Dangerous Lies

by Ella Miles

  Copyright © 2021 by Ella Miles

  EllaMiles.com

  Ella@ellamiles.com

  Cover design © Arijana Karčić, Cover It! Designs

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Lies Series

  Prologue

  1. Liesel

  2. Langston

  3. Liesel

  4. Langston

  5. Phoenix

  6. Liesel

  7. Langston

  8. Liesel

  9. Langston

  10. Siren

  11. Beckett

  12. Liesel

  13. Langston

  14. Liesel

  15. Langston

  16. Liesel

  17. Langston

  18. Liesel

  19. Langston

  20. Liesel

  21. Langston

  22. Liesel

  23. Langston

  24. Liesel

  25. Langston

  26. Liesel

  27. Langston

  28. Liesel

  29. Langston

  30. Liesel

  Also by Ella Miles

  About the Author

  Lies Series

  Lies We Share: A Prologue

  Vicious Lies

  Desperate Lies

  Fated Lies

  Cruel Lies

  Dangerous Lies

  Endless Lies

  Prologue

  Liesel

  I always knew that falling in love was dangerous.

  I could fall in love with the wrong person.

  A monster.

  Criminal.

  Devil.

  A man who could hurt me.

  Rape me.

  Ruin me.

  That was always my biggest fear—that I would fall in love with a man who would hurt me, a man I couldn’t escape. That I would love him even when I shouldn’t. That my love for him would kill me.

  It turns out, I didn’t fall for the devil.

  I fell for a good, compassionate man. A man with the biggest heart. A man who loves me as his equal. A man who loves my kids as his own.

  I found a man who completes my heart—a man I want to spend the rest of my life with and beyond.

  But falling in love with him was still dangerous.

  And I don’t know if we can survive our love.

  1

  Liesel

  Beep, beep, beep.

  An annoyingly high-pitched sound infiltrates the fog in my brain. I try to open my eyes, but my eyelids are too heavy. My legs feel numb, and my teeth chatter from the chill surging through my body.

  Beep, beep, beep.

  The sound continues, trying to pull me back to reality. I don’t know what happened, but I do know that I don’t want to return to reality. Whatever happened was bad. I may not have much of a heart left, but I have to protect it.

  Stay asleep; life will be easier if you just sleep.

  “Miss Dunn, can you open your eyes for me?” I hear a sweet voice say.

  No!

  It’s a trap. I won’t open my eyes.

  I feel a hand running through my hair, brushing it out of my face before it lands on my cheek.

  “You should open your eyes now. It’s time,” her voice is still sweet, yet firmer now.

  I shake my head gently back and forth. “I’m scared.”

  Her hand moves down my body until she’s gripping my hand. “I know. I’m going to be right here holding your hand the whole time, though. You won’t have to face the truth alone.”

  The truth—that means something terrible did happen. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I wasn’t supposed to be asleep when I gave birth. What happened?

  “Open your eyes, sweetheart. Then we can talk. You still have time to decide.”

  Decide?

  I’ve already made my decision. Nothing is going to change that.

  “On the count of three,” she says.

  “One.”

  “Two.”

  I open my eyes before she gets to three. I don’t like doing what I’m told.

  “There you are.” She smiles, still gripping my hand. “How are you feeling? Do you need more pain medicine?”

  “I just need you to cut the crap and tell me what happened.”

  Her lips thin, and her smile drops, but she nods.

  “You gave birth to a beautiful, healthy boy.”

  My eyes scan hers, waiting for her to say more. She said boy—singular.

  “And the others?”

  She shakes her head as a tear rolls down her cheek. “I’m so sorry. We lost them.”

  We.

  There is no we.

  She didn’t have triplets. I did.

  I failed.

  I didn’t provide a good enough home for them. I didn’t eat healthily enough. Exercise enough. Take my vitamins. Reduce my anxiety. I didn’t do enough.

  I failed.

  And now they are gone.

  I want to scream, break things, explode into a million pieces.

  My grief doesn’t allow it. My grief streams down my face in burning silent tears. Tears that pour down each cheek for each of the children I’ve lost.

  My tears are the only external sign of my pain. Everything else I keep inside. The pain rages through my veins like branding fire until my heart can’t pump the agony through any longer. It flees from my body to go with my children. I no longer have a heart. A soul. A purpose.

  I’m nothing.

  I know the woman is hugging me, trying to comfort me, but I don’t feel her arms. I’m numb. I feel nothing anymore. I doubt I will ever feel anything ever again.

  “The couple is here to adopt the boy,” she says. Those words get through the pain.

  She waits; I don’t say anything.

  “There is still time. You can still keep him. You’d make a great mother.”

  “No, I’d make a terrible mother.” Even if I wouldn’t, I won’t bring a child into my world. He’d end up dead just like my other two children.

  “Do you want to hold him before…?” she trails off.

  I shake my head.

  “Dear, I really think you’ll regret not meeting him before you give him up.”

  My tears stop, and I push back out of her arms as the pain settles into my body. I might as well get used to it. This is my life now—an all-consuming amount of loss. Everywhere I go, I’ll feel it. Nothing will take the pain away. Nothing.

  “No! I don’t want to hold him. I killed them! It’s my fault they are dead. If I hold him, I’ll just end up killing him too!”

  I notice someone at the door, but then he’s gone as soon as I get a glance. A lock of blonde hair is all I see as he walks away from me.

  Good riddance.

  He’s the only one who could ease my pain right now. The only boy who would know the exact words to say. The only boy who could love me. And he can’t do that—loving me is dangerous.

  Plus, I want to feel all the pain. I don’t want him to take it away. Not now, not ever.

  That whole story was a lie.

  The nurse lied to me!

  All three of my children survived, not just one. They are all alive. I didn’t fail. Langston overhearing that my children died was a lie. All of it.

  The pain I’ve carried with me since that day was a lie.

  I have three kids.

  None of them are mine.

  I didn’t fail them that day, but I have now.

  Atlas was taken by Maxwell.

  Rose was taken
by Phoenix.

  Declan was taken by Corbin.

  Three kids—all taken.

  All because I didn’t do something sooner. After seeing Atlas myself, I was sure that Corbin and Waylon claiming they had my child was a lie. They had to be bluffing. I knew the second I saw Atlas that he was mine.

  Even though I saw the similarities between Rose and me when I saw her, I convinced myself that she was Langston’s.

  If I hadn’t been so afraid, then maybe I could have prevented this. I could have done more to stop it.

  I stare at Langston, who is still processing everything. He’s basically been frozen in place, his eyes wide, his lips parted, his hair wild since he found out the truth. Rose isn’t his child. I have three kids all gone.

  I can’t imagine how he’s processing this.

  For a moment, I thought he could have been the one telling me my children died the day they were born. I thought he hated me that much and wanted to punish me.

  But despite all the lies we’ve told each other over the years, he wouldn’t tell me that. When he realized Rose wasn’t biologically his—it shocked him, hurt him. There is no hiding or faking the kind of pain that comes with losing a child.

  If it wasn’t Langston who was behind pretending my children died and hiding them from me, then who was it?

  It seems important to find out.

  But right now, I have more important things to worry about. I need to ensure Langston hasn’t gone into shock and figure out a way to protect all three of my kids that are with three separate monsters. I have no idea if Langston is still willing to do this with me or not. Now that he realizes he actually has no biological children, he could just run—file for divorce and live his life. He has no loyalty to me.

  In some ways, it might be better if he did. The longer he stays with me, the higher the possibility of him falling in love with me. Other than getting my children back, the next most important thing to me is ensuring he doesn’t fall for me.

  But what if he already has?

  “Langston?” I speak tentatively.

  He runs his hand through his hair and immediately snaps back out of his trance.

  “Talk to me. What’s going through your head?” I ask.

  My heart skips waiting for his answer. Somehow this is more important than all the other words he’s given me.

  “We have three kids we have to get back.”

  There’s that word again—we. We have three kids. He speaks about them as if they are his. I guess even though they are all biologically mine, he has a much closer relationship with at least two of them. They call him father. It’s clear in his eyes and the words he uses that he won’t let that change any time soon.

  He grabs my neck and yanks me into his chest until I’m consumed with his smell—pine, sweat, sex—that’s him. For a second, I can breathe again. Would this have happened if, instead of walking away from my hospital room, he walked toward me? Would I have felt like I could breathe again? Like I could face another second of a day? Would I have kept enough of my heart to keep living instead of turning in a shell?

  “I hate you,” he says.

  I love you.

  Fuck. Fuck!

  He’s not supposed to love me, and I’m not supposed to love him. I don’t have a heart left to love him with, right?

  Something is keeping him from saying the actual words, though, so instead of saying he loves me, he says he hates me. Maybe he senses the fear in me? Maybe he thinks I’d run if he said he loves me? Maybe he’s too stubborn to say the actual words?

  Whatever it is that is preventing him from saying the words I’ll hold on to that for as long as I can. It doesn’t actually change anything, but it makes me feel like we are safe for a few more minutes.

  “I hate you more,” I say back.

  He smiles, knowing the truth of my words. That’s what we do—we lie.

  “What are we going to do?” I ask.

  “We are going to get our kids back. We are going to get the damn treasure. And we are going to kill anyone who gets in our way.”

  He speaks his words as if it’s already happened, without fear. He’s not afraid of failing because it’s not a possibility. We are going to get our kids back.

  I, on the other hand, am not so sure.

  “Hey,” he lifts my chin as if sensing that I need comforting. “I’m not going to let anything happen to those kids—all three of them. I love them. They are mine as much as they are yours. I won’t let anyone hurt them. We are going to get them back and then never let them out of sight again. Beckett won’t be babysitting again; no one will. We’ll homeschool them, do whatever it takes to keep them safe. I’m telling you the truth, huntress. Believe every word I’m telling you.”

  His lips lower, and he seals his promise to me with a kiss. Our lips touch only for a second, but with that kiss, he breathes new life into me.

  “What do we do now?” I ask, my head spinning, trying to decide between getting the treasure to pay the ransom to get our kids back and going after them now before getting the treasure.

  “Now, we get the crew together. We fight. We get the treasure, and we get our kids.”

  The crew—he means Enzo, Kai, Zeke, Siren, Beckett.

  “Do you trust them after what they did?”

  He nods. “I think we’ve punished them enough. We have three kids to keep safe, being kept in three separate locations. We need their help.”

  I don’t want to trust anyone, not even them. Beckett failed to keep my kids safe. The others betrayed us and manipulated us to try and get us to like each other. But we need help, and they are the closest thing to family that we have.

  Langston calls for a car, and then we are headed back to the airport. We are in our private plane in record time. I should ask Langston about the treasure, about what he found out about what we have to do next. But all I can think about is my kids and about what Langston said about Atlas being sick.

  I have to choose my words carefully, so he doesn’t know that I was lying. I had no idea that Atlas was sick and dying. If I did, of course, I would have done what I could to help him. Langston holding on to that little piece of hate might be the only thing that ends up saving him in the end, but I have to know what happened.

  I’m lying against Langston’s chest as the plane takeoffs. “Tell me about when Atlas was sick. How did you save him?”

  2

  Langston

  I don’t want to talk to her about Atlas being sick. Up until this point, it was the worst time of my life. I had her child, and he was dying. Terminal, the doctors said. I had to live with the fact that Liesel knew and did nothing.

  But did she really know? The fear she feels about him now is real. I can’t imagine she wouldn’t have felt the same fear then if she had known. She would have tried to save him, just like I did.

  Liesel lies to protect those she cares about. So why is she lying to me?

  Right now isn’t the time to get the truth from her.

  I can’t talk in great detail about Atlas. It will break me. Although, she deserves to hear a sliver of the truth even if she won’t give it to me, so I say a single sentence and hope she reads into it.

  “I went to the end of the world to find a cure for him.”

  She sits up, her eyes blinking as she soaks in my words, trying to decipher what I’m not saying. Her eyes light up, and her head tilts. She’s smart—it took her less than three seconds to realize what I’m not saying.

  “The cure that Siren and Zeke had. That’s why you went after it? For Atlas?”

  I nod.

  I would have done anything for that boy. I’ll continue to do anything for him.

  “Thank you for everything, killer.”

  There is so much truth behind her words. But I didn’t do it for her—I did it for him.

  She takes my hand in hers, and then we think about the kids the rest of the flight. About Atlas and Rose, who were taken from us. About Declan, who neither of us has met.
And about how together we will do whatever it takes to save them.

  I glance at her stomach, and something stirs inside me. I have five lives to worry about—Atlas, Rose, Declan, Liesel, and the baby in her womb.

  Liesel and I drop hands as we walk up the porch to Kai and Enzo’s house. Sure, we are together. We’re married. We are in this fight together. But we don’t want anyone in the house to look at us as a couple. We don’t want them to think they somehow were in the right to kidnap us and try to form a bond between us. Our bond has nothing to do with them. It has everything to do with us.

  Liesel and I have always been a couple, even when we fought it, even when we hated each other, even when we were apart, even when we lost. It’s always been us—even when being together means a lifetime of pain. There is no stopping us.

  We give each other a knowing look before I open the door without knocking and step into the three-story mansion. We don’t have to be holding each other’s hand to gain strength from each other. We don’t even have to be sharing the same oxygen. The strength we possess is from knowing that no matter how much we fuck up, lie, cheat, or kill, we are unstoppable together.

  We don’t even have to say we love each other for it to be true. We just always have.

  Kai comes fluttering into the hallway. I’m sure her security system notified her of our arrival.

  “Living room, now,” I say, marching past her with Liesel right behind me.

  Kai nods. She’s not used to taking orders from other people, but if she wants to help, Liesel and I will be the ones in charge, not her.