Page 20 of Strider's Misstep

“Best read it yourself, Prez. Don’t take our word for it. See what you think of it, and whether we could be right.” Buzz’s raised eyebrow is a challenge that I can’t turn down.

Perhaps he’s right. Maybe I know the girl better than them and will be able to tell them it’s all imaginings conjured up out of her head. I’ve never met anyone so straightforward before, what you see with Jasmine is what you get. How could she have a secret past that’s full of danger now? No, they’re wrong. Andseeing it written in her very own words will cement my opinion I’m right.

With a raise of my chin, I reach over the bar, grab a bottle of Jack, and go through the back of the clubhouse and out to my room.

Book lovers would probably hate me, but in my haste to get to Jasmine after discerning the depth of her affection to me, I’d thrown the book face down, and still open at the page which was the last one I’d read. Seeing it now, I’ve broken the spine. I’m sure that won’t make the list of my worst crimes and serves me well now. I’ve no need to search for the place I left off.

Swigging whisky straight from the bottle, I settle down, propping a pillow behind my head.

Jasmine can’t have led a secret life or be running from a past worse than perhaps a jealous ex. It’s not possible, surely? Laughing internally at my officers’ interpretation of the fiction that surely came straight out of her head, I start reading her words.

Despite that I don’t normally read for fun, once more I find myself drawn into her story. It’s no wonder she’s found success. Her writing flows well and her descriptions draw me in. The interactions between the club members make me laugh. Until… I get to the part when the fictional heroine’s background comes out.

Drawing my legs up, I sit up straight as it slowly dawns on me that Buzz and Tequila might be on to something. I’ve already accepted, and as proved by Jasmine’s own reaction, the first half of the book, her longed-for relationship with the MC prez was based on real life. Now, the amount of description and detail certainly looks like it’s been written with the knowledge of someone who has lived through severe trauma.

They can’t be right, can they?Surely, I’d have seen something in Jasmine, a haunting in her eyes that screamed ofabuse. But then, I hadn’t really looked at her the first few times I took her to my bed, far more interested in her other assets to spend time reading the emotions on her face.

Jasmine can’t have described herself.If she has, it’s unbearable. After a few more minutes, I have to toss the book to one side as it’s just too fucking hard to read anymore. Hoping with everything I am that if this has been her life, she’s overdramatized what she went through to maximise the angst in her fictional world. Brushing my hands back through my long hair, I conjure up a vision of the beautiful face I’d eventually come to know so well, wishing I had her in front of me to ask, did you really suffer? Was this your life?

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I never thought to question why someone like her had walked into my club, prepared to whore for my brothers. She’d so entranced me that as far as I was able to, I took her as mine. She’d never been a club girl in my eyes.

Because she hadn’t been one.If even half of what she’d written is true, she came to us for the protection clubs like ours offer to property and to hide. No one would think of looking for her here. Not someone born into the wealthy family she had been.

If any of this is true, of course.

It can’t be.I stare at the book as though it could give me answers, but apart from offering more pages to read, it’s of no help.

My officers were concerned that Jasmine might really have been telling her story. I can’t afford to doubt the rights of their insight.I can’t afford to be wrong.She might think time is on her side. That after three years, she’ll have been placed in the past. But I’ve known bastards like the one described, and they never give up.Ifeven half of her story is true, she’s in danger.

I push up off the bed, striding to the door and go back through to the clubroom. I waste no time raising my voice. “Church, now!”

“About fuckin’ time,” Shotgun murmurs as he walks past me, quickly followed by Buzz, Tequila, Mex, Data, Shout, Radar, Madman and Shark. Horn and Hustler aren’t around, but they can be forgiven for missing an impromptu meeting.

I give them a moment to get to their places and settle down, then bang the gavel. With all eyes on me, I point to the man at my left. “Shotgun. Want to fill them in?”

Grimacing, my VP replies, “You want me to tell them what a dick you’ve been?”

Snorts of laughter quickly die as Buzz slashes his hand through the air and then takes the floor. “This may be something. May be nothing. But hear the facts, then you can decide whether it’s a life-or-death situation and whether we take it on as a club.” His eyes meet mine for a moment, and I nod.

Shotgun raps his hand on the table, and they all fall quiet.

The Arizona Charter has got StoryTeller who can weave a good tale. We might not have similar, but my VP doesn’t miss that definition by a mile. Far better than I could have done, he enthrals us as he tells about an author who decides to use her background for her novel. With only a quick glance my way, he describes the relationship between the club girl and the MC prez, and then goes on to the darker parts of the story, the bits that make my stomach churn and the whisky I’ve drunk want to resurface.

I force back bile as he comes to the end.

There’s silence around the table that’s broken only when Madman cackles. He thumps his fist onto the wooden surface. “Good one, VP. You really think Jasmine’s different from any other patch-chasing girl? She got her eye on our prez.” He waves my way. “I suspect Prez told her to get lost when he saw wherethings were headed. Girl left because her nose was put out of joint.”

My hands clench. In some ways, Madman isn’t wrong. I’ve nothing to offer to Jasmine, but I didn’t really think that when I returned to the club, she’d have packed her bags and would be gone.

It’s Mex who gets his word in next. “Must admit, I’ve not read all her books?—

“Surprised you can read at all,” Shout butts in, causing a raucous laughter.

Two raised middle fingers is his response before he continues, “But I did read the one we’re talking about. She uses her words well. Can draw you into her world.” He taps his head. “I believe her imagination is where this is all coming from. I thought it was far-fetched as I read it.” He frowns as if he might be missing something. “What I don’t get is why you think she’s relating her own life now.”

“Because she can?” Tequila suggests. “She’s got her readers believing the stories she weaves. Maybe she feels more confident. She’s not visited therapists that I know of, so perhaps it’s cathartic to get her history out, and safe because it’s dressed up as something made up.”

“Which she’d have gotten away with,” Buzz jumps in. “Except for the relationship between the heroine and Prez. If that follows real life, why shouldn’t the rest?”

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