with a glance at Cody, whose eyes were closed, I began to sway my hips. I hadn’t danced for a crowd in a long-ass time, years even, but as the beat of the song rumbled in my chest, it all came back to me. It was like falling into a familiar place, somewhere that you’d gone so many times that nothing surprised you anymore.

I knew how to catch the attention of a room, and I was fucking good at it.

The guys watched as I lifted my hands and used my fingers to hold my hair at the top of my head, bending my knees so I was crouched ass to the table. They quieted as I paused there, then roared again as I kept my torso down and straightened my legs, giving them a glimpse of the little half moons of ass peeking out of my shorts.

Their
yelling and high-pitched whistles must have finally caught Cody’s attention, because as soon as I’d lifted back up, he was at the edge of the table, fury darkening his eyes.

“
Get the fuck down.” He growled, his face pulled into a grimace.

I ignored him as I dropped my hair to fan around my chest and circled my hips, making the men howl once again.

I was feeling pretty damn sure of myself, working the crowd and throwing smiles toward Vera as she stood across the room, looking worried. Then I looked toward where Cody had been standing to raise my eyebrow at him, as if to say, “Put that in your pipe and smoke it,” but he wasn’t there.

While I
’d been playing the crowd, he’d circled around the edge of the table, and before I could prepare myself, he’d grabbed my wrist and yanked me down—directly over his shoulder.

I slapped my arm across my chest to keep from flashing my boobs as the crowd laughed.

He stalked toward the back hallway, and I was surprised he was so steady on his feet.

“
Put me down,” I ordered as we hit the dark hallway, headed toward his room.

His hand landed on my bare thigh with a sharp and painful slap, but he gave no other indication he
’d heard me.

“
Ow, asshole!”

He
slammed open his room’s door and dropped me on his bed. I immediately rolled to my knees as he silently paced back and forth across the room.

“
Well?” I asked, throwing my arms in the air.

“
Well, what, Farrah?”

“
Are you going to tell me what the fuck is going on?” My voice was rising as I realized that my little stunt hadn’t done shit. He was still locked away, refusing to give me a fucking inch.

“
I wanted a night without a freaking screaming baby and you harping on me. That okay with you,
Farrah
?” He practically spat my name, and that pissed me off.

I didn
’t harp on him. Shit, that was part of our problem! Until that night I hadn’t pushed him at all, and the longer it went on, the more and more he hid from me.

“
You haven’t even seen harping yet,” I said through clenched teeth, my hands fisting on my thighs.

“
What the fuck do you want from me?” he yelled, his eyes blurry from the whiskey he’d been drinking and his hands clenched in his hair.

“
I want you to fucking talk to me! I want to know what’s bothering you, for Christ’s sake!” I raised my hands in front of me, palms up in supplication. “Why do you keep doing this?”

“
Oh, is life so fucking hard for you, Farrah? I don’t give you what you need? I’ve been home with you for months and you fucking follow me the one night I go out? You wanna put my nuts in your purse too?” He reached down and grabbed his crotch as if to prove his point.

“
Fuck you!” I yelled back. “You know that’s not what this is about! You freaked out when Rob—”

He stepped forward
, startling me by grabbing my face. “Shut your mouth.”

“
What is
wrong
with you?”

He pushed me back on the bed and crawled on top of me, looking like I
’d slapped him across the face.

“
What’s wrong with me?” he yelled, inches from me.

I whimpered in response as his whiskey
-tinged breath hit my face.

“
I joined this fucking club to keep my family
safe
! Do you know what that was like for me? Do you?” His fist hit the bed near my shoulder and I flinched, but still raised my hand to cup his cheek. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me, no matter how drunk or upset he was.

“
My parents were killed, those fucking drug dealers were gunning for my sister, and I couldn’t do anything!” he yelled again. “I had to stand there and watch some fucker I didn’t know drive off with my sister because I
couldn’t fucking protect her
!”

“
Okay, baby.” I whispered, regretting ever pushing him to that point.

“
I had to do
something
! I had to make sure that I could protect Gram and Callie if I needed to.” He was still yelling as I ran my hand over the side of his head.

“
Okay, baby,” I whispered again.

“
I had to protect you! And now it’s all fucked up!” He raised his arm and slapped himself in the side of the head, the movement making me burst into hiccupping sobs.

“
I had to kill that girl, Farrah! I had to kill her!” He pressed his fists into the bed, making my shoulders shake. “How the fuck could I do that? I came here so I could protect my women! How the fuck could I kill one?”

As he yelled, I heard Cecilia start to cry in Grease
’s room next door, and my breasts immediately started to leak, soaking the front of my halter. Seconds later, someone started yelling and pounding on the door to his room, jiggling the locked handle.

“
It’s okay, baby,” I said in a soothing tone, reaching up to try to pull his head down to mine. “It’s okay.”

“
You’re sleeping with a fucking murderer, Farrah!” he bellowed, yanking his head out of my hands.

He reared back so he was sitting on my hips, and as he did, the door to his room was kicked open
, and Slider, Dragon, and Grease came barreling through the doorway.