by Bella Jewel
“She crashed out front of your house today, in her car. I went out there, took her to the hospital. She’s perfectly fine, not injured, but she asked me not to call you. So, I didn’t, but I was going to come right home and tell you.”
He shakes his head a little. Looking slightly, exasperated.
“Don’t give a fuck about my sister, that isn’t what this is about, and you know it ...”
I blink.
I do?
“Pardon me?”
He steps forward, reaching out and curling his fingers around my shoulder, a little too harshly for my liking. I swallow because, suddenly, it seems like the situation is very serious, and whatever it is they think I’ve done, they’re not happy about it. At all. I stare up at him, horrified. “Get your hand off me, now,” I whisper hiss.
I’m a lot of things, I’ll take a lot of things, but I will not be manhandled by anyone, especially not a biker trying to intimidate me, for what reason, I still do not know.
“You’re goin’ to tell me the truth, and you’re goin’ to fuckin’ do it now,” he growls.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I spit. “I literally have no idea!”
“Bullshit,” he roars so loudly I flinch and jerk my shoulder out of his grips.
I’m not sure what I’m most horrified about, the fact that Mason is treating me like this, or the fact that the other men are standing there, doing absolutely fucking nothing.
“Are you seriously going to stand there and let him grab me like that?” I say to Malakai, horrified.
“You did the wrong thing, Saskia. We don’t take kindly to that shit. Admit it. Do as he asks, and you can go without any consequences.”
“What in the ever-loving fuck are you talking about? I did nothing. I’ve done nothing!”
Mason makes a low, angry, growling sound. “I can’t fuckin’ believe that after every fuckin’ thing, you’re honestly standin’ here telling me you don’t know what I’m talkin’ about. You filthy, fuckin’ liar!”
I flinch and jerk backward. “What?” I whisper, horrified.
“Last chance, Saskia. Before I get really fuckin’ pissed.”
I blink and tears, unfamiliar tears, burn under my eyelids. “I have done nothing. Not a damned thing.”
“Fuck,” Mason roars. “Cuff her, we’re leavin’.”
I beg ... Cuff me?
Hell. No.
I step backward, putting my hands up, when Koda and Boston step forward.
“Firstly, if you so much as take another step I will lose my fucking mind and secondly, I might be small but I sure as shit will not go down without a fight. I will kick every one of you in the damned balls, and that would be a damned shame for your girlfriends, and future biker children, but I’ll do it.”
“Sorry,” Malakai says. “Until we know who you’re workin’ for, and what you’re sharin’, and you tell the truth, then we can’t have you away from us. You’re goin’ to be kept at the club.”
“Wha—”
“And we’ll do what we fuckin’ have to, to get you to tell the damned truth,” Mason hisses.
I stare at him, and the moment I do, the two men step in and in a split second I’m spun around and cuffed. I screech and lash out, but it’s pointless. Koda comes in behind me, curling a big arm around my chest and crushing me against him.
“No point in fightin’, it’ll only make it worse.”
My bottom lip trembles.
This is serious.
And really, really bad.
“I didn’t do anything,” I whisper. “I did not do anything.”
“Bullshit,” Mason growls, stalking toward me and leaning down so we’re eye to eye. “We both know you did. All this fuckin’ time you’ve been lyin’ to me, usin’ me, so you could help your little boyfriend out. For all we fuckin’ know, you’re in on it all, workin’ the club over. It’s a fuckin’ genius plan, really.”
“What the hell are you on!” I spit. “What could I possibly give him from the club? What?”
“He’s heavy into drugs, I’ve got a lot of cash, the club has a lot of connections, it doesn’t take a genius. You do love the mother fucker, after all.”
That hurts, like a slap to the fucking face.
He knows how hard this has been on me.
And now he’s accusing me of working with Enzo, to what? Steal? Lie? Cheat? What? It makes absolutely no sense, and yet they’re all so convinced I’ve done something wrong. Something they’re so sure of.
Only I don’t know what that is.
I have literally no idea.
And it’s about to get me into a lot of trouble.
~19~
SASKIA
“Malakai!” Scarlett snaps. “You cannot be serious!”
I’m gagged. Literally gagged.
When they got me back to the club, they asked me once more if I was going to admit what I did, I told them to go and get fucked, quite literally, and that got me gagged. I’m not going to confess to something I didn’t do, and I sure as shit didn’t do anything. I asked them to tell me what it was I apparently did, to which none of them would answer. Apparently, if I’m not going to admit it, they’re not going to tell me.
What. Ever.
“None of your fuckin’ concern, Scarlett,” he growls back.
I sit on the sofa, bound and gagged like some sort of prisoner, and watch as Scarlett takes on the president of the club, because she doesn’t agree with what he’s doing.
I’m super grateful someone is on my side, at the very least.
“It is my concern! She’s my friend! You’re not even giving her a chance. You’re not letting her talk. You’re treating her like some sort of prisoner!”
Yes. Thank you.
“She had her chance to talk, and she chose not to. We aren’t hurtin’ her, but it is important we know exactly what we’re dealin’ with.”
“It’s Saskia, that’s what you’re dealin’ with.”
“Who, we have proof, is a fuckin’ liar and a thief. She might be your fuckin’ friend, Scarlett, but she has lied to us all and until she gives back what she took, we’re not fuckin’ lettin’ her go.”
Malakai, in all the time I’ve known him, which isn’t long, has never raised his voice. But hearing him raise it, especially at Scarlett who is Amalie’s best friend, makes my skin prickle. He’s scary. Terrifying, actually. This is a side to them I’ve not seen, and now, now I see why people keep a wide berth.
The men I see, and the bikers, are two different parts of them.
“I can’t believe you just spoke to me like that,” Scarlett whispers, stepping back. “You’re not even giving her a chance. I’m horrified by you, Malakai. She’s a girl. Not some thug off the street.”
She turns and starts walking out just as Maverick steps in. His eyes swing to Malakai, and they’re wild. He heard. And he didn’t like how his woman just got spoken to. This whole club is unwinding before my very eyes.
All over me.
Because I’m a thief?
What in the hell did I steal? And how in the hell do they have proof of it?
Considering I didn’t do it.
I didn’t do anything wrong.
I swear it.
“Brother, President, respect you for all of those things, Malakai,” Maverick growls, voice low and deadly. “But you ever fuckin’ speak to my woman like that again, and you and I will have a very big fuckin’ problem.”
Malakai holds Maverick’s eyes, and the two of them stare at each other for a long while. So long, it gets uncomfortable. Finally, Malakai nods. Nothing else. He just nods. Maverick leaves with Scarlett, and I’m left unable to speak, with Mason, Boston, Koda and Malakai.
I don’t look at any of them.
Because fuck them. They’ve obviously got their wires crossed, because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be standing here, looking at me like I’m the worst thing they’ve ever seen. Whatever proof they’ve seen they obviously believe,
but it is obviously so far from the truth.
“Takin’ her with me for a bit, will leave her in the office, locked,” Mason says, walking over and grabbing my arm, hauling me up.
It isn’t gentle, but it isn’t too rough, either.
He’s done his dash with me, purely because of the fact that after everything, he hasn’t even bothered to listen to me, to hear me out. Worse, he hasn’t even told me what I’ve done wrong so I, at the very least, have the chance to defend myself.
I hate him for that.
Only, I don’t really hate him.
But I’m so hurt.
So fucking hurt.
He pulls me down the hall, and when we reach the office, he opens the door and takes me in, sitting me on a chair before shutting and locking the door. Then he turns and stares at me, for a long moment, those eyes penetrate mine.
“Don’t know what’s worse, Saskia, the fact that I let you into my home, or the fact that I fuckin’ trusted you.”
The pain in his voice, it’s actually painful to me.
Painful as fuck.
“I told you about my sister, my mother, I fuckin’ confided in you, and you had the nerve to steal from me. Not just shit from around my house, but shit that means the most to me. Shit that I hold so fuckin’ dear.”
My heart starts pounding. What is he talking about? I wish he’d let me speak.
“I saw you, so the fact that you can honestly look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t take anything from me, that you did nothing wrong, makes me fuckin’ sick. It makes me sick because I watched you with my own fuckin’ eyes.”
What?
He watched me?
He watched me steal from him.
It hits me, like a god damned hurricane.
I can’t believe it has taken me this long to put two and two together. I should have told them from the start. I should have shared the little piece of information that made me so ashamed that I rarely tell people.
If I had told him. This wouldn’t be happening.
Because he would know it wasn’t me he saw, in whatever he saw.
He would know it was Yolanda.
My sister.
My twin fucking sister.
~20~
MASON
I’m fucking hurt.
Gutted.
And watching her stare at me, eyes wide, makes it worse. She is honestly acting like she hasn’t done a thing wrong, and that blows my fucking mind. It blows my mind because she’s so easily able to look me in the eye and lie to me.
And she’s doing it without flinching.
Like it’s the easiest thing in the world for her.
And that tells me that the woman I think I know is not real.
Not even close.
She’s fake.
And I can’t handle the fact that I gave her so much and this is how she repays me. All along, I was just a pawn in her fucking game, a way to get her boyfriend out of debt. She had me fooled, hell, he had me fooled. I would have nearly bet on my own mother’s life that Saskia was the most genuine woman I’ve ever met. So fucking real and down to earth, smart and funny, my sassy little thing.
But I was so far off the mark, and that has never happened to me.
“You’ve royally fucked me, haven’t you?” I murmur to her, staring into her eyes, she’s struggling behind her gag, but there is no way it’s coming off.
I have a lot to say to her.
And for once, I want her to listen.
And not speak.
“I trusted you,” I whisper hiss, leaning down closer, looking right into her eyes.
She is shaking her head, murmuring something behind the gag, but I want no part in what she has to say. Her lies mean nothing to me.
“I think that’s the worst fuckin’ part,” I growl. “Is that I trusted you. I have never told anyone about my mother, but I told you, and you used it against me, didn’t you? You got me exactly where you needed me and then you took a swipe, right where you knew it would hurt.”
A tear rolls down her cheek.
Bullshit.
“Don’t cry your fuckin’ tears to me, Saskia. They mean fuck-all. You mean fuck-all. You’re a lying, manipulative bitch. I regret the day I fuckin’ met you, but know this, I will get back everythin’ that’s mine, includin’ the piece of my fuckin’ heart you stomped all over.”
She’s crying now, shaking her head, but fuck her.
This is exactly why I don’t allow myself to feel or get attached to another human being, because this is how it ends. It’s how it always fucking ends.
In hurt.
And betrayal.
And a loss in your fucking chest that you can’t seem to get back, no matter how hard you try and fill the hole left there.
It’s left forever gaping, forever scarred until, eventually, your heart is nothing but a giant fucking hole.
And you no longer have anything to give.
~*~*~*~
SASKIA
It hurts.
Like hell.
Seeing him in pain. Seeing him staring at me like I’ve just ruined any last part of good left in him, like I’ve taken away every ounce of trust and ruined it, forever scarring an already broken man.
If only he’d hear me out.
If only he’d just listen.
I’m fighting against myself, watching him talk. Fighting against my anger and my feelings for him.
My feelings for him make me want to prove my sister did this, that it wasn’t me, to show him I’d never be the monster he’s accusing me of being.
But the anger in me is so horrified that, for even a second, he could think so low of me. Don’t get me wrong, I understand he saw what he saw and there really is no explanation for that. As far as he knows, it was me, but it doesn’t matter. Logic is gone, and I’m angry.
Angry that he didn’t even give me a chance.
And calling me names. That makes me want to pummel my fists into his chest over and over until it burns and aches, so he knows how it feels every time he calls me a name.
Like a blow to the damned heart.
Once he’s done saying what it is he has to say, he turns and walks out, slamming the door and leaving me alone, bound and gagged. I have no idea what they’re going to do with me. I am almost certain they won’t hurt me, but you can still treat someone extremely poorly and break their spirit without actually physically hurting them.
I close my eyes, and another tear squeezes out and runs down my cheek. I hate this feeling. I thought it hurt when Enzo slept with my sister, but this, gosh this feels like it hurts so much more. I didn’t realize, until I saw the pain and betrayal in Mason’s eyes, just how much I was starting to grow an attachment to him.
I have feelings, there is no denying that.
The door opens, and I glance up expecting to see Mason, or one of the other bikers, coming in, but instead I see Scarlett and Amalie. They slip through the door and close it quietly, then both of them stare at me. Scarlett comes over and unties the gag from my mouth, and I flex my jaw, grateful to be freed of it.
“I saw the video tape,” she whispers, betrayal in her eyes. “I don’t know what to say to you, Saskia. I really liked you, I thought—”
“I have a twin sister,” I whisper, my voice hoarse. I clear it.
Scarlett blinks. “Pardon me?”
“The sister, who slept with Enzo, she is my twin. I never told anyone, because, well, I was ashamed. She’s half of me. Cut from the same cloth. I was embarrassed and ashamed, so I left that part out. If you don’t believe me, go and find my phone, or better yet, look her up on Facebook right now on your own phone.”
Scarlett hesitates but pulls out her phone. That kind of hurts, because she doesn’t fully believe me. If she did, she wouldn’t check. Minute by minute, my heart is closing off. I’m hurt that nobody has any faith in me. Really, maybe unfairly, hurt. I mutter Yolanda’s profile name, and Scarlett looks it up.
There is a photo of the bot
h of us on there, that should be enough proof. We’re identical in every way, she even enjoys making her hair look just like mine to spite me. She’s always done it, and I hate it.
“Oh,” Scarlett whispers. “You two are ...”
“Identical, yes,” I mutter. “And I’m telling you, it was not me who stole from Mason. I have no idea how she did it, but I would never do something so ... cruel.”
“Oh,” Scarlett says, looking up at me. “Why didn’t you just say something?”
“Because until a few minutes ago, I didn’t put two and two together. I didn’t honestly know what he was accusing me of, and then I realized when he said he saw me stealing, that I couldn’t deny it, and I knew, I knew straight away. Yolanda. Of course she would do something like that. Enzo couldn’t get what he wanted from me, it’s the perfect plan, considering she looks just like me. I just don’t know how she got ...”
The car accident, I left the front door open.
I close my eyes and exhale. But then how did she know the safe code? Unless ...
“Oh, god,” I whisper.
“What is it?” Amalie asks.
“It wasn’t just my sister, it was Mason’s sister, too,” I say, clenching my eyes shut and taking a few deep breaths. “I’m so incredibly stupid.”
“Explain,” Scarlett says, kneeling in front of me. “What happened, every detail.”
“Mason’s sister ‘crashed’ her car right outside of his house. I went running out, didn’t think, left the door open. I had to escort her to the hospital, which she not once protested about, and of course she didn’t, it was a freaking set up. She wants Mason’s mother’s jewelry, and Yolanda wants money. The two of them met one night out front of Mason’s house; obviously they decided to come up with a plan to take what they both thought they deserved. Yolanda probably got told she’d get a cut, and it’s a genius plan, really. She just had to go into the house, looking exactly like me, nobody would even question it. If someone did happen to be there, they wouldn’t think twice. Theresa would have given her the safe code ...”
“Oh. My. God,” Scarlett whispers. “Just when I thought things couldn’t possibly get more fucked up. I’m going to call Mason in here, you need to tell him and—”