Jagger’s mind was working a mile a minute. “How the hell did he get away with it?”
“Clinton had friends, law enforcement friends. At least two or three times a month, there was a sheriff car parked out in front of the house. I never saw the actual people, but the cars belonged to different counties. I get the feeling he had something on all of them. One night he had a huge fight with one of them, and I could hear some of the words as they screamed at each other. It’s like he finds the one weakness that the person has and he exploits it. Just like he did with you guys. It’s something that you can’t get out of easily or something that you can’t just push under the rug.” She was quiet for a few minutes. “I think that’s how he got me. He knew something about Dad. He mentioned once when he was drunk, which was rare, about something that happened with someone involving the church and how it was swept under the rug.”
Jagger froze and his body turned cold. “That wasn’t Dad,” he whispered. “That was me.”
That pissed him off. This piece of shit had used what had happened to him against his sister? How had this man even found out about it? How long had he been looking at Christine before he’d approached their dad to marry her? Was he a child molester? So that she would understand that he wasn’t the one who’d had to hide, he forged ahead. “Something was done to me. I didn’t do anything that had to be covered up, it was done to me, and Dad didn’t want to believe it. There were certain people that did, though. Of course, Dad wanted to sweep it under the rug and not let people know what happened.”
“Then we were both played,” she whispered.
“Because we had awesome parents.” His tone was sarcastic.
“But it didn’t kill us,” she grinned as she walked over and put her hand in his.
“Nope, it didn’t. Here the two of us are, still standing. I actually have a woman that loves me, I know you’ve got a man that cares deeply for you, and I’m really sorry that I busted his head open. It was such a shock to see you. I didn’t know what to do. All I thought was how long I’ve looked for you and he’d had you all along. It pissed me off.”
“Can you imagine how I felt when I started stripping at Wet Wanda’s and I found out that my brother was the one bringing the house down singing? I wondered why in the world, out of anywhere that I could have gone, I went to the place you were.”
“Because it always works out, no matter what.”
For the first time in a long time, she actually believed him.
Travis’ head was killing him, and he wasn’t looking forward to Jagger coming back into the clubhouse. It had gone even worse than he had assumed it would.
“Are you okay?” Rooster asked as he sat next to his cousin.
“Do I look okay?” he asked, pulling away the towel from the back of his head. They were waiting on Ashley to get there to stitch him up.
Rooster was quiet for a few minutes before he spoke. “I’m sorry you got caught up in my shit.”
“What?” His head hurt, and he wasn’t able to figure out what in the hell Rooster was going on about. “It may be the fact that my head is pounding, but you’re going to have to explain to me what you mean by that.”
“If I hadn’t done what I did as a teenager, with Roni and Liam, this Clinton man wouldn’t have been able to use it against Christine. I’m sorry about that.”
“This is what I don’t get, Brandon.” It felt weird, using Rooster’s given name. It had been a very long time since he’d used it, since they were kids. “Why weren’t you honest with me about why you and Liam didn’t talk anymore? Why aren’t you true to yourself? Obviously you’re just as outlaw as the rest of the guys in this clubhouse.”
“It’s hard to explain, but I had to take on a persona to keep myself safe at that camp. Liam thinks that maybe he had it worse in juvie, but I wonder about that every day of my life. The people up there at that camp were hardcore. It was the last place they were going before prison, and they were hard ass about all of it. Every day that I was there, I wished that someone would come get me and take me home. I was made fun of because of my red hair, because I had made a deal and Liam had been sent to juvie and I hadn’t. Everyone knew what had happened.”
Travis remembered, it had been a big deal back then. It had been on the news, and there had been talk that they would be tried as adults. Everyone had a theory about what had really happened. There was talk that William had actually done it and then let his son and Rooster take the fall for it. Lots of people in their small town thought it was Liam’s initiation, that it was the only way he would be allowed into the Heaven Hill MC. Knowing now what that event had really been, Travis was sad. It had ruined a friendship, and now it was affecting lives of people that hadn’t even known about it.
“So you decided to become a hard ass and be a sheriff’s deputy?”
“I didn’t know what else to do. After I completed the program, my record was expunged, and I was scared. Believe it or not, a lot of people wanted to be the ones to break me. I needed something to do that would show me how to protect myself in a legal way. Then once I got there, I had to change the way I thought. I was used to hanging out with people who didn’t necessarily obey the law, and then here I was expected to uphold it. It wasn’t nearly as easy for me as people assumed, I’ll tell you that. There’s a large, very large, part of me that would love to be in the position you are. That’s honestly where my heart is.”
“With Roni?” Travis grinned.
“That was a long time ago, but you never forget the first, huh?” Rooster couldn’t keep the sad smile off his face either. “There are going to be some tough decisions I’m going to have to make, but first I need to figure out what we’re going to do about this Clinton guy. He wants your lady back, in a bad way, and he’s got something on the sheriff. I’m not sure I can help with this. My hands might be tied.”
“Then we have to figure out what he has on the sheriff or figure out something on him. But first, you need to talk to Christine, she thinks there were some women killed in that house, and I need to get a motherfucking painkiller.” He winced.
Rooster pulled his cuffs out of their holder. “You want me to arrest Jagger for assault?” He couldn’t keep the smile off his face.
Travis laughed. “If only that would bring this asshole out into the open.”
“It might,” Rooster mumbled, thinking aloud. “If he wants Christine, don’t you think he would know who her brother is? Wouldn’t he be interested in a having a few minutes alone with him?”
“No,” a female voice yelled. “Don’t use him like that.”
Christine and Jagger had come back in, and they had obviously caught the tail end of the conversation.
Jagger spoke up. “Do you think it would help? Cause you can go ahead and put me in those cuffs if you think it will.”
Rooster turned it over in his head for a couple of minutes. “I think it’s worth a shot. What’s one night there? We’ll keep you by yourself, and come tomorrow morning we’ll drop the charges and you’ll be free to go. What have we got to lose?”
“He’s not a nice man. I know exactly what he can do if he gets you alone.”
“You forget what I’ve been doing the past few years, sis,” Jagger reminded her. “I can handle myself. It’s not that big of a deal.”
She took a glance around the clubhouse and, for the first time, really looked at the people who were surrounding them. She guessed he had been doing a lot of different things in the last few years. There was not one person here who looked like they couldn’t handle themselves. It was time for her to ask for help, time for her to let her brother in and put this part of life behind her. It was time for her to live, and it was her right. She didn’t have to stay the way she had been. It was okay to make a change.
“Okay, but whatever he tells you about me, don’t believe him.”
She was very well aware of how he liked to manipulate, and she was scared that he would turn them all against her, right as she had fo
und them.
Chapter Eighteen
Christine sighed as she sat on the same back porch that she had been on earlier in the day. She needed to decompress. The events of the day had been tiring, and she knew all of it was because of her and the choices that she had made. Travis now lay in his bed, sleeping off the pain medication that Ashley had given him after she stitched up his head. That head was now almost bald, and even that made her feel awful. Jagger now sat in a jail cell, waiting to see if they could bring Clinton to them. She hated this. She should have made better decisions for everyone involved. The sliding glass door opened, and she looked up, seeing B. The other woman hesitated at the threshold before making her way out into the night.
“Hi,” she said to Christine, almost shy.
“Hi,” she said back.
It was awkward, and Christine wasn’t sure what to do. This woman obviously meant a great deal to Jagger, and she wanted to get to know her too, she just wasn’t sure how to do that. The only friend she had made in years was Travis, and that had been based on need and an attraction that she could now no longer deny. B tentatively came over to the all-weather table and had a seat across from her. They were quiet for a few minutes, until the other woman spoke.
“I’ve been with Jagger for a while. We’re going on a year,” she smiled softly. “Well not ‘officially’, but we’ve been flirting for at least a year.”
Christine wondered what this conversation was going to be, and it made her nervous. Was B going to tell her what an idiot she had been? Was she going to be upset because Jagger now sat in a jail cell, trying to lure out this other man? She didn’t want to open her mouth and interrupt, so she kept silent.
“There’s been a million times in the last year that he’s driven me crazy and I’ve wanted to kill him,” she laughed, before her face turned serious. “But there’s been a handful of times since he moved in with me and we’ve been sleeping in the same bed that he’s awoken in the middle of the night. Those nights are bad, he’s screaming bloody murder, and sweat is pouring down his body, and he’s gasping for breath, and it takes me a long time to calm him down. It always takes him a long time to tell me what causes that. Every time, it’s a nightmare about his childhood, and it’s the guilt over leaving you alone. He always tells me that he hoped that by him leaving you alone, you had a better life, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that you hadn’t. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong with you.”
B stopped for a moment, letting those words sink in.
“We were always close,” Christine whispered, tears thick in her throat. “I was so mad at him when he left. I couldn’t hear the fight that he and my dad had. They were outside, and when Jagger came banging back in the house, up to his room, Dad gave him ten minutes. I remember because I kept watch on that clock as I heard him gathering stuff in his room. I waited at the door of mine, hoping against everything that he would get me and take me with him.”
“He wanted to,” B interjected. “He’s told me that a million times, but you weren’t of age, and he knew that your parents would spin it. They would say that he kidnapped you, and then he would be done for. He went back, ya know? A few years ago and then again more recently.”
Christine’s head shot up. “How recent?”
The other woman cleared her throat and averted her eyes. “Earlier this year, there was a situation. The principal at the school I teach at became obsessed with me. He held me hostage and the Heaven Hill boys, along with Rooster, had to come save me. It brought up a lot of feelings in both Jagger and me. The last thing I remember about being in the room that the principal had me in was that he had me up against the wall, his hand at my throat, he had lifted me so high my feet couldn’t touch the ground, and I was having a very hard time breathing. I know I blacked out, but I don’t know for how long. Jagger is the one that came in the room and saw it. It apparently triggered something in him about his childhood?” She formed the statement as a question, because it was something she had always wanted to know. Jagger had opened up to her in a big way, but in some cases, he was still very closed off about what he had gone through as a child.
“That was my dad’s favorite thing to do,” Christine whispered. “He loved to toy with us, and that was an easy way to do it. He would never do it long enough to leave bruises or to make us black out, but he would cut off the circulation long enough so that we would panic. You, of all people, know what it’s like to try and breathe and not to be able to. Our dad was an evil man, and our mom was very subservient. She went along with anything he wanted her to.”
Hearing her suspicions confirmed made B sad and mad at the same time, but she pushed those feelings back. This wasn’t about her; this was about the man that she loved and the woman who would be a part of her life, God willing. “After that ordeal, the both of us began seeing a therapist. Jagger has mentioned some things that happened as a child, but I can tell he’s holding back, probably because he doesn’t want me to think any less of him—which is dumb, but it’s how he is sometimes. One of our sessions a month or so ago, he mentioned you and the guilt that he felt. He told the doctor about having gone back a few years ago and being thrown off the property, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that you needed him.”
Going back in her mind, she figured that was around the time that she had escaped and Travis had found her. It was crazy how feelings in siblings could be like that. “I did, but luckily around that time is when I met Travis.”
Bianca forged on. “The more recent time that he went back to your parents’ house, it was abandoned.”
That was a huge shock to Christine. Their parents had loved their home. It hadn’t been happy, but it had been theirs, and they treated it with the utmost care and respect. “What?”
“Yeah, Jagger wouldn’t take me, but according to him, the yard was grown up and the doors were locked. I’m not sure if he tried to go in or not, but he came back pretty disheartened.”
A cold feeling settled over Christine. What if her escaping had meant the end for her parents? She always got the feeling that she was the payment for something. She had never been sure what, but what if her leaving had more consequences than even she knew? “We’ve gotta get Jagger out of that jail cell. I have a really bad feeling about it,” she suddenly had to get him out. “I don’t want him there.”
“What do you think happened?” B asked, her eyes wide.
“I always got the feeling I was payment for something. It was mentioned in passing a few times. What if my running away meant that payment in full wasn’t made? What if Clinton is the reason my parents abandoned their house and he needs payment again? It’s obvious from everything I’ve seen that he has a lot of law enforcement in his pocket. I’m scared that Jagger’s there, we’ve gotta get him out. We need to go about this another way. I won’t have him hurt because of me.”
“Okay, calm down,” Bianca told her, worried that the other woman was going to have a panic attack. “Let’s go get Liam, tell him our concerns, and get Rooster to pull him out. It’ll be fine.”
Christine hoped that it would.
Jagger paced the cell they had placed him in and breathed a sigh. It had been a very long time since he had been in one of these, especially of his own free will. He was pretty sure that had never happened. His thoughts were racing as he paced. He wanted so badly to end this man that had caused such grief for his sister. He also wanted to know exactly what had been done to her and why their dad had given her up so easily. None of it made sense to him, and if he was honest, he was probably in shock. This whole situation was more than he could stand, more than he could process at this point. God, he hoped when he and B had children—and he knew it was going there with her, he loved to see her with Tatum—they wouldn’t fuck the kids up.
“Hey, I’m taking you out of here.” His head shot up as he heard Rooster come into the area they had him in.
“What? Why?”
“Liam’s orders. Apparently Christine and B
had a conversation, and neither one of them think you’re safe here.”
“I can handle myself,” Jagger argued.
“I know you can, but apparently what Christine and B talked about was a bit of a game-changer.”
That pissed Jagger off beyond words. If the two of them were talking, they should be talking to him so that he knew just what in the fuck was going on. He hated that. “So I’m just gonna leave?”
“I already got the paperwork processed. When this is over I’m gonna have to turn in my fuckin’ badge,” Rooster said softly.
“Are you kidding or serious?”
Rooster shook his head. “The things I’ve been doin’ are an abuse of power. If I don’t hand in my badge, I’m gonna be in so much fuckin’ trouble, I’m not gonna be able to get out of it. So yeah, I’m serious. As soon as we find out who Clinton is and what he wants, I’m done here.”
Jagger hated to hear that because he knew that for the most part Rooster was good at his job, when he wasn’t giving them a hard time. “I’m sorry to hear that. I really am.”
Rooster nodded his head and escorted him out into the booking area of the jail so that he could get his stuff back. As they walked out, side by side, they had to stop as a few other inmates were being brought in. A man in a suit standing with the sheriff caught Jagger’s eye. He had seen the man before, somewhere. He wasn’t sure where, but he could distinctly remember it. The man had a scar on his cheek, not huge, but big enough that you couldn’t miss it. And his eyes. They were a startling green color. Jagger knew that before the man lifted his face to look at him. The two of them stared at each other for a long time, until Rooster nudged him.
“I just need you to sign right here.”
Jagger did as he was told, standing as close to Rooster as he could. “Find out who that man in the suit is. I know him from somewhere, but I can’t place it. I think that might be Clinton.”
“You shittin’ me?” Rooster breathed, not glancing up at the sheriff and the man but taking note of all the details that he had seen in passing.
Heaven Hill Series - Complete Series Page 91
