Jason
I knew it was wrong to snap at Katie the way I did, but I couldn’t stand another second in that house with her accusations. I hated the way she was making me feel—like I was responsible for her happiness. I hated the way I did feel, which was actually pretty damn close. Everything was happening too fast, too soon, and I wanted to pull back.
Talking about Margot with Katie wasn’t something I’d ever wanted to do, but unfortunately it looked like I was going to have to share the news soon. I didn’t know how she’d take it; hell, I didn’t even know if Katie was going to be upset that someone else had been in my life before her. Oddly, part of me felt guilty, like it was my fault for keeping it secret for so long.
Deep down, I knew I probably should have handled it better, but, the truth was, I just had no idea what to do. Rosa’s revelation had thrown me like nothing else had ever done before, and I just needed to be alone and think for a while.
I tried to remember the last time Margot and I had seen each other. It was harder than it should have been; somehow, her memories were starting to take on a cloudy haze in my mind, the kind of thing that made me feel like maybe she was starting to disappear. It scared me; Margot had been my first love, the only girl I played hero to. Without her, I wasn’t sure what I’d have left.
I remembered one night, a little before she died.
“Jason,” Margot said in a teasing voice. “I want to go out tonight. Can you take me out, baby?” She batted her long eyelashes at me and winked, tossing her mane of dark hair behind her. I was stunned, as usual, by her lovely appearance. Every time I was with Margot, I found myself wondering just what she was doing with me. She was so beautiful, so exotic in a way that made my stomach hurt and my balls ache. Every time we kissed, every time we touched, I was entranced. She was my fiancée, and I still couldn’t believe she was mine.
“Yeah, baby,” I said as I leaned over and kissed her full lips. “Of course we can go out. What do you wanna do?”
Margot pouted. She rolled over on her back and gazed up at me with smoldering eyes. “Jason, I want you to surprise me,” she said. “Take me someplace nice.”
I knew what she meant— “Take me someplace that isn’t in Marquette.” Margot was sophisticated; she didn’t like being in what she called a small town. Even though Marquette was a decently sized suburb of Boston, she never felt at home. She always complained about how she knew everyone, or how nothing surprised her. Margot’s biggest problem in life seemed to be constant boredom, and sometimes I tore my hair out with frustration on how to help her.
“You got it,” I told her with a grin.
Margot purred and sat up, reaching over and tangling her fingers in my hair. We had such similar complexions. When we’d first started dating, we had to endure a lot of comments about how we were likely related, or stupid shit like that. It hadn’t bothered me, but I knew it bugged Margot. She didn’t like any jokes that made her out to be the butt. She never wanted to be laughed at. I thought it was a little ridiculous; she had such a rigid sense of humor! But at the same time, I loved her so much that I didn’t really mind catering to her every whim.
In the end, I picked a fancy Italian restaurant in the heart of Boston. Margot dressed to kill, in a short black silk dress with stockings and heels that looked straight from the set of a porno. I was drooling when I first laid eyes on her. She had the knack of making me feel like the luckiest guy in the world.
Dinner was amazing. We ordered every dish on the menu and fed each other. We ordered five bottles of wine until I was bleary-eyed and so bloated I could barely stand. It was an incredible night, and I knew when Margot got me home, she’d want me so badly she wouldn’t be able to keep that dress on for another second. Margot had been groping my leg the entire time we’d been at the restaurant, and I knew she was dying for some of my cock.
“You wanna get out of here?” I eyed Margot.
She giggled and looked away, pretending to be modest. “Jason, I didn’t ask you to bring me all the way out here,” she said, feigning surprise. “But this has been such a nice evening. I wish we could eat like this all the time.”
“If we did this all the time, we’d both get too fat,” I said, expecting Margot to laugh.
But she didn’t laugh; instead, she frowned. “I don’t know,” Margot said. “You wouldn’t mind, would you? After all, I’d be your wife. Nothing would change that.”
“You’re right,” I said. “Sorry, I made a shitty joke.”
When we got in the car to go home, I expected Margot to be all over me. Normally, in the car, she’d keep her hand between my thighs or rub my chest. Sometimes, she even put her legs up on the dash and rubbed her pussy, like she was getting hot just from sitting next to me. It turned me on so much, and I was desperately hoping she’d do it, or anything. Something to get me aroused.
But Margot just sat there, staring out the window. “I feel weird,” she said after a while, with no provocation. “Like, I’m bored.”
I frowned. “What are you talking about? We just had a great meal, and we’re going home now.”
“I know,” Margot said. She turned to me and suddenly, there was light in her dark eyes, a spark of life on her foxlike face. “Let me drive,” she said. “I want to drive home!”
I laughed. “Okay,” I said. I pulled over onto the shoulder of the road. Margot climbed over the seat and wriggled into my lap. The pert cheeks of her ass rubbed my cock to life and I moaned as she squirmed around.
“Move,” Margot commanded in a stern voice. “I can’t drive on your lap like this.” She wriggled around again, sending a delicious spike of arousal through my body. “Come on, Jason,” she added, her tone insistent and sharp. “Listen to me.”
I laughed. I never thought I’d let myself be bossed around by a woman, but here I was.
“Okay, okay,” I said, raising my hands in a show of defeat and climbing out of the car. “I’m getting out. You happy now?”
Margot grinned at me, looking smugger than usual. She barely even waited for me to climb in the passenger side before gunning straight ahead and slamming her foot down on the gas pedal. The force of her driving slammed me back against the seat and I had to catch my breath. Margot laughed as she maniacally drove around a hairpin turn, not even bothering to slow down. I cringed as I could feel the wheels lifting off the ground and the car hovering in air.
“Margot,” I said in a low voice. “What are you doing? You’re driving like a maniac!”
Margot laughed, throwing her head back and showing white teeth. “Don’t be a loser, Jason,” she said with a glittering grin. “I’m just having fun, that’s all!”
I gripped the seat as Margot piloted us around another tight curve in the road. She veered into the lane of oncoming traffic and I saw the panic reflected on the faces of the other drivers. I saw the whites of their eyes grow large with fear and sweat bead on their foreheads. Reaching across the interior of the car, I grabbed her arm. “Margot, fucking listen to me!” I growled. “Do you have a fucking death wish? Are you trying to kill us?”
“I’m just having fun,” Margot said. She pushed my hand away and sped off towards Marquette. “Why are you being so boring?” She turned to me and winked, a trace of the old affection on her face. “What’s wrong, loser?”
“Don’t talk to me like that,” I growled. Part of me was used to letting Margot get away with everything, but I didn’t want her to think she could control me so easily. Not now, not like this. Finally, I reached over and slapped her cheek. I didn’t do it too roughly, but she still recoiled and looked at me in horror.
“What did you do that for?” The car skidded to a stop and instantly, fumes of burning rubber filled my nose. My heart was racing in my chest and I sucked in a few deep gulps of air. Margot looked indignant. Her nostrils were flared and her eyes were glaring at me with angry black fire.
“Margot, you’re going to kill us,” I said in an even, measured voice. “I want you to be safe, okay?”
Margot’s glare grew even fiercer. A trucker passed us, going in the opposite direction, and the light from his headlights flashed over Margot’s diamond. It sparkled and glistened on her left hand, and I was overcome with remorse for what I’d done.
“Margot, baby, I’m sorry,” I said. But it was too late. She had climbed out of the car and she was walking ahead, not looking back. When I yelled her name, she didn’t even flinch. Desperate, I leapt out of the passenger side and chased after her, trying to grab her shoulders and arms.
“Leave me the fuck alone,” Margot hissed when I grabbed her arm. “You don’t love me, asshole. You don’t know anything about me!” She looked as angry as a wild cat, and before I could do anything she’d raised an arm and raked her nails across my face. I could feel beads of blood welling up in the small scratches before she’d lowered her hand.
“Margot, come on,” I pleaded. “I’m sorry, you know I’d never hurt you, but you were being so reckless! I didn’t know how to get you to stop.”
Margot stood there like an angry, sexy dragon. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at me. “You’ll let me drive again,” she said in a low, serious voice. “You’d better, Jason, or I’m leaving. I don’t like being told what to do,” she added, raising her chin in the air. “So don’t start with me.”
Then, a week later, she’d died. I remembered where I was when I got the call like it had been yesterday: I’d been in the clubhouse, hanging out with Kenny and Axel. I’d been getting a little nervous because I hadn’t heard from Margot in hours, and they were ribbing me about it, calling me pussywhipped, telling me I was acting like a real girl about the whole situation.
Then I got the call saying she’d been killed, and could I please come and identify the body?
Years later, even though it was sometimes hard for me to remember what I’d loved about Margot, I still remembered how it felt. It felt like my guts were being yanked out with a sharp tool, like someone had their hand stuffed in my belly and twisted through my intestines. It was the worst pain I’d ever felt, and the worst part about it was knowing I’d never get over it, that I’d always feel this bad.
Margot. Even just her name was enough to make me feel traumatized. And now, her fingerprints had been found on a letter in Matthias’s house. None of it made sense; Margot had known Matthias, sure, but only in passing. To her, he was just the leader of the MC, the guy I rode behind. She never expressed an opinion about him one way or the other, only that she wanted to control me and the direction I was going to take the club in.
Part of me was dying to ask Katie if she’d ever seen Margot before, if she knew of any connection between my ex-fiancée and my deceased father-in-law. But Katie didn’t even know much about Margot, and I couldn’t risk opening that can of worms right now.
It was a real quandary. I reached into my pocket and grabbed my cell, calling Axel.
“Hey, man,” I told him. “Can you meet me somewhere?”
“I don’t know,” Axel said. “You got pretty hammered last night. I have plans later,” he added in a low voice. “I don’t know if I can be out running around again.”
“Come on, man,” I whined. “I found something out that I want you to know.”
Axel didn’t reply. He hung up the phone and instinctively, I knew I’d hooked him. I drove to The Silent Havoc clubhouse and spotted his bike out front.
“Yo,” Axel said when I let myself inside. We were the only two members in the clubhouse that day, and it seemed too large and empty for my tastes. “What’s going on?”
I sat down and thought about what I was going to say. “Axel, do you ever think about Margot?”
He looked surprised. Then it occurred to me that Axel was probably thinking I’d pump him for more information on his parents. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to meet up with me again, not so soon.
“Sometimes,” Axel said. He cleared his throat. “Are you having some problems?”
“Worse than that,” I admitted. “Remember how I told you I went to see Rosa?”
Axel furrowed his brow. “Yeah, I remember.”
“I called her for help,” I admitted. I sighed. This whole thing was harder to explain than I thought. I didn’t know what the guys would think of when they’d discover I’d been digging around Matthias’s house again. The whole thing just sounded shady, and I was well aware of how criminal I looked.
“Why?”
“I asked her to help me analyze something,” I lied. “Something I found. I wanted to see if there were prints on it, you know, some kind of DNA shit or something.”
Axel nodded. “And she can do that?”
“She has friends who can,” I said, desperate to get the subject off Rosa. “And she called me yesterday and said she had news for me. So I went over there this morning, and either she’s pulling one hell of a prank on me or something weird is going on.” I ran a hand through my hair and looked away. “She said she found Margot’s prints.”
Axel frowned. “And just what did you bring her, exactly?”
“A letter I found,” I lied. “Not really anything important. I thought it was a mistake, but Rosa said she double checked, and the prints were Margot’s.”
“Huh,” Axel said. He rubbed his chin with a couple of grease-stained fingers. Axel was a mechanic, and a pretty damn good one at that. He always looked like he’d just walked in from a garage, even if he’d just gotten out of the shower.
“Well, what do you think about that?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Doesn’t it seem weird to you?”
Axel nodded. “It could be a dupe,” he replied. “You know, those scientists make mistakes. They make them all the time.” He coughed. “Once, a doctor told my mom she had strep throat. She got all the meds and everything, but she never got better. Then we got a call a week later saying he’d mixed up his results with someone else.” Axel stretched. “We shoulda sued them,” he said bitterly.
I walked around behind the bar and grabbed two icy cans of beer, tossing one to Axel. I thought his podunk doctor fucking up was a lot different than those brains Rosa knew, but I didn’t want to make any trouble. After all, I was already in too deep. I had no idea what Axel or the others would say when they found out about Matthias’s house, but I wanted to be sure of what to tell them before it ever came up.
“It’s not her,” I said darkly. “She died. She was in a car accident, remember? The accident was so bad that it ripped her limb from limb.” I shuddered. When I’d gone to the hospital to identify the body, it had been covered with a sheet. Only a tangle of her dark hair had been poking out. I’d known the body on the table was hers without even looking at it. That was the day that I knew my heart would stay broken forever.
“Whatever, man,” Axel replied. “You seriously can’t think that, that’s fucked up.”
“What?” I glared at him. “That she’s dead? Or that she’s coming back to life?”
Axel stared at me. “I don’t know why you wanted to talk,” he said in a gruff voice. “I don’t really think I can do anything to help you right now.”
I cracked open my beer and poured half of it down my throat. “Look, I know this sounds crazy,” I said. “But what if she didn’t really die? What if something happened and she…I don’t know, stayed alive, somehow?”
“Like, she faked her own death?”
“No,” I almost exploded. “Margot would never have done that.” My mind was running wild with paranoid thoughts and I couldn’t stop them, no matter how hard I tried. “Like, what if she got kidnapped? Or someone threatened her and she felt like she had to do that? Just to fuck with me? What if someone’s been trying to get at us the whole time?”
Axel shook his head. “You’re reading way too much into this, man,” he said softly. “Why not try to relax a little? You’re fuckin’ freaking me out,” he added. “Go home to your wife. Fuck her, have a nice dinner. Then relax, okay?”
I put my face in my hands and leaned down over the bar. Everything was crashing and swimming around in my head, and I didn’t think I could take it anymore. Margot. Katie. Troy. Matthias. I couldn’t believe this, that everything was happening at once and threatening to ruin my life.
“I don’t know what to do,” I groaned. “This is just so much to deal with.”
“You gotta get your shit together.” He stood up and narrowed his eyes at me. “You really gotta work on this, man,” he said in a low voice. “You can’t lead The Silent Havoc like this. And you can’t keep expecting us to cover for your shit.”
I could have punched him. All of the brotherly loyalty and goodwill that I’d felt towards Axel yesterday was rapidly disappearing and soon I’d be left with nothing.
“Fuck it,” I said, standing up and walking out of the clubhouse. “I’m done here.”
I climbed on my bike and strapped my helmet on my head before driving off into the darkness. Night rides usually helped calm me down, but tonight was apparently the exception of the year. Margot’s face haunted me as I drove, taunted me for all our past arguments and fights, made me feel like a shit for ever believing she could love me.
I couldn’t get past what Rosa had said. If it had been anyone else—anyone!—I would have believed Axel in a heartbeat. The results had been fucked, sure. But not with Rosa. Rosa was whip-sharp, and her friends were all as brainy as she was. I knew one of them couldn’t have made a mistake. Plus, not all of them had legit jobs; no one would have risked breaking into the police database just to throw me off.
None of it made sense. I felt like I was reliving the same nightmare that had begun the night of Margot’s death, the night I first knew I’d be alone forever. And no matter what I did, I couldn’t get it to stop.
Margot’s face floated above me as I drove into the dark night. I closed my eyes and imagined her with a playful expression on her fine features, her dark hair wild and streaming around her hair. Her dark eyes winked and spoke to me, volumes louder than her voice ever could.
The ache in my chest was like a stab wound. I raised a hand over my heart and tried to listen to my pulse, just for comfort, just for anything. But no matter what I did, she haunted me.
“Why didn’t you come to me, Margot?” I asked out loud. I knew it was a mistake. It had to be a mistake. There was no way Margot, my love, could still be alive. The anger and hurt within me felt as fresh as it had all those years ago, and even though I tried to close the bitter and weather valves of my heart, I couldn’t make her disappear from my mind.
Over and over again, in my head, I heard Rosa’s voice. Rosa’s voice telling me the prints had been Margot’s. I saw the confused expression on her face, felt the same blind rage that had welled up inside of me.
Margot wasn’t alive. She’d died that day, years ago, and nothing would ever be the same again. I knew it with absolute certainty, knew it with an absoluteness that haunted my bones. Margot was dead, and she wasn’t ever coming back.
Margot was dead, and something very bad was haunting me.