“She doesn’t want to see you,” I told him apologetically, wincing when his panicked eyes came to mine. “You need to go.”
His face turned bright red in anger, looking at me in disbelief.
“Callie, I know that you’re looking out for her. I respect the hell outta you for that,” he told me through gritted teeth, very obviously trying to hold his temper. “But that’s my woman in there, and if you don’t move, I don’t care who you are, I’ll knock your ass out.”
I stood there for a moment weighing my options, but I must not have come to a decision fast enough, because soon he was literally picking me up and moving me to the side.
I was happy he hadn’t decided to ‘knock my ass out’.
I raced around the couch after him, anxious to be a barrier for Farrah if she needed it. But I would forever wish I hadn’t.
Because I had a front row seat when he stopped in front of her, frozen.
And I watched as he dropped to his knees and roared in pain and anger.
I wanted to turn away, but the whole thing was like a beautiful train wreck. I couldn’t take my eyes off it.
“Don’t look at me!” Farrah cried, her breath coming in harsh sobs. “Don’t look at me! I’m ugly. Don’t look at me.” Her voice quieted into a whimper as she held her uninjured hand over her face.
Echo made a choking sound and instantly scooted between her legs on the couch, whispering to her gently.
“Baby. You’re always beautiful… I need you to look at me, Farrah.” His voice was rough with tears as he pulled gently at her hand and Farrah dropped it to her lap in defeat. “Aw, baby. Shhhh.”
She was crying in earnest, and the overwhelming sadness on her face had tears rolling down mine.
“I called you,” she choked, searching his eyes. “I called you. Where were you?”
He made a sound like a wounded animal and dropped his head into her lap. Sobbing.
Farrah raised her head and met my eyes, her message clear. I nodded, walked completely out of the house, and sat next to Michael at the top of the stairs.
“I don’t know what to do,” I told him quietly.
He threw his arm around my shoulders and kissed the side of my head. “She’s got her man and yours is on his way. Only thing you can do is wait.”
Chapter 44
Callie
Echo convinced Farrah to go to the hospital, but she refused to let him take her.
I ended up driving her with Michael crammed into the backseat of my car for protection. They didn’t want us going alone, but I didn’t understand why Michael rode with us because I watched Echo ride behind us on his motorcycle the entire way there.
The doctors and nurses tried over and over to get answers from Farrah, but she wasn’t talking. She wouldn’t tell anyone. The scene with her and Echo stayed in my mind, though, and I wondered if he knew more than he was saying—not that I could ask him. I’d lost him in the emergency room parking lot and hadn’t seen him since.
It took hours, but they eventually sent Farrah home with me because she refused to stay overnight at the hospital. She told me she couldn’t afford to stay there, but there was an underlying reason in her eyes that I couldn’t interpret.
We held hands and cried as they took photos of her naked body. She wouldn’t let me go, and I was glad. I didn’t think I could let go, either. She had bruises covering her legs and torso, and there were crusted-over welts on her small breasts that looked like cigarette burns. The blood in her hair had come from a small cut on the back of her head that didn’t even need stitches, and both bones in her forearm were broken. The bruises on her back and bottom were even worse than those on her front, and to top it all off, she was emaciated to the point that I could count every single one of her ribs.
More than once during the whole documentation process I had to swallow back my urge to vomit.
They set her arm and bandaged her the best they could before we left, and I was thankful for the strong injection of pain medicine she was given. She’d fallen asleep in the wheelchair before we reached the outside door which was probably for the best because Echo was waiting for us. I watched him closely as he carried her like a baby to the car.
The guilt he felt was like a fog hovering around him.
By the time we got home, it was the middle of the night and Asa was due within a few hours. It drove me crazy that he was riding his bike through the night, but he would have laughed at me if I’d said anything. I trusted that he knew what he was doing and left it at that. I was selfish enough to need him with me, no matter how he had to get there.
I made Echo put Farrah in our bed for the night even though he argued that she should go home with him. I knew she wouldn’t want that, even unconscious, and I found myself sneering at him that he had no way to move her. He’d done something. I didn’t know what, but I knew that he was guilty. He wasn’t taking her anywhere.
A few hours later, Farrah woke up moaning, and I was sitting on the edge of the bed with her when Asa showed up. There was no emotion on his face as he walked forward, looking at both of us closely before leaning in for a kiss.
“You okay, Sugar?” he asked softly into my mouth.
“Better, now that you’re here.”
“Good,” he answered gruffly before turning to Farrah.
“Damn, girl. I hope the other guy looks worse,” he teased her softly.
“Killed that bitch,” she replied with a small smile.
“Yeah?” he questioned seriously, his voice still soft.
“No,” she moaned back as her face crumpled and tears began running down her cheeks.
“Well, I’ll take care of that for you,” he promised with a nod, causing Farrah to nod back.
I gave Farrah her pain medicine and followed Asa out of the room, closing the door quietly. Before I could move down the hallway, he was in my face, pushing me against the wall and running his hands all over my body.
“Fuck, Callie,” he whispered. “Fuck. Fuck.”
“I know,” I whispered back, putting my hands on his cheeks. “She’s okay. I’m okay.”
He kissed me long and deep, pressing my head into the wall until he was calm enough to pull back.
“She said anything to you?” he asked, locking his arm around my shoulder as he guided us toward the living room.
“No,” I hesitated for a moment, “but I think Echo knows something.”
His eyes shot to me in disbelief before nodding that he understood. Things were not going to go well for Echo if he had anything to do with what happened to Farrah.
We swerved toward the kitchen when we saw the guys standing by the counter, and Asa leaned against the wall across from them, pulling my back against his chest so he could wrap both arms over my shoulders.
“You got something to tell me, Echo?” he asked calmly, watching Echo with an unnerving intensity.
“No,” Echo stuttered back, his brows furrowed in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“Seems you know something you aren’t saying.”
Echo gulped and opened and closed his mouth a few times before dropping his eyes to the floor.
“That stepdad of hers is a member,” Michael cut in, his eyes swinging back and forth between the other men in the kitchen. “Echo came to us about him a few months back and said something wasn’t right with the dude.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Farrah wasn’t talkin’, but shit, all of us saw the way she was fuckin’ wastin’ away. So we had a little talk with the man, tried to feel him out a bit without steppin’ on any toes.”
I scoffed, but went silent when Asa squeezed me in warning.
“So, everything’s fine for a while, but Farrah’s not coming around as often, and Echo here’s getting worried. Then one night, outta the blue, she shows up on his doorstep, soakin’ wet and wearin’ nothing but her pajamas.” He paused for a moment, glancing away from Asa’s stare, and when he looked back his eyes were pained. “She’d locked herself in the bathroom at home an
d had to turn on the shower to hide the noise of opening the window… The whole story came out that night. Seems Farrah’s mom was beating the shit outta her while her old man watched, and all the while, Gator’s been eying Farrah like a prime cut o’ meat.”
I felt my legs lose all feeling, and Asa wrapped one arm around my waist to keep me standing.
“Some of the boys went and quietly taught the man a lesson. He’s a brother, and in that he deserves some respect, but that’s Echo’s woman. Not to mention the fact that girl is about a hundred pounds soakin’ wet and was getting smaller by the day. No way we could let that shit go—but we couldn’t do anything officially, either.”
Asa’s arms grew so tight around me that it was a struggle to breathe, but still he kept silent, letting Michael finish the story.
“We thought it was over, man, we thought we made things clear.” He raised his hands in supplication, but I felt no sympathy as he finished. “No way that broken arm came from her mama.”
I wrenched myself from Asa and flew across the room at a silent Echo, punching him over and over wherever I could reach. He stood there stoically, letting me pound him, with his jaw clenched and his chin raised until Asa yanked me away from him.
“He deserved respect?” I screeched. “She was being hurt and you did nothing? What the fuck is wrong with you!” I pulled at Asa’s arms, my hair flying in all directions as I reached for Echo. “Where were you? She needed you! Where the fuck were you?”
I fought and screamed until Asa finally subdued me with a hand over my mouth. I watched Echo, my chest burning, and I could have gladly killed him and felt no remorse.
“She told me shit was getting better. She said that Gator wasn’t around as much and she was spending most of her time here with you!” He looked at me accusingly until Asa growled in warning.
“This afternoon, we got in a fight because she wouldn’t stay at my place and wait while I took a meet. She said she was coming here. She said she was coming here, so when she called me, I ignored it. She said she was coming here!” He spun around and punched the wall over and over, mumbling to himself. “I ignored it. She said she was coming here,” he repeated over and over again until his shoulders slumped and he grew quiet.
“You did what you could, brother,” Asa told him quietly, and my eyes shot to him in accusation. “You did what you could, there ain’t no use looking back. But you got a girl in there that needs you to get straight so we can handle this. You with me?”
I couldn’t believe what he was saying and my chest burned in betrayal. I didn’t hear Echo’s answer because I reached back and pinched Asa hard, startling him into loosening his arms so I could escape.
“Don’t touch me!” I hissed as he reached out to grab me. “You guys are disgusting! He did everything he could, huh? A little intimidation, because, hey, the guy is a brother and deserves respect? That’s all he could do? You all make me sick.”
I stormed into my room to find Farrah sitting up in my bed, crying softly.
Chapter 45
Callie
I lay in bed with Farrah after she’d cried herself to sleep, but I couldn’t shut down my brain.
I was guilty—as guilty as the guys talking quietly in my living room. I’d noticed something was wrong with Farrah. I’d seen all the signs, but I hadn’t pressed her for information because I’d believed that my life was so incredibly difficult that I couldn’t handle her issues, too.
When I’d been screaming at Echo, I was also screaming at myself.
I should have done something.
I watched Farrah’s chest rise and fall as I thought about how the guys had thought they’d handled things and how I felt about Asa’s commiserating words. He’d acted like what they’d done was normal—that they were completely justified in keeping things quiet and not even going to the police.
I knew that Asa’s world was different than the world everyone else lived in. I’d known it from the moment he walked brashly into the party where I’d met him. Everything he did was a testament to how he lived his life, from taking in a girl of sixteen to the tattoos that were slowly working their way up his neck.
So what he’d said wasn’t surprising—not really. It was apparent that they lived under a code that I could never understand; I just hadn’t seen the ugliness of that code until that night. Asa was still the same man I ran to if things were bad, the same person I called if I had good news, and even as I lay there in bed, I ached to touch him after being away from him for so long.
I had to make a decision, and I had no idea how I’d do that. If I chose to overlook what I’d heard in the kitchen, I felt like I was condoning their decision to leave Farrah to the wolves, but if I left Asa, I didn’t think I would survive it.
When Farrah woke up late the next morning, she practically made the decision for me.
“Hey, Callie?” she called sleepily from the bed. “Can you go get Echo for me?”
I looked at her in confusion, but when she pushed herself up as if to get him herself, I scrambled out of the room. Asa wasn’t in the apartment when I made my way to the kitchen, but Echo was. I nodded my head toward the bedroom, taking in his dirty clothes and messy hair before turning away as he left the room. I never found out what they said that day, and it really wasn’t any of my business—but when I went to check on Farrah two hours later, the two were cuddled in the middle of the bed with Farrah tucked gently against Echo’s chest.
Asa showed up after I’d showered and made myself lunch, and I had to force myself not to look at him as he grabbed a beer out of our fridge.
“You ignoring me?” he grumbled quietly, his tone implying that I was being unreasonable.
“Not ignoring you, just don’t have anything to say,” I replied, never looking his way.
“Yeah, okay,” he scoffed, and my head snapped up in irritation. “Ah, there’s my girl.”
“I can’t believe you said that last night!” I growled quietly, hoping to keep our conversation from Echo and Farrah. “He fucked up, badly!”
“Yeah, Sugar. I know that,” he told me with a nod, moving forward to wrap his arms around my stiff body. “But those thoughts aren’t gonna help anyone. He fucked up, it’s over. Man’s gotta get his head in the game—that girl in there needs him to be a man, not some pussy that can’t get over the guilt he’s feeling. She needs him to take care of shit—and there wasn’t any way he was gonna be able to do that acting like he was last night.”
I let his words sink in, deciding that they made a weird sort of sense.
“But what was that shit about respect?” I asked incredulously. “You really believe that?”
He sighed and was quiet for a minute before meeting my eyes. “I have never in my life agreed with a man putting his hands on a woman. I stop that shit when I can, and it burns me when I can’t. But the club has a set of rules, Callie,” he told me while I rolled my eyes. “No, don’t do that shit. Let me finish. We have our own laws that we live by, that we choose to live by when we decide to become a part of this life. If we didn’t, shit would be anarchy—brothers ratting each other out, stabbing each other in the back—no loyalty. You understand what I’m telling you?”
“I understand the words coming out of your mouth, but it still sounds like bullshit,” I answered petulantly, crossing my arms over my chest.
He huffed in amusement. “It may sound like bullshit to you, but it’s the way we survive. Echo beating the shit outta Gator could have gotten him in deep shit. He’s got no claim on her.”
“But they’ve been together for like a year!”
“Yeah, Sugar, but he never claimed her. Farrah didn’t want that shit—told Echo that she didn’t want that life.” He shook his head. “His hands were tied.”
“Okay,” I replied softly, trying to process his words, “but what happens now?”
“I made some calls. Knew Farrah’s mom sounded familiar, couldn’t remember how. I remember now.” He raised his hand to my face. “Farrah??
?s dad is on his way here, Calliope. You need to brace because shit is gonna get worse before it gets better.”
My eyes felt like they were going to pop out of my head at his revelation, and I opened my mouth and closed it again before I could find my tongue.
“What? She doesn’t even know who her dad is! Why would you do that?” I gasped, scared as hell at what Farrah’s reaction would be.
“Sugar, Echo’s hands are tied.” He leaned down and gave me a fierce kiss before raising his head again. “Slider’s hands are not.”
Chapter 46
Callie
The day passed slowly for everyone in the house, but especially for me as I worried about the imminent arrival of Farrah’s dad. Apparently he was the president of Asa’s club, the married president. The fact that he’d been married for over twenty-five years didn’t endear me to the man, but I made myself hold all judgment until I saw how he treated Farrah.
He’d been gone her entire life, contributing no more than a skeezy orgasm with Farrah’s disgusting mom, but the fact that he was coming to Sacramento for her gave me hope that he had some redeeming qualities. I just prayed that Farrah wouldn’t completely lose it when he introduced himself.
I heard them before I saw them.
The apartment was filled with a loud roar of bikes, to the point of rattling a mason jar sitting on the windowsill. It startled me until I looked at Asa who wore a satisfied smile on his face. He opened up the front door before anyone could knock, and suddenly my home was filled with at least ten very large men. They weren’t quiet in their greetings, and a sound from my bedroom had me rushing away from the group toward Farrah.
“What’s going on?” she asked me quietly, as Echo rose from his place next to her.
“Grease called in reinforcements,” I answered her with a grim smile.
“Why are you calling him Grease? You never call him Grease,” she replied, her nose scrunched in confusion for only a second before she was wincing and raising her hand to her face.