Page 64 of Stag

I examined the table surface, smoothing my fingers along it, all tactics he didn’t miss, because I was stalling and any idiot would see it.

“Stag, everything okay?”

“Is it ever? I mean, I’m way out of my comfort zone with her, in that posh house, with the new bosses. Tell me how I’m supposed to just fucking say ‘yeah, everything’s fine’. I don’t know if it is.”

Micro nodded, getting up to use the coffee machine they’d installed in the fucking room, like this was some fancy conference room, instead of somewhere meatheaded bikers hang out to shoot the shit.

“Here. Talk to me, brother. I’ve got nothing but time for you.”

Why the hell did that make me want to cry like a pussy and tell him all my troubles?

Claudia

The morning without Stag was long, but I had work to catch up on, and for the first time, I was doing that without Marissa sitting beside me, or across from me, and it was weird how much I missed that.

When we were just hanging out, being sisters, it was the best thing in the world. What happened to twist her up so much that I became something she wanted to control and manipulate?

I was supposed to be concentrating on an insurance brochure I was editing, but my mind kept wandering, which made me decide to take a break, catch up on emails, and update my financials, because sometimes that worked, and other times I just achieved nothing. Today I had to achieve something.

There was an email waiting in my inbox from Marissa. No, wait. Two. More. Eleven emails. All sent in the last twenty-four hours.

We’d blocked her from contact via the replacement phone the club had provided, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t reach me by email, because I didn’t even think to block her there. I should, but maybe that was cruel. Shouldn’t I leave her with one avenue of communication? She was my twin, for god’s sake.

Even messed up, stressed out, and pressured, she was still my twin sister. She wanted the best for me. She loved me.

The first email hit me like a fist.

Claud

I can’t believe you’re doing this to me. I’m your fucking twin. You’re cutting me out of your life? How fucking dare you?! You think I can’t find you? You think I don’t know where you are at all fucking times?

You need to get your slutty ass back home before I call the police and register you as a missing person!

Mar x

A quick glance at the other emails told me she was just spouting more of the same, over and over. Hate. Frustration. Entitlement. Anger.

My twin sister hated me. It wasn’t love at all. This was hate. This was animosity and cruelty.

My fingers were trembling as I reached for my phone and tapped the button to call Stag. The call showed as answered, and that’s when I froze. I couldn’t hear him! What was I doing? I should have messaged him, but this felt too urgent, I was too panicked.

He was probably freaking out, because he knew I couldn’t hear. But dammit, I could speak.

“Stag? I can’t hear you of, course, but if you’re there… I need you. M… Marissa’s been in contact, and I’m... Oh god, please come home!”

I didn’t hang up the phone, keeping the line open for comfort more than anything. I needed to get some apps installed to help me with things like this. I hadn’t bothered because… because I was suddenly relying on Stag to make me feel safe and protected. I’d gone from relying on Marissa to relying on him, and at what point did I stop looking after myself? So his club brothers supplied a phone, did that mean I couldn’t be proactive and add the apps I needed to function?

When did I go from being as independent as possible, to trusting others with the basics that I could supply for myself. My god. No wonder my sister was being driven insane. She wasn’t just trying to control me, she was trying to cope with my demands and needs, because I wasn’t doing that for myself. Did that make it my fault, instead of hers? Or both?

Chapter Twenty-Six

Ididn’t tell him about the virgin thing, because that was just too fucking close to my chest, something I couldn’t tell anyone, even though those twin fuckers figured it out somehow. It’s not like he talked to them and would find out.

“She hasn’t tried anything here again,” he said in response to my fears about Claudia’s twin.

“That doesn’t mean she’s not planning something. The chick’s seriously fucking unhinged.”

Micro nodded, the serious version of him so different from the man I’d known back at the OG chapter, before he lost his mind and tried to massacre everyone or whatever.