“Yeah. And I’ll preface this by saying your dad should be talkin’ to you, but he’s… his words… an old chicken shit who can’t handle his daughter being pissed at him.”
I swallowed. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Jesus,” he hissed out quietly.
“Just spit it out, Hyde,” I snapped.
“Your dad isn’t in the aluminum siding business.”
“Well, I know that.”
“You do?” he asked, looking surprised.
“Yes. He’s retired.”
He dropped his face in his hands and groaned.
“I’m kidding,” I said, letting him off the hook. “What do you mean?”
“Let me put it to you this way. Your dad never sold aluminum siding.”
“Well, what did he do for the Miller Aluminum Siding Company?”
He stood, his hand scrubbing the back of his neck as he started to pace. “He never worked for the Miller Aluminum Siding Company.”
“Then what company did he work for for forty years?”
“Uh…the company.”
“Hyde, you better start using more words.”
“It’s not the words I’m having trouble with, it’s the letters.”
“What letters?”
“CIA.”
“Hyde, I swear to god, you better add more than a few letters to the end of that,” I growled.
“It’s true, GoGo, they recruited him right out of college as an analyst.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! If you’re about to try and convince me that the man who always made sure we cut down a fresh Christmas tree and did my hair for my prom, was actually Jason Bourne, I’m going to have a nervous breakdown.”
“He did your hair for your prom?”
“Very poorly, but I never had the heart to tell him. Bellamy fixed it in the limo on the way to the dance.” I threw my hands up. “But that’s not what we’re talking about right now, Hyde. My dad never worked for the CIA.”
“Try and think of him less like Matt Damon and more like Simon Pegg in Mission Impossible.”
“You’re lying.”
“Baby, I’m not fuckin’ lying,” he snapped. “You can call him to confirm.”
I burst into tears again and he rushed back to me, sitting down and taking my hands.
“I don’t understand,” I sobbed out. “Why wouldn’t he tell me?”
“Babe, it’s obvious, he was trying to protect you.”
“But he tells you?”
“Well, no, not directly.”
“Oh my god, what?”
“You know how I had a guy who got into the foster care system?”
“Yes,” I said, carefully.
“Well, he did a deep dive on you and your dad when we first met up and found more than I’d bargained for.”
“What do you mean ‘deep dive?’ I don’t remember giving you permission to—”
“You did a background check on me,” he pointed out.
“Because my kid was going to work for you!” I squeaked. “And you’re part of a notorious motorcycle gang, so I had to make sure—”
“Club,” he ground out. “Not gang.”
“Stop interrupting me!” He stood again, crossing his arms as he put distance between us. “What world have I stepped into, Hyde? Honestly, this is ridiculous. I work for a nonprofit. I have a dad who’s my world. A simple salesman who took over the job of both mom and dad, and did it beautifully. I don’t have a dad who’s in the CIA. He never went anywhere. He was always home. Don’t agents travel all the time? You know, to torture the enemy or whatever? Are you going to try and tell me my best friend is a secret assassin as well?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“You didn’t do a deep dive, invasion of her privacy?” I spat out. “Just mine?”
“Our club always does a background check on anyone coming into the fold,” he said. “The deep dive only happened because your dad was a ghost.”
“What do you mean, he was a ghost?”
“I think you need to ask your dad about the rest,” he said, suddenly defeated. “I don’t want to be the messenger that you kill.”
“The messenger part isn’t why I want to kill you, Hyde.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “I need you to go.”
“I’m not goin’ anywhere, Indigo.”
“Well, then go wait on the balcony or porch for a little while,” I snapped. “Somewhere I can ignore you.”
He scowled, storming through my front door.
I grabbed my phone and called my dad. Lucky for him, he picked up right away.
“Is it true?” I demanded.
“Aye, love, it’s true.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Oh my god, why would you lie to me all this time?”
“I wanted to protect you. Your mother’s family is more danger—”
“Wait,” I burst out. “What does any of this have to do with Mama?”
“Shit,” he hissed.
“Daddy, you need to start talking right now.”
“Well, first, I need you not to blame that man of yours. He’s doing me a favor.”
“I don’t actually give a shit, Dad, so you need to start disclosing.”
“How about I come by tomorrow—”
“How about you stop stalling, old man, and tell me everything.”
He let out a deep, loud sigh. “Right, love. I am CIA. Retired. I was recruited out of college—”
“Jekyll already told me all this, Dad. What’s this about Mom?”
“Your mother’s father is Yakuza.”
“Yakuza. Like in the movies Yakuza?”
“Aye. I was placed as security within her family, which is how we met… and, ultimately, fell in love. I was supposed to be the eyes and ears inside her father’s circle, but instead, I found myself looking for a way to get us both out.”
“And you got out.”
“We did. But they found her, love.”
I bit back tears. “When I was six.”
“Aye.”
“So you lied,” I whispered. “Again.”
“I had to protect you.”
I wiped the wetness from my cheek. “Maybe when I was six, but later, you could have told me the truth.”
“I don’t like that you know any of this shit now, Indigo. Your mother’s family is still a threat.”
“You can’t really expect that they would come after me,” I said in total disbelief.
“They are capable of anything, mo stoirín. I expect anything from them, particularly if they knew they had access to a piece of your mother.”
“Even more of a reason to fill me in, don’t you think? But, no. You’ve chosen to leave me unaware, exposed, and unprotected.”
“You have never been unprotected,” he argued.
“Really? How do you figure?”
“Just trust me on that.”
“This is the problem, Dad. I don’t trust you. You’ve lied to me. My. Entire. Life!”
“If you take a few minutes to think on why, you’ll see I had no choice.”
“That’s your answer? Fine. I’ll take a few minutes in the form of decades to think on it. I do not want to hear from you until I’m done thinking. Got it?”
“Indy, honey…”
“I’m hanging up now, Dad. Bye.”
Indigo
I set my phone on the table and let my emotions take over, crying as I pulled my quilt up over my body again. I was so consumed by my sobbing, in fact, I didn’t hear Jekyll come back in, so when he wrapped his arms around me gently, I nearly jumped out of my seat.
“Shh, baby, I got you.”
“But I don’t want you to have me,” I sniffed out, even as I buried my face in his neck.
“Let’s put this all aside for a minute,” he said, stroking my hair. “I’m gonna just hold you for a bit, yeah?”
I nodded, sobbing into his shoulder, and letting him comfort me for a little while. I worked hard to pull myself together so that
I could gain some distance, pushing him away and wiping the tears from my face. “I’m good now. You can go.”
“No way in hell.” He sat back on the coffee table, sliding his feet to the bottom of my chair, anchoring me in place. “We’re gonna hash this out.”
“You invaded my privacy, then lied to me about it,” I ground out.
“Never lied, baby. And the intention was to do a check on you at the level you did a check on me.”
“But…”
“But there were some flags,” he said.
“You could have just left it alone.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Would you have left it alone?”
“I don’t have a secret agent man at my disposal who can find out more.”
“Ah, yeah, you do, baby.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Well, I didn’t know that at the time, did I?”
He sighed, lifting my hand to his mouth, and kissing the palm. “I had every intention of telling you, GoGo, but your dad asked me not to. He wanted to be the one to tell you.”
“But he didn’t.”
“Yeah. He didn’t.”
I sniffed. “I’m sorry he was a lily-livered coward.”
“That varmint,” Jekyll retorted, and we both smiled. “You forgive me?”
“Yes, butthead, I forgive you.”
“Good, because I love you, GoGo and I am not letting you go.”
I gasped. “You love me?”
“Hell, yes, I love you.” He squeezed my hand. “I came up rough. Surrounded by the ugliness of life. So when I find something beautiful in this world, I don’t take it for granted.”
I bit back tears. “You’ve never talked about your past. How bad was it?”
“You really want to hear about it?”
“I love you, too, so yeah, I want to hear it.”
“You gonna share that chair with me?”
“Absolutely.”
He grinned, helping me stand before flopping onto the chair and guiding me down on his lap gently. I twisted so I could cup his cheek. “I want all of it. Don’t sugar coat it.”
“It’s not pretty.”
“I didn’t ask for pretty, just the truth. I want to know everything that made you the man you are today. The good and the bad.”
“It’s mostly bad,” he warned.
“I promise I won’t judge you,” I said, squeezing his hand.
“Okay,” he said, exhaling deeply. “Let’s see. I guess I should start with my old man, who skipped town before I was born, never to be seen or heard from again.”
“Were you and your mom close?” I asked.
“She loved me, but she loved meth more,” he said, without a hint of emotion in his voice.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my eyes already welling up with tears. I’d worked with enough troubled kids to know what kind of burden Jekyll must have carried as a child.
“I was sixteen years old the first time I was locked up.”
“Locked up?”
He nodded. “Spent time in juvie.”
I frowned. “For what?”
“I’d just started my junior year of high school and this senior chick, Janna Forrester, invited me to a pool party at her house. She was hot and her parents were out of town, so of course I said yes. But when I got there, I found out there was no party. Only Janna.”
“She was there alone?”
“Yep.”
“Slutttt,” I teased.
He chuckled. “I won’t go there, but let’s just say she wasn’t shy about her admiration of me.”
“I’ll bet she wasn’t,” I said. “Were you shy?”
“I was pissed,” Jekyll said. “It was no secret she had a serious boyfriend, Dalvin Elis. He was captain of the football team and rich as fuck. Besides, I knew what this was really all about.”
“What do you mean?”
“Janna was bored, and I was the bad boy she wanted to use as her new toy. She was sick of dating within her social circle, and I was a novelty. The kid from the wrong side of town with the single mom who didn’t give a shit.”
“So, what did you do?”
“I tried to split, but Dalvin, the asshole boyfriend, showed up just as I was leaving. To make matters worse, Janna came running after me. Topless.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yep. So, Dalvin sees me and his half-naked girlfriend standing in the foyer and flips out. I could hardly blame the guy after what he’d just walked in on. I tried to explain, but he flew at me before I could get more than two words out, landing a haymaker to my eye that sent me straight to the floor. He began kicking me the moment I hit the ground as Janna screamed for him to stop. While he was kicking, I managed to grab ahold of his left leg and roll my body towards him, sending him tumbling backwards to the floor. I just wanted the guy off me, but as he fell he hit the back of his head on a large marble planter box by the door. Severing his spinal cord and paralyzing him instantly.”
“Oh my god, really?”
He nodded. “It was self-defense, but I was sent to juvie anyway. I was poor and my public defender was shit, so off to the warehouse I went. Ready to be filed away with all the other future full-time criminals.”
“How long were you in there?”
“It took two years to clear my charges.”
“Why so long?”
“Janna’s family hid the security footage that could prove my innocence. Sundance is the reason I got out.”
“Your president?”
“Yeah. He volunteers a couple times a month, as a mechanic, well he used to before Wyatt. He met me and took me under his wing. He also used his connections to ‘find’ the footage and clear my name. I owe him everything.”
“Wow,” I breathed out. “I can’t wait to meet him.”
“He’s a good guy, baby, you’ll love him.”
“Did you ever find out what happened to Dalvin after the accident?”
“He’s a motivational speaker now.”
“Really?”
“You bet. Speaks at high school assemblies and shit like that. A heartwarming story about never giving up in the face of adversity. Of course, his version of how he ended up in the chair doesn’t mention him sucker punching or kicking me while down, or his girlfriend’s titties being out on display while he did, but one should never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
“You don’t seem angry about being locked up for something that wasn’t your fault.”
“Juvie was pure hell, but it also gave me some much-needed tools to deal with my anger.”
“How so?”
“Dr. Ambrose. He was my anger management counselor. He saved my life and taught me how to temper the storm raging inside me. Anger had always been my fuel and I had an unlimited supply of it, but Dr. Ambrose showed me how to tap into less destructive emotions. He helped me to see that it wasn’t Dalvin’s fault I was locked up. It wasn’t Janna’s fault, or her parents, or even the courts. It was my fault. The only reason I was even at that house was because I was angry at myself. Ashamed of who I was and where I came from. I wanted to be accepted by the popular kids, and I was angry enough about the rejection that I crippled a man for life. Even if it was self-defense, my actions led to the conclusion of the story, and to my own incarceration.”
“What happened after Sundance got you out?”
“My mom was nowhere to be found. Probably off on one of her legendary runs, so Sundance took me in. It didn’t take long before I was prospecting for the club, and then a full patch. I owe my life to Dr. Ambrose and Sundance.”
I settled my head on his shoulder and slid my arm over his stomach. “I’m sorry your mom wasn’t a good mom.”
“Thanks, baby. She’s gone now, O.D.’d ten years ago, but I was done with her long before that.”
“You always seem so calm,” I mused.
“I work at it. The fury is always there, but I try to leave it sleeping. If I opened the door to that bedroom, I don’t know how far it’d go.”
I gave him a squeeze and he kissed my temple. “I’m so fucking impressed with you.”
He grinned. “Thanks, baby.”
“Mina’s asleep,” I whispered.
“Yeah,” he whispered back.
“And my leg’s feeling pretty good.”
“It is?” he asked, meeting my eyes.
I smiled. “Yeah. But I have a different pain and I’m wondering if you can help me with that.”
He frowned. “What pain?”
“The pain that only your dick can ease.”
“I do not want to hurt you.”
“Honey, you haul me around like I weigh nothing, and never once have you hurt me. I trust you to come up with a way to get your dick into my pussy without so much as a tickle.”
“Okay, I better be able to do more than tickle.”
I chuckled. “I need you to fuck me, Hyde.”
He blinked, then he let out a quiet grunt. “Whatever you need, GoGo.”
“Now, Hyde.”
He wrapped his arms tighter around me and rose to his feet, me still in his embrace, carrying me down to my bedroom and setting me gently on the bed.
“Don’t move,” he ordered, stripping down to his boxer briefs before focusing on me. “If anything hurts, you tell me and we’re gonna stop, baby, got it?”
“I’m not gonna want to stop,” I said emphatically.
He gripped my chin gently. “Don’t give a shit. If you’re hurtin’, you tell me.”
“Not giving you blue balls,” I grumbled.
“Blue balls is a bullshit lie assholes tell women when they want to manipulate them into giving them more head,” he growled. “If I’m feelin’ like I need some relief, I’ll take care of it myself.”
“It’s a lie?” I frowned. “Like, it doesn’t happen?”
“I guess it can happen, but if it does, then it’ll be on me, never on you.”
“Well, I’d like those balls on me right about now, so…”
“Would you like a teabag, madam?”
I wrinkled my nose. “Okay, maybe that joke went a little too far.”
Jekyll laughed, leaning down to kiss me as he slid my T-shirt over my head. “Have I told you your tits are perfect?”
“Every time you see them,” I said, running my fingers through his beard, tugging gently so he’d give me another kiss. “Yours are pretty spectacular, too.”
The Primal Howlers’ logo was tattooed big and proud over his right pec, and he had wings on either side of his neck. The rest of his chest and arms were covered with all manner of art, none of which I got right in my wet dream a few weeks ago. They were all much, much better than I could have imagined.
Primal Fury (Primal Howlers MC Book 5) Page 15