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For a minute, he thought maybe Robby had put her up to the call, but he dismissed the idea as quickly as he had it. Sara didn’t strike him as the type to play games, and the last time he’d seen Robby, the guy seemed more than happy to be done with him.
He swiped the keys off the coffee table and speed-walked to the car. When he’d had questions and needed someone to talk to about his feelings, Sara had been there for him. Busy or not, he wouldn’t let her down when she needed him.
Riding the accelerator hard, he made the normally fifteen-minute ride to the center in ten, even in the dusky tail-end of rush-hour. He did a quick scan for Robby’s car when he pulled up to the curb, then breathed a sigh of relief because it wasn’t there.
Sara waited for him inside, seated with her elbows on the big wooden table and her scarf-covered head cradled in her hands. A cast covered her right forearm. She jumped to her feet at his approach.
“Hey. Where’s the fire, hon?”
She reached out and grabbed his hand. “You need to find Robby.”
He pulled out of her grasp. “Did he ask you to call me? Things between us are over.” He didn’t ask about her black eye, though he suspected she was the friend Robby had visited in the hospital.
“What?” The confusion on her face looked too authentic. “When? Why?”
“Because I can’t keep him and keep my son.”
She frowned. “I don’t know what you are talking about. Robby Jordan is one of the best men I know. He’s been through hell and back, and he’s still more worried about looking out for other people than himself.”
“It doesn’t change the things he’s done—or that my ex can’t see past it.”
“So…what? You don’t love him enough to fight for him?” a soft male voice answered before Sara could.
Matt almost swallowed his tongue at the sight of the boy he’d seen Saturday with Robby. “You.” The kid looked so different, now wearing a pair of Levi’s and aStar WarsT-shirt.
“Yeah. Me. Robby got me out of a nightmare situation and brought me here. He’s been helping me get my head on straight ever since.” His glare could strip the paint from the walls. “And if you won’t fight for a future with a guy like him, you never deserved him to begin with.”
He fought to keep calm. “It’s not so simple—”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” The kid advanced on him like a bull in a China shop, but Sara gripped his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks.
“Enough, Brady.”
Matt rubbed at the back of his neck and tried again. “We’re talking about my son. I can’t give him up.”
“No one is telling you to. But if you love Robby, fight for him. Fight for your kid too.”
“It’s more than just the club.” Matt shook his head. How could he explain? “You don’t know the things he’s done. The things Jimmy’s mom heard about him.”
Sara released Brady, her lips pursed. “You would let her judge him for what happened to him when he was Brady’s age? You say he did things as if he had achoice. You think a teenage boy can give consent when his next meal depends on the man who keeps him off the streets?”
Sara didn’t give him time to think it through. “Those men abused him in the worst possible way, and he took it because he had to. I don’t even know how he got out because he sure as hell didn’t have any help.”
Robby’s words barreled into his brain with a vengeance.
“I prayed to God to strike him dead and when He didn’t, I did it myself.”
His stomach turned over. Suddenly, the words stopped feeling like a lie.
Robby had killed someone.
Holy fuck.
The air in the room felt thinner as he sucked in a breath. Why hadn’t he pushed for more? He’d been so focused on his own heart breaking, he didn’t ask any real questions—and when Robby lashed out, he never really tried to understand. He’d only thought about losing Jimmy.
“And now, his fucked-up family,” she lifted her fingers in air quotes, “is here to deliver one more kick in the head.”
“His family?” he echoed, his brain still firing frantically over his revelation.
