Page 147 of Property of Fang
“No good’s gonna come out of it, Jenna.”
I lift my gaze to his. “I know.” I perch on the front edge of the seat and clap my hands together. “Tell me the truth,” I say. “About the debt. What’s the real story behind it?”
He holds my gaze—my own dark eyes staring right back at me—and flinches before nodding toward the road. “Who’s bike is that?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Think it does if it ain’t yours.” He sets the beer down and fusses with an abandoned cigarette perched on the edge of a glass tray.
The urge to light one myself flits into my brain, yet I quash the thought with a deep breath. “Is the debt real?”
“Of course it’s real,” he gripes.
“Is it still due?”
His focus lifts to me. “How do you mean?”
“I mean, do you still owe the money to the Devil’s Breed?”
He hesitates, barely, before saying, “It will be.” The pause is enough to massage the growing suspicion that pulls my shoulders taut.
“Just fucking explain it, would you?” My fingers knit tighter, aching in the webbing between. “Quit with the evasive short answers and just tell me the truth. I think you owe me at least that much”
“Fine,” he huffs, collapsing against the sofa and spreading his arms wide across the back. “If you think you want to hear it. Let’s do it.”
I shift Fang’s jacket to my lap for something to hold onto that doesn’t hurt as much as my nails gouging my hands.
“Your momma couldn’t pay the out-of-pocket costs, so she came to me for a solution. I gave her the money, knowing there was a good chance she’d never repay it, and her medicaltreatment continued.” He lifts his hands off the worn upholstery. “There’s not much more to it than that.”
“I think there’s a hell of a lot more you haven’t told me.”
“Like what?” He leans into the conversation. “We talked about this, Jenna. What else do you think I have to share?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I sass. “The reason why theyalways knew who I was.”
He stares at me, silent.
“Did you ever want to take Smoke down? Or was that a lie, too?”
“What reason have I given you to think that?” he contests, bitterly.
“All the bullshit you’ve told me since that doesn’t add up.”
“Like. What?” he grits out.
I tilt my head, thumbs tracing the outline of the phone in the inside breast pocket.Fuck—the phone.The Kings of Anarchy will knowexactlywhere I am. “You told me to go work for the Breed to gather incriminating evidence. You said you’d take it to the authorities to dissolve the club, make the debt disappear. You also said nobody would know who I was. But none of that was true, was it?”
He wets his lips and then worries his bottom lip with his teeth in a sneering way. “Not entirely. No.”
“Acid knows who I am. Whoever the fuck took that photo knows who I am.” I swallow. “Mary-Beth knew who I was.”
“Who’s Mary-Beth?” His staunch facade falters—he doesn’t like not knowing everything.
“Red Jimmy’s daughter.”
My father’s eyes flash with recognition before he schools his face once more. “What’s she got to do with it?”
“They had her too.”
