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“Sunny’s right,” Daphne smiled, walking over to me. “When someone with autism has a meltdown, or in Solomon’s case, goes off the rails, it’s very hard for them to normalize when their mind is in chaos. He needs a safe room, a secure place that’s just his, where he can decompress and stabilize himself. Right now, Solomon has no such place.”
“But can’t he decompress with you?” Bullseye asked, rubbing the back of his neck as he looked at me.
“No. It won’t work. Think of it this way, Bullseye. You fought in Afghanistan, right?”
“Yeah?”
“When you came home, did you just jump back into your old life, or did you take time to normalize?”
“I took a vacation. Did a lot of riding.”
“Exactly,” I smiled. “Solomon needs the same thing. He won’t ride out and leave me and Soleil again, so he needs something here. Something close to the clubhouse and us, but just far enough away that he can get his head straight.”
“And that’s where the tree house comes in?” Player asked, looking at all the brothers.
“I think it’s a brilliant idea,” Hawk smiled, leaning against a studded wall. “Kid always enjoyed sleeping out under the stars.”
“Awe hell, Dylan,” Phantom snickered, shaking her head. “You know Sunny’s right. Just build our brother the damn tree house.”
“With a skylight,” I added. “He needs to see the stars.”
“Well hell, woman, why not add a fucking moat too and a bathroom? Hell, we can add plumbing and a flat screen TV!” Massacre said, rolling his eyes as everyone laughed.
Narrowing my eyes at Massacre, I growled. “The skylight will do.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Sunny
It took the brothers three days, but it was done.
My Solomon had his treehouse.
Now, I just needed him to come home.
I hated the idea of him being out there alone, doing God knows what, sinking deeper into his past. I wondered which man would return to me. The man I married or the one everyone feared.
I’d seen the news. Read the papers. It wasn’t pretty and though there was no definitive proof it was Solomon who committed those heinous acts, I knew deep down it was him. I worried about the toll it had taken on him. Would his mind ever recover? The longer he was gone, the more I feared his return.
I’d seen the reserved looks of trepidation and concern on the brothers’ faces. They, too, were unsure who would show up. It was almost as if the brothers were in a way preparing for another war, only against one of their own. While most of them concentrated on getting the clubhouse built, I saw a few of them coming in and out of the tunnels under the compound. Remi had told me once that the tunnels served a purpose in case someone attacked the clubhouse, that there would always be a way out. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it, but now I wondered if there would ever be a place where we were completely safe.
That’s when the realization hit me.
I always felt safe when Solomon was around.
With him by my side, I knew everything would be alright.
I never had to worry about anything because Solomon made sure that everything was okay. Now with him gone, I felt disconnected, afloat in a sea of uncertainty. My fears overwhelmed me, almost suffocating me.
“Sunny?”
Turning away from the window, I looked at Logic.
“Sweetheart, why don’t you get some sleep?”
“I can’t,” I whispered, turning back to the window so I could look at his treehouse. I knew building it was the right thing. I felt it deep in my bones. It was there, waiting for him. All it needed now was for him to show up and enter.
His haven.
