“Absolutely not!”
“Fuck no!”
“Have you lost your mind?!”
Sara and Cara sighed, rubbing their foreheads. “Guys, you know we’re trained for this kind of stuff. We’ll be fine,” Sara insisted.
“No, Sara. That answer is final,” Viper said and turned to Cara. “To both of you. I’m warning you now, Cara, do not go rogue. I will ban both of you from club business.”
Cara had a bad habit of forming plans behind Viper’s back. The last time she pulled a stunt, he gave her his final warning.
Cara’s face scrunched up. “Viper, I knew there was a high chance of you all shutting down this plan, but I still brought it to the table. I have no plans to go rogue. I learned my lesson the last time.”
Viper grinned, licking his lips. “I’m sure you did.”
I had to suppress the laugh threatening to come out. I might have overheard Cara telling Sara in the cave how Viper had edged her for hours, not allowing her to come. Her exact words were“I’ve never felt murderous and horny, all at the same time.”
“Whatever,” she grumbled, rolling her eyes.
“Well, since that idea is a bust, we’re going to have to buckle down and find Sire. Be vigilant anytime you’re out and about. We need to handle him before the detective's piece together SW as the Sinful Warriors. Meanwhile, we’ll still stakeout the grand opening, minus using the girls, Will, and Oscar as bait.” Viper banged his gavel on the table, ending church. As everyone made their way out of the room, Viper called my name. “Take a seat. We need to talk to you.”
He pointed to the chair next to him that was reserved for Axel as VP. Cara and Sara remained seated as well. Once everyone was gone, I opened my mouth to say something, but Will sauntered in.
“What’s going on?” I asked him. He looked beyond nervous, scaring the shit out of me.
He sat next to me, fiddling with his fingers. “Umm, so a few days ago, I asked Sara and Cara to see if they could find out anything about Cody.”
“Will,” I groaned, sinking into the seat. He would not let this go, no matter how much I asked him.
“I’m sorry if I overstepped, but I feel like you need closure. I was hoping they could find out if he was buried or… I don’t know. I just wanted you to be at peace with this.”
“Will, I will never be okay with this. It’s my fault Cody died,” I growled in frustration.
Will shrank back from my tone, and I felt like an ass. I knew he meant well, but some things he couldn’t fix. I needed him to understand that.
“Actually, he’s not dead,” Cara said, shocking the hell out of me.
“What?” Will and I asked, perplexed.
Sara pushed a file across the table toward me. “We went to Mercury and asked for his assistance on this,” Sara told us, referring to her boss from the STF.
Cara sat up, interlocking her fingers. “When we went to him, we asked if he could get the files that were inaccessible from the bust of the cult. Once we retrieved them, we found out Cody was the one who went to the FBI. He was the one who took them down.”
I shook my head as my eyes watered. This couldn’t be right. I knew what I saw and heard that night. “Cara, this can't be right. I heard Sire order his men to kill him.”
“You’re right about that. But from Cody’s statement, his father, Jason, told Sire he would handle Cody himself. Unbeknownst to Sire, Jason left Cody with his grandparents, telling him to forget he ever existed. He urged his grandparents to contact the police for years, but they were too fearful of the cult's retaliation. They died a few months before his eighteenth birthday, and he went to the FBI. Once he showed them the pictures from the beating he took that night, they opened a full investigation. They even helped with changing his name to protect his identity. He now goes by Tristan.”
I flipped through the file pages as she spoke, confirming everything she'd just said. There were even photos of much older Cody. The resemblance was strong. It was him. He was really alive after all this time. The girls even added a few current photos of him. He was married to a man who had a chain of clothing stores in California. Seeing the photos of him with his husband, where he appeared genuinely happy, brought me a sense of relief. Even though I had been suffering all this time, thinking I had gotten him killed, I couldn’t care less. Cody was alive, and that was all that mattered to me.
“I don’t know what you want to do with this information, but we put his phone number in the file.”
Without another word, Cara, Sara, and Viper made their way out. Before Will could say anything, I spun his chair around and smashed my lips against his. He took a bold step by havingthe girls dig into what happened to Cody, and it paid off. It just showed how much he loved me. Knowing he was defying me, he still had my best interest at heart. He wanted to see me unconditionally happy, and that made me want to give him the world.
No one had ever cared this much for me. Had it been up to me, I would have spent the rest of my life grieving Cody when I didn’t need to.
“I love you so fuckin’ much, Dimples,” I choked out.
“I love you too,” he replied breathlessly.
