Craving Absolution

by Nicole Jacquelyn

  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.

  “Okay, do you know where we’re going?” I was trying to keep my voice calm as Cecilia started whimpering in the backseat. I should have fed her before we left, but the drive between the club and my apartment wasn’t long, and I’d thought I would have time to get her home before she started to fuss.

  “I know where we’re going,” he replied. “Cameron, keep her quiet!”

  I glanced back to see Cameron leaning toward Cecilia, doing something to quiet her down, but jerked my eyes toward the road again when I felt the gun push into my side.

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked quietly, noting the familiar sensation of a panic attack beginning at my fingertips.

  I’m okay. I’m okay. No, no, I’m not. But I can breathe. My thoughts spun as I struggled not to hyperventilate. I can breathe. This is just my body playing tricks on me. I can breathe.

  “Well, Farrah, I’ll tell you why,” Tommy said seriously as he leaned against the passenger door. “Cody killed my woman and my kid, so I’m gonna take his. And then we’ll be even.”

  More than one of Tommy’s kids had been killed, and his words didn’t make any sense.

  “What do you mean, Tommy?” I asked meekly. “Casper didn’t have anything to do with the fire.”

  “No, no, not the fire. That was Carmella,” he informed me sadly, his chin dropping to his chest. “She got greedy.”

  “What?” I was so confused, I looked back again to make eye contact with Cameron, and saw the tears rolling down his face.

  “Carmella?”

  “Yeah, been seeing her on the side for a while, ya know?”

  No, no, I hadn’t known. I don’t think anyone had.

  “Visited her when I was up in Portland. Hot-as-fuck college girl—who could resist?”

  Holy shit.

  “Knocked her up,” he announced in the silent car. “Told her we could still be together, knew Trish’d look the other way.”

  “So she lit your house on fire?” I asked for verification, bile rising in my throat.

  “Didn’t do it herself, I know that. I was with her that night.”

  Oh God. I looked to Cameron again, and he’d curled into himself on the seat, silently rocking back and forth.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” I whispered, almost to myself.

  “What was there to say? Carmella had my loyalty, just like Trish. Wasn’t going to pull the club into our business.” He reached up to scratch his head, and for just a moment, I considered running us off the road. If the kids hadn’t been in the backseat, I would have.

  “I thought you loved Trisha?”

  “I did love Trisha!” he yelled suddenly, digging the gun into my side again. “Loved her since the moment I laid eyes on her at fifteen years old!”

  I said nothing as I continued to drive. Who knew what would set him off, and I was afraid with one wrong word he’d shoot me and we’d all be dead. He made me take an exit off the freeway an hour later, and continued to give directions as we drove over back road after back road.

  Finally we stopped in the middle of a clearing at the end of a long gravel logging road.

  “Bought this property a while back,” he commented, unbuckling his seat belt and rolling down his window. “Figure I’ll get some camping gear and we can camp out until the house gets built.”

  “Camp out?” I asked, horror making my throat tight.

  “Yeah.” He nodded as Cecilia woke back up with a scream.

  “You need to feed her?” Tommy asked calmly, his eyes watching me intently.

  “That’s probably what she wants,” I replied.

  “Then feed the poor girl.”

  Oh my God. His moods were giving me whiplash. I couldn’t figure out if he was crazy or way smarter than everyone thought.

  I unbuckled my seat belt and was reaching for the door handle when he set the gun on the dash and gripped my thigh. “Cameron, hand Cecilia up here to Farrah so she don’t have to get outta the car,” he ordered.

  His eyes never left mine as Cameron started fiddling with Cecilia’s buckles, finally handing her to me through the space between the two front seats. She stopped screaming as I took her in my arms, and immediately started rooting around at my halter top. Why hadn’t I brought a change of clothes to the clubhouse the night before?

  “Cam, can you hand me the little pink blanket with the yellow stars, please?” I asked quietly, trying to hold my top in place as Cecilia’s little fingers grasped at it.

  “No blanket,” Tommy ordered, watching Cecilia. “In fact, take that top off. It’s in her way.”

  My hand shook as I started to raise one side of my halter.

  “You not hear what I said to you?” he asked conversationally. “Take the whole thing off. Ain’t no one here to see you but me and Cam. Boy’s gotta learn sometime.”

  I turned my head to meet Cameron’s eyes, and his face flushed in embarrassment and shame as he broke eye contact and looked at his feet. The halter tied behind my neck and back, and I used one hand to slowly reach around and pull the strings. It fell off, covering Cecilia’s face for a moment before I whisked it off of her, giving her access to the nipple near her face.

  My stomach turned as I tried to wrap my arms more closely around her to hide my other breast, but it was no use. They were too big to hide with my arms, and the nipple she wasn’t connected to started to leak, dripping breast milk onto my arm.

  My eyes closed in mortification as my breathing started to falter. You can breathe. Your body is playing tricks on you. You can breathe.

  “That’s right,” Tommy whispered gently, making me flinch as he reached out to touch the back of Cecilia’s head gently. “Tastes good, doesn’t it, sweetheart?”

  My stomach clenched in revulsion.

  “I loved when Trish nursed our babies,” Tommy told me as he moved his hand to wipe the milk off my arm with one finger, then brought it to his mouth to suck it off. “Breast milk’s so fuckin’ sweet. Like candy.” He reached forward again, and I held myself still by sheer force of will as he pressed down gently and slid his hand down my breast, making it leak even more.

  “Trish never had much to spare, only got my taste after the kids were done. Looks like you got plenty to share, though,” he commented
with a tender smile, making my stomach roll as he ran his finger over and around my nipple.

  “Look at those pretty nipples, Cam,” Tommy called into the backseat, never taking his eyes off me. “Perfect for feeding babies and men.”

  Oh God. Oh God.

  Cecilia’s mouth went slack on my nipple, and I knew what that meant, so I leaned her up on my chest and started to pat her back gently. She let out a large belch and immediately started rooting around again as Tommy laughed like a hyena.

  As I moved her face toward my still leaking nipple, Tommy stopped laughing and his eyes zeroed in on my newly freed breast, red and wet from her mouth.

  “Lean up here, Cam,” he called, waving his hand lazily.

  I saw Cameron move out of the corner of my eye, but I couldn’t take my eyes from Tommy. I wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but I ached for the poor boy who was moving as slowly as he could toward the front of the car. At least Cecilia had no idea what was going on; Cameron was living it all in vivid Technicolor.

  “You see that?” Tommy told Cameron, using his hand to press Cameron’s face toward me. He met my eyes before dropping them to glance at my breast, and then immediately raising them to me in mortified apology. That was when my eyes filled with tears for the first time since the whole thing began.

  It’s okay, Cam, I tried to tell him silently. Everything’s going to be okay.

  “Beautiful, huh?” Tommy said teasingly, pushing Cameron back into the backseat. “Looks like she’s done.”

  I glanced down to find the baby asleep at my breast, and my heart thumped. Shit, now what?

  Then it dawned on me.

  Chapter 45

  Casper

  I paced the apartment that I’d covered hours before in wildflowers, waiting for Farrah. I’d been a dick last night—shit, I’d been a dick for months.

  I’d had a long talk with Slider the night before, and he’d made me really think about the things I’d done over the past seven years. We’d talked about everything, even the shit that I hadn’t wanted to discuss. It had felt like some sort of biker version of Dr. Phil, but I couldn’t pretend that it hadn’t helped.

  He’d been right when he told me that I’d done everything I could. I had. I’d always done everything I could to make sure that my family was safe, even if had never been enough. That was the part I had to come to terms with, and I think I was figuring it out, at least a little.

  I couldn’t control everything that happened. It was fucking impossible. What I needed to do was control what I could and learn to let the other shit go, but that was easier said than done.

  Dragon and Grease had come in at some point and added their stories to the mix, things that they’d done to protect their families and brothers, and times that they’d fucked up big and had to move past. All of us talked about shit that we would have never spoken of otherwise, and I couldn’t help but be thankful that the guys who’d just seen me acting like a pussy and yelling at my woman seemed to know exactly where I was coming from.

  We’d eventually moved to the stuff that went down in Portland, and all the guys had given me shit for my guilt over Carmella. They’d yelled and cussed and slammed their hands down on the table as we’d debated, but at the end of the conversation one truth remained.

  If I hadn’t shot her, she would have pulled the trigger again and one of us would have died.

  I might have never met my daughter. Slider might not have ever fixed his relationship with Farrah. Dragon might not have gone home to his daughter and newborn son. The effects of that night if I hadn’t made the split-second decision to pull the trigger were endless and far reaching.

  I knew that the decision I made was the right one, and now I just had to find a way to forgive myself for it. The first step in my plan was to tell Farrah everything without freaking out on her like I’d done the night before. I’d been such an asshole, and I needed to come clean if I ever wanted to make things right with her.

  Slider had told me one last thing as he’d left early that morning.

  “You can’t control everything,” he’d said, “and you can’t live this life keepin’ shit separate. That ain’t never gonna work. You wanna build somethin’ with Farrah, you have to be willing to let her take some of the shit ridin’ on your shoulders. She’s your soft place, son. A man needs a soft place to land when life gets fucked.”

  I thought more about what he’d said as I paced, and fuck it, but the man made sense. Running a hand over my head, I glanced at the time on my phone.

  It was already noon, where the fuck was Farrah?

  I dialed Slider, growing more freaked out as time went by.

  “Slider,” he answered.

  “Hey, has Farrah left yet?” I asked, walking to the front door to look out at the parking lot.

  “What?” he asked quietly, his tone making my stomach drop.

  “Has Farrah left the club yet?” I asked again slowly as I deliberately picked my keys off the back of the couch.

  “Son, she left hours ago.”

  “What the fuck?” I slammed the door shut behind me as I moved toward my bike. Farrah never went anywhere for “hours” anymore. With Cecilia in cloth diapers and peeing every five seconds, Farrah would have run out of diapers early this morning if she was lucky.

  “Come on in, I’ll round up the boys and meet you here. It’s probably nothin’,” he told me, sounding like he was trying to convince himself.

  “On my way,” I barked, hanging up and trying to call Farrah before I started up my bike. Shit, I wished Gram wasn’t down at Aunt Lily’s for the weekend. Aunt Lily’s—why hadn’t I thought of that? My heart began to slow. Of course that was where she would have went. It made sense that she’d go to Gram after the blowup the night before.

  I hung up when I got Farrah’s voice mail, then immediately dialed Gram as I sat there on my bike. She answered right away.

  “Hey, Gram. Is Farrah with you?”

  “No . . .” The word was drawn out in question. “Should she be?”

  “She left the club this morning and never showed up at home. I thought maybe she would have come to you.” My voice wavered as panic hit once again, making my chest feel like it was going to cave in.

  “What’s going on, Cody?”

  “I’m not sure. We got in a fight last night, and I came home before her this morning to surprise her with flowers, but she never showed.” I tried not to let Gram hear the worry in my voice, but I’d never been able to fool her.

  “I’ll head home,” she replied. “You let me know when you find her.”

  “I will.”

  I ended the call and slipped my phone in my pocket, then fired up my bike.

  She hadn’t said if. She’d said when. I hoped to God she wasn’t wrong.

  By the time I got to the club, the gates were open and waiting for me, so I didn’t even slow as I passed the prospect standing guard. I’d traced her entire route between home and the club, and hadn’t seen her car anywhere. No signs of a recent wreck either. My stomach was in knots.

  Slider, Poet, Doc, Goliath, Grease, and Dragon were waiting for me in the forecourt as I pulled up.

  “Hear anything?” I asked, climbing off my bike.

  “Haven’t heard from Farrah, but got some info from Goliath.”

  “What’s up, man?” I asked the big guy with huge fists.

  “Saw your woman leavin’ this morning,” he informed me. “As she was puttin’ your baby in, Tommy and Cam walked up to the car and took off with her.”

  “Took off with her?”

  “Looked like they were asking her for a ride or somethin’,” he answered with a nod.

  “What the hell?” I mumbled, pulling out my phone again.

  I called Cam, but he didn’t answer. What the fuck was going on?

  “What do you wanna do, brother?” Grease asked, pulling his hair back into a knot on the back of his head. “Wanna ride out and start lookin’?”

  Just then, my ph
one beeped in my pocket. “It’s Cam.”

  Cam: Cant talk

  My hands fumbled on the keypad as I texted him back.

  Casper: Where are you?

  Cam: In the woods. Dad freked out. Has gun

  Casper: Gotta give me more, little man.

  Cam: Drove N up I-5 took exit but not sure which 1. Dad says he bought prprty here

  Casper: You guys okay?

  Cam: OK F feeding C. Dad scary.

  Cam: Cant talk nemore

  Casper: What’s going on, Cam?

  Casper: Cam?

  Casper: You there, bud?

  “Shit, he’s not answering anymore!” I slid the phone back into my pocket before I crushed it in my hand. “Fuck! What the fuck is going on?”

  “Doc, call our contact at the police department. Find out what properties Tommy owns,” Slider barked, his eyes dead in his face. Then he looked around the group. “The fuck is going on around here?”

  “Has anyone noticed anything weird about Tommy lately?” Dragon asked the group.

  “You’re fucking joking, right?” Grease answered, throwing his hands in the air. “The man went off the fucking rails when Trish and the kids died.”

  “Been six months, brother,” Dragon replied quietly.

  “Doesn’t matter. Six months or six years, that’s gonna fuck a man up.”

  “Not sayin’ that it wouldn’t, just wonderin’ if anyone’s seen anything different lately,” Dragon said.

  “Nothing.”

  “Not more than usual.”

  “Nope.”

  We stood there looking at one another in confusion, and I knew we were missing something. There was some piece of the puzzle that we weren’t seeing.

  Goddamn it, why would Tommy take Farrah, of all people?

  And where the fuck were they?

  Chapter 46

  Farrah

  “You know, I think this worked out good,” Tommy told me as I held Cecilia close to my chest. “Carmella was a little bit loco, ya know? Don’t think she woulda been a good mama to my boy. Too worried about making me president of the Aces.” He snorted. “Me, president.”

  “You didn’t want to be president?” I asked quietly, shifting my gaze to Cameron and then back to Tommy.