Page 142 of The Mercenary's Guide to Mishaps and Romance

“He was threatening her. I had no choice. He was blackmailing me, threatening to go to the police with what he’d found if I didn’t give him money!” Arthur says.

“Dad, please, please, tell me the truth,” I beg. “This is the only thing I will ever ask of you again. Please.”

Dad closes his eyes. “I wasn’t lying… about much. Arthur had a life I always… envied. It was like he let me in his life, but I never felt like I could be a part of it. I was like a… charity case.”

“That’s how you saw our relationship? Like I was fuckingpityingyou?” Arthur asks. “I thought you were my friend.”

Dad looks away. “That’s when his daughter came to me. Somehow Jasmine knew I was caught up in a big drug operation at work. What started as a homicide led me deep into what we soon realized was related to the cartel. Drugs and cartel nonsense was not my department, but I was still providing some information for it, and Jasmine knew it. She talked me into telling her where the transport was going… instead of calling it into the police. She promised me so much money. I was enticed by this idea that I could give you guys stuff I never had growing up. I could do things I never dreamed of doing, so I did what she asked. I practically sold her the information on where a shipment of drugs was going and how to intercept it.

“But it wasn’t enough for her because she’s greedy. She kept wanting more and clearly thought I wasn’t giving her enough fast enough. That’s when she started dealing with my partner in the department. He was ruthless. He was the exact mark she wanted… until he got busted. He wasn’t careful enough, and she fucking knew it. Next day, he mysteriously ends up dead. And I really finally fucking woke up.”

“Don’t act like I killed him. I didn’t kill him,” Jasmine snaps. “He fucked up and the cartel he was stealing the drugs from took him out, and you know it.”

“I didn’t fucking say you killed him.”

“And don’t act like you didn’t enjoy it,” Jasmine says. “You’re really going to make yourself into the victim here?”

“Just fucking shut up!” Dad yells. “I told Jasmine I was done. I wanted out before the cartel started sniffing around me, but she wouldn’t fucking stop. She wanted me to finish the job the other guy started. If it went through, she promised me money unlike anything I’d ever imagined having, but I wanted out. I fucking wanted out.”

“For wanting out, you sure didn’t get out,” she snarls.

“That’s when the threats started. She started sending me pictures of you, she started messaging Sienna. She was playing your naive sister. Sienna was convinced Jasmine was some fucking… rich young man who would give her the world. I wanted to protect you two. I wanted to protect my wife. I wanted to protect myself… but I didn’t. In the end… I only knew how to care about myself. I went back into it. I went back, knowing that none of you would ever be safe as long as I stuck with it. Knowing that if the cartel realized what I was doing, they’d kill all of you. And… I can lie to you all I want, Shawn, but…”

“He fucking loved it,” Jasmine interrupts. “He can cry and whine all he wants, but he fucking loved the thrill. He loved the money. He loved all of it.”

“Shut up,” he shouts, but she just laughs.

“Oh, he sure fucking loved it until your mother found out…”

Dad closes his eyes for a moment, seeming to resign to what Jasmine is amused about. “She did what I wasn’t strong enough to do. She found out what I was caught up in… she found out about the drugs and where I’d stolen them from. About the threats… she fucking… she’d do anything for you kids. She didwhat I could never do. She’s the one who hit Jasmine with a car she’d purchased just for that and tried to kill her.”

Jasmine laughs again, but it’s a cruel sound. “Your sweet innocent mother stood over me as I lay bleeding to death on the road. She made up some lie about working for the cartel. And I knew that if I didn’t do what they said, they would stop at nothing to kill me for the drugs we’d stolen from them. As I lay there bleeding, she spelled out the ruin that would come to all of us if I didn’t fucking die. My father wasn’t involved with the drugs, but she knew I’d drawn his business into it. How else could I afford what I did? She knew fuckingeverything. And she was going to ruin it all. I didn’t know she was some goddamn… useless woman. Some fucking bitch that had never held a gun in her life. I should have known that if she really worked for them, she would have shot me dead right there.

“But I was naive and stupid, and so I told my father the cartel was after me. I really believed they were going to kill me when they found out I hadn’t died. He paid someone to fake my death. I was tossed into hiding for twelve fucking years because I knew if I showed my face, it was the end. Either way, it would be the end. If the police found out what I did, I would be ruined. My father would be ruined. If they found out I was alive, they’d slaughter me for real this time.”

She shakes her head. “I was stupid to believe it… but I did.”

“Then how’d you find out that it was Zachary and his wife?” Tavish asks.

“Nate Stewart,” Arthur says. “I knew nothing about Zachary’s involvement until fucking Nate Stewart came to me and was trying to blackmail me. I mean… I sure feel like there’s only one goddamn way Nate Stewart knew any of this shit.” He looks over at Dad.

“Wait… you were working with Nate?” I ask. “Did you fucking learn nothing?”

Jasmine laughs. “You’re hilarious if you really think your father is a changed man. He wants to be a victim, but he fucking loves the thrill of it. He loves the money. The excitement. The conniving bullshit.”

I look back at Dad. “You and Nate were the ones who started this all over again? It was dead fortwelveyears and you fucking revived it?”

Dad shakes his head. “It wasn’t supposed to get out that I was involved or the reason why she was in hiding. They were never supposed to know that your mother was involved. I didn’t know Nate was going to stab me in the back and try to take all the money for himself.”

“You fucking deserve to be stabbed in the back!” I yell. “So you thought you and Nate were just going to get some money to keep quiet? Threaten Arthur with what his daughter was doing and laugh as you bathed in his money?”

Dad swallows hard. “You don’t understand.”

“Which part? I feel like I understand that you are so much worse than I ever imagined. I guess what I don’t get is why you disappeared. If Mom knew and allowed you to stay around for six months, why did you leave then?”

“Oh, she didn’t fucking want me around, I can guarantee you that. She just knew that if she called the police on me or did anything of the sort, Arthur might piece things together and realize that it wasn’t this cartel who wanted Jasmine. The police were fixated on finding who hit and ‘killed’ Jasmine.”

“Did Mom know Jasmine was alive?”

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