Lies and Illusions

by Avelyn Paige

  I reach across the console, and give her hand a quick, reassuring squeeze. Ginny didn’t deserve this kind of life, and despite her past, I can see the scared, little girl inside of her. She may have entered my life as a patient, but after years of privately treating her, she’d become more of a friend. Something that I desperately needed in my life, when secrecy and a past of misery lay at my feet.

  “We’re in this together whether we like it or not. This is our only chance to survive.”

  “I know,” she nearly whispers. “I just don’t want to face him again. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. When it was safe, I was supposed to come back.”

  “Safety is never something that is guaranteed in this world. Dangers lurk around every corner, and right now, danger is shoving us back to a place we both ran from. Give it time,” I tell her. “My brother won’t hang us out to dry.” Hopefully.

  Ginny’s face drops at the mention of my brother, and I know the reason in an instant. Her own brother, that I hadn’t until recently learned, was a part of the same club. He was also seeing one of my other patients. Why do all things seem to point right back to this damn place? I run, and it just follows me. It’s ridiculous.

  “Don’t worry about him. He’ll be happy to see you.”

  “At first. Then he’ll be pissed.”

  Something that I couldn’t fault him for because again his kid sister faked her own death, but that issue is between them, unless they want me to mediate their reunion in a professional manner. Other than that, my nose would stick to my own business with my own brother who might be a little pissed. Ginny needs to face him, if she is ever going to get past the guilt she holds over how they left things. This could be her first test towards finding herself again. Well, and taking care of our little issue that is currently hunting us down.

  A familiar sight comes across the horizon, and my heart thumps like a drumline within my chest. It was a place that held so many hurtful memories of my childhood, and mostly of my father.

  Don’t think of him. Not now. He’s dead. Put him in the past and move on.

  As the parking lot entrance comes closer into view, my mind begins second guessing this decision. Like Ginny, my brother and I’s relationship was estranged at best. Growing up, we were thick as thieves, but when my father died, something changed in him. The kindness that I once knew slipped away to something darker. He became the shadow of my father. I just had to hope that in the years we’ve spent apart that my brother hadn’t become the proverbial apple that fell from my father’s crazy tree, because I didn’t exactly leave on the best of terms.

  The parking lot is fuller than I expected, when I turn in. Sundays were usually the lighter days at the Heaven’s Rejects Clubhouse because everyone was either still drunk, passed out, or dragged home by their old ladies. To say that I was surprised by the number of cars and bikes still here is an understatement. The club must have partied late last night for this many people to still be lingering around.

  “There goes my plan for a quiet entrance,” I mutter under my breath. I sneak a look over to Ginny, and her face is a coiled mess of anxiety and fear.

  I quickly find an open space, pull in, and kill the engine to the car I bought with cash back in Oklahoma. I unclick my seatbelt, and stare at the entrance of my former home. The weathered look of the building that I remember has faded away into a more modern architectural style with dark new siding, and a far less scary vibe ebbing from it.

  At least my brother invested more into this place than my father did. It doesn’t look half bad I begrudgingly have to admit. I had honestly expected to find it a crumbled heap of rumble with some haphazardly built shelter to replace it.

  Maybe he has changed.

  Ginny looks over to me with fear registering in her eyes that plead for me to find another way out of our situation. I plaster on a smile trying to ease her.

  “It’ll be alright, Ginny.”

  “I hope so.”

  Taking one last deep breath, I pop the handle on the door and step into the hot California sun for the first time in years. The rays beat down on my skin, and the sting of it feels almost comforting, after living in the Midwest for so long.

  “Welcome home, Presley,” I mutter to myself, before shutting the door of the car behind me, as I begin taking my last steps of freedom.

  Home sweet home never terrified me more.

  Ginny slides from the car behind me, and jogs up to my left side.

  “Last chance to turn around,” I whisper to myself, as I pull open the door.

  I step into the room and shock registers immediately. So much has changed, and so many women and children now fill the main room of the clubhouse, and every one of them has fallen silent. Face after face turns to look at me, and likely there are a few hidden guns ready to be drawn from the few men seated at the bar in the far corner. Not a single face looks familiar.

  Shit. I should have called first. I just walked us both in the viper pit without a single weapon to protect either of us or a way back out for us to escape.

  Ginny presses tightly against me, and I can feel the shiver from her body rattle against my own.

  Rushing into a clubhouse with guns and trigger-happy men may have been the stupidest mistake of all, despite having once been a part of the family here. I take a deep breath and try to center myself. It doesn’t work.

  “Can I help you, doll face?” one of the men from the bar says, as he slides from the barstool with his beer still in hand. “You two lovely ladies looking for a job?” he asks with a curious cocked brow. His eyes rake over our bodies; sizing us up most likely thinking we are club whores. He stops just one step of being uncomfortably close. He’s tall and looks like a damn Viking with his blond beard and longer hair. I get the sudden feeling that I’m a little fish in a predator-filled pond.

  You should have called. You’re being stupid, Presley.

  “Looks like the cat has your tongue, doll face,” he teases and those within ear shot laugh.

  “I’m here to see Mikey. I mean, Michael,” I stammer out. Ginny’s hand reaches for mine, and when she finds it, she squeezes hard.

  “The Prez is a little tied up at the moment, which you could be too if you say the word,” he continues with a cocky smile. “Can I take a message?”

  “Tell him his sister is here to see him,” I demand.

  “The Prez doesn’t have a sister,” he laughs. “Nice try.”

  I guess my brother really hasn’t changed much since the last time I’ve seen him, if his club brother doesn’t know about me. Just great. This will be harder than I imagined.

  “Why don’t you go ask him yourself?” I insist, standing my ground. “Or better yet, ask Maj.”

  He hisses at the sound of my sister in law’s name.

  “That bitch doesn’t breathe here anymore.”

  Something has definitely happened there. Thanks for telling me, Mom. I never liked the woman, but she should have at least told me that my brother had split from his wife.

  “Darcy!” the man yells over his shoulder.

  “Jesus, Slider,” a feminine voice rings out from one of the hallways. “This better not be a summons to judge another gun show between you and Ratchet again. I just got Roxie down for a nap.”

  “Got a woman here who says she’s Raze’s sister. Do you know anything about that?”

  Shuffled footsteps come quickly from behind him.

  “Move your ass out of the way, Slider,” she orders from behind the man blocking my entry. A petite woman with dark hair sidesteps him and gasps at the sight of me. “Presley? Is that really you?”

  “Um, hi.” I declare with a slight wave.

  “You idiot,” the woman I now know as Darcy scolds the great wall of man in front of me. “Let her and her friend in the damn room.”

  I look to both of them with confusion clear on my face.

  “I know we haven’t met, but I’m Darcy, your brother’s fiancée. Your mom has told me so much about yo
u.”

  Woah, wait. Did she just say fiancée? That explains the reaction I got when I mentioned Maj. He’s divorced or she’s dead. There’s no telling with this club, which way she walked or crawled out this door.

  “Nice to meet you,” I automatically respond. I don’t mean to be so cold, but our little problem is a bit more pressing than introductions. “Can I see my brother?”

  The woman flinches slightly at my lack of warmth towards her, but she’s a stranger to me. This entire place is filled with strangers. I honestly don’t know why I was expecting to see familiar faces knowing how much of a revolving door this kind of place has.

  “Sure,” Darcy affirms. “I’ll take you back to his office. Follow me.”

  She turns on her heels, and we fall in line behind her. Ginny stays close, as we cross the room with all eyes still on us. I notice out of the corner of my eye that the man who stopped us has returned to the bar, and that’s when I notice his prospect cut. He’s not a full member, which explains his overreaction to our presence in the club. He’s still trying to get his foot in the door to become a full member, and he took this opportunity to assert his authority over someone for once. Too bad for him, that I can see his act a mile away. My father had numerous prospects during my childhood, and he taught me that they were here to pay their dues and do the members bidding. They were the lowest rung on the MC food chain, and the least of my worries.

  Darcy leads us to my father’s old office, and an odd sense of nostalgia hits me hard. I spent many days sitting on my father’s lap in the room that my brother now occupies. He loved me in his own way during the early years of my life, and inside this room, was one of the few happy memories that I did have of my father, before his world turned to darkness, drugs, and death.

  We stop short of the door, and Darcy knocks. My brother’s gruff voice echoes off the walls from inside, as she twists open the door.

  Mikey sits inside behind the desk. His head is shaven now, and his beard is nearly all gray with a few patches of his dark hair flecked amongst the stubble across his chin. His face remains focused on his work, before he notices me. He pushes away from his desk and in three large strides, he engulfs my body in a hug.

  “I thought you’d never come back,” he mutters against the top of my head.

  I relax against his familiar embrace, forgetting for a split second why we are here in the first place. He releases me, and his eyes catch Ginny behind me.

  “Is that?” he asks, looking between the two of us.

  “Yes,” I respond.

  “I take it this isn’t a social call then,” he declares gruffly.

  “No, it’s not. We need your help.”

  I’m so fucking dead.

  The woman that I have been secretly texting and e-mailing for Ratchet is not only Ricca’s former therapist, but my club president’s sister. The woman who has consumed my every spare second thought, daydream, and nightmare is here, and she doesn’t have a clue as to who I really am. The man that is standing here in shock and awe at her presence is nothing more than a creeper staring at her like a fan stares at a celebrity on the red carpet.

  The minute she walked into our clubhouse I knew I was royally fucked. Not like I-might-die kind of fucked. Not like I’m dead as in cease to breathe or live, but six feet under with maggots eating my entrails while my club president, Raze, pisses on my grave and laughs kind of dead. This is the worst kind of fucked up situation that a man could find himself in.

  It can’t be that simple at all. Not in my life. If you looked up the word fucked in the dictionary, you would find some wordy definition of the word that graces my vocabulary far more often than any civilized person should use it, and also my photograph.

  Pretty bad, right? Well, take that image and multiple it times a million because that’s the situation I’m in right now. All in all, it could be worse, but not by much more. After months of living under the guise of a wealthy tech guru, the woman that started creeping into my life one text at a time is just inches away from me. While I had planned to eventually meet her in person and explain myself, this wasn’t what I expected at all. Every goddamn inch of me was screaming on the inside of my body. I was in pure shock and completely ecstatic to finally be so close to her, but the minute it was revealed to me that she was Raze’s sister, I shoved every feeling I had for her back into the not going to fucking happen box. If Obi-Wan Kenobi was here right now, he’d be waving his hand in my face and declaring that this isn’t the woman I have been looking for.

  “V?” Raze says, as he steps out from behind his sister, and the girl I now know as Ratchet’s once thought to be dead sister Ginny, who is currently wrapped up tightly in her own brother’s arms. “You okay?”

  “Yup,” I squeak out, like a teenage boy in between his voice change. “Just wanted to know what all the commotion was,” I lie.

  “Long story,” Raze mumbles. “Get the guys into Church. Now.”

  “Sure thing, Prez,” I respond, before turning on my heels.

  Don’t look back, dumbass. Don’t do it.

  My head turns, and I look at Presley’s tiny stature that is dwarfed, behind her brother’s large frame. Her eyes catch mine, and I avert them immediately. This isn’t the time or place for this shit.

  “Church!” I yell out to the crowded main room of our clubhouse. My brothers respond immediately moving away from their wives and kids, filing into our meeting room. Darcy, Raze’s fiancée, leans against the bar top with observant eyes, as she watches the commotion of the room simmer. She already knows something is wrong. The other ladies look to her and begin gathering around her, as I turn on my heels walking towards the meeting room and stepping inside.

  The large table in the center of the room is nearing maximum capacity with every seat taken, except for Raze’s head chair. Several of the newer brothers are leaning against the walls surrounding the table. In the recent months, our club has seen an influx of transfers from former chapters that had disbanded, thanks to Raze’s ex-wife’s betrayal of her husband’s club for the interest of her own cartel family’s desires. But Maj and her goddamn Mexican Manson family aren’t our problem anymore, after our little jaunt to Mexico. The sun set on their bullet ridden bodies, and we never turned back. Our club changed after that, and for the better. We are all still getting use to the newer brothers, which is why Hero wanted to patch Slider in, but the relationships and trust are slowly starting to build. Trust takes time, and unfortunately, that hasn’t exactly been in abundance around here until recently. Our club was making far larger strides to becoming independent from the shit shows of our past. Peace would never be easy. It is painstakingly slow, but in the end, it would benefit all of us. We just had to get there first.

  But with Raze’s reaction to his sister’s return, I knew that it was all about to end.

  So close yet so fucking far away.

  “Did you catch that little spitfire of a woman giving me the business end of a tongue lashing?” Slider asks. “Shit, she was fine as fuck. I wonder how good that tongue of hers would feel wrapped around my dick.”

  “She’s none of your concern, prospect,” I hiss. “Show some respect, motherfucker.”

  “Jesus, V. Who pissed in your cereal this morning? She’s a good-looking woman. Since when is commenting on a beautiful woman a crime?”

  “Just don’t,” I order him. Slider starts to say something else, but a familiar sound echoes off the wall from the office area making the entire room go quiet.

  Raze’s heavy footsteps stomp through the door with Ratchet on his heels. Raze reaches back and closes the door behind him, before stalking to his place at the head of the table. Ratchet stops just beside him, and places himself at Raze’s left side, but remains standing.

  “Brothers, we have a situation,” he declares.

  My stomach drops. He knows what I did. I can see my obituary now. There will be some mumbo jumbo about my life, listing my few legally acceptable accomplishments just before my sur
viving family member’s names. But the part that I know will seal my fate will be at the very bottom. Followed by the next part that will list my transgressions for the entire world to see. That I screwed with my club president’s sister, and he disemboweled me as a warning to the other men in his club to not follow suit. I will be the example on Raze’s wall of what not to do in an MC.

  “We have a situation that involves my kid sister and her friend.”

  “Old man trouble?” Thor teases from the back of the room.

  “Who’s the other chick?”

  “I wish it were that simple. The young woman with her is Ginny Azzo, Ratchet’s sister.”

  I let out a silent sigh that maybe, just maybe, Raze doesn’t know about Presley and I just yet. Ginny’s return may have spared me from Ratchet spilling the beans, and my life ending on the floor of Church.

  Not today, Satan. My soul is still free.

  Silence echoes against the walls of the room. Every man stands quiet as the grave, except for Slider and his uncontrollable mouth. The guy needs a permanent brain to mouth filter installed on a good day, and I have a feeling the shit about to come out of it is going to end in his ass being kicked. It was a privilege that we allowed him to attend Church, as a prospect on rare occasions. Something he was about to abuse for the millionth time.

  “Sister?” he whispers to Hot Shot, who hushes him in return. “She single?”

  “I thought your sister was dead,” Hero questions, looking to both Ratchet and Raze.

  “Obviously not, asshole,” Ratchet barks back. “Watch it, Slider.” His tone is dark and angry. I don’t even have to ask because I know that her reappearance has re-opened a wound for him. In the few times he would even talk about his sister, you could hear the pain in his voice, over not being able to save her from the fate she found. I thought that he might be happier than he currently stands now knowing that she’s still alive, but he clearly isn’t at that point yet. I make a mental note, that until he calms down, to steer clear of him. Even though I consider him one of my best friends in this club, this is a side of him that I want to avoid. One false move, and he’ll explode in rage. It’s one of the reasons that he’s our club’s enforcer, cleaner, and death dealer.