Page 23 of Brandishing Betrayals

Lots of cooing women saying, “Oooo”, and “Ohhh”, and ‘Aww’.

I had just looked up from my phone when the lounge door opened and a massive bouquet of yellow carnations and orange lilies was carried in, covering the face of my coworker.

I froze, my sandwich still halfway to my mouth as fear pooled in my belly. My heart pounded and my breath caught in my throat. “Oh my God, Maya!” Jayla, the front desk girl, gushed as she walked in with the bouquet.

I quickly schooled my face, forcing myself to smile and put down my sandwich as Rori and Aeyla walked in the lounge, with huge smiles on their faces. “Someone must really love you,” Rori said.

“Uh, yeah,” I forced a laugh. Thank God these women didn’t know Flower Language and had no idea the true meaning behind the yellow Carnation and orange Lily.

They were not friendly flowers. In fact, they were quite the opposite. Orange lilies symbolized hatred, pride, disdain, and contempt; while yellow Carnations symbolized disdain and disappointment.

It was not a friendly or romantic bouquet of flowers by any means, and the true meaning rattled me to my core.

HE had found me.

HE knew where I worked.

HE was watching me.

I had hoped the first yellow carnation on my car last Saturday had been a fluke, or a reminder. This was an all-out assault. The line had been drawn in the sand, and I was standing behind enemy lines.

Jason

Mywholebodyached,even almost a week after my beating. Marcos had done a number on me and I had deserved every punch.

I fucked up.

I fucked up bad.

Shit with Maya might not have been great before, but fuck. I never wanted to hurt her. That wasn’t me. The fear in her eyes would haunt me forever. Even now, the thought of it drove me out of bed.

Unable to sleep, I tossed the blankets off me and reached for my jeans on the floor next to the bed. I pulled them over my naked cock and carefully zipped up, before I headed for the door of my dorm style room at the clubhouse. Ever since Maya had left us ten years ago, we had gone our separate ways, no longer living together.

It was too painful a reminder of what we had lost.

And we never shared another woman.

Our lives had been utterly destroyed when Maya left us, and seeing her now, hearing her say it, it still fucking tore my heart out. I felt like shit for choking her, but hearing her say those words in my mind on repeat, only made me want to choke her again.I left you on purpose.

It was bullshit.

Dagger wasn’t talking to me, and Marcos, man. I hadn’t even seen Marcos in the last week. As president of our club, he had to be present, and he must’ve been, because no one else said anything. But I hadn’t seen him.

I stumbled down the hallway barefoot, heading for the fridge behind the bar in the main room. The room was mostly empty at four a.m., the party having died down around two.

I grabbed a beer and turned to survey room. The lights were dimmed low, but I could still make out the sprawled and passed out bodies that littered the floor—brothers who hadn’t made it to their own dorms, or hanger-on’s that crashed on the floor or couches instead of driving home. There were a couple half naked women on or under the men as well.

It was the typical scene of early Saturday morning at the clubhouse.

What wasn’t typical, was the bright light emanating from president’s office down the hall from the barroom. I scratched my brow with my middle finger before I took a sip of the Coors.I grabbed another beer from the fridge and headed toward the light.

I rolled my eyes at the stupid pun in my head.

The light on in the office could only mean one thing: Marcos was in the building and didn’t want to be seen.

Well fuck that. I had shit on my mind I needed to say, and Marcos was just the one I needed to hear it.

My bare feet slapped on the polished concrete floor as I walked down the hall. The office door was half closed, so I pushed it open as I stepped inside.

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