Chapter 27 Jasmine
JASMINE
I woke up to Ranger filling me in on the fact that my laptop had been cloned and that it was safe to use. He told me that Ghost and Scout had taken my original laptop back to my place to plant it in the hopes of warding off any other attacks to my place.
I didn’t care about that place, though.
I’d never be able to go back to it.
I cruised around on the laptop for a little bit, though. Checking the date and the time was a sobering experience. How in the hell had I already been at the clubhouse for a week?
It felt like years, to be honest.
The first thing that I did was check my email, and sure enough, I had two very specific emails in there addressed to me. Both from the firm. The first email was the basic informative confirmation that my paycheck dropped into my account.
The second email was my termination email.
That didn’t shock me, of course. I hadn’t been to work in… I counted the days in my head and groaned. Almost a week and a half. I checked the date of the termination email and was honestly surprised. It was dated five days after the last time I stepped foot into that firm.
I figured they would’ve fired me twenty-four hours after not showing up.
I hated that I couldn’t touch my money, though. It sat there like a lead weight, taunting me with its five digits.
Five. Fucking. Digits.
No wonder they paid me so much money.
Ranger filled me in on the fact that they very well could be tracking my bank accounts, waiting to strike whenever my card popped up onto the radar somewhere. So even though the money was there, all I could do was look at it.
I wanted to at least pay off some of my debt.
I mean, it wasn’t like I paid bills at the clubhouse or something.
Ranger assured me that the laptop was locked down, just like the rest of the girls with their technology, but that not accessing my money was more of a precautionary thing more than anything else.
‘No use rocking the boat when it’s already swaying.’
That was what Ranger said anyway.
I looked up at the television screens and got brave. I reached up and pressed a couple of buttons, watching as two of the screens illuminated with nothing but static.
“Oh,” I said as I turned on the other screens.
They were all staticky.
They were all blank.
Did they take down the cameras in my place?
I should’ve felt relieved at that, but I didn’t. My stomach fluttered with butterflies attempting to break free, and not in a good way. Did something happen while Ghost was at my place?
Was he okay?
I got up and started pacing. Fucking hell, I should’ve told them to check in on Dad while they were over there. I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. Maybe someone in this place had a safe phone they could call out on?
I whipped around, ready to go in search of a phone that I could use to call him.
But before I even took a step toward the bedroom door, it whipped open.
I found my masked man standing there with a blanket slung over his shoulder.
“Ghost,” I said breathlessly as I raced to him.
I wrapped around the edges of the bed just as he dropped the blanket to the floor. I heard it fall, like it had things wrapped up in it, but I didn’t care.
I launched myself at him.
And he caught me as I wrapped my arms and legs around him.
“You’re back,” I whispered as I buried my face into his neck.
“I’m back, firefly,” he muttered as he walked through the threshold and kicked the door closed behind him.
“What’s in the blanket?” I muttered into the skin of his neck.
He sat on the edge of the bed with me. “Just some last-minute things from your place that weren’t destroyed yet.”
I sniffled. “Thank you.”
He held me tightly, his hand skimming up and down my spine. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Just missed you.”
“Missed you, too.”
I drew in a deep breath of him, inhaling his scent.
I wanted to drown in him. I wanted to rest in his arms and never wake up.
How in the hell was I supposed to go back to living in my studio apartment?
How in the hell was I supposed to move forward after all of this was said and done? How was I supposed t—
“We checked on your father, by the way,” he said.
I gasped as I whipped my head up, my eyes finding his. “You did?”
He nodded.
“And he’s okay?”
He nodded again.
I searched his eyes. “What?”
“You didn’t tell me your father was an alcoholic.”
I searched his face for a while. “Oh.”
He paused. “Is that why you’re in so much debt? Because he drank you into it?”
I wiggled off his lap. “I’m really glad you guys are—”
He wrapped his hand around my wrist, preventing me from moving away from him. “Jasmine.”
“What?”
My voice was too curt. Too sharp. It made me shake my head. But all he did was stand and grip my chin before turning my watery eyes up to his.
“Firefly,” he muttered as he smoothed a thumb across my cheek, catching a tear I didn’t realize had fallen. “Talk to me.”
I just slowly shrugged. “What’s there to talk about?”
“How much debt did your father put you in?”
“Ghost,” I whispered.
“Talk to me, Jaz,” he said with a growl in his voice. “Let me help.”
“You can’t help. I just have to dig my way out of it.”
“How much more do you have to go before you’re done digging?”
I swallowed hard. “Last time I checked? Fifty grand.”
He swore beneath his breath. “What did it start at?”
“Gee, I—”
“Jasmine.”
I sighed heavily and closed my eyes. “One-fifty.”
I heard the shock in his voice. “A hundred and fifty grand?!”
I slowly opened my eyes as his hand moved to cup my cheek.
“He took out credit cards in my name when I turned eighteen. It was what he used to drink and pay bills for a while, until my credit was ruined. The job at the law firm was the only job I could find that paid me the kind of money I needed to be paid while also giving me the experience I needed for law school one day.”
“Is that your dream? Law school?”
I nodded slowly as tears crested my eyes.
“I want to help women like me, who are taken advantage of by the men in their lives. Now I understand that I had a lot of legal discourse at my disposal, but I didn’t know that when I was twenty and just figuring out what in the hell my father was doing when I tried to buy my first little podunk car from a dealership. ”
“I’m so sorry, Jaz.”
I looked off to the side and cleared my throat. “You’re sure my father’s okay?”
“He’s fine.”
“I’m just so worried someone will try and use him to get to me. He’s not a strong man. Never has been. He’ll give me up in a heartbeat.”
“You really think so?”
I shrugged softly. “If they offer him the right kind of things.”
His arms enveloped me, and I simply sank into him.
Into his warmth.
Into the protective safety net that had become his embrace.
“Have you eaten since I left?” he asked.
I just shook my head softly and closed my eyes, settling my ear against his heartbeat.
“You hungry?” he asked, sliding his fingers through my hair.
I just shook my head again as I threaded my arms around his waist.
He continued running his fingers through my hair. “What did you get up to while I was gone?”
I shrugged. “Got some emails. That’s pretty much it.”
“What kind of emails?”
“Notifying me of my last paycheck and the fact that I’ve been terminated.”
His grip around me grew tighter. “I’m sorry, Jasmine.”
“It’s not the first time my life has crumbled around me. I’m sure it won’t be the last.”
It was official. I hit the numb stage of coping with all of the shit swirling around me. I was good at it, too. Emotionally removing myself. Staying ignorant.
Obviously.
“I want to show you something,” Ghost said.
His voice interrupted my thoughts. “Huh?”
“Ranger set you up with a cell phone like I requested, yeah?”
I peered up at him. “You’re the reason he brought me a phone?”
He nodded as he held out his hand. “Let me see it.”
“O…kay…?”
I slipped my hand into my camisole and pulled out my phone, and Ghost’s eyes widened. They darted between my phone and my breasts, like he couldn’t believe I had just done that.
“What?” I asked as I placed the phone in his hand. “Women keep their important things in their bras all the time.”
His gaze lingered on my tits a bit before his attention dropped to the phone. My lips curled in a soft smile as I watched him shake his head.
If there was anything I found out during my lifetime about being a woman, it was that men were so easy.
I liked that he was easy, too.
“All right,” Ghost said as he handed the phone back to me, “check it out.”
“Check what out?” I asked as I looked down.
Only to see a black and white picture of my father in his…
I gasped as I whipped my gaze back up to him. “What?”
His green eyes gleamed down at me. “You like it?”
I gawked as I dropped my attention back down to not one, not two, but three different angles of my father’s room at the in-home care facility. One facing his bedroom head-on, one facing the window, and another on his bedside table, giving a different full-view of his room.
My eyes watered over, and my voice dropped to a whisper. “And nothing has happened?”
“Nothing has happened, firefly. I just figured, with you being so worried about your father and not really being able to go anywhere, that you could use the reassurance.”
I swallowed hard as my gaze dropped back down to the screens. “Does he know about them?”
“Yep!” Scout called from outside as he walked by the room.
My eyes darted to the bedroom door before looking back up at Ghost, and I found his eyes practically smiling at me.
“What?” I asked breathlessly.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
My lower lip quivered. “Ghost, I love it. Thank you so fucking much.”
He cupped my face in his hands. “Just to let you know, that termination email is nothing more than—”
I nodded and cut him off. “Ranger told me it was just them covering their tracks in case I tried to pop up and sue them for something.”
He smoothed his thumbs along my cheeks. “Did you confront your father after you figured out he was taking out credit cards in your name?”
My brain came to a grinding halt. “What?”
I tried to move away, but he held me firm in his grasp. “Just answer, Jaz. It’s not a bad question. You’re not a bad person.”
“I know I’m not,” I said, my voice a bit weaker than I wished.
He dropped a masked kiss on my forehead. “Did you confront him after you tried buying that car and figured things out?”
I sniffled. “No.”
He pulled me into another embrace and settled his chin on top of my head. “Why not?”
I just slowly shrugged. “Because my father’s had a shitty life. Lost the love of his life when she gave birth to me. The V.A. screwed him over every chance they got.”
“Your father’s a vet?”
I nodded softly, pressing further into his body to seek out his warmth and comfort.
“They did nothing but fuck him over, all the while telling him he didn’t have shit when he knew he had it.
He got desperate, and I know that’s why he took out the credit cards.
It wasn’t all booze, either. Not when I backtracked through the statements as I was able to gain control of the accounts.
Sometimes it was bills for therapy. Other times, bills for groceries we couldn’t afford otherwise. ”
I blubbered by the time I was done explaining, but he was so patient with me. Ghost, this gruff, rough, gravely veteran who never showed his face held me like I was the most precious thing in the world.
I was only barely aware of him laying the two of us down in bed as I cried against him.
“You’re okay,” he whispered softly as he pulled the covers over us, “I’m right here.”
My chest jumped with my sobs. “But I just can’t… leave him. You know? He’s… he’s my dad. He… did his best, you know? Raising me. S—ingle father a-a-and… everything.”
“Ssshh, sh, sh, sh, sh,” he shushed softly as his hands mindlessly slid up and down my back.
My side.
Through my hair.
Anything to get me to calm down.
“A-a-a—and now, h—he’s got… liver damage. A-a-and… the beginning stages of… dementia. And all of this is happening. And I’m not close to him. And I just—oh God, thank you for the camera-a-aaaaas.”
I knew it was hypocritical, thanking him for the one thing I chastised him for. But knowing I’d have eyes on my father whenever I wanted them brought me such relief.
Is that what he felt when putting those cameras up in my place?
A sort of relief?
My emotions ran away from me. “I wish I could see your smile just once. I bet it’s a beautiful smile. You deserve so much, just like my father. You deserve the world, not to hide away from it. And your eyes light up every time you smile. I know you smile under that mask. And I bet it’s—”
“Jasmine.”
“—a wondrous smile. It ignites your eyes, I hope you know—”
“Jaz.”
“—that. I know every time those lips of yours—”
“Firefly.”
I sniffled as I moved out of his grasp enough to look up at him. “Wha—”
I was stopped dead in my tracks by the sight.
His mask, tugged down around his neck. Those green eyes of his, focused intently on my face.
My gaze traced along his nose, slightly crooked, like it wasn’t quite set right after being broken.
They studied his cheekbones, high and proud, and for a moment, I didn’t see anything wrong.
Until my eyes fell to his lips.
I took in the jagged scars extending from either side of his mouth.
“Most people call it a Glasgow smile,” Ghost said.
I watched his lips as they moved. The scarred skin, just tight enough to draw his lips up into a permanent grin.
A grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Oh, Gee,” I whispered as I slowly raised a hand.
My fingers trembled as they moved closer to his face. He flinched for a moment, but he didn’t back away. My eyes darted to his, and his head ticked with the smallest nod. So I moved my fingers closer.
Slowly closer.
Until they brushed against the rough, jagged scars.
“I felt these when you kissed me for the first time,” I whispered as I traced them with my thumb.
His lips puckered and kissed the pad of my finger as I traced his lips as well. “Surprised you didn’t recoil.”
I just shook my head and traced the other side of his scar. “Never.”
My God, it felt like I was seeing him for the first time. This man that had unlocked parts of me I had cordoned off my entire life. This man who infuriated me, and then worried me, and then somehow managed to suck me under while allowing me to breathe the air I needed directly from his lungs.
The man I somehow fell desperately in love with.
“Hi,” I whispered as a soft smile graced my lips.
And when he returned the soft smile in kind, I relished how beautiful his face was.
Even if he didn’t believe it himself.
“Hey yourself, beautiful,” he whispered back.