Three
Dear me, your anxiety is a lying ass bitch. Don’t listen to it.
—Jasper’s secret thoughts
JASPER
“Hello?”
“Hey,” my sister, Sophia, greeted me sheepishly. “I know that I was supposed to come see you today with the kids, but there’s been a diarrhea outbreak in the house, and I don’t think we can physically make the road trip to see you. I mean, we could try, but I think that my van would be covered in shit by the time we arrived.”
Just the idea of the shits gave me the creeps.
I hated being sick.
I paused. “Please, don’t be upset about not coming. I don’t want that shit. Literally.”
“That was the only time we could come, though.” She groaned. “Are you sure you can’t come down?”
I loved my sister.
I really, really did.
But I fuckin’ hated being back home.
Being back home brought up memories that I’d rather keep buried so deep I never thought about them.
My father, Madden, died in a fire at the gym that he co-owned. Sophia had been in the same fire, but my dad had managed to get her out. My dad hadn’t been so lucky, and he’d died.
My dad’s life had never been a good one.
He’d struggled from a young age to raise two kids, and never really got to experience life without strife.
Being home reminded me of the injustices in life, and I just wasn’t willing to go home and be yet another tragedy in the Madden family saga.
At least when I was in Dallas, I was fairly anonymous—as anonymous as you could be when you were a member of the Truth Tellers MC, anyway.
I’d first started on with the Truth Tellers MC as a part of an undercover sting operation, a joint task force of both the FBI and the DEA.
But over time, I’d found myself becoming a part of the Truth Tellers MC.
I’d found a home where I’d never expected.
And now I truly did belong—a fully patched in member of the Truth Tellers MC—and my fellow club brothers knew all.
I wouldn’t say that it’d been an easy transition after they’d found out. The club president, Webber, had originally asked me to leave and not come back.
But then I’d saved his wife in the parking lot seconds later, and he’d changed his mind.
I’d been lucky.
I’d take a bullet for their women over and over again as long as they’d let me stay.
This was the first place that I’d felt like I was home since my father had passed away.
“I’m sure,” I said to my sister. “Plus, you have everyone and their brother coming over to your place, and you know that I don’t do crowds.”
I hadn’t done crowds since life had kicked me in the teeth years ago, leaving me a burned husk of the man that I used to be.
