“He got to the attorney,” Casper said.
“Sure as shit,” I replied. “But how the fuck would he link me to Cec?”
My mind clicked through all the puzzle pieces, trying to find how they fit. Even though he clearly knew who Cecilia was, we hadn’t seen each other in over a decade. It would take serious digging and time to find any link between us. There was also no way that he could’ve known that I was one of the team who’d taken her from the house. Beyond the fact that we’d worn goddamn masks, Wilson had also copied and then wiped the security cameras far enough back that Cecilia couldn’t be connected to the crime scene. So, that left what? What did the guy know and how was he getting the information?
“We need to leave,” I told Casper as I strode back down the hallway. When I got to my room, Cecilia was pacing, the baby in her arms. She looked up at me when I entered.
“Who was it?” she asked worriedly.
“We gotta go, baby,” I told her softly.
“He found us? How?” she asked as I reached her. I pulled her into my arms, the baby tucked between us.
“Don’t know yet,” I said. “But I’ll find out.”
“Is he still out there?” she asked, turning her head toward the window.
“Nope, he’s gone.” I let her go and smoothed my thumb over her cheek. “He’ll be back. We’re leavin’ as soon as we can get packed up.”
“Do you have a bag?” Farrah asked Cecilia.
My lips twitched even as I started switching gears. I needed to call my team and we needed to find a place to go. “She’s got about ten,” I told Farrah. “Your daughter did a little shopping last night.”
“Thatta girl,” Farrah said, wrapping her arm around Cecilia’s waist so she could lead her away. “Where’d you stash them?”
“Somethin’ isn’t right,” Cam said as soon as the women left the room. “We’re missin’ somethin’.”
“Obviously,” I muttered, grabbing my go bag out of the closet. I always cleaned everything and stashed it when we got back into town so it was ready and I didn’t have to think about it when it was time to leave again, but this time, I was going to need a different supply list.
Kneeling by my dresser, I swung open the door that looked like the rest of the drawers and opened my safe.
“I’m gonna keep an eye on things outside,” Cam announced as he left.
Casper watched me from across the room. “Couldn’t they just take the whole dresser?”
“Safe’s bolted to the load bearing beams,” I said distractedly as I pulled out my passport, bank paperwork and a couple stacks of cash. “It’s built into the wall and I built the dresser around it.”
“Nice work,” he mused.
“Gonna call my team,” I said as I zipped my bag and got to my feet. “I wanna be out of here in five minutes.”
“We’re set,” he replied. “I’ll go help Farrah get CeeCee ready.”
“No one goes outside until we’re ready to go,” I ordered, pulling my phone out. “No reason to let them know we’re goin’ before we do.”
“This ain’t my first party,” Casper said in amusement as he walked away.
Crazy bastard. I swear, the more hectic things got, the easier going he seemed. For as long as I could remember, he’d been that way. We’d be holed up at the club because they were dealing with some heavy bullshit, and Casper would be strolling around the room like he didn’t have a care in the world, pinching his wife’s ass and laughing with the boys. It was a show he put on, and I knew it, but it was still hard to see any cracks in the façade.
“We’ve got trouble,” I told Forrest when he answered.
“Hell, boy,” he said with a sigh. “I knew this was comin’.”
“The fucker we saw at the house last night just showed up at my door.”
“No shit?”
“No shit,” I confirmed. “I’ve got no clue how he found Cecilia, but he did.”
“You know who he is?” he asked in surprise.
“Son of the dead man,” I replied grimly.
“Ain’t that some shit,” he muttered. “What do you need?”
“I’ll spread the word,” I told him as I grabbed clothes out of my dresser. “Siah and Eph, here. They can wait it out and see who comes to play. You, Eli, and Lu, meet up with us. Until we know what we’re dealin’ with, probably best if we all lay low.”
“You think they got a look at us?”
“No clue,” I replied, pulling my jeans on. “Wilson took care of the cameras, but there’s a chance. Very few ways he could’ve linked me to Cecilia, and that’s one of them.”
“Gotcha.”
“Meet you in the desert,” I said, referring to one of the safe houses we’d bought as a group. There were four, spread out as randomly as possible.
“Roger that.”
As I got dressed, I called the rest of the team and let them know what was happening and where they needed to be. Thankfully, none of them said a word of complaint. We all knew at some point we’d be caught up in some shit. We’d just never realized that it wouldn’t be connected to one of our jobs.
“All set?” I asked, meeting everyone in the kitchen.
“She’s going to be hungry soon,” Cecilia said as she fussed with the baby’s blanket inside her car seat.
“You can feed her on the road,” I replied. I picked up a few of the bags that were waiting on the kitchen table.
“Farrah’s riding with you,” Casper announced as he lifted the baby’s car seat. “Me and Cam will follow.”
With a nod, I led the group out of the house.
“How you doin’?” I asked as I helped Cecilia into the back seat of the truck. She had just enough room to slide her feet in. An uncharacteristic rain shower meant I couldn’t put her stuff in the bed of the truck and the floorboard was covered with bags full of baby supplies.
“I’m scared,” she said, her hands clenched into fists. “Pissed. And I feel like shit for dragging everyone into this.”
“Don’t,” I replied, brushing her hair away from her face. I left my hand there for longer than necessary, because her skin felt hot.
“Let’s move,” Casper called as Farrah hopped into the front seat of the truck.
“It’s gonna be fine,” I told Cecilia.
I slammed her door and climbed in the driver’s seat, the back of my neck tingling. Someone had their eyes on us. As I pulled out of the drive and headed toward the freeway, I kept a look out for anything out of the ordinary and didn’t find a damn thing. Whoever was helping the motherfucker was damn good at their job.
I was going to have to be better.
Chapter 7
Cecilia
We drove for a long time. Mark took residential streets, back-tracking and going in big circles before hopping on the freeway headed west. As time passed, I got more and more antsy. Sure, I’d grown up in an environment where bad shit happened and my family was constantly watching their backs, but I’d lived a relatively normal life since I moved away. I never could have imagined that becoming a surrogate for my best friend would somehow morph into running from a fucking madman.
Drake was creepy as hell, no doubt about it. He was just one of those guys that constantly gave off a bad vibe—well-dressed and seemingly normal, but you’d still cross the street in broad daylight so you didn’t have to pass by him. Still, I would’ve never guessed that he had it in him to kill Cane and Liv.
“How you doing?” my mom asked, turning in her seat to look at me. “Alright?”
“I’m fine,” I lied, forcing a smile.
“Bullshit,” she scoffed. She wrapped her arms around the back of the seat and got comfortable. “Did you know that my boyfriend before your dad was shot right in front of my apartment building?”
“What?” I asked, my jaw dropping. I’d never even heard a whisper of that story.
“Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “A drive-by. It was—” she paused and shook her head. “It was differen
t than what happened when you were a teenager. We lost family then, but it was almost like the grieving was postponed because we had so many living family members that we had to worry about. When Echo died, it was the opposite. Overwhelming. Immediate. Me, your dad, and your Aunt Callie were all there. She practically tackled me to keep me from going to him before it was over.”
“Holy shit,” I replied. “Why didn’t you ever tell me this before?”
Mom shrugged. “It wasn’t relevant. Ancient history.”
“Still,” I said.
“And your dad never liked him,” she said with a crooked smile. “Thought he was too old for me—which he was—and thought he didn’t treat me the way he should’ve—which he hadn’t.”
“That’s crazy, Mom,” I replied. “I’m sorry.”
“Feels like a different lifetime, now,” she said with a sigh. “I just wanted you to know that I’ve been in that place—losing someone important and being helpless to stop it. It’s one thing when you’re literally diving for cover, it’s something different when you’re watching a bad thing happen from the sidelines and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Maybe I could’ve,” I murmured.
“Nope,” she said simply. “You took care of their child instead, and coming from a mother—the best one you’ll ever meet, thank you very much—if I had a choice between someone coming to help me or someone saving one of you kids? Please. All day, every day, no question, keeping you safe is what I’d choose.”
“So humble,” Mark said, his eyes crinkled in amusement as they met mine in the rearview mirror. My mom huffed and swatted his shoulder as she spun to face forward again.
“How much longer?” I asked him. Baby girl had slept the entire time we were in the car, but I had a feeling she’d be awake soon.
“Still gonna be a while,” he said apologetically. “An hour and a half, maybe?”
“Where are we going?” I asked tiredly.
“Arizona,” he replied. “Not too far over the border.”
“Why the hell are we going to Arizona?”
“The team’s got a house there. It’s not in any of our names, no ties to us at all. Hopefully, we can stop there for a minute and figure out what the fuck is going on.”
“Your team is meeting us there?” I asked.
“Most of them. Eph and Siah stayed behind to keep an eye on my place.”
“Do you think he’ll go back there?”
“Absolutely,” Mark replied. “Probably tonight when he thinks we’re sleepin’ and he’ll have the upper hand.”
“I don’t want anyone getting hurt because of me,” I said worriedly.
Mark chuckled. “They’ll be fine,” he assured me. “Alone, either of them could handle that fuckwad without breaking a sweat. Together? If someone shows up, they’ll have him and whoever he brings with him crying for their mamas.”
I didn’t bother replying. It wouldn’t have made a difference anyway. They were going to do things the way they thought was best, and because I didn’t have any experience, my opinion wasn’t going to amount to much. It didn’t matter that we’d all seen men I thought were invincible taken down by asshole twenty-somethings, or that sometimes, no matter how much experience you had, shit just happened.
I turned and looked out the back window. My dad and Cam were riding side by side, bandanas covering their faces and no sign of their colors—the beat-up leather vests that marked them as part of the Aces and Eights Motorcycle Club. It was weird seeing them on their bikes without them, but it made sense. I didn’t know who ran that part of California, but I did know that the Aces didn’t have control of anything south of the Sacramento area. My dad nodded at me and raised a hand to where his mouth was hidden behind the black fabric. He pressed it to his mouth and then flipped his hand outward. Smiling as my eyes filled with tears, I blew a kiss back to him before turning back around.
At some point, with my body aching and my head throbbing, I fell asleep.
* * *
“We’re here, Cec,” Mark said, waking me up as he unbuckled my seatbelt. “Baby made it the whole way here without a peep.”
“Is she okay?” I asked, startled. I looked toward her seat, but it was no longer in the truck.
“She’s fine,” he replied. “Your dad carried her inside. Come on.”
He helped me out of the truck and led me toward a two-story house. It wasn’t massive, but it was definitely big enough for the group of us to stay comfortably. The landscaping left a lot to be desired and the sidewalk out front was cracked all to hell, but as we walked in the front door, I realized that there was a reason it looked a little worn down on the outside. No one driving past would guess that the place was fully furnished and sported some serious tech inside.
“Welcome,” Wilson called out, crossing through the entryway with a computer monitor in his arms. “Eli is playing chef if you’re hungry.”
“Thanks,” Mark replied. “Any problems?”
“It was a quiet and delightful drive,” Wilson said as he disappeared down the hallway.
“Bet your parents are in the kitchen,” Mark said, grabbing my hand. “Let’s grab something to eat.”
He pulled me past the main room of the house and rounded a corner into an enormous kitchen. The previous owners must have really cared about where they’d be cooking, because the space was gorgeous, and the appliances probably cost more than my car.
Damn, I missed my car. I missed all of my stuff.
“Eli made Pad Thai,” Lu called out from her seat at the island.
“Grabbed some groceries when I knew we were headed here,” Eli said as we made our way toward him. “I fuckin’ love this kitchen.”
“CeeCee,” my mom interrupted from the kitchen table, where she was pulling the baby out of her car seat. “She’s soaked and going to be pissed in about three seconds.”
“I’ll grab some food while you get her,” Mark told me, squeezing my hand before letting it go. “Gimme two seconds and I’ll take you up to a room so you can get her changed and shit.”
A wail split the air and I hurried across the room.
“Hey,” I cooed, taking the baby from my mom. “Are you wet?” I grimaced as I realized that she’d wet through her diaper and it was seeping from her clothes to mine.
“Here,” my mom said as she moved things from one bag to another. “I grabbed some diapers and wipes and some clothes for her.”
“I’ll take it,” Mark said, grabbing the bag from her while he held a plate of noodles in the opposite hand. “Come on, baby.”
He walked away and my mom elbowed me. “Baby, huh?”
“Shut it,” I hissed.
“Didn’t know you were baby again.”
“Seriously, Mom,” I snapped. I wasn’t even sure how I felt about the endearment.
She snickered as I followed Mark out of the room and up the stairs.
“This place was a foreclosure,” he explained. “And thankfully, the previous owners weren’t assholes and didn’t trash the place before they left.” He opened a door, and strode inside. “They even left behind some furniture.”
“Is that a fucking canopy bed?” I asked in disbelief.
“Without the canopy,” he confirmed.
The entire room was pink, and the light fixture was an actual chandelier.
“Well,” I said, looking around. “I feel like a princess.”
Baby girl screamed while I changed her, no surprise there, but as soon as she started nursing, the room was quiet again. The bed dipped a little as Mark sat down facing me.
“Have a bite,” he said, offering up a forkful of noodles.
“You don’t have to feed me—” My last word was cut off as he pushed the fork so close to my face that I had no option but to take a bite.
“I know,” he said while I chewed. “But you must be fucking starving.”
“Actually,” I said while he took a bite, “I’m more tired than anything. I feel like I’m g
etting a cold or something.”
“Yeah.” He fed me another bite. “You felt warm earlier. Maybe you’re coming down with something.”
“I hope not,” I muttered around my food. “That’s the last thing I need.”
The baby took that moment to stretch out her legs, and the moment one made contact with the breast she wasn’t nursing on, I yelped.
“Shit,” I barked, blocking her foot.
“What’s wrong?” Mark asked, setting the plate on the bed.
“This boob hurts like hell.” I reached up and pressed on it. “It aches really bad, especially on the side.”
“Is that normal?”
“How the hell should I know?” I replied. I pressed it again, harder, and groaned. It reminded me of a toothache—it hurt to touch it, but the pressure also felt almost good.
“Hopefully, it stops,” he said, offering another bite. “I don’t like you hurting.”
He kept feeding me bites, one for him and one for me, back and forth until the food was gone. By that time, baby girl was finished nursing and snuggled up against my chest, wide awake.
“Want a tour of the house?” Mark asked, getting to his feet.
“Sure.” I followed him out of the room and listened while he told me about buying the house for a song and how they hadn’t had to do much to it because it was half furnished when they got it. He pointed to the rooms everyone was staying in, but didn’t open any doors if they were closed.
“Not much privacy with everyone livin’ on top of each other,” he explained. “Closin’ the doors gives everyone their own bit of space.”
I followed him downstairs and through the short hallway Wilson had disappeared into when we’d arrived.
“Hey,” Mark greeted as he strode into a huge room.
“I’m busy,” Wilson replied, his fingers flying over the keyboard in front of him.
“Whoa,” I breathed, looking around the room. “This is insane.”
“This is the only house we have with this much hardware,” Mark said, looking up at the wall of screens. Two of them were playing different news broadcasts, muted, with the captioning on. Another four had stuff that I couldn’t make any sense of. The last one showed what Wilson was working on because I could see the letters and numbers appearing on the screen, but I couldn’t make any sense of it, either. It looked like some kind of code.
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