This is work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Copyright© Yumoyori Wilson, 2018
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Cover Design by Cover of Darkness (Premade eBook covers)
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Editing by
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Format: Yumoyori Wilson
Contents
Acknowledgement
1002 LIES BLURB
Prologue
1. New Outlook On Freedom
2. Accepting Reality
3. Mourning And Choices
4. Silent Company And Give It A Try
5. Freedom And Time Off
6. Peacekeeping Xander
7. Check Up And Dual Love
8. Reunited Bonding
9. Precaution And Lurking In The Shadows
10. Side Effects And Own Your Shit
11. Stranded In Enemy Territory
12. One Thousand and Two Lies
COMING SOON- 1003 Lies
WOLF TAMER- SNEAK PEEK
WOLF TAMER BLURB
WOLF TAMER- PROLOGUE
ABOUT YUMOYORI WILSON
Also By Yumoyori Wilson
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Thank you for purchasing 1002 LIES.
Thank you to all my amazing supporters for being awesome and encouraging me to write every day.
Special thanks to my Ninja Wifey who always keeps me motivated no matter what I’m going through. Your friendship means the world to me and I’m thankful to have you in my life.
Special thanks to my inner circle and true friends who are always there to push/motivate me to be better. You know who you are, and I couldn’t be more grateful for your continuous love and support <3~
Special thanks to my amazing Alpha Team. You continue to work marvellously together, and I couldn’t be more grateful to have you on my publishing team.
Special thanks to my amazing Mom for blessing me with the gift to write and supporting me in all aspects. I pray to continue making you proud as I strive towards success.
Finally, I thank God for giving me the strength to achieve my goals. Without Him, I would be nothing.
YUMOYORI WILSON
BLURB
When the truth hides beneath a layer of lies, it's hard to decide what is more important: The truth that's hidden from the eyes of the world, or the lies piled on top.
As a Reaper, I never dreamed of what freedom would feel like. To be able to walk down the street without looking over my shoulder, or to even love a man. Or men...
Gaining a chance at a new life feels like I've taken a deep breath of fresh air for the first time ever, my head through the surface as I rejoice at my new living circumstances. Yet, tragedy has a way of dragging one back down, especially when your dream of happiness attempts to become a reality.
Mourning my loss is harder than I could have expected, and it leaves me wondering if freedom is truly worth it. I must decide to either fight for this chance at life or return to what I know as a Reaper of Beauty.
My roommates want the best for me, and before they'll allow me to try returning to my old ways, they give me a glimpse of what love is. A taste that leads to a dangerous addiction.
The lies won't end because the truth hasn't been revealed, and with a new group of enemies after me, it's time for me to continue the lying game and fight for the sake of remaining free.
Will I survive? Maybe not, but I guess I'll die trying.
Let the game continue...One Thousand and Two.
~XANDER~
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The knock on the door of my office pulled me away from the multitude of thoughts flooding my mind.
"Come in." I lowered the pen in my hand to the pile of papers on my desk; half the stack was made up of medical bills that needed my signature, and the other half consisted of reports regarding the incident that happened three weeks ago.
The Serum Ambush.
My tired black eyes looked up to see Dante enter the room. He was in his bodyguard gear, all in black with his brown hair gelled back and out of his way.
Bad habits die hard.
My heated gaze trailed down his body, appreciating his handsome features once more. It took everything in me to pull away and push down those past feelings.
Yes. Past. Dante and I will never work out.
It could have been my lonely, concerned heart trying to distract me from worrying about Xia, but crushing over my on-and-off ex-boyfriend wasn't helping me in any way.
It would only make me feel worse, and almost like a betrayal to Xia if I did anything remotely close to being intimate with Dante again.
We had touched base on it; Xia's perceptive nature caught on to it during our first encounter with Dante when she had seen both of us together for less than five minutes. I felt that Xia wouldn't mind if I did have lingering feelings for Dante, but right now, I wasn't going to touch the topic.
Or spark anything. My body would have to settle down and focus on the priorities at hand.
My interest in Dante had always been on and off. We'd be intimate and close one day, and then it felt like we were just “friends" the next.
Dante cared about me, and with Xia entering my life, I could tell it hurt him.
He hid it well, but not well enough for Xia not to notice.
The future of our relationship with Xia would depend on how everything went from here on out, but for now, Xia would be my only interest.
I just have to train my body to understand that.
"Still reviewing reports?" Dante asked.
"Yes. I'm almost done." I replied, and began to gather the reports I'd already reviewed. Dante closed the door, locking it with magic. That told me that he didn't want anyone else hearing our conversation and that it was important enough to receive my full attention.
He walked up to my desk, his eyes spotting the pile of medical bills. "Let us pay for some of them."
"You don't need to."
"It's our fault she got hurt the way she did."
"It's my responsibility."
"As her boyfriend?" Dante's blunt voice grabbed my attention, and I raised my head to meet his calm gaze. He looked just as serious as I had hoped.
"Yes. As her boyfriend. It was my duty to know there would be three groups there, and I fucked up on that. She got hurt protecting Ace and the rest of us from those bullets."
"That was completely unpredictable. The whole situation went downhill and was complete chaos."
"Even if the situation was unpredictable, I should have at least predicted there would have been more people wanting that serum. Now Xia's in a coma, her best friend is dead, and her remaining sisters are left distraught. If it wasn't for the fact Minju took the serum and injected herself with it, they would be doing everything to find Xia to get the serum. This unorganized chaos is due to my lack of foresight. We only had
fewer casualties because of Xia and the triplets."
"You're being too harsh on yourself," Dante grumbled. "You always do that when you feel guilty."
"Why are you here, Dante?" I brushed off his comment, not wanting to focus on it.
Dante had known me long enough that he could read me like an open book. I didn't need to hear about my flaws, flaws that I did my best to avoid confronting.
Dante sighed, and I knew I was being a bit of a jackass right now, but I wanted to get these reports filed so I could head back to the safe house to check on Xia.
"The autopsy results are in." He pulled out his phone and began typing away, a sign that he was changing the encryption on his phone so it wouldn't be hacked.
Something Silas always reminded us to do to ensure privacy.
He passed his phone to me, and I gazed at the results, my eyes scanning each line until I reached a particular section.
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NAME OF DECEASED CLIENT:
MINJU LA
AGE/GENDER:
27/FEMALE
POTENTIAL CAUSES OF DEATH:
Multiple bullet wounds, blood loss, suicide, broken bones (ribs, arms, legs)...
I had to stop reading, skipping over the multiple reasons of Minju's death. All I cared about was that she'd died a hero and was the reason why Xia was still alive.
ASSESSMENT NOTES:
Subject matter regarding foreign liquid in client’s bloodstream. Upon investigation, only 5% of liquid was discovered. After an intense assessment, it is concluded that the client had only injected a small amount of foreign liquid. It contributed to the cause of numbness and loss of consciousness before inevitable death. No other responses were engaged due to the shortened length of time within the living body.
Please refer to page 58(A) for more details.
"Minju didn't inject all of the serum into herself?" I questioned, and looked at Dante who shook his head.
"I asked the technician to do a triple assessment. The results were the same, she only had 5%. Maybe 10% if you want to be generous and believe the serum was fast acting, but not the whole thing. They believe her body would have gone into some type of convulsive state or a type of shock from the serum. The technician said it wasn't compatible with her blood type or magic. If she had 25% of it, she would have died within five minutes or less."
"Or instant death with the entire thing," I mumbled.
Passing Dante's phone back to him, I sighed and pinched my nose.
"Then Silas was right."
"About?" Dante inquired, reminding me that he was on guard duty when Silas and I had our talk.
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"You can wait for the results, Xander, but my gut is never wrong," Silas muttered.
"Xia would have died if that serum entered her," I countered. "It's not just an ordinary liquid. It has a large amount of magic within it in order to add numerous capabilities and enhanced skills when injected. Both parties wanted to use it to gain more power, and don't forget the whole "sexual" aspect of it. There's no way Xia would be alive with it in her body."
"She's unconscious. You wouldn't know for sure if the serum was running in her veins unless we took tests, which I highly encourage we do. It may need her to be awake for her magic to activate it, but I'm not crossing out the possibility that Xia could have been injected with the serum."
"And who would have injected her with it? You heard her on the phone. She could barely… breathe." I had to pause for a second to try not to get emotional. I was striving not to feel like a complete failure regarding what happened, but it was difficult.
"The tripl...twins, think so," Silas confessed. "They were there at the autopsy. No point in hiding things from them. They 100% believe Minju injected the serum in Xia and reserved a small amount to inject into herself."
"I'm fine with the trip… Minsu and Minso knowing about what's going on. It's regarding their sister's death and their best friend. They could contribute to our investigation. However, what purpose would Minju have in injecting herself?"
"Divert their attention from Xia. Why else would she use magic to replicate Xia's appearance? If her body survives the fall, which it barely did, she thought fast enough that an autopsy would be found. Those results have to go through the officials, not underground where we can hide the results from anyone else. Both parties or whoever wanted that serum are going to want to know who had it last. They'll see in the general results that there was a foreign substance within her bloodstream before her time of death. That's more than enough information for both parties to realize Minju was the holder of the serum and divert their attention from Xia, who originally had the serum in her possession."
"Still doesn't explain why she'd give almost all of it to Xia. It should have killed her."
"Should. If you haven't noticed by now, everything about Xia is different, but powerful. From what the twins have spoken about her, Xia's the top Reaper who now is an Elite, correct?" he questioned me.
When I nodded in agreement, he continued.
"This is only a hypothesis, but why would their Master be so keen to let Xia have the freedom to come and go? When we went for our date, there were no guards or hidden ninjas tracking us. Even with her surprise party we organized, not one of us sensed anyone on the property that wasn't supposed to be there. He was fully confident with her being on her own and still having the willingness to commit as a Reaper. Why? There has to be more to this than any of us know about. Maybe even Xia doesn't know, but if I was a man in that position with as much money and power as Xia's Master, I wouldn't be so easy going as to let my Reaper walk the streets without a leash. That's speaking from their point of view."
"She doesn't need to be tracked because she will remain loyal. I get where you're coming from, that there could be something we're missing, but Xia's loyalty for her Master wouldn't budge. It's far deeper than that," I mumbled.
"What ‘deeper resolve’ can be strong enough that she'd be willing to remain loyal to an old man taking in women and raping them for his own pleasure? Or if you want to think of the Reaper side, training them to lie, seduce, and please men to get the upper advantage and ultimately kill any target they're sent to locate and eliminate," Silas snapped.
I didn't blame him for his harshness.
"Xia was born into the Reapers of Beauty lifestyle. It wasn't her choice." I sighed and reached out for the drink perched on my desk, which would help me unwind and ignore my prickling nerves.
"You're not saying—"
"Xia's Master is also her father. He had sex with one of the Reapers like he usual did, but she got pregnant."
"He allowed the pregnancy?"
I stared at him and held my tongue, not wanting to be an ass. Silas noticed my hesitation and rolled his eyes. "It was a special circumstance and we all know what path it led me on."
I nodded and answered his question. "Yes. He allowed it, and Xia was born. I don't know many details after that, but Xia is the Master's daughter, and I think that is contributing to her easy slate if you'd want to term it that way."
"Regardless of whether she was born into the lifestyle or not, why would she be willing to commit to a man who has done nothing for her?" Silas argued. I understood his reasoning, especially with his upbringing, which I could imagine was far different from the way Xia had turned out.
"From the little time we've spent with Xia, what have you noticed?"
"She's kind, open-minded, and very perceptive," Silas replied.
"Then think about it. Xia looks at it like this. Her father, who is her Master, allowed her to live. He trained her and did a damn good job at it. She is one of only a few who have achieved 1000 Lies, and we can all tell her magic is a lot stronger than the Reapers we've seen in the past. I'm only trying to see it from her perspective, but even though her Master is horrible, she's alive because of him. She became the powerful, confident, and remarkable individual she is today because of the training she received. Reapers get paid well, so financially,
she doesn't need to rely on anyone, not even us. She's a jack of all trades when it comes to skills, and most importantly, she's 100% loyal. If she commits, she will be laying everything on the table. Could be my overall analysis of her, but that's what I've gathered so far."
Silas was quiet for a few seconds before he took a deep breath. "I agree… but he doesn't deserve such loyalty."
"I think we're all on the same page about that," I replied. Silence lingered between us and I took the opportunity to take another gulp of my alcoholic beverage.
"You don't drink unless you're a nervous wreck," Silas commented.
"That's bullshit."
"Sure." Silas rolled his eyes but gave me a sympathetic smile. "She'll pull through, Xander. Our only problem now is determining if the serum is running through her veins."
"And if your hypothesis is correct?" I countered. "What do you think that means for Xia?"
"If the serum is in Xia, and anyone outside of our group and the twins find out… well, she would be the first to survive the serum’s harsh properties."
"Harsh?" I repeated. I knew a bit about the serum and how powerful it was, but I didn't get what he meant by “harsh.”
One Thousand and Two Lies (Reapers of Beauty Book 2) Page 1