Bury Me with Lies (Twin Lies Duet Book 2)

by S. M. Soto

  My father grew up in a trailer park with white trash parents who swore up and down that he’d never amount to anything. He worked his entire life to try to prove them wrong and gain their respect. That was when he met my mother in Brazil. Born to a millionaire, my mother was an heiress who fell for the lower class. My father had a new goal. Rather than gaining the respect of his parents, he wanted it from my mother and her family instead. He wanted to be enough for her. Until one day he was. Then he wasn’t.

  That was the thing about money and striving for success. You could never have enough of it. All the money in the world couldn’t make you happy. That was Benedict’s problem; he’d go the rest of his life trying to prove to the world that he belonged, instead of enjoying what he already had, what he had already built. It was a vicious cycle I could feel starting all over with me, but I planned on breaking it.

  Because I would never amount to anything in his eyes, it only made me hate him more. It only made me want to prove him wrong. See, I didn’t want to be my father or have the life he has. I wanted to beat him. I wanted him to look at me one day and see everything I’ve built and then give him the fucking middle finger.

  While I may not be as fucked up as the rest of the guys, it did feel good to be needed. To be someone’s leader, the person they ran to when they needed help and had no one else. It felt great for a while, until one day it didn’t. I was tired, tired of cleaning up messes and tired of worrying about everyone else.

  We wanted different things out of life. All they wanted to do was this shit: the partying and the fucking, while I just wanted to go to college without carrying someone else’s baggage on my shoulders. The guys hated the fact that Summer was always around because, in their eyes, she was an imposter in our brotherhood. She was the reason they could feel me pulling away. Only it wasn’t her at all. It was me.

  We were going to be eighteen years old. It was time to grow up and be adults. I was relieved we were all parting ways after high school and going to different colleges. Our friendship from toddlers to children to teens had grown murky. I’ve seen the guys do things I wish I could forget. Hell, I’ve done things I wish I could take back. I’ve participated in acts I didn’t want to be part of. It felt easier for us to just separate. The Savages couldn’t last forever. Nothing good ever did.

  They were my brothers, and even though I loved them to death, it was getting harder and harder to rein them in. We all wanted different things out of life, that much was obvious. I wanted to use college to make a name for myself. One that didn’t involve my father or the strict hold he had on my life. Vincent wanted to plow his way through every pussy on the planet, in hopes to forget his childhood. Zach wanted to degrade women to make himself feel better. Trent wanted to live off his parents’ money for the rest of his life without lifting a damn finger, and Marcus, well, he wanted the same thing as me—freedom.

  I down the remaining contents in my cup and hiss at the bitter taste, as it travels down my throat, warming my chest. I sneak a glance toward Summer and her friends, and I refrain from rolling my eyes when I realize she’s watching me. Her gaze is glued to me, waiting for my reaction as she grinds on Everette Hill, in the hopes she’ll make me jealous.

  It doesn’t work.

  “What time you out of here?” Vincent asks, dragging my attention away from her.

  I pull my cell out of my pocket and glance at the screen. “In a few hours, actually.”

  “You never did ask if I could come along, did you?”

  Nope.

  I shake my head. I thought about it, but honestly, these vacations were just that, a vacation. From everyone. Including my brothers.

  “Fucker.” He chuckles, taking a sip of his drink.

  I shrug, smirking as the alcohol works its way through my system. I’m glancing around the party when my gaze snags on a girl. Dressed in a black sweater dress and sneakers, with long blond hair tossed over one shoulder, she looks deeply into the fire as if lost in thought. She’s pretty, not in the all-in-your-face way that Summer and the rest of the cheer squad is, but still pretty, nonetheless. It’s a quiet pretty. One you’d need to take the time to thoroughly appreciate. Take the time to stop and stare at. Something about her is so familiar, though, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

  I toss the red plastic cup and am about to head toward her when Vincent’s lowly spoken question gives me pause.

  “I need a favor from you while you’re on vacation.”

  My lips purse in a grim line, and I shoot Vincent a dark look. “What is it?”

  “I have something someone wants. Something she’d stop at nothing to have back. I need you to make it go away.”

  I glance back toward the pretty girl and the roaring fire. Being a leader was all about cleaning up after my brothers’ messes. It was about being the one they came to when they needed help. I’d never once had a problem that I couldn’t solve on my own or that I needed to enlist the help of others for. But it seemed they always did.

  “And what will I get in return?” I counter.

  Vincent raises his brows, shocked by the request. I never ask for anything in return, but things change, as do people, like the tides.

  “I’ll be indebted to you until the end of time,” he replies dryly.

  A cold grin washes over my face. “You make it too easy, Hawthorne.”

  Vincent chuckles, shoving my arm. “Fucking asshole.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  My gaze finds the pretty girl again, only now I realize she’s not alone. Her big doe eyes are fixed on Trent as he makes his move on her. She’s utterly transfixed by him. It’s written all over her face.

  “Taking anyone back to the kissing rock tonight before you leave?” Zach asks, clapping me on the shoulder, as he sidles up next to Vincent and me. I glance around at the half-dressed girls, the drunken ones, and the quiet ones, and I shake my head.

  “I’m not going.”

  “All the more pussy for us.” Zach smirks, sharing a conspiratorial look with Vincent.

  I startle on the couch as Marcus shakes me awake, cursing violently.

  “Get the fuck up, Sebastian!”

  I jerk his arm off me, not in the mood for his shit. The alcohol is still swimming through my veins, making me drowsy.

  “Get up, goddammit! Vincent is in the hospital. Do you understand me? This is bad. So fucking bad.”

  My eyes spring open, and I jerk upright, the remnants of my dream clearing, as my consciousness hits me full force. My stomach clenches, threatening to spill the hordes of liquor I consumed only hours prior.

  “What the fuck happened?”

  “I don’t know,” he pants, raking a hand through his hair, as he paces back and forth like a caged animal. “I told you when I got here that something was up. He’s been acting strange. When I tracked his phone, he was in Ferndale. I just got a call from his mother. They’ve airlifted him from Eureka to West Hills.”

  A cold chill travels down my spine at the mention of our hometown. It’s a sore spot in our friendship. The name alone makes all the guys act irrational, out of fear.

  “We need to leave. Now.”

  With a slew of curse words, I shoot to my feet and dress in record time. The penthouse is a fucking mess, but that’ll have to wait until later. I follow Marcus out, my head spinning with theories. For years, there’s been dead silence on the Ferndale front. No one spoke about that summer, and no one bothered looking into the case, but something has changed. Why now? Why is someone digging nine years later?

  Who the fuck would care?

  During the entire ride to West Hills Medical, my phone is blowing up with article after article, posting about Vincent’s apparent wreck. Some tabloids claim it’s drugs, others drunk driving, while others merely wrote the bare minimum. Once the calls start coming through, I heave a tired sigh. That was the thing about the media and being in the spotlight. The vultures just sit in lieu with the others and wait for the shoe to drop. They wai
t for a morsel of a story they can spin. And this? They didn’t need to wait long. One of us in a car accident is enough of a story and fodder to keep them going for the next two weeks, before they move on to the next poor, unfortunate soul.

  I rake a frustrated hand through my hair, still feeling the effects of the alcohol and everything that happened with Mackenzie running through my system. I need to sober up. I need a clear head before I deal with whatever shitshow is happening in Vincent’s life now.

  Tension fills the air when I step into the sterile hospital room beside Marcus, my gaze narrowing on Vincent who is currently in bed, hooked up to a machine. The side of his face is bruised and scraped. His nose is obviously broken, and his leg is propped in a sling, wrapped in a cast. He looks a fucking mess with an arm that is casted. Save for the bruising and the cuts all over his face, I’m guessing whatever happened could’ve been much worse.

  Averting my gaze, I glance around the rest of the hospital room. Of course, it’s a luxury room, equipped with chaises instead of the normal hard chairs the visitors are forced to sit in. The only other person in the room is Trent. Zach is nowhere to be found.

  “What happened?” Marcus and I ask in unison, diverting our attention to Trent, to see if he has any news on Vincent’s condition.

  He looks like shit. His clothes are wrinkled, as though he rolled out of bed when he got the news about Vincent, and didn’t bother looking in the mirror. I’m sure I don’t look any better. His hair is in disarray, and dark circles are under his eyes. Trent blows out a heavy sigh and glances toward the bed. Vincent is still out cold.

  “I don’t know, man. We were supposed to meet up last night for drinks, but he never showed. I haven’t been able to get ahold of Zach. I got the call and came straight here.”

  Marcus and I share a look. What the fuck happened?

  I cross my arms over my chest, searching Trent’s gaze, trying to spot any possible lies. “Marcus tracked Vincent’s phone, and he was in Ferndale during the accident. You know anything about that?” My voice is cold and emotionless, the way I like to keep it, so no one can read what I’m thinking.

  Trent’s brows tug down in confusion. “That can’t be right. We were supposed to meet at Kings for drinks. Why the hell would he be out there? He fucking hates it there.”

  “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.” Marcus sighs.

  “What the fuck is happening, Baz? For years, we haven’t heard a goddamn thing, and now, all of a sudden, we can’t stop hearing about that fucking shithole! I thought you took care of it?” Panics flares in his eyes because he knows he has the most to lose.

  I grit my teeth at his accusation. After what happened last night with Mackenzie and everything else that seems to be falling apart around us, I snap. Clasping my hand around his throat, I squeeze, dying to plow my fist through his fucking face because I’m still secretly upset about his kiss with Mackenzie.

  Marcus jumps into action to pull us apart. “Hey! Knock it the fuck off! We have bigger things to worry about right now,” he growls, finally dragging us away from each other. With a hand on each of our chests, he stands in the middle, holding us back from one another. My chest is heaving as I work to control the rage that’s suddenly vibrating through my body. Trent’s face is red with frustration and likely from lack of oxygen.

  As if answering our unspoken question, Vincent begins to stir. Marcus and Trent close in around his bed while I hang back, waiting for him to open his eyes. He does slowly, letting out a groan of pain in the process. A grimace ripples across his face, and he glances around the room, taking in his surroundings with a slow perusal that I can’t tell if it’s due to the brain injury or something else.

  “Vince…you all right? What happened?” Trent asks, coughing into his arm and shooting a glare at me in the process.

  Vincent’s gaze darts to mine. A beat passes as he stares at me before he turns back to Trent and answers him. His words are a punch to the gut. They have my spine going ramrod straight, and my blood boiling.

  “I ran into Scarlett.”

  His words give everyone pause, and all the oxygen is sucked from the room. We all freeze, and I feel the guys’ eyes on me as I work to process this information. Slowly, I step up to the foot of his bed, the blood rushing through my ears in a deafening roar. I grit my back teeth as I stare down at Vincent, waiting for him to explain himself before I lose my shit.

  “We had an argument.” My gut twists, and I clench my jaw, working to tamp down my anger. “She drove us off the fucking road. That’s the last thing I remember.”

  “Just wait a fucking minute here. What do you mean you ran into Scarlett? Where were you? Why were you two in the car together?” Marcus asks all the things I’m suddenly incapable of asking. My fists are opening and closing at my sides, and I fear if I move, I might lunge at Vincent and wring his neck, much like I tried to do minutes earlier with Trent. The anger that’s suddenly living and breathing through my body, as if it’s just a vessel for the violent acts, should be concerning, but it’s not.

  This is new to me. I don’t react like this because I’ve mastered the art of being numb. Always calm and aloof during instances like these. That’s just another thing Mackenzie fucking changed.

  “Did you not just hear what I fucking said, Marcus?” Vincent snaps. “That bitch drove us off a fucking cliff! Look at me!” he shouts, his face turning an unhealthy shade of red. I take a threatening step forward, and Marcus shoots his arm out, holding me back.

  “Off a cliff?” Trent questions. “Where the fuck were you?”

  We know exactly where he was, but he doesn’t know that.

  “I was in Ferndale, goddammit. She must’ve followed me there. I don’t fucking know.”

  His words give me pause, and my gaze narrows even further. Just how far would Mackenzie go to get my attention? Was that what this was? Vincent in the wrong place at the wrong time?

  But what the hell was he doing all the way in Ferndale? He fucking hates his parents. There’s nothing left for any of us back in that shit town but bad memories and, even worse, skeletons in the closet.

  I was doing my damnedest to keep the door shut on those skeletons, but it seemed someone already had the door cracked, and when I found out who it was, I was going to end them.

  For good this time.

  Zach is the last one to arrive about an hour or two later, looking disheveled and confused. Marcus and I share a look, silently wondering what took him so long getting here. Unable to help it, I rake an agitated hand down my face. Nothing about Vincent’s story from earlier is making sense. I keep going over and over it in my head, and it doesn’t add up.

  “Tell me again. Tell the fucking story again.”

  “Are you kidding, Baz?” Zach growls, coming to Vincent’s aid. Marcus recounted Vincent’s story from earlier to Zach when he got here, and he didn’t even seem to question it, a lot like Trent. They are so sure he is telling the truth when Marcus and I know he is keeping something from us.

  I just don’t know what that is yet.

  It is the name he kept repeating that makes my chest feel tight. I don’t want to believe it. I can’t believe she has anything to do with the accident.

  Mackenzie did it.

  Or at the very least, that’s what he wants us to believe.

  I have to keep shaking my head, trying to make sense of it. None of the guys know Mackenzie by her real name. To them, she is Scarlett. They still don’t know all the details of what happened between us, but they know enough. I start to wonder if she really was capable of more than she let on.

  What were they doing together?

  Why was she in Ferndale?

  And the question I am most afraid of finding the answer to is, what has she done?

  Vincent lets out a pain-filled groan as he tries to shift his weight. “I already fucking told you assholes what happened. That psycho bitch drove us off a goddamn cliff.”

  My nostrils flare as I work to con
trol my anger. That’s how I know whatever spell Mackenzie put me under is working. She may have very well tried to kill someone, and here I am, getting angry that Vincent is calling her a psycho.

  I feel the weight of the guys’ gazes on me, likely judging me for bringing her around. But the issue I’m currently having with all this is with Vincent. I’d like to think I know Mackenzie, if not all of her, at least a small part, but Vincent…he’s like a brother to me. I know him well enough to know when he’s holding back. He’s keeping secrets, not telling the whole story, and I need to find out why.

  “What were you doing in Ferndale? In the woods?”

  “I was fucking going home to visit,” he grits out, his black orbs challenging me.

  I narrow my gaze and cock my head to the side. “Your parents? I find that hard to believe.”

  “Fucking believe it, Pierce.”

  “What were you two doing in the car together?”

  There’s a long tension-filled pause before Vincent barks out a wet laugh. “That’s what you’re worried about right now? If I fucked your girl, Sebastian? Of course, it is.” He scoffs, shaking his head dismissively.

  “No, I’m trying to figure out why nothing you’re saying makes any fucking sense, Vincent.”

  “She tried to kill me! Do you not understand that? The psycho bitch followed me into town and lured me into her car, then drove us off a cliff. If she wasn’t already dead, I’d kill her myself!” he barks like a rabid dog, venom spewing from his lips.

  A strange sensation enters my chest at his words. Like a block of dry ice has been dropped into my chest cavity, making it impossible to breathe. It feels like something is crumbling to pieces on the inside, but I curl my hands into fists, holding myself together outwardly.