I push those thoughts away, much like I’ve been doing for a while, choosing to concentrate on Jasmine.
“I happen to think falling in love with you is about the only wise decision I’ve ever made.”
I snort out, unable to form a word. I slide my hand along the side of her neck and then I kiss her, trying to give her a sample of the emotion she strikes inside of me, without voicing it.
She drops her head down and rests against my chest. I let her have her silence. I don’t want to rush her and if she doesn’t want to tell me, ultimately, I won’t make her. I will find out eventually, however.
“When I met Dewayne, I was stupid,” she laughs, the sound holding no humor.
“Red—” I growl.
“I was. I was going through shit. Believe it or not, it’s not easy growing up when your father and uncles are the most notorious MC heard of in the last two decades,” she admits. “Dewayne seemed different. He wasn’t afraid of my family and on the flipside, he didn’t seem to care about it at all. I thought he wanted to be with me because of me, not because of whose daughter I was. It was a good feeling.”
“But that wasn’t the case?” I question, wanting to understand.
“No…” she says quietly, but there’s a wealth of emotion in that one word. So much so, that you can hear the pain ooze from it.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, Jasmine. Whoever this asshole is, whatever he did to you, it doesn’t factor in on who we are,” I tell her, vowing that I’ll find out without Jasmine telling me somehow.
“Dewayne knew my father. I didn’t know that. To me he played it off like he’d never really heard of him. I stupidly believed him—and yes, I know that was stupid.”
It was, of course. If Dewayne was a cop anywhere near the Savage territory, then he knew who Dancer was, he knew who the whole club was. Chances are he’d had dealings with them, or read reports where others had.
“You weren’t stupid, Red,” I try to reassure her. Kissing the top of her head. “Naïve, maybe.”
“Turns out he had a deeper idea of who my father was. Dad went to jail before I was born—before he and my mom ever got together really.
I rub the side of my neck. This is a touchy subject and I don’t know how to approach it. I can’t promise her that it won’t ever happen with me. My club’s rules and society’s laws don’t exactly mesh from time to time. A man has to do what he has to do to make sure no one ever fucks with him or his family and sometimes that involves fucked up shit…deadly shit.
“Red—”
“Don’t worry, Luke. This wasn’t about club stuff, although I’m not a stranger to that life, at all. Luckily Uncle Dragon and the others are very careful on what they allow, afraid of blowback on their families.”
“Is that what happened to you, Red? Were you a victim of blowback?”
“Yeah, not that Dad ever knew. He didn’t even know Dewayne, hadn’t met him except for the couple of times I brought Dewayne to the house.”
“I don’t think I understand, baby.”
Jasmine’s body is pulled taunt, like if she moves she might snap and break into a hundred pieces. She’s in my arms and yet, she feels like she might as well be a million miles away.
“When Dad was in prison… things happened. Shit messed him up really bad. He even tried to kill himself, drove his vehicle over the dam…”
Several things become clear to me. Things happening in prison could mean a hell of a lot and none of it is good. My hold on Jasmine tightens without thought. The next thing that comes to mind is the evening I found Jasmine at the dam in Kentucky and she spoke about someone else’s demons, she was speaking about her father’s.
“He tell you that?” I ask clearing my throat. It’s a shit thing for a father to lay on a child. I’m a crap father, trying to do better, and even I’d take that to my grave, not involving my daughter.
“No. Dewayne did,” she says and now it’s clear that she’s lost in her memories.
“Baby, maybe we—”
“Dad didn’t know Dewayne, but he knew Dewayne’s uncle, and before he died he was the one raising Dewayne. He made sure to tell Dewayne all about just how he had one of the Savage MC head men under his control and everything he did to my father.”
“Fuck…” I hiss, my imagination going everywhere, but the thoughts and questions running through my head aren’t ones that I will ever ask her—none that I would want her to answer.
“When my father got his revenge, it left Dewayne without a home and bent on getting revenge. I was clueless, naïve and innocent at the time…”