“Couldn’t let me wake up alone? Explained what this morning? Sin, what the hell are you talking about?” I whispered, my eyes watering as tears started to burn along the line of my lashes.
“My going away.”
My heart nearly stopped. “Where are you going?”
“Our sister chapter in Ohio.” He blew out a breath. “I’m on the road already, halfway there.”
My mouth dropped open. “Are you kidding me?” I whispered rawly. “You didn’t think to come and say goodbye?”
“This isn’t goodbye. I told you, Tiff, and I’ll keep on telling you…”
I reached up and rubbed my eyes, blurting out, “I’m so confused.”
“Don’t be. I’m being punished. It’s okay. Everything will work out.”
Maybe I was being stupid, or maybe the drugs I’d been given were addling my brain, because I just wanted to cry some more.
“I don’t want you to go.” It was all I was capable of saying, but it wasn’t enough. Didn’t encompass at all how his words were messing with my already aching head.
“And that’s exactly why I didn’t come and say bye to you, angel.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll call when I get there.”
I frowned at the ceiling, which was impossible to see in the darkness. I’d turned everything off, switched off everything but the AC, anything and everything to make the place as quiet as possible.
Hell, if I could have turned off the fridge, I would have.
But even though it was silent, I still felt hypersensitive, and I listened to his breathing, listened to every nuance in his tone as I rasped, “Are you breaking up with me?” Was this just bullshit he was spouting? Had something else happened last night that I didn’t remember?
“No,” he stated sternly. “Listen to me, this is not over. It will never be over.”
Never was a long time.
And I knew what the club was like. In Ohio, a day’s drive from here? God only knew what would go down.
Maybe I was losing him. Only, I didn’t think I could bear it if I did.
Calmly, he stated, “Tiff, it will all work out.” I didn’t miss the sternness to his tone, but that didn’t mean much when he was on the fucking road to Ohio and this was the first I was hearing about it.
“How can it?” I asked miserably, wriggling my shoulders as an ache in them made itself known to me. “What’s happening here?” I rasped. “Really, I mean.”
“I didn’t want to—” He grunted. “Fuck. Luke Lancaster used my absence at the bar to sneak in. He attacked Giulia Fontaine, our Enforcer’s woman.” He cleared his throat. “He’s dead, Tiff. She killed him.”
“Oh my God! Lily! I have to call her—”
“Yeah. Well, you can do that later. This has implications that I can’t talk about over the phone, Tiff. Just remember, you’re mine, and I’ll speak to you later.”
He didn’t wait for me to reply, didn’t wait for me to say a damn word, just cut the call and left me blinking at my screen, squinting as the pain of the light felt like it was piercing my eyes with the strength of a laser.
Even as his words sank into me, horror did too, and when I couldn’t focus on my screen, I hit Siri and demanded, “Call Lily.”
I knew there was no love lost between the siblings, but he’d died and…
Shit, was I supposed to be sad about it? After how he’d treated me?
I cut the call, focusing on the blob of the red button long enough to hit it. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened. I distinctly remembered Luke touching me last night, before Sin had arrived and helped get me home. I knew he’d been the one to drug me, and now I knew this about Giulia? I was unsure what to say, how to empathize-slash-sympathize with Lily, when the fucker had drugged me for the nefarious reason of attacking an innocent woman. So no, I wasn’t sure what to do or how to help. Wasn’t sure if I even could.
Lily and I were close, closer than close, but where her family was concerned, she was pretty tight-lipped.
I thought about calling Sin again, thought about asking him for more details, but even that felt beyond me.
I sank back against the pillow, my skull throbbing like it had been hit with a hammer, even as it settled into the down-stuffed layer.
Everything had just changed, my world had shifted on its axis, and I’d slept through it.
I reached up and rubbed my temples, but even as I started to cry again, I could feel my eyelids start to lower as sleep beckoned me into its embrace.
Tomorrow, I’d figure out what to do. Tomorrow, I’d learn if Sin really meant it, and I’d work out how to help Lily.
Tomorrow was another day, and hopefully, it was a better one.
I’d never know just how shittier my tomorrows were going to be.
Two
Tiffany
Two months later
“Dust to dust, ashes to ashes...”
As I stared into the hole where my father lay, I tossed some dirt onto the shiny casket and blinked back tears.
This was all avoidable.
That was all I kept on thinking. It was like a litany in my head, an endless song that was on repeat and I couldn’t switch off.
I wanted to.
How I wanted to.
But I couldn’t.
It was impossible.
The record was already in motion, and I’d lost everything.
Everything.
The only thing I hadn’t lost?
My sanity, and honestly, that was a hard-won thing.
A hand moved to my lower back, and I quickly turned around, recognizing the scent, and buried myself in my best friend’s arms. Lily hugged me tight, exactly how I needed to be held, as she whispered in my ear, “Sweetheart, come on. You need a breather.”
I needed more than that.
Gnawing on my bottom lip, I let her draw me away. Behind her, there was her new boyfriend, Link.
He was, to put it kindly, a bruiser. Blond, very blond, very stacked, and the definition of ripped. I’d seen him before at the clubhouse on the few occasions I’d been there, and what I’d seen didn’t make me predisposed to like him, but now that he’d claimed Lily?
There was definitely a change in him.
He looked around the cemetery like it was full of enemies, and that was the exact opposite of the truth.
Not even my mom was here. I was by myself with Lily, Link, and a few bikers who were on the road, just up the path, watching the show like it was entertaining. Not even my father’s business partners were here. It was like Dad had been erased or something. By everyone who was supposed to care for him except for me.
I wasn’t even sure how this had happened, and so swiftly too. It had all started the night when Luke had been murdered by one of the Sinners’ Old Ladies.
She was here as well.
Sitting on the back of her man’s bike, looking like a queen atop her chariot. It didn’t matter that she was riding bitch and doing so behind a man that made Lucifer himself look friendly. She appeared regal, even as she looked watchful. They all were.
I wasn’t sure what they expected to happen, but I got it.
Ever since that night, things had changed, and my world had turned upside down.
Lily’s dad had warrants out for his arrest now, and as a result, his business assets were frozen. Turned out my daddy had been relying on Donavan Lancaster like he was his own personal piggy bank. With those funds cut off, his real estate empire came toppling down around him.
And the fallout devastated all of us.
But devastation was something you could come back from.
What you couldn’t?
A bullet to the head.
“I can’t believe he killed himself,” I rasped to no one in particular. Hell, maybe I was muttering it to the world.
Maybe the universe could answer, because I sure as shit couldn’t.
“I know, love,” Lily whispered mournfully, and her grief was genuine.
Sh
e loved my dad. Everyone did. He was awesome. Mom was too, but she was a bit of a pain in the ass sometimes, and now more than ever. She wasn’t taking the family’s fall from grace into bankruptcy lightly, and she was starting to irritate me.
The only reason we were staying afloat was because of Lily.
We were staying in her home, living on her dime, all because the IRS had taken every bit of property my father or his company owned, freezing every single one of his assets.
She’d even offered to float us enough money to cover the company’s debt, and while I’d taken her up on that offer, and had used it to funnel funds toward the employees who were suddenly being laid off, there wasn’t enough to cover the amount of monies outstanding.
Especially when a mountain of those debts belonged to Lily’s family anyway.
It was a clusterfuck.
But it was something we could have survived. We could have ridden it out.
However, there was no riding out anything when you were six feet under.
I paused, unable to take another step away from my daddy.
Pain flooded me, and a keening cry escaped my lips as I clung to Lily, letting her embrace me, burying my face in her hair as I sobbed out my grief.
My world was nothing.
Everything was built on a lie.
We weren’t rich. We were indebted to the max.
My parents’ marriage wasn’t strong—if it was, Daddy wouldn’t have killed himself when Mom threatened him with divorce because he was poor.
Everything was…
Gone.
All of it.
All ruined.
Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.
That was my life.
Only, my heart still beat and my body wasn’t withering into nothing—I had to remember that.
I could survive this.
I was stronger than my father.
The thought had me sucking in a sharp breath, one that was loaded with guilt for thinking that about Daddy, but it didn’t help me fight the cascade into panic.
She must have realized how close I was to freaking out on her, because Lily squeezed me again. “Come on,” she murmured, “we need to get you home.”
Home?
What was that anymore? Where was it?
I bit my lip but nodded, and the silk of her hair rubbed against my face. A hand grabbed my shoulder, big and strong, and a husky voice stated, “It’s okay, Tiffany. Everything will be fine. With time.”
Those were the key words.
With time.
I peered up at the big, mean biker who had the power to make grown men piss themselves, and who was softening his tone for me.
Little old me.
“Thanks, Link,” I rasped.
He shrugged. “Sucks, doll. Sucks.”
It really did.
Somehow, with a couple of words, he was capable of condensing my feelings. I didn’t resent that, if anything, it made me feel like I wasn’t alone.
“Yeah.” I reached up, knuckled my eyes, and dragged the tears away. “It does.”
Lily snagged a hold of my hand and murmured, “We need to get some food in you.”
Her look was pointed, and I turned away, not even wanting to think about why she was saying that.
She swore I was pregnant.
I was refusing to believe it.
Look, when a woman’s world collapsed around her, she missed her period, and sometimes, when things were really stressful, she barfed.
Simple.
Stress related.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying not to think about Sin.
I’d have to tell him soon.
I’d have to, if what Lily said was true.
This morning, before we’d left for the funeral, she’d appeared at my bedroom door with a baggy in her hand. Then, she’d almost refused to leave until I used the damn test.
The only way I’d gotten out of it?
I puked, and after I puked, Mom had wandered in like Greta Garbo, her hair in a fucking turban of all things, demanding to know why I was sick.
I’d lied, of course. I’d told her that I was just feeling under the weather and had taken that moment to make a dig at her refusal to attend the service today. But I was only putting off the inevitable.
I knew the second I got home, Lily would make me piss on a stick, and I had a nasty feeling I knew what the result would be.
As we wandered over to Lily’s car—my Jag had been one of the things lost to the debt collectors—Link veered toward his bike the second he’d dropped us off.
He kissed her with a tenderness that made my heart ache, made me long for Sin, and she smiled at him with so much love that it hurt to behold.
A shaky breath drifted from my lips as I climbed into the car, and when she got behind the wheel, switched on the AC, and turned to me, I knew why.
The bikers kicked off before they spread around her like she was being shielded on all sides by metal.
As a protective detail, it was better than what she’d originally had when her dad was around. All her guards were gone now, replaced on the regular by Prospects from the MC, and it was weird to always have her tailed by dudes on bikes, even if I was glad for her sake.
When they were situated, she cranked the ignition, and we set off.
“It’s going to be okay, Tiff.”
“I can’t let you float us forever,” I whispered, turning my face to the side as I peered out onto the gravestones.
It was hard to see, thanks to one biker’s ‘tail’ getting in the way, but I focused on the gravestones, thinking about how Lily’s dime was going to be covering my daddy’s funeral too.
“I don’t deserve you,” I whispered, my eyes flooding with tears. “Friends don’t do this for friends. This is too much.”
“Hey, enough of that!” she chided, and her hand slapped down on my pant-clad thigh. “We’re more than friends, we’re like sisters. You know that.”
“I do, but still. This is going above and beyond, even for sisters.”
“Hardly. How much money do you think I need? And, sweetheart, I don’t say this to hurt you, but your mom can’t be poor. You and I both know she can’t survive without having money. It’s impossible. If she does, we’ll lose her too.”
“She’s being so awful,” I whispered, because I knew Lily was right. If Mom had to be poor, she’d slit her wrists, and then I’d be left with the doctor’s bills in the aftermath too.
The only consolation was that Daddy’s debts weren’t mine. They were Momma’s, sure, but she was going bankrupt too. You couldn’t get blood out of a stone, and somehow, Mom’s heart had turned to that in the past few weeks.
“She’s like a mother to me too,” Lily reasoned, and while she was right about that as well, while my folks had been kinder to her than hers had ever been, it just wasn’t right.
“You’re too good to us.”
She whistled past that, saying, “Your mom can stay with Link and me as long as she needs, Tiff. You don’t need to worry about her. She can have that half of the house.” She shivered. “I hate that side anyway.”
Her father’s side.
It wasn’t hard to figure out why.
He’d always given off bad vibes, so had Luke, and that was one of the many reasons why I’d never let his come-ons turn into something else.
See, back when I was eighteen, I thought it was the height of romance for Lily and me to be best friends and for me to be with her brother. Luke was handsome, he was charming when he wanted to be, and he was the heir to an empire. What wasn’t to love?
Well, on the outside, he was all those things, but I’d stopped looking at the outside a long time ago.
The inside was all that counted.
And I’d seen early on in those silly, girlish desires for Lily and me to be tied in a familial way that Luke was not good people.
He was rotten to the core, but no one saw that because he was a damn fine actor.
When
I didn’t say anything, Lily heaved a sigh and changed the subject. “Are you going to tell me who the father is?”
“I might not be pregnant,” I muttered, my tone gruff. I sank into my seat, hunching my shoulders as I tried to avoid this topic too.
Nothing, absolutely buttkiss, was high on my conversational agenda right now.
It all involved a future I had zero control over, and at the moment, that just made me feel like I was going nuts.
“You’re pregnant. You’re never sick, Tiff. Ever.”
“My daddy just died, Lily,” I grumbled, peering at the highway now that we’d driven out of the graveyard.
West Orange wasn’t my favorite place in the world, but Daddy had brought us here for his new development.
A development that was now in the can.
Just like Mom’s and my future.
It wasn’t a concrete jungle, but it was nearly there. As part of his agreement with the county when he started building the subdivision here that brought a lot of Manhattan’s richest people to New Jersey, the area had been spruced up with flowers and plants and shit, but it wasn’t enough. You couldn’t polish a turd, at least that was my opinion.
“Tiff?”
“What?” I queried absentmindedly.
“The father didn’t…he didn’t hurt you, did he?”
Sin had, but not in that way. “No. He’d never do that.”
My words were truthful, and I felt her tension lessen some. It was like the air in the car had warmed up ten degrees with her relief.
That she loved me was a given. That I loved her was clear, but it was, in the aftermath of this nightmare, wonderful to be reminded of that love.
To know that, come what may, she’d have my back.
“Who is he?” she whispered.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”
My throat grew choked as I whispered, “Link knows him.”
“He’s a biker?”
Her squeak almost had my lips twitching. Only, nothing was funny about this situation.
Nothing.
“Yeah. He is.”
“Who the hell is he?”
I hated how we were both talking about my being pregnant without me even admitting to it.
Forgotten & Found: A Dark & Dirty Sinners' MC Boxset Page 60