Page 35 of Truth Forever
I knew her face anywhere. Even if she looked different from the woman, I had left waiting for me. Minimal makeup, stylish glasses perched at the end of her nose.
It was Cali, but at the same time, it wasn’t. This wasn’t the woman I was falling in love with, this was Calista. And I didn’t know her.
It hit me then. Everything had been a lie. Every damn thing we had shared had been a lie.
“Truth?”
I threw my phone to him. “Look then.” My voice came out wretched. What the hell was I going to do? It was pretty obvious she had been the snake in our midst. She had been right under my nose the entire time, and I had been so blinded by her that I couldn’t see her for the snake she was.
“She’s CPS?” Wicked sounded like he didn’t believe it. So that made two of us. “Fuck.” His fist slammed down on the table, causing more than one person to look in our direction. I understood his anger. My own was already overflowing, but where Wicked raged, I became scarily quiet. “What are you doing?”
He paused his own phone in his hand. “I have to phone this in, you know this.” Something like pity flickered into life in his eyes.
I didn’t need any fucker feeling sorry for me.
“No.” The calmness had taken me over now. Soon it would be time for another tattoo. More ink to continue the story.
“Truth I know you have feelings for the girl, but the club needs to know.”
I got that, club before anything and anyone. Wasn’t that the way?
“They will know,” I said softly. I didn’t have emotions left to give. “When I have taken care of the problem.”
Chapter Fifteen
Cali
“He said what?” Gem froze from her place behind the bar, the empty glasses in her hand forgotten as she turned to where I was perched on stool, my arms crossed on the wood as I waited for her afternoon shift to finish.
Not that I wasn’t enjoying myself. There was a freedom to being here. I had felt it from the first moment. This was a place where you could just be …. well just BE. There was no judgement.
“Truth said what?” She repeated when I didn’t answer quick enough.
“He said he had something important to ask me.” I took a sip of the cola in front of me. I wasn’t above day drinking, I had done more of that than was healthy over the last few weeks. But I didn’t want to be falling asleep on Gems sofa before six because I was steaming.
Doing that was a great way to have the piss taken out of you forever. A lesson I had learnt the hard way my first week. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
“Important to ask you?” The glasses slipped from her fingers and crashed to the floor. The resulting noise causing a cheer to go up from the few day drinking patrons.
Gem turned, glaring at them each in turn. “Very mature guys.” She gave them the finger, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “I’ll be right back Cali, got to clean this up.”
I nodded, not really hearing her. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Hey, Cali.”
I turned in my seat, eyeing the young man who had sidled up to my side. “Hey, YB.” I gave him a smile. “You doing ok?”
His eyebrows shot up as he chuckled. “Hey, that was going to be my line.”
“Sorry.” I gave a small shrug. YB was young. Younger than me by several years and from what Truth had told me been hanging around the club since he was fourteen. Desperate to patch in. Which he had done only a year ago. The youngest patched member they had. Hence the name Young Blood.
Young Blood was too much of a mouthful, so I had shortened it to YB. None of the others called him that. Just me. He didn’t seem to mind, though. He was a sweet kid.
“So how are you doing without Truth?”
I frowned. “He’s not even been gone twenty-four hours yet.” I shook my head. “I think I can manage twenty-four hours without him.”
For a second, he just stared at me, a quizzical look pinching his eyebrows together.
