by Jc Emery
He tightens his grip around me and shushes me into silence. “Jennings,” he says. “That asshole is no fucking good. He’s not a goddamn victim.”
Nothing makes sense, and suddenly the last several weeks of my life feel like a total waste. How in the hell is Darren not a victim? He’s been in the hospital since the end of summer.
“Nic dated him back in high school. I didn’t fucking realize what was going on. Right under my fucking nose. That asshole made her feel like shit. I think I knew something wasn’t right, but I never really paid any attention. Nic’s a tough bitch. She doesn’t need no sympathy or help or nothing. She’s always able to take care of herself.”
“Who put him in the hospital?” I ask, afraid of the answer. Jeremy ignores my question. His refusal to answer is as much of an admission as if he’d actually said it. Forsaken did it.
He takes a deep breath before he continues. “Few months back, Jennings came by the house to clear something up with Nic. I was watching TV and kept turning the volume up because they started yelling at each other. I didn’t want to be bothered by it. Her drama was an inconvenience. I didn’t even like what I was watching, but she was a fucking inconvenience.” His words don’t come out spiteful but rather remorseful. The shame that radiates through his voice is something I’ve never heard before. Forsaken don’t express shame or regret much, because it would mean they did something wrong, and that’s not something any of them are comfortable expressing. Even Aunt Ruby has a hard time saying she’s sorry. I guess in a way I’m as much Forsaken as the rest of them, because I don’t do great with I’m sorry either.
“I hear this crash and get up to tell the assholes to keep it down because he’s fucking up my night. As it was, I was already having a bad fucking night. It was the day I found out Nic was knocked up and accidentally spilled that shit to Duke before she had a chance to tell him. That did not go over well.” He takes a break from talking and places a kiss to the side of my head before continuing. A shiver runs up my spine, likely from the cold but possibly from the conversation. “I get in the hallway and all I can see is this preppy bastard standing with his back to me. He’s got my goddamn sister—my sister who doesn’t let anybody fuck with her—on the fucking floor. She’s on her knees, holding her stomach and sobbing. He has a hand in her hair and the other holding his dick. By the time I get ahold of him, he’s got his fucking dick shoved against her lips. She’s fucking sobbing and refusing to open her mouth, and he’s just fucking forcing himself on her.”
My heart breaks for Nic as tears slip down my cheeks. Every word Jeremy speaks is annunciated and sounds more painful than the last. He leans over, eyeing my face. Turning my head to him, I stare into his eyes and let the tears fall freely. I’d rather he not know I’m crying, but I think he wants to see it so he knows I’m listening and absorbing what he’s telling me.
“I wanted to kill him,” he says.
“Forsaken did it.” I’d already figured it out, but feel the need to verbalize my findings. Everything becomes so much clearer. Every time Jeremy would get annoyed at the news reports and how Dad would just turn off the TV and tell me to ignore it make so much sense. Jeremy just nods.
“I beat the guy down and got Nic’s keys from her. Shoved him in the trunk and took him to the clubhouse. I wanted him dead, but he hurt Duke’s woman, so it wasn’t my call.”
“That’s why they let you prospect early, isn’t it?” I ask. He nods again. I knew he had to have done something impressive for the club to give him a cut before he was legal. That’s always been the rules—nobody underage prospects. But then... Jeremy. And knowing he’s the youngest to ever prospect for the MC—in its entire history—made him desirable instantly. Getting to know this side of him is big trouble for me, because I’m getting sucked into him quickly.
“We’re at the clubhouse, and Wyatt—the fucking VP—looks at me and says, ‘Show me you got enough heart for this club,’ and has me hold Jennings’s head up while Knuck and Diesel held the fucker in place. Nobody wanted Nic to see the shit that was about to go down, but Duke fucking brought her in anyway and let her have first crack. She fucked him up good, and it looked painful, too. But the shit she was saying, like she was repeating Jennings’s words back to him? I won’t forget that shit. Not ever.”
We’re silent a long moment before Jeremy gives me a squeeze and whispers, “So after Nic’s done fucking him up, Duke takes his turn. Gotta tell ya, I’ve never respected the dude more than in that moment. He fixed my sister’s shit when I didn’t.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper because I don’t know what else to say.
“No, I’m sorry. I’m going to do right by you. I won’t let that shit happen to you.”
“What exactly did he do?” My voice falls so quiet I’m not sure he hears me over the ocean.
He clears his throat and buries his face in my neck as he whispers, “He raped her. More than once. He beat her, too. I used to see the bruises when I was younger, but she’d say she got into another fight with some random chick when I asked. He never gave me reason to really think he was hurting her.”
“It’s hard to picture your sister like that.” Because I don’t know Nic any other way.
“Right?” he says, his mood lifting slightly. “Pissed her off once, and she shoved me in the fucking closet and locked it until I cooled down.”
“What?” I ask, letting out a small laugh. I just want to forget everything he’s said before that. I’ve always known a large part of my dad’s job involves violence and intimidation, but hearing the details of it is startling. Yeah, he’s got a loud bark and he can be a serious asshole, but he’s still just my dad. He’s the man who taught me to dance and played tea party with me. I’m not allowed to talk about it, but he did it. He’s the guy who holds Holly while she cries herself to sleep some nights, and he’s the man who never lets me forget how loved I am. The man who watches a person—even a disgusting parasite like Darren Jennings—be beaten within an inch of his life isn’t the man I know. But I guess that’s how they all are. There’s always two sides to Forsaken men.
“I want to say it was a while ago, but it was last year,” Jeremy says with a snicker.
I let out a short giggle at the mental image. Nic’s a foot shorter than Jeremy, so there’s no telling what tactics she employed to actually force him into a closet and lock him in. I might need to call her for tips.
“I won’t let anything hurt you, not even me,” he says. His mood darkens again, and he’s back to speaking in that sullen way where his words drag out painfully slow and so weighted with meaning and promises that I’m drowning in my own insecurity and desperation to have him love me the way I think I’ve fallen for him—fast, deep, hard, and without a safety net to limit the destruction when this all goes to shit. Because we just got together. Like… just.
“Not hurting me means not shutting me out,” I say.
“You’re scaring the crap out of me, Chey.”
“Then help me,” I plead. “Holly’s getting better, but she’s still struggling, and God only knows what’s going on with Mindy. Nobody can seem to get ahold of her.”
“Club’s handling it,” he says firmly. Like that’s supposed to stop me.
“You’re not saying anything new. Quit shutting me out.”
“Meth heads who raped Mindy kept calling her Nic while they did it, so the club thinks it’s revenge for his prick kid.”
I let my eyes fall closed so I can block the world out for a moment. I’m under no delusions that Forsaken is a club full of angels. They may be assholes, and they use women and lose them before the condom comes off. They may even sell pot by the fucking ton, but so what? It’s weed, not heroin. Even if it were, they don’t have women raped or send their men out to kill their own children. They don’t do those things, so why is all this awful shit happening to us?
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he says.
“I’m just trying to figure out why so much crap is hap
pening to the club is all.”
Neither of us say a word for a long while. The sun starts to set as the temperature drops. Jeremy must be freezing, but he doesn’t move to leave.
“I got a job to do,” he says. “And for me to do that job, I got to know you’re not poking into shit you shouldn’t be. Got it?”
“One night, less than a week after the... attack.” My voice drops lower with every word as I figure out how to word what I’m trying to say. “Holly woke up screaming. Dad was outside with Ian. Whatever they were talking about had them both really upset. I didn’t want to bug them, so I went downstairs to see if I could calm her down. She let me crawl into their bed with her, and as we were lying there, side by side, she was crying. Not like screaming anymore, but her face was covered in tears. She looked so out of it, like she didn’t really know what was going on around her. Then something clicked, and she looked at me and just said, ‘I’d do it again,’ and then she mumbled the numbers seven and one. It was totally creepy and really weird, but she did something for my dad, which means she did something for me. And I love her, and I can’t lose her.”
I let that settle with him for a long moment before saying, “Holly did what she had to do for us. Now I’m doing what I have to for her.”
“Christ,” he mutters. “If I promise to keep you up-to-date on shit I find out, will you promise to fucking leave it alone?”
I think that over for a moment before nodding in agreement. I feel lighter now, less frustrated and more hopeful. Being able to share my fears with him and to have him promise to keep me up-to-date makes me feel better than I have in weeks. He twists me in his lap so I can face him better, and very slowly, he leans in and presses his lips to mine. Letting out a happy sigh, I press back, and we begin to move in a practiced rhythm. It’s a few minutes of wandering hands and heaving breathing and a kiss that quickly moves from chaste to something that should most definitely be private. Just as my hands trail down his arms, rubbing his practically frozen flesh to warm him up, his phone buzzes from beneath me.
We pause, and I wiggle off his lap and onto the cold-as-hell sand and curl up to his side. He pulls the phone out, stares at the screen, and says, “Fuck.” He pushes a few buttons and then brings the phone to his ear. He closes his eyes and places his head in his hand. All is quiet for a moment before Duke’s voice shouts through the line in an angry string of curses.
“Yes, sir,” Jeremy says, sounding so freaking upset.
“You fucked up, boy,” Duke barks so loudly that I can hear him without even straining to listen in.
“Yes, sir,” Jeremy repeats.
“Where the fuck did you go?” Duke demands.
Jeremy kicks at the sand in front of him and mouths, “Fuck.” He hasn’t met my eyes, which may not be so bad after all. At least if he’s not looking at me I don’t have to see his eyes. He’s in trouble and, from the sound of it, lots of it—and it’s my fault.
Shame assaults me for not even thinking about the fact that Jeremy was supposed to be working this afternoon. I know he got in trouble when he picked me up from the Jennings’ house. He was supposed to be on security detail that afternoon, but instead he was picking me up. Dad was so pissed he even grounded me over that because I lied to Dad and told him I begged Jeremy not to tell anyone I’d left the house without a detail on me. Knowing how pissed Dad was that day, I should have stopped Jeremy earlier when we left the clubhouse. If he’s not going to think of the consequences of going rogue, then I’ll have to do it for him.
“Miss Priss was in trouble,” he says.
It’s weak, and Duke knows it. He gives Jeremy the riot act about responsibility and makes a snide remark indicating that maybe Jeremy isn’t mature enough for his cut yet.
“It was a fucking emergency.”
But Duke doesn’t care. He’s fired up, and it sounds like there’s no stopping him as he says, “Not my fuckin’ problem. Good luck explaining this shit to the Pres.”
The call ends, and Jeremy just sits there, staring at his phone. I don’t push him to move or speak. I just watch as he mentally chides himself for fucking up with the club. Regret and sorrow fill me up until I’m choking on my own self-deprecation. Maybe I should stop poking into things if having to save my ass every time I find myself in hot water is going to get Jeremy into trouble. If there’s one thing he wants more than anything else, it’s his top rocker. I don’t want to be the reason it doesn’t happen for him.
CHAPTER 19
March
13 months to Mancuso’s downfall
It’s been bliss, just being with Jeremy these past several weeks. I wasn’t sure about his commitment to us at first. Everything had begun so rocky that I almost couldn’t believe he was for real. Above anything else, I wanted to believe him. He’d confided in me, saved me—more than once—and he’d protected me from my dad and the club finding out what I’ve been doing. But he’s still Jeremy, and his reputation leaves something to be desired. After a few weeks, Holly sat me down and asked me what was going on. Every time he’d leave for work or for home, my mood would make a drastic turn and I’d sulk for the next day or two.
As a prospect, he’s busy. I get it. Nic just had her and Duke’s baby—a little girl they named Robin. She was born just two days after my eighteenth birthday, and holy crap, is she freaking cute. I’ve only seen her twice in the week since she’s been born, but I love her already. Holly and I went shopping for baby gifts, and I already know Dad’s in major trouble because Holly totally has baby fever. I’d kill for a sibling so that somebody else on this planet can understand the pain of having Sterling Grady for a father.
When Jeremy isn’t pulling sixty-plus-hour weeks at the shop and doing God knows what else for the club, he’s on baby duty. I just want… time with my boyfriend. And now that I’ve gotten my GED test results back and I’ve passed, I have more time to spend with him—not that I actually spend more time with him since Duke’s passing off baby chores on him. Apparently baby crap smells worse than big people crap, which is nasty. I don’t even know how it’s possible considering the clubhouse bathrooms are always questionably unclean.
It’s not really club business—making Jer babysit—so technically not a part of his duties with the club, but I’m not about to tell Duke that. I believe the phrase Duke used was “own your balls and asshole.” So instead I whined to Holly about it. I told her all about how I worry what he’s doing when I’m not around, and who he’s doing it with. I told her I want more time with him—more alone time—and that no matter how he swears he’s been faithful, I’m terrified to find out he’s not been. He’s so freaking hot and such a great kisser, and even though I haven’t gotten all that far with his lower half, I’ve seen it up close, and it’s mighty impressive. Then again, what do I know? But telling him it’s big and thick seems to make him happy, so I don’t question my judgment.
Holly was gentle but firm in her assessment. Part of me wished Grandma had been available to talk to, but when I tried, she didn’t even know Jeremy and I were a thing. She said last she checked, I still hated him after he was an epic douche canoe. She’s been so absent lately that I’m starting to think she’s seeing someone.
Apparently I was suffering from a bad case of self-doubt, which she drilled into me was only going to serve to hurt my relationship. While Dad never opted to say it to me himself, I’ve overheard him telling Holly that he agrees with her. That was kind of big, because until I had heard Dad admitting he was worried I was going to sabotage my relationship, I was convinced he would’ve been excited if Jeremy and I would break up.
But that was a few weeks ago, and ever since then, our relationship has been nothing but perfect. I know perfect won’t last, because everybody keeps reminding me the first love is fleeting. Eventually our relationship will have to evolve, or it will end.
Their words, not mine.
A firm thud sounds against my bedroom door followed by Grandma’s soft voice. “Knock, knock.” As always, s
he doesn’t wait for permission to enter. She just does. And she has the nerve to talk about Dad’s manners. But I keep that to myself because she’s been MIA lately, and any time I can score with her—and maybe some of her bomb-ass snickerdoodle cookies—the better.
Shifting on my bed, I turn to the door and raise an eyebrow in question. She stands with her hand on the doorknob and mimics my look with her own raised brow. “Well, well, well,” I say. “Funny seeing you here. At home. Where you left me. With Dad. And Holly.”
“Is this your mature way of saying you’ve missed me?” she asks. I check out her outfit and roll my eyes. She has some kind of glitter-glue thing going on that matches on both her jeans and her button-up. It’s all silver and hot pink swirls and flowers and crap that I wouldn’t be caught dead in. I fucking hate puff paint with a passion—and I hate it even more that Holly got her a new set of paints for Christmas. It’s like they’re trying to kill me.
“Well, like I said, you left me here with Dad. I mean, what did I do to deserve that?”
She crosses the room and takes a seat at the foot of my bed and smirks. “From what I hear? You’ve done plenty to earn a little time under house arrest. Sneaking beer, cutting class, and being a brat to everybody you come into contact with?” She whistles and then grins. “Your father did the same crap. Good job throwing that back at him. It’s about time he got as good as he gave.”
“Thanks. I’ve been working on giving him an ulcer,” I say. “But really, where have you been? You keep disappearing. It’s kind of pissing me off.”
“That’s what I came to talk to you about,” she says. “I love you, baby girl. I do. But I put my life on hold to help your dad raise you. I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world, but Grandma is done checking homework and grounding your stubborn ass. You’re an adult now, and you have Holly. Lord knows Sterling won’t be letting her go.”
“So you’re ditching me?”
“You’re ditching me, sweetheart. Pretty soon you’ll be off to school in the city.” The mention of culinary school is both exciting and scary. San Francisco is a huge city, and life would just be super different there. I wanted to go when Holly and I first talked about her time living in the city, but now I don’t know.