Craving Cecilia (The Aces' Sons 6)

“Take her out of here?” I said quietly to Farrah.

“Sure thing.” She grabbed the bag from my hand and wrapped her arm around Cecilia’s shoulders. “Come on, let’s find your dad.”

“Mark?” Cecilia asked, looking over her shoulder at me, her face still void of any emotion whatsoever.

“I’ll be right out, Cec,” I replied, jerking my chin toward the door. “Go with your mom.”

“She’s in shock,” Forrest said after Farrah walked Cecilia out of the room. “There a reason you didn’t want her in here for this?”

“She’s seen enough gunshot wounds,” I said, unzipping my hoodie.

“Damn,” he said, nodding his head to the matching scars on each shoulder, one of them just inches from the new wound. “Yours?”

“Mine,” I confirmed, trying and failing to block the memories of that day. “And others. Too many.”

“Well, this’ll be a nice scar to add to your collection,” Forrest said in disgust as he pulled out a roll of bandages and an assortment of other supplies. “At least it’s a through-and-through. Barely missed your clavicle. Couple inches to the left and we wouldn’t be havin’ this conversation.”

“Can you stitch it?”

“Not in the next ten minutes,” he replied. “But a bandage should hold it until I’ve got some time to work.”

“That’s fine,” I said, staring at the open doorway.

I’d expected Cecilia to be freaked the fuck out. I’d even expected her to be pissed. But I hadn’t prepared for her to be unfazed. No, not unfazed, it was like she was completely unaware of everything that had happened.

“You know, if you didn’t have so much muscle, the bullet would’ve missed you,” Forrest mused. “Lucky shot.”

“Doesn’t feel lucky,” I said as he pressed a bandage to each side of my shoulder.

“They never do,” he replied dryly.

As soon as I was wrapped like a mummy and taken whatever pills Forrest had dropped into my palm, we grabbed our things and left the room, not bothering to clean up the mess Forrest had made as he took care of my shoulder. A cleaning crew would come in later, people we trusted, to take care of the blood and bodies. Wilson had probably already called them—he was usually Johnny-on-the-spot with that shit.

Everyone was clustered in the garage when we got downstairs, probably because most of the rooms had dead men in them. Cam eyeballed me as I strode toward them and gave me a short nod.

“Siah and Eph will meet us up north,” Eli informed me. “They’ll check on your place again before they go.”

“Have them grab a truck,” I said, watching as Casper rubbed Cecilia’s back. She still wasn’t really responding to anything around her. “Tell them to head to Cecilia’s place and pack it up.”

“You sure about that?” Cam asked.

“She’s not gonna be back for a while,” I replied. I turned back to Eli. “Don’t bother with the furniture, but everything else goes, including her car.”

“Oh, they’re gonna love that,” Eli said with a chuckle.

“They can suck it the fuck up,” Forrest said, his eyes on Cecilia. “She’s gonna need her things when she lands.”

“Due to the hostile working conditions of this property, I’m going to relocate back to San Diego,” Wilson said, crossing his arms over his chest. “I can get more accomplished there anyway.”

“Keep trying to reach Richard Campbell’s daughter,” I ordered.

“Her name is Kaley,” Wilson replied.

“Don’t care. Find her. Make contact. We need to cut the head of this fucking snake.”

“I’ll fingerprint the visitors before I go,” Wilson replied. “See if we can get any new information from them.”

“You’re gonna fingerprint dead men?” Casper asked blandly.

“Yes,” Wilson replied.

“We need to move,” Lu chimed in. Her face was drawn and her jaw was tight as she leaned against the wall.

“You’re ridin’ with me,” Eli informed her.

“My bike’s here,” she argued without any heat.

“And it’s gonna stay that way. We’ll store it in here,” Eli said firmly, shouldering his bag. “No way you’re ridin’ like that. Come on.”

We filed out of the garage, leaving Wilson inside to finish up, and as soon as Casper handed Cecilia off to Farrah, he met me at the hood of my truck.

“Our best bet would be to make it to Sacramento in one shot. As soon as we meet up with the chapter up there, we’re golden,” he said, handing me Olive’s car seat. The baby was completely passed out, a little pink hat covering her head and a small yellow blanket tucked around her. “The boys know we’re on our way.”

“Good,” I said. “I’m not sure how often we’ll have to stop. I’ll tell Cec to feed and change Olive on the fly so we’re not stopping for long periods.”

“That’s what I’d do,” Casper said. “Jesus, how the fuck is he tracking her down?”

“I’ve got no clue, but the man must be connected in a big way.”

“No shit,” Casper muttered. “Can’t tell you how much I fuckin’ hate feelin’ like we’re runnin.’ I’ve never run from a fight in my entire goddamn life.”