Caution to the Wind (The Fallen Men, #7)

by Giana Darling

“That’s Kodiak,” a whisper responded from over my shoulder. “Ignore him. I try to.” I spun on my heel, wrenching my arm painfully from his hold. Because Cleo was awake.

“You came,” she croaked. “Always,” I promised.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered through her panting breaths, her lids flashing open to reveal panicked eyes. “I need you. I-I can’t do this without you. I tried for days, and I-I just can’t…”

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered to her, stroking her greasy, dull hair. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to save you.”

“I was so dumb,” she whispered, eyes closed, body growing limp with exhaustion. “I was so stupid, Mei. It makes me want to die how stupid I was to believe him.”

“You’re not stupid. You’re the sweetest, kindest, loveliest person I’ve ever known. And that psychopath took advantage of you.” “I just wanted someone of my own,” she admitted, words slurring as she fell rapidly into sleep. “I’m so stupid. I deserved to die.” “Don’t ever say that,” I snapped again, a little too loudly, but Kodiak didn’t move this time. “Don’t ever say that about yourself. You did nothing to deserve this, okay?”

“Oh Glory,” I whispered, bending to kiss her brow. “My sweet girl.”

“How much do you know?” he whispered roughly after a long moment. “Just what I read in the papers,” I admitted with a little shiver. “It was worse than that.” Dead voice, dead eyes like black volcanic rock in his face. “So much worse than what they wrote.”

don’t know who you are,” Kodiak surprised me by saying in that same low, cold voice. “But I haven’t seen her so animated since it happened. You’re gonna stay with her, right? She…fuck, she needs all the help she can get.” I sucked in a deep breath so I didn’t sob, and then I nodded. “Yeah, I’m going to stay with her.”

Cleo startled with a harsh gasp, clasping at my hand so tightly I hissed. When I met her gaze, it was panicked, pupils blown wide. “Don’t leave me,” she begged with the urgency of someone who had woken from a nightmare believing it was reality.

Unfortunately, for Cleo, it was. “Please, Rocky, sta...

“I’m not going anywhere,” I told her earnestly, carefully lying down on the edge of the bed so I could gather her gently into my arms. “I won’t leave you ever again so long as you want me.”

“Brother,” he’d said into the plastic phone, the thing tiny in his huge paw. “It’s been too long since I set eyes on ya, and I gotta say, I’d rather it was happenin’ under better circumstances.”

“Want you to know that’s been dealt with.”

Zeus appraised me with shrewd eyes, brows lowered over them in a glower I knew masked a sharp mind. “What they did to you wasn’t right, brother. Rooster wasn’t dead, I’d do the deed myself. Fallen don’t turn against Fallen.”

“I’ll tell ya the full story one day, but let’s just say I was fucked by my club once too. Went to prison for what they made me do one day. I don’t like to see it happen to a man I’m told is a good brother. A brother I know to be a solid man.”

There are no strings here, honest to fuck. I’m here ’cause the kinda man I am, I couldn’t know there was a good man who’d been fucked over wastin’ away in a cell worryin’ about his daughter without protection.”

He’d left me then without gettin’ an answer. But three weeks later, Lin and Cleo moved to Entrance, BC. And two and a half years after that, I followed them when I got out early for good behaviour. It was the best decision I ever fuckin’ made, second only to marryin’ Kate and adoptin’ my Cleo.

“Cleo’s okay?” “She fell asleep the second this girl put her hands on her,”

We both knew Cleo hadn’t been sleepin’ for shit since the accident. Only the drugs the nurses gave her for the pain helped, and I dreaded what we’d do when she was discharged soon. Who the hell was this girl with her?

Stirred by my gaze, she shifted her head outta Cleo’s neck, uncoverin’ a pretty face I knew all too well even after all this time.

Cherry blossoms, fresh and sweet. It threw me back to all the hugs we’d shared, to the memories of sittin’ across from each other at the kitchen table, the scrape of pencil on paper as we sketched, the sound of her laughter mixed with Cleo’s, the vision of the two of them curled together like yin and yang in another hospital bed the day after Kate was killed.

“What the fuck are you doin’ here?” I growled into her face. “I told you to stay the fuck away from us.” “Cleo needed me,” she said, totally calm and cool.

“She needs me,” she said, voice strong and sure. “What she just went through…please, Henning, don’t make her recover alone.”

“She’s never been alone. I got her back, always, and now we got a family who’d never abandon us. Not for anythin’. You’re not a part of that, and you never fuckin’ will be again. So leave now before I do somethin’ I regret, and don’t you ever fuckin’ think about comin’ back.”

I’m sorry for so many things, but most of all, I’m sorry I hurt you. You’re still the best man I’ve ever known, and you deserve a lot more than what I did to you. There hasn’t been one day since I last saw you that I haven’t loved you both from afar. So fine, I’ll go, and I’ll stay away from you, but I can’t promise I won’t be here for Cleo. Not when she needs me.”

“So that was Mei.” I wasn’t surprised to hear Z’s rough growl behind me,

“It’s funny,” he said at length, clampin’ a hand on my shoulder. “How our demons can have such pretty fuckin’ faces and cause us so much damn pain.”

“She broke Cleo’s heart.” My voice was weak, stripped bare by the emotion tearin’ me up from the inside out. “She broke yours, too,” he said, heavy and firm, so there was no room for me to argue with him.

“Cleo obviously kept in touch with the kid. She obviously loves her the way Cleo loves everyone in her heart. Balls to the wall, ride or die. Your girl is a giver, just like her dad. Seems to me, if she called Mei, it was ’cause she needed her right now. And she needs her right now ’cause the road she’s on to healin’ from this horror? She’s gonna need to take, and there are only a handful’a people Cleo feels comfortable doin’ that shit with. You get me?”

My Cleo needed me, I’d do whatever it took to be there for her.

And Cleo mattered to me more than almost anyone.

He’d made his decision clear. He’d fallen on a sword for me, but the consequence was eternal banishment from his life.

Sometimes, I wished he’d let me bear the consequences of my mistakes back then, not only for his sake but selfishly, for my own. Maybe then I’d still be someone to him. As it stood, he was still everything to me.

I took them two at a time, heart thumping so madly I thought I might faint before I reached her. Happily, I didn’t.

It had only been six weeks since I visited in the hospital, and we’d gone much longer stints without seeing each other, but under the circumstances, it was six weeks too many.

Mostly, I cried because holding her felt like coming home. “My Mei,” she murmured into my hair, clutching me tight enough to hurt, her nails curling into my leather jacket. “My Mei.”

“Hi, Glory,” I whispered, forcing the words through my too-tight throat. “I’m so fucking sorry it took me so long to get here. That…that I wasn’t here in the first place.” She made an animal kind of whine in her throat, pressing impossibly closer. “You’re here, now. Just…just promise you won’t leave again like you did before. I need you.”

“I wish I could switch places with you,” I murmured helplessly, curling my arms around her. “I wish I could take away every bad thing that’s ever happened to you. I should have been here to protect you.”

“You and Dad are so similar,” she said on a shaky exhale. “You can’t protect someone from their own free will. It was my decision to go down this path, and now, I have to deal with the consequences.”

“I was so stupid, Mei. Everyone around me was falling in love, and I wanted that so badly I forgot that I might not have a great romantic love, but that doesn’t mean I’m unloved.”

If I love someone, I’m more than willing to do what needs to be done to bring them happiness, success, and joy. And the way I love you? That isn’t an obligation, it’s an honour. So please, honour me by trusting that I want to give you everything and anything you need. Not just because of what’s happened to you. Not just because I promised Kate I’d look after you. But because I love you in a way that I need you to take what I have to offer, so really, you’d still be the one giving to me in the end.”

“One of the first things she said when she came to was your name,” Bea said quietly. “She’s talked about you before, but this was different. It was like the only thing that could stave off the panic burning through her was you.”

“We’ve been through a lot.” Her gaze narrowed. “Yes, I know. But that was eight years ago. She’s different now, and I’m worried she called you here because trauma makes people want to move backward instead of forward. She hasn’t needed you in the eight years you’ve been gone, and I don’t think she really needs you now.” “I won’t leave unless she tells me to go,” I said through bared teeth.

“I hope she does,” Bea admitted without remorse. “I hope she realizes tomorrow, today, when she wakes up from her nap that everything she needs is already in Entrance, and you’re just a ghost that should be banished back to where you came from.”

“I’d die for her, so don’t talk to me about trust,” I snarled softly. “Maybe,” she agreed slowly. “But I’ve heard enough about you to know what you’re like, Mei Zhen. And sometimes, to heal, you have to lay down the sword and expose your underbelly. You might die for her, but that’s not what she needs right now, and I don’t think you’re strong enough to be soft for her.”

“But I can promise I know when something is worth fighting for. I learned that the hard way, but I’m not stupid, and I’ve learned it now. Cleo is worth fighting for.” “And Axe-Man?” she asked, flinging the words at me like daggers.

I tipped my chin and levelled her with a cool glare. “I’ll try to stay out of Henning’s way when I can. If he works or something, I’ll be here with Cleo when he’s gone and leave well before he gets home. I’m not here to hurt him anymore. I’m here to heal where––who––I can.”

“I didn’t know his real name,” she murmured, almost to herself, a little grimace catching at the corner of her mouth.

“I love her, and it doesn’t matter that you loved her first. I’m going to be here for her, too, so we’ll have to make our peace. Maybe together, we can bring her back to life.