Bury Me with Lies (Twin Lies Duet Book 2)

by S. M. Soto

  I hear someone’s sharp intake of breath, and when I look, I realize it’s my mother. My father has her wrapped in a tight embrace, and her head is nestled in his chest. It’s a protective embrace, but one I’ve never had the pleasure of experiencing from the man in question. The disapproval in his eyes is like a shock to the system and a slap back to reality.

  The doctor clears his throat, glancing at the officers. One of them is rubbing at his temples, and the other is scribbling something down on a pad of paper. “Ms. Wright, you’re aware that your sister passed away years ago, correct?” The way the doctor asks the question—slowly and softly, as though he doesn’t want to rattle me—leaves the hairs at my nape standing at attention.

  “Yes, I’m aware,” I grit. A sweltering wave of pain rolls through me, making it hard to breathe. If they don’t give me pain meds soon, I’m going to pass out. “But she was there. I saw her. She pulled me out of that car.” The words spew from my lips like projectile vomit, only I’m damning myself because I’m not coherent enough of the consequences that saying these things can have on me.

  “Sometimes, our minds process and conjure fictional scenarios while in duress. Think of it as a defense mechanism for the brain. See, I think you were in so much pain, you imagined your sister there helping you. I think the man you were with helped you out before you passed out entirely, rolling with the vehicle.”

  Anger tickles the back of my neck. “No. I’m certain it was her,” I breathe out through another wave of pain. This one is so blinding; it quite literally steals the air from my lungs. “We spoke. She grabbed my hand, for Christ’s sake. Vincent left me there to die. He stabbed me because I found out the truth. I know what they did.”

  Slowly, the doctor’s brow quirks. It feels almost like a challenge of sorts. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice one of the officers takes a step forward, obviously interested in what I have to say. “And what is the truth?”

  Cold sweat trickles down my temple, and my body starts to overheat with discomfort from my injuries. I need him to stop asking questions and help me. “They killed her!” I snap, digging my free hand into the sheets beneath me and gripping for strength. “I had the proof, but then…then he found me, and then the wreck happened. I think.” I bring my free hand to my head, rubbing at my temple vigorously. My blinding headache is making it impossible for me to think clearly. “I don’t have the proof anymore, but—but it was there. If someone can just go back and look, they’ll see it. They’ll understand.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” my dad mutters irritably. I shoot him a scathing glare. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him to fuck off. If he doesn’t believe me, he can go. They can both go. I didn’t ask them to come. I didn’t ask them to take time out of their precious lives to care for the daughter they had probably hoped was dead, too.

  It’s hard to believe there was ever a time when my father and I were close. Time and death had the ability to change relationships in ways we never thought possible. It turns a grieving person’s soul into something new. It twists it until it’s something discarded. Nothing could prepare a person for death. We didn’t have the luxury of speeding past the hurt to reach the closure. We’re simply overtaken by sorrow. Grief rears its ugly head, and it unforgivably drowns us, and for a while, we start to wonder if staying under the water is better than ever breathing again.

  That’s what Maddie’s death did to us. That’s what it was still doing to us.

  “Ma’am, we’ve already—”

  The doctor clears his throat, raising his hand between me and the officer, to stop him from finishing that sentence. “Please, Officer, let me handle this. My patient has just woken up out of a coma. I don’t need you two here rattling her.”

  Though it’s obvious he doesn’t want to, the officer backs off. He steps back beside his partner, and their gazes sear holes into me. They don’t like me, that much is obvious. They feel no remorse for me, that my body is in shambles, as I lie in this bed.

  “The police have already searched the entire area, and they found nothing. Just your car and a discarded shovel. There was nothing else.”

  Tears of frustration sting my eyes. I want to bang my fists against this mattress and throw a tantrum like a child who isn’t getting her way, anything to let off steam. “That’s impossible.” I look back and forth between the officers and the doctor. “He…he must’ve gone back there and took it. He’s hiding it. You have to find him. That shirt was evidence. It was all I had. Don’t you understand? All of this was for nothing if I don’t get that shirt back.”

  The doctor shakes his head. “That’s not possible. The man you were with, Mr. Hawthorne, sustained serious injuries. I can’t see him being able to hide this ‘proof’ you speak of.”

  “Then he didn’t do it alone,” I insist, growing angrier with each passing second. Everyone in the room is staring at me like I’m a nutcase. “He must’ve had help. There’s no other explanation. Don’t you understand? I knew everything. I finally figured it out. You really think they were going to let me live after that? This would’ve ruined their lives. Their reputations.”

  The doctor shares a look with my parents before he nods, drawing his brows together, deep in thought. He clears his throat. “I think we have enough for now, Ms. Wright. I’m going to give you some time with your parents, and I’ll be back shortly with something for the pain.”

  The officers, my parents, and the doctor huddle near the door, speaking in hushed tones. Every so often, they look back at me, and the look in their eyes leaves dread pooling in my belly. This isn’t good. I can feel it.

  The doctor claps my dad on the shoulder, then shakes my mother’s hand, before he slips out of my room, taking his nurses and the officers with him. I narrow my gaze, watching my parents have a silent discussion before me. They don’t speak, but I see the conversation passing between them all the same. Whatever it is about, it changes the atmosphere in the room almost immediately. An icy chill of trepidation lingers at the base of my spine and pools in my belly.

  Slowly, my parents turn and walk toward the bed. Michael takes one of the open seats and drops his head in his hands. Surprisingly, Monica perches on the hospital bed I’m lying on, careful not to get too close. I can’t tell if it’s out of fear she’ll hurt me or because she just can’t stand being that close to me. Sometimes, the way she stares at me hurts more than the way she doesn’t look at me at all. It’s like she’s looking at me but not truly seeing me. She’s seeing the lesser version of Madison. She’s staring at the ghost of her dead daughter, and of course, it’s too much for her. It’s why she can’t look at me for long.

  “Honey, we…” My mom’s voice cracks, and when I see the glimmer of tears in her eyes and the tremble in her chin, I steel myself for the next blow that is surely coming. “We think maybe being transferred to a different facility to help speed up the healing process would be best.”

  I frown, not sure what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it. “Okay? I guess.” I glance toward the door, waiting for the doctor to come back with those pain meds.

  “I promise, the doctors will take care of you there,” she says, her trembling voice dragging my attention away from the door and back to her. “Your mind…it isn’t right, sweetie.” A lone tear slides down her cheek, and I hate myself for wanting to reach out and wipe it away. I hate myself for wanting to care for her when I’m the one in pain in a hospital bed. She sniffs, wiping at the single tear with the back of her hand. “But they’ll take care of you. This is for the best. When you come back, your mind will be clearer, I promise.”

  My breath gets lodged in my throat as realization dawns on me, prompting my eyes to widen. “What?” Hysteria claws at my veins. I try to jolt upright, but my body rejects the movement, and a howl of agony rips from my chest. “No. No, this is a mistake. I’m not crazy. She was there. You have to believe me! I know what they did to her!”

  My mom’s face crumples, and the dam breaks as tears roll d
own her cheeks. “You need help, Madison,” she whispers.

  My heart shatters in my chest, and the anger I’ve tried to bury for all of my childhood rises to the surface. “My name is Mackenzie!” I yell, startling both her and my father. “I’m Mackenzie! Not Madison. I’m not her! When will you stop wishing I was her?”

  My dad shoots to his feet, his face screwed up with anger. “When you stop pretending to be her! We’re trying to help you!”

  Tears spill from my eyes, and the pain slicing through my chest intensifies. “You don’t want to help me, you bastard. You’ve never cared about me. Admit it!”

  Nurses storm the room at the sound of our raised voices. I’m hysterical as they crowd my bed, holding me down. My mother cries in the corner as she watches them subdue me. My father’s shaking his head as though he truly can’t believe it’s come to this, and the last thing I see is the doctor hovering over me, his concerned face an unwelcome reality.

  “It’s going to be okay, Ms. Wright. This is all for the best, you’ll see.”

  Darkness swallows me whole, and unlike last time, I welcome it.

  The second I close the door in Mackenzie’s face, I sag forward, resting my fist against the wood, and slam my eyes shut. Her sobs ring in my ears on a deafening repeat, traveling through the entire level of the penthouse as she flees. I shouldn’t feel sorry for her. I shouldn’t feel anything at all. But I do.

  Fucking hell, I do.

  I hate her at this moment, and my entire body thrums with rage. For the first time in years, I’m feeling something, and I fucking hate it.

  The moans drifting from the bed recapture my attention. The two women I picked up at Kings earlier go at it with each other, touching and groping. They both eye me beneath their lashes, sending me their come-hither stares, hoping this will be the night they finally bag the Baz King. As I watch them, a foreign heaviness settles in the pit of my stomach. It’s troubling.

  The blonde takes the redhead’s hardened nipple into her mouth. Both of them watch me, beckoning me to come over and play with them for the rest of the night. My grip around the neck of the bottle tightens, and I grind my teeth together, hating what I’m about to do.

  I stalk toward the bed, and instead of climbing on there with them and fucking them both senseless, I snatch their discarded clothes from the foot of the bed and toss them at the women.

  “Get dressed, then get the fuck out.”

  They jerk back, stunned by my rejection. It’s plausible, what with the way they look, that they don’t get rejected often. The redhead scoffs, and the other shakes her head disappointedly, as she climbs off the bed and dresses, her movements jerky with attitude. I rake a frustrated hand through my hair, tugging on the ends as I glance out of the floor-to-ceiling window toward the balcony. The people out on the balcony are still partying in full swing—as happy and as carefree as fucking ever—but I don’t want any part of it.

  I throw the doors open and shout at everyone to get the fuck out. Most of them ignore me, still groping, dancing, and drinking. With my patience depleted, I toss the bottle of bourbon at the stone wall, and chaos erupts. Women run, screaming in fear, and everyone else finally jumps into action, heading for the exit. Once everyone is gone, the only sounds from the penthouse are the trickling of liquid, still spilling from that broken bottle, and silence. An uncomfortable silence that is just as deafening as it is still.

  Heaving a tired sigh, I plop on the bed and rest my head in my hands. I don’t know how I didn’t see it. I should’ve seen her lies from a mile away, but I fucking let her in. Stupidly thinking she was different. Stupidly believing I could trust her.

  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  Stumbling out of the room, I don’t spare another glance at the mess on the bed or out on the balcony. My eyes home in on the thick stack of papers placed neatly on the coffee table. They’re the same ones Mackenzie begged me to open and read. Against my better judgment, I lower myself onto the sofa and snatch up the thick stack, a disgusted expression marring my features. I fan the pages and see each one is filled with words. Probably more lies.

  Lies on top of lies are all she seems to be capable of at this point.

  I grit my teeth just thinking about it. The guys were right, and I hate the fact that I stood up for her. I brought her into my life, damn-near vouched for her, and they were right all along. She was exactly what they said she was—our ruin and my downfall. Every instance I think back on now, I wonder if it was all lies. Was she playing me from the start, or was she just as deep in as I was, and she just couldn’t see her own way out?

  That was my dilemma. Mackenzie came into my life at the wrong time. The time when I wasn’t looking for love or anything more than someone to fuck. I didn’t do relationships. I didn’t care about women and their feelings. I had my own problems to deal with, my own secrets and skeletons in my closet I needed to wade through. I had promises that I made, and promises I intended on keeping. I was a man of my word, something I prided myself on, and Mackenzie’s very presence in my life put all that in jeopardy. She changed things so swiftly and quietly that I didn’t see it coming. She made me want to switch up the rules for her, and therein lies the problem. Women didn’t come between the Savages, but she almost did.

  Things weren’t as clear anymore. The water staring back at me was murky. I still had a mess I needed to clean up, and things I had to do to hold up my end of the bargain. I just didn’t realize the bargain would cost me her. Everything revolved around her. I should’ve seen it sooner, but I was blinded by what I felt for her. I won’t make that mistake again.

  I had one intention now and that was following through on my word. I never went back on a promise, especially to my brothers. If Mackenzie knew what was good for her, she’d stay away, far away.

  Weighing the heavy stack of pages in my hands, I toy with the idea of throwing it away, but I can’t seem to bring myself to do it. Instead, I flip open to the first page and am just about to start reading when someone starts pounding on my door. With a frustrated grunt, I toss the stack back onto the coffee table and throw the door open with too much force to be necessary.

  “Something’s wrong.” Marcus pushes inside, pacing the floor. I let the door slam shut, ignoring him. Grabbing another bottle of liquor from the bar, I reclaim my spot on the chaise. Without a single fuck, I drain the contents, ignoring the burn in my chest with each gulp and swallow.

  I’d very much like to forget Mackenzie Wright ever existed.

  “Vincent was acting weird, man. I think something is wrong. Have you spoken to him or any of the other guys?”

  I sigh, resting the bottle between my legs. “Does it fucking look like I have?”

  “What the hell is the matter with you, Sebastian? Don’t you care that Vincent, of all people, is acting shady? You know what he’s capable of.” There’s a panicked gleam in his eyes I should care about, but I don’t.

  “Not really.” I close my eyes and tip my head back. The alcohol coursing through my veins makes it a whole hell of a lot easier to tune out Marcus and his antics. He drones on and on about this and that, and finally having enough, I thrust the bottle of liquor out at him.

  “Just shut the fuck up and drink, or get the fuck out.”

  He grimaces but grabs the neck of the bottle and takes a healthy swig. He plops onto the couch opposite me, and we spend the rest of the day there, killing the bottle and passing out. It’s the first time in days I’ve been able to sleep. The first time in days I’ve had a reprieve from thinking about Mackenzie and the unbearable ache in my chest.

  Nothing good ever lasts, though.

  Past

  I sulk in front of the roaring bonfire. The waves of heat seep through the fabric of my clothes, the flames dying to lick at my flesh and peel them clean from my skin. I wish it would. I’ve been drinking recklessly this entire night.

  Summer and I broke up again.

  This back and forth shit is getting old. I wasn’t heartb
roken. In fact, I didn’t care all that much about Summer or any other girl I’d dated in the past. I was numb, merely going through the motions. In reality, I didn’t know why so many others cared if we were together. Every breakup was the same. The town whispers, the gossip, the same old fucking drama. Summer was an escape I was all too eager to use.

  A decent guy would feel guilty for not being upset, but I wasn’t a decent guy. I was just irked by the fact I wouldn’t be able to use our relationship as an escape for my own issues anymore.

  Summer was a warm body who occasionally made me laugh. I don’t know why I kept her around as long as I did. The guys hated her. My parents thought she was a useless waste of space in my life.

  I was bored. Plain and simple.

  I hadn’t found my place in the world yet, and I so desperately wanted to, because this role? The one I’d been playing since I was a kid—leader of this fucked-up pack of misfits—

  was not doing it for me anymore.

  When I was younger, it felt good to be needed by the rest of the guys. We each had our own story, our reasons as to why we were all as fucked up as we were. And mine? The attention and the recognition I got from the guys was everything I didn’t get at home. It was always, “Be better, son,” “Swim harder, Bastian,” “You’ll never amount to anything, Sebastian.” It almost always came from my father. I was never good enough for him. I was either too privileged, which led to the lecture about his childhood and how he had to work twice as hard just to be where he is today, or I wasn’t deemed strong enough to take over his throne when the time came.

  The great Benedict Pierce was a force all on his own. He was richer than sin and was amongst town royalty here in Ferndale. The town royalty consisted of the founding families of Ferndale. And even though my father wasn’t technically a “founding member,” he had amassed so much money that he had no qualms about buying his way in. He bought the town’s fear, their respect, and their admiration. That was Benedict’s biggest downfall, his fear of not being enough. He grew up with nothing, and oddly, his father brought him up the same way he did me, though his circumstances were much different.