Were they going to tell him here? Shit! I hadn’t even thought of having to deal with the fallout of that scenario. I felt like the walls were closing in around me, and I seriously considered hopping out the window in my room.

I needed to get it together, and I could only think of one way to calm myself down. I lay down on my bed, pulled the quilt up and over my head, and called Cody.

He didn’t answer.

Of course he didn’t. He was on some super-secret mission for the club; he didn’t have time for my emotional inadequacies. I spent a few more minutes breathing deeply inside my little cocoon before tossing the blankets back. I could do it. I could walk out into the living room and deal with the drama that I knew was coming. I’d handled far worse, hadn’t I? I just needed to make sure I was presentable, flawless, and then I’d deal with it.

After giving myself a pep talk in the bathroom as I made sure my hair was in place and my makeup was okay, I headed to the living room. Slider hadn’t arrived yet, and I was relieved to hear Grease and Cameron speaking quietly from the couch. There hadn’t been any yelling or sobbing. I was in the clear, at least for a while.

The relief left me in an instant when I saw how the two were sitting. Grease’s back was against the couch cushions, his shoulders tight and his feet flat on the floor, and Cameron was sitting almost in his lap. The poor kid’s chin was tucked into his chest and his arms were crossed in front of him, a pose that would have looked petulant if it wasn’t for the way he was huddled under Grease’s massive arm, tears rolling down his face. When I walked toward them, both heads snapped up, and the agony in their expressions was overwhelming.

“I stayed the night at my friend’s house last night and my house burned down. My mom and my sisters and brother are dead,” Cameron told me, lifting his chin. He looked at me in defiance, too proud to admit that he was upset. For anyone else, he might have been hard to read. The scowl on his face was as bratty as I’d ever seen, impressive really, but with a closer look, there was no way to hide the complete lack of hope in his eyes.

I knew that face.

I’d worn it for years.

He expected me to baby him and was warning me off. He didn’t want my pity. I respected that in a way he’d never understand.

“Yeah, dude, I heard,” I answered calmly. “I’m really sorry.”

His shoulders slumped and he leaned back into Grease. Just then, there was a knock on the door, and I opened it up to Slider and Poet—my father and his vice president. I watched them as they took in Grease and Cameron, their faces moving from disbelief to joy within seconds as they stood frozen just inside the door. Poet moved first.

“Cameron, it’s damn good to see you,” he announced roughly, stepping over to the couch to pull the kid up from the couch and into a bear hug. “So good to see you, boyo.”

“Where’s my dad?”

“He’s at the clubhouse,” Slider answered, finally making his way into the room. I took a couple of steps away from him, the apartment already feeling too small. “Didn’t want to get his hopes up.”

“Nice.” I scoffed, shaking my head. He hadn’t believed me. My gut burned, and I knew I had to get out of there before I said something and made the situation infinitely worse for everyone. I turned to Grease and met his eyes. “I’m going to head over to Gram’s. You guys stay as long as you need to. Lock up behind you.”

At his nod, I spun toward the door.

“Thanks for helping me, Farrah,” Cameron called out quietly, his manners still intact even after having a life-changing bomb dropped in his lap.

“No problem, Cameron.”

I turned my head to see him standing under Poet’s arm, the entire group watching me leave. Seeing him there looking so small and broken reminded me too much of things I was trying to forget, and I had the unwelcome urge to hug him. I wanted to take him away from all of it, I wanted to go back twenty-four hours and warn his mother, and I wanted to do anything to ease the ache in my gut at his obvious misery. Instead, I said something that would change both of our lives.

“You’re welcome here anytime, little dude.”

Chapter 17

Casper

I spent four days in southeast Portland before I got a hit. The night I’d gotten in, I realized that my clothes weren’t going to work unless I wanted to call attention to myself. These people weren’t polos and skinny jeans, they were worn-in work boots and baggy jeans falling off their asses. I’d stopped at Wal-Mart and bought some clothes, running over them with my car in the gravel parking lot next door to give them some wear. That seemed to have worked.

I finally found the boys we were looking for in a shady strip club. Shit was all spread out in the side of town I knew I’d find them, and it was hard as hell to hit as many places as I could in a day without looking suspicious. I’d had to make my way around, asking guys on the street about jobs and spare cigarettes, striking up conversations that led to where I could get a beer. I knew they’d be holed up in some piece-of-shit bar, somewhere they knew they’d get the respect they wanted.

Small-time assholes always went to the shadier parts of town, the ones that were down on their luck, with wannabe gangsters on the corner who thought they were hard but weren’t. That was where they’d find their power, in a place that had a hell of a lot of followers but no leader.

The women dancing looked barely old enough to be legal, and the entire club reeked of stale smoke and feet. It was fucking disgusting, but I clocked the two men I was looking for right away. Two men, midforties, one with a mole next to his nose and the other with a patchy chinstrap beard. Their backs were to the wall, placing them right next to each other, and they were the only two smoking in a club with No Smoking signs on every wall.