“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.