Page 20 of Rodeo (Marked Skulls MC 2)
“Fred was young, he needed money to start a business and he had nobody else to ask it from—the banks didn’t want to lend him the dough. He took a loan from them,” Rodeo continued. Lila gasped and then tried to think logically.
“What about daddy? Why didn’t he just ask daddy or our MC for the money?” she asked and Rodeo clenched his jaws.
“I’m guessing this was before he met Lewis, and before the Marked Skulls was formed,” he replied.
“What happened to the business?” Girth cut in and Rodeo swung his head around to look at him.
“It tanked. He lost all the money. He spent a lot of years trying to pay the money back to those assholes, and they were never satisfied with what they got,” he explained.
“How were they not satisfied with it if he paid them back the full amount?” I asked in a squeaky voice. Things were beginning to make sense.
Girth was the one who was shaking his head now.
“They would have charged him an interest and if Fred took several years to pay that money back, he probably owed them more money in interest than he could afford,” Girth explained.
“It wasn’t just the interest. The Hell’s Drifters seemed to have an open tab with Fred. They came after him for more money, they kept going after him—threatening him so they could extract more and more,” Rodeo said.
I could see Lila’s eyes watering. Clearly none of them, even though they had all known Fred well, had any idea what was going on in his personal life.
“Why did they kill him?” I blurted. It might have been an insensitive thing to say and maybe it wasn’t my place to say it but I couldn’t stop myself. I was curious and confused.
“Because Fred refused to keep paying. They’d been after him, controlling his life for thirty years and he just didn’t want to keep doing it forever,” Rodeo replied.
“So they just killed him?” I asked. We were staring at each other. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“They threatened him. They provoked him. They hounded him till he refused to pay. They weren’t just going to let him off the hook—he had been a constant source of money for thirty years. They weren’t just going to forget about it and move on. If they weren’t going to get their money, they didn’t have a purpose for Fred anymore,” Rodeo said.
I gulped. My throat had gone dry. Even though I didn’t know Fred, I had got a sense of how close Rodeo was to him, and it made me sad to think that he had discovered these secrets about his mentor in such a brutal way.
“Girth, Lila, could you please give Jordan and me some time alone?” Rodeo said. He was talking to the two of them, but he was looking at me now. There was a darkened harsh look on his face, and I couldn’t think of why he would want to talk to me alone right now.
“Sure, yeah, Girth, maybe we should go,” Lila said, picking her purse off the couch.
Girth grunted and the two of them started walking towards the door.
“Thank you! I’m so grateful that you took the time out to come stay with me,” I called after them. Lila smiled and Girth tipped his head as they were leaving my apartment.
When I looked back at Rodeo, I could see him still staring at me. It was like he had noticed something new in me and was trying to get to the bottom of that.
“What’s going on?” I asked Rodeo. I could feel a chill running up my spine. Something was wrong, that much I had been able to figure out. This wasn’t about sex. He didn’t want to be alone with me because he wanted me. He wanted to say something to me.
“Rodeo?” I urged him, when Girth shut the door behind him. We were alone in my apartment again, and Rodeo was still staring at me.
“Jordan, maybe you should sit down,” he said. I couldn’t think of one good reason why he wanted me to sit down, unless he had some bad news to give me.
“Rodeo, you’re scaring me,” I told him. He was standing over me now, looking down at me firmly. He had his jaws clenched, his blue eyes were deep and stormy. It seemed like he was trying to prepare himself to say what he was about to say. My heart was racing. What could he possibly have to say to me in private?!
“Jordan, there was something else I discovered in Fred’s apartment. Something that relates to you,” Rodeo stated.
“Me? I didn’t know him,” I argued and he breathed in deeply, squaring his shoulders—like he was going in to battle.
“Fred was your father,” he said.
Chapter 17
Rodeo
Jordan was staring at me, her mouth was hanging open in shock. She was sitting on the couch and I was standing over her, while she looked like she’d just been slapped. I didn’t blame her for her reaction, that was how I’d felt when I first discovered the truth too.
“Rodeo, what are you talking about? You must be crazy,” she said.
I breathed out deeply and then sat down beside her on the couch. I reached for her shoulder, but she had no reaction to that.
“I’m sorry that you had to find out this way,” I told her and she shook her head. Her eyes were bright and wide, she was still trying to process the news.
“Please explain to me what you’re saying,” she said, in a shaky voice. I could see that she was trying to be firm, but she was confused.
“Fred was your father, that is what I’m saying, that is the truth,” I told her and she furrowed her brows.
“How do you know this? Do you think this is funny somehow?” she asked and I shook my head.
“I’m not trying to be funny. Was your mother’s name Sarah Avery?” I asked and she licked her lips nervously.
“Yes, it was. How do you know that?” she asked and I gulped. That was the last piece of information I needed, to validate my discovery.
“Because I know that Fred was your father, I have proof,” I said and Jordan stood up from the couch with a jerk.
“How do you know this?” she snapped. I could see that she was growing agitated. She was in total disbelief and she was beginning to distrust me too.
“Did your mother ever speak about your father?” I asked and she blinked at me rapidly for a few moments, before she shook her head.
“No, she didn’t. She said that it would be best if I never found out who he was. It doesn’t matter—I didn’t think I cared,” she said, and I could hear her voice beginning to crack.
“Fred wrote several letters to your mother over the years. Some of them he sent her—that’s my guess—but many of them, he never posted. I found them in a bundle in his desk,” I told her.
Jordan’s beautiful face was scrunched up and dark, her eyes were watery and the tops of her cheeks had turned to a deep red. I could see her whole body shaking from the shock.
“That is not proof, he might have known my mother at some point. That doesn’t mean that he is my father!” she snapped and I nodded my head.
“She wrote him a letter too. She talks about you in that letter,” I said. Jordan started pacing around the room, and I followed her every movement with my eyes. I was getting worried for her. I was worried that she was taking the news more badly than I’d anticipated.
“I don’t understand any of this. Why wouldn’t she tell me if she was still in touch with him? Why did he leave? Why did he never come see us? Why was he still writing letters?” she asked and she covered her face with her hands.
“Fred had no other choice. If he had a family, he would be putting their lives in danger. He was going to be indebted to the Hell’s Drifters for life—which meant that he was going to live a life on uncertain terms. Having a wife and a daughter would mean putting your lives at risk. He stayed away from you both to keep you safe,” I tried to explain.
Jordan shook her head. It was like anything I was saying to her seemed like a lie. She was still in disbelief.
“Hey, Jordan,” I said, standing up from the couch and walking towards her. She looked over at me and I could see that there was a fire in her eyes.
“No! Don’t just tell me all this and expect me to believe you. I
don’t believe you. This is too crazy!” she was gasping and breathing hard as she spoke and I walked towards her.
“Hey, okay, calm down. You don’t have to do anything. I just wanted you to know,” I said and reached my hand out towards her. She flinched when I touched her arm.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to upset you. I just thought that you deserved to know the truth,” I said and she stepped away from me.
“This is crazy. Why would he do that? Why would she do that?” she was saying and I shrugged my shoulders.
“That was probably why she didn’t want to tell you about him, because you were better of knowing as little as possible about him,” I said.
“Show me the proof. I want to see these letters myself,” she said, and there was a look of challenge in her dark eyes.
I nodded my head and then pulled out a bunch of letters from the pocket of my leather jacket. I sifted through the pages till I found the one I was looking for.
