Page 73 of The Vipers and Their Vendetta

A chill creeps over my skin. Who the hell is this? What’s going on?

“Vani, meet Jarl Olsen,” Angelica says, and my stomach drops over a cliff.

What the hell? I glare at her, trying to convey how bad it is that she brought me here, and that she could be putting me in danger.

“Please, Vani, sit.” Jarl gestures for me to take the seat opposite him. “Don’t look so worried. I only want to talk.”

I do so warily. There’s hardly anyone here, and no one but Faith knows I came with Angelica. This man could literally kidnap me and whisk me away.

“What are you doing here?” I blurt. I glance between him and Angelica. “Do you two know each other?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

“I called him,” Angelica says. “I was worried about those Vipers getting their hooks into another girl, and thought he should know you were here. Also, I thought he should know just how bad the Vipers are.”

I frown, confused as hell, and address my question to Jarl. “But … you agreed to leave what happened to Reagan well alone, didn’t you?” I’m terrified of Jarl, but I have to speak my mind because this is weird. He narrows those icy eyes of his as I speak. “I mean, I was told you’d walked away, with all due respect. So, why are you here now?”

“I was given money to keep quiet,” he says. “I took that money, but I’ve regretted it ever since. Nothing can compensate for the loss of a child.”

He betrays no emotion at all. He might as well be talking about the loss of his car keys.

Angelica throws her two cents in. “I thought Mr. Olsen needed to know how many girls the Vipers have messed with. Reagan wasn’t the only one.”

They have? How many? My head swims. Maybe I’m being incredibly naïve in thinking they feel anything for me other than desire and contempt.

“And now they’re starting with you,” she whispers.

Jarl Olsen leans in. “I’d love to get to know you, Vani. You’re the closest thing to a living relative I have.”

“We’re not related at all,” I point out.

“Not by blood, but you are my daughter’s half-sister. I might have even been your stepfather, if things had been different, and she’d come back to me.”

The words on the edge of my tongue are far too incendiary to say. I want to scream at him that things might have been different if he hadn’t been a bastard who had raped my mother and then stole her baby.

Instead, I stay seated, rooted to the spot. I never wanted Jarl Olsen to know I even exist, but it’s too late now. The thing that worries me most is my dad finding out. My dad didn’t know anything about Mom’s past, and, if he finds out the truth, he’s going to be furious.

I wonder how much Jarl knows about me. Does he know my mom married Jack ‘The Blood’ McGrath, the leader of the Jackal Riders MC? If so, would he be here talking to me? After all, they’re one of the most feared biker gangs in the entire United States. Did he keep track of what my mom was doing, or, once he’d taken her baby, had he just washed his hands of her?

I’m livid with Angelica and unsure how to get myself out of this conversation. I could ask him all about Reagan, but I don’t think he ever loved her, not really. It would also feel like a complete betrayal of my mother to speak to him.

He folds his hands on the table. “Angelica told me, when we talked about those bastard Vipers, that you’re intrigued about Reagan, and want to know more about her. I brought photos and thought I could show you. Tell you a little about her.”

This is way too tempting. I want to walk away. I hate this man, even though I’ve never met him, for what he did to my mother, but he has something I desperately want. Information about my sister.

“Why would you share that with me?” I ask suspiciously.

“I want something from you in return.”

“What?”

The tiniest smile touches the corners of his lips. “Why don’t you look at the pictures first, and then we can talk about it?”

My fingers itch with my need to see more photographs of my half-sister, but if I agree to this without knowing what he wants, I could be tying myself into something terrible. Jarl Olsen is an incredibly intimidating man, but I’ve been around intimidating men my whole life.

“No,” I manage to say. “Tell me what you want first.”

He purses his lips, and I think he’s going to tell me to get lost, but then he sits back.

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