I just prayed to whoever would hear me, that when I got to her, she wasn’t the girl I’d found hiding in a crawlspace.

Chapter 54

Callie

I walked into the living room to find Cody, Asa, and Slider talking quietly. Asa’s back was to me, so I didn’t say anything as I came up behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist. He spun around at my touch and immediately brought both hands to the sides of my head.

“You okay?” he asked fiercely, searching my face.

“Yeah,” I answered seriously, comforted just from having him beneath my hands. “Farrah’s a mess, though. She’s practically comatose.”

“That what the shower was about?”

“She pulled me in there and refused to get in without me,” I told him with a shrug. “We had blood everywhere.”

“Gotta say, that’s always been a fantasy, but that shit was not what I thought it’d be,” he said with a small shake of his head, causing me to choke out a small laugh.

“Yeah, nothing sexy about cleaning blood off,” I told him, my mouth trembling for the first time that night.

“Christ, Callie,” he whispered, leaning down to kiss me softly. “You scared the shit outta me.”

“It scared the shit out of me, too,” I answered as he lifted me and then sat down on the couch, setting me in his lap.

“How’s Farrah?” Slider asked from his perch on the floor. He was sitting against the wall with his elbows resting on bent knees. His eyes were weary as he stared at me, and it was the first time I’d seen any emotion there.

“She’s a wreck.” I told him honestly. “I don’t think seeing you will help.”

“I know,” he answered, rubbing the back of his neck as he looked down at the floor. “Couldn’t stay in Eugene—even if she doesn’t want to see me.”

“I don’t think she’s thinking about you at all,” I told him.

“That’s enough, Callie,” Asa growled behind me.

I nodded and shut my mouth. He was right. Slider was trying to do the right thing, as misguided as it was.

“What happens now?” I asked Asa quietly as I pressed my forehead into the side of his neck.

“Aces have an in with the local police, so it shouldn’t be long before they release Echo’s body,” he rumbled, rubbing my back. “So we’ll be able to have a funeral.”

“What about his family?”

“Didn’t have one, far as I know.”

“I didn’t even know is real name,” I cried softly as I snuggled in closer.

“William.”

“Oh,” I sighed softly. “That’s a good name.”

“Yeah, Sugar, it is,” he confirmed, kissing the side of my face.

“What about the guys who did this?”

“Think we know who it was, not sure yet.”

“They called him Ace,” I told him, pulling my face back to meet his eyes. “Did they think he was you?”

“No. No, Sugar. Is that what you’ve been thinking?” he asked gently.

I nodded, my chin trembling. It had been running through my head the entire night, even though I’d tried to ignore it.

“Baby, we’re Aces. That’s the name of the club. You know that.” He ran a hand down my face. “Echo was on his bike, which meant he was wearing his cut. They knew who he belonged to.”

“Oh,” I sighed in relief and then felt horrible for doing so. “So you joined a club that has almost the same name as you? That’s a weird coincidence.”

Slider barked out a quiet laugh behind me, and I watched Asa’s cheekbones flush.

“Uh. My dad was an Ace, too,” he grumbled. “Wasn’t with my mom for long, so when I was born, she named me Asa.”

“In honor of your dad. That’s kind of cool,” I told him tiredly, laying my head back down.

“Ha. No. More like a reminder,” he snorted, dropping the subject completely as he started talking to the guys.

I lay there silently, feeling his pulse against my forehead as the men spoke around me. A part of me was horrified that Cody had seen so much, but the other part of me thanked God that he’d been there. I didn’t know what I would’ve done without his help, how Farrah and I would have handled the situation ourselves.

I grew more and more weary as I listened to Asa’s voice, and soon I was drifting off to him whispering, “Sleep, Calliope. I’ve got you.”

Chapter 55

Callie

They buried Echo in a cemetery near my neighborhood.

The funeral of an Ace was a thing of beauty. There was no other way to describe it.

Well over a hundred motorcycles escorted the hearse and a limo carrying Farrah, Cody, Gram, and me from the funeral home to the cemetery. Aces from all over the West Coast had showed up to pay their respects, and the roar of Harley pipes was heard from blocks away, rattling window panes and bringing entire families outside their houses to watch us go by.

Farrah had come out of her trance the day after Echo was shot, and I watched her intently for days, waiting for her to crack.

She didn’t.

She was in mourning—there was no doubt of that—but she hadn’t completely lost her shit the way she had a year before. It seemed as if that year with Echo had made her infinitely stronger, because once she was facing a life without him, she seemed to just… accept it.