Patriot chuckled darkly and raised the kutte.
“You saw it, but you definitely didn’t see the whole thing,” Patriot remarked, turning the kutte so the patch on the breast pocket was visible.
Jaime’s gaze darted to the kutte, and upon seeing what was stitched there, she let out an inhuman shriek.
“No! No! That’s not possible!” she shrilled, making both Sasha and Tasha wince. When they spied the kutte, they both turned pasty white. Tornado gripped Sasha’s arms, holding her in place, but she was too stunned to realize she was being detained. “This has to be some joke, right? There’s no fucking way that fat, ugly bitch is your ol’ lady—not after everything I’ve done!”
And there it was.
Stallion stepped up, cocked his head, and asked, “And what exactly did you do, sister?” Every word from his mouth dripped menace.
As if realizing what she’d said, and what it implicated, all the air whooshed out of her at once.
“I mean…all the years I’ve been a friend—and more—for Patriot,” she bleated, emphasizing “and more”. That was her game, she thought that if she outed what she and Patriot had done that one night, three years ago, it would somehow change the trajectory of the flaming shit meteor that was her evening.
“Oh, you mean how you two fucked once three years ago? Yeah, I know all about that, even made a date to beat the shit out of Patriot for that, but that isn’t what you wanted to tell me, is it?”
Stunned speechless, Jaime’s mouth hung open.
Yeah, she was expecting to come into this party, all the tricks and traps in her possession, giving her all the power. But she didn’t know that her plans and plots had been discovered, dismantled, and were now aimed squarely at her.
She was done for, and now she was figuring that out.
Movement to the side made him look toward Cilla, who was standing with her hands over her mouth. Her hands were shaking like crazy, and her legs looked like they were going to give out any moment.
Tossing the kutte to Horde, he hurried to Cilla’s side. Locust dropped his hold on her elbow and took a big step back, and drew his woman into his side, giving Patriot room to take his own woman in his arms. Which he did.
He wrapped his arms around Cilla’s trembling frame, closed his eyes, and moaned at the rightness of it. Finally, she was back where she belonged?—
“No! This is not happening! She’s supposed to be dead, and I’m supposed to wear your property kutte! I have waited too long, made so many plans for this to all fall apart now.” Stomping her foot, Jaime whirled on Sasha. “Where the fuck is Roger? He was supposed to take care of her! What the hell happened to fucking him until he begged to do it?”
Sasha gasped, and beside her Tasha, shock emblazoned on her copy/paste features, whimpered. Apparently, these twins didn’t think alike.
“Jaime, what the hell? I had nothing to do with whatever this is!” She turned, panicked, to Tornado. His silver mercury gaze was as hard and chilling as ice. When Patriot and Red discovered, through cloning Jaime’s phone and reading through her texts, that Sasha was indeed involved in Jaime’s schemes, they’d had a face-to-face with Tornado. He hadn’t claimed Sasha yet, had only been bringing her around because she was a good and easy fuck, which made dealing with her easier. Patriot had no idea how Tornado was feeling, though, the man was as calm and chillingly self-controlled as an android. His road name came about when Frost was there to witness that one, single moment…when the calm broke. Since then, Tornado was the stoic brother, the one who lived and breathed the club, and when a little bit of chaos was necessary, the storm was loosed.
Jaime cackled. “Don’t act like this wasn’t partly your idea. You hate Cilla, too, and you want her gone just as much as I do, except that with her gone, I’d have Patriot.”
Patriot grunted, unable to believe that Jaime was just laying it all out, like the most dangerous people in the state weren’t looking on, rage building in their expressions.
In his arms, Cilla jerked at Jaime’s words. He could hear her dragging in breaths, and he could feel the pounding of her heart against his chest. He held her tighter and, thankfully, she didn’t fight him.
She listened on.
“So what you’re saying is,” Stallion interjected, “you both plotted against the club.”
Jaime snorted, waving away his words. Sasha choked, shaking her head like a bee was buzzing around her face.
“This had nothing to do with the club. I wanted Patriot, and I knew that if I could get him close and keep him there, he’d eventually see that we belong together. So what if we’d only been together that once, I knew that night, after what we shared, that you were perfect for me. I have spent years waiting for you to figure that out, and I finally got tired of it. So, I…well, I made up the stalking to get your attention. And it was working, and then that fat slut—” she pointed a finger at Cilla who tensed “—had to open her fat, fucking thighs and try to lure my man away. If I wanted Patriot to come back to me, to stay with me, I needed to get rid of Cilla. But fucking Roger was too good to kill anyone—but he’s good with lying and stealing, though?” She huffed as if Roger’s smidgeon of moral compass was an annoyance. “So, Sasha volunteered to…change his mind. She was supposed to fuck him, get him to kidnap Cilla and get rid of her, but, obviously, Sasha’s pussy isn’t as good as she thinks it is.”
Tornado grunted as if agreeing with her, which made Sasha gasp and turn to glare at him. He simply shrugged, then tightened his grip on her arm.
Having heard enough, Frost stepped forward.
“I think that what we have here is a clear case of plotting against the club,” Frost rasped, barely contained anger making his large frame as hard as stone. Emily, his ol’ lady and wife, stared at him warily, like she wasn’t looking at her husband right then.
“But it had nothing to do with the club. Cilla isn’t club, so getting rid of her wouldn’t matter to the club,” Jaime replied snappily, like she was talking to a group of toddlers. Fuck, the woman was cracked.
Frost shook his head slowly, measured, his gaze pinned to Jaime.