Page 33 of All Your Lies
I get back into my paperwork, which seems to be never-ending. My fingers are in too many cookie jars and I can’t seem to give myself a break. It’s like swimming through differentcurrents of water all moving around at once. Pulling me in every direction, I’m just trying to make sure I don’t drown.
It’s been this way since I got out. I gave my father a big fuck you and started my own businesses while using connections I made while in prison. They were well aware of my identity and the unique skills I could contribute, and I was equally aware of how I could leverage their abilities. Before I even left, countless partnerships were established. Bit by bit, I’ve been unraveling the empire my father holds so dear. Soon enough, everything that once existed will disappear, and my father’s name will lose its power, reduced to only a faint murmur.
It’s strange how violence can either bring you together or force you apart. My father was the latter. He made me hate him to an unimaginable level. If there’s something further than hatred, that’s what I hold for him. It took a long time to sift through all the tangled emotions and ingrained beliefs he made me carry. So many scars he inflicted, and for what? I still rose from the ashes where he left me, and I’m better than ever. My best friend, Vic, was the former. He had my back in prison. If not for him, I wouldn’t have survived the second time I was attacked. Blood doesn’t mean shit. Sometimes it’s just an excuse. Sometimes you need to bleed out that blood and become anew.
A knock makes me look up to see Jace.He’s another one where I could say violence brought us together, I think with a grin.
The week following my prison release,I was lostin the television’s glow while in Vic’s living room when I heard a noise and checked out the blinds. Someone was rooting around the front porch at one in the morning. After their third failed attempt at getting through a window, I unlocked the back door and waited for them to come around. I wanted the guy to get in just as badly as he apparently wanted to get in. I thought it was one of my father’s men coming for me. As he walked in throughthe back and made his way into the kitchen, I jumped him from behind and wrestled him to the ground. His fight was laughable, to say the least, and once he said Vic’s name, I let him go and turned on the light.
A guy younger than me was looking back at me with a black eye and a busted lip. I was rough but didn’t throw my hands. Turns out, he was Axl, Vic’s friend’s little cousin. Vic allowed Jace to flop at his house when he got into fights with his old man. Once he told me, my heart squeezed. I found a kinship with him at that moment. From that day forward, he’s been like a little brother I never asked for but got anyway.
It felt good to pay it forward and be the guiding light he needed, mirroring Vic’s support when I first became his cellmate. I made him a deal and gave him a safe place to stay a week after we met. Now, he handles every errand for the club, and any other inconveniences I don’t have time for.
“What’s up?”
“Just checking in. I didn’t get the chance to talk the other night.”
“No worries. I got a piece of what I needed. What happened, though? Your charms didn’t work on the friend?”
“My charms work on everybody,” he says with a smile so big both of his dimples show. “Some guy came up to her at the bar, whispered something in her ear, and she went white as a ghost. Then she ran to you guys.”
“An ex or something?”
“No clue. It was fucking weird, though.”
“Check the database and see who he is.”
I won’t tolerate someone harassing her friend, especially if it could endanger Alexa’s safety as well. They seem to be together more often than not.
“On it,” Jace says as he walks out of my office while typing something into his phone.
My phone rings, and I get a call from the front. I have a visitor. A very unwelcome visitor. I count to ten and hope that, for his sake, I have enough patience to deal with him.
I raise my eyes just as my carbon copy waltzes in. His hair looks picture-perfect, and he’s dressed like he just had brunch at a country club before a golf tournament.
Where I went dark with tattoos and muscle on muscle, he went light with a clean-cut fuckboy appearance and a runner’s body. A body I’m sure would be easy to bend in half and break.
Our contrasting appearances are impossible to ignore, more pronounced than ever before, which makes a calmness wash over me.
I got locked up because of this motherfucker. Years wasted, never to be replaced.
If we weren’t twins, identical ones at that, I would have never had to pay a price with years of my life. His penance is coming, and I look forward to it.
I spent many years thinking of creative and imaginative ways I would make him pay. Some more painful than others. The weirdest revelation is my choice to wait out his punishment.
When I got locked up, an overwhelming anger surged through me, fueling my every thought and action. The darkness was so overwhelming, all I could see was a pitch-black void. It consumed my every thought. I was fortunate to have Vic teach me how to turn my anger into a source of strength to push forward.
Instead of self-destruction, I used my time to better myself. I gained weight and muscle, read thousands of books, finished my schooling, and started college business courses.
I went through a metamorphosis in my time behind bars. I was no longer the good twin who ripped the shirt off his back, no matter how badly I needed it for myself.
I no longer sacrificed my own needs to appease others.
I pledged my loyalty solely to myself and to those who would reciprocate my every action.
I keep my circle small. Until proven otherwise, I perceive everyone as a potential adversary and that includes so-called blood.
That’s what makes this motherfucker in front of me an unwelcome presence. He’s the enemy. I understand my father manipulated events and used me as a scapegoat, but Marco’s choices caused all subsequent events.
