Taken by Lies

by Ella Miles

  My words seem to be enough for Langston. Neither he nor Zeke need much to follow my orders. They trust me with their lives. They will do anything I ask with zero questions.

  “So what’s the plan?” Zeke asks as we crouch down on near the railing of my own yacht staring across the black sea to Jarod’s yacht.

  “We sneak onto the boat silently, then take out every man until we find Jarod,” I answer.

  “And when we have Jarod?” Zeke asks.

  “I send a message that no one touches what is mine,” I say.

  Zeke and Langston’s exchange knowing glances. They are more than capable of getting their hands dirty without me being involved. My father would have let his men carry out his orders, but I prefer to be more hands on. It sends a better message. And this is personal.

  Langston stares across to the boat. A light flickers off. It’s time. This is as unguarded as the yacht will ever get. There are only three of us and who knows how many men on Jarod’s yacht, but we will win. I could have sent Langston or Zeke by themselves on this mission, and they would have slaughtered everyone on board with ease. The three of us doing this job together is overkill.

  “Let’s go,” I say as I silently jump into the water with the tiniest of splashes.

  They both follow as quietly into the ocean. And then we begin swimming, careful with our movements to hide in the waves and avoid making a wake, but quick and efficient.

  I reach the ladder leading up the back of the boat first. I ascend, my blood boiling with need for revenge. I should have brought Kai with me. Let her take out the man who hurt her so viciously, but that might lead her to believe I am a good person. I’m not. I’m not doing this for her. I’m doing this for me, so I can sleep better at night. I should have never let Jarod touch her in the first place.

  I hit the deck of the yacht, and pull my silenced gun out from my waistband. I don’t find a guard right away. Amateurs.

  I don’t wait for Langston or Zeke to come up the ladder. I start moving like a ninja in the night. My body blends with the shadows and creaks of the boat as it rocks gently in the sea.

  My first target doesn’t appear until I walk inside. A man asleep at the helm. I shake my head as I shoot him in the head. He almost deserves to die solely for being so poor at his job, not just for having a part in hurting Kai.

  I hear a couple quick fires in the distance. Zeke and Langston have boarded the ship and taken out their first men.

  I smile.

  I always come alive in moments like this. When I’m hunting deserving men. Giving them their justice. I don’t always kill evil men. Sometimes the men I kill are just mixed up in the wrong business, but the cruelest are my favorite to end.

  I creep deeper into the yacht and open the first bedroom door. A man asleep in the bed. I sigh as I pull the trigger. This is almost too easy. I really should have come alone.

  Another door, this man is up, having heard the sounds of the men dropping and our guns firing softly. He draws his gun, but he’s too slow as I shoot him in the chest. He falls with a thud.

  I open door after door and find no one. I open one door that sends chills down my spine. The room is empty—not even a bed. I should leave, not step inside, but I do. It pulls me in.

  It’s then I see the scratches on the door, walls, floor. I see the marks where a body hit the wall. Blood stains the floor. I trace my fingers over the scratches on the door.

  Fingernails.

  Rage fills me. This is the room Kai stayed in. The room Jarod kept her in. Tortured her in. No wonder she hates my bed. She’s been used to the floor.

  I storm out. A hurricane force beats inside me, yearning to do damage to the man who hurt Kai. How the fuck could I let this happen? How could I have been the reason for this cruelty?

  Because I was a stupid, fucking coward.

  “Zeke has him tied in the room on the end,” Langston says when I enter the hallway.

  “Good, stand guard on deck,” I say.

  I throw the door open and see Jarod tied to a chair. His eyes burn in confusion when he sees me. Sweat covers his forehead and fear rakes his body.

  Good, he should fear me.

  “Black,” his voice trembles as if he’s seeing the devil himself.

  “Good, you know who I am. I didn’t think you would.”

  I give a look to Zeke, and he departs us immediately.

  “Black, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

  I punch him hard in the jaw. I don’t want to hear his apologies. His body careens as he falls sideways to the floor.

  He spits out blood. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I was just following orders. I don’t deserve to die for doing what was commanded.”

  He’s right. He doesn’t deserve to die for following orders. “Too bad I don’t believe in being fair. You touched the girl, that alone means you deserve to die.”

  His pupils dilate in terror.

  I grin.

  I love this part.

  I spot the tape Zeke used to tie Jarod to the chair. I tear off a piece and cover his mouth with it. I don’t want to hear him speak anymore. His muffled screams will be enough to excite me.

  “You deserve to feel everything you did to Kai. Too bad I don’t have years to spend torturing you. A few hours will have to do.”

  I kick him hard in the stomach. He gasps and wretches. Possibly even vomiting in his mouth.

  “I’m sure you kicked Kai when she was down. I’ve seen the bruises and broken ribs.”

  I kick three more times for good measure as his body slams against the wall, breaking him free of the chair, but his hands are still trapped behind his back. He stumbles to his feet.

  Good, I’ll enjoy the fight more now that he’s standing.

  I slam my fist into his jaw over and over in quick succession. His face coloring and swelling before my eyes as blood swells from the cuts.

  “Did you punch her like this? Bruising her body repeatedly? Did you enjoy it like I am?”

  He twists away, but he has nowhere to escape.

  “What about stabbing?”

  His eyebrows raise as I pull a knife from my pocket and extend it. He tries to retreat back, but I grab his arm and thrust the sharp blade into his shoulder and twist.

  He cries out, but it’s muffled.

  “How many times did you stab her? Three, four, five times?” I ask, pulling the knife out before jabbing it back into his other shoulder, extracting more vengeance.

  Tears start down his eyes. Stirring more energy in me to continue as I know how many tears he pulled from Kai. Zero. She would never cry in front of this monster. She kept them all buried inside. One day she will explode, and I will curse myself when those tears fall.

  “You burned her too?”

  I find a lighter on his nightstand and hold the flame to his neck. He screams as the flame sears his skin—music to my ears.

  For hours I continue the torture well into the night until I’ve lost track of time. I let the devil live inside me all in the name of getting revenge for the pain Kai lived, but I don’t do it for her. I do it for me. Because the evil inside me needs a life to defeat.

  Jarod lays broken on the floor. A mess of blood, tears, and piss.

  I lean down close to his ear, knowing he is seconds away from begging for a conclusion. For me to kill him.

  “I think we’ve covered everything you did to her, except one. Rape.”

  He sobs and closes his eyes in fear.

  “Don’t worry; I’m not a sick fuck like you. I won’t rape you.”

  I pull the gun from my waistband. “But I am done with you.”

  I fire—killing him. And closing the biggest mistake of my life. I let this man hurt Kai, and now I’ve rectified the situation. It won’t matter to Kai. She’ll still think I’m a monster for what I did, and rightfully so. But at least now I took back what was mine.

  19

  Kai

  Enzo’s gone.

  He has been. For almost three wee
ks.

  He vanished. It’s like he wasn’t even here. I imagined him.

  No.

  He was real. He is very, very real. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be trapped in this fucking, gorgeous beach house. I shouldn’t complain. I’m being treated better than I have ever been treated in my entire life. And that includes before I was kidnapped.

  My father had nothing. And my mother died when I was little, leaving behind a legacy of hospital bills for us to spend our entire life paying off.

  And for the first time in a long time, I don’t know what my future holds. When I was living with my father in his trailer, I knew what my life would entail. I would live in the trailer with him, and clean yachts for a living. Until one day the debt collectors would come and demand more from me. And then I would sell my body to pay the bills. I knew my destiny, and it didn’t look bright. It wouldn’t include school or a career or a husband and kids. My life outlook was bleak, so I never dreamed.

  And then I was kidnapped, and my future changed. I no longer worked to put food on the table. I was lucky to get a scrap of bread on that yacht. I knew what my future was. Death.

  But now that I’m trapped in a house on the beach, I have no idea what my future holds. I can guess…rape, beatings, death. Maybe a little bit of everything I thought my future held before. But if my future here does include those things, it will be behind the glow of the modern walls of this beach house. It’s too pretty for anyone to think anything heinous happens here.

  And Enzo… I have no clue what to think about that man. He’s dark, dangerous, and powerful. I should be scared of him. He’s worse than any master who could ever own me. Killed more men than an army. But he hasn’t hurt me. He specifically said he would never touch me. Never.

  But then why am I trapped here?

  Why keep me?

  Isn’t that the question? One I’m afraid I will never get an answer to.

  A light tapping rattles on the door. It’s Dr. Miranda. She’s been overseeing my progress these last few weeks. And when I say overseeing, I mean overseeing. She’s never touched me, not even to place an IV. She did convince me to use one for the first week to increase my strength and nutrition without overwhelming my stomach. But instead of inserting it herself, she taught me how.

  “Come in,” I say, knowing she will stand outside my door all day and never enter until I give her permission.

  The door creaks open as Dr. Miranda pokes her head inside.

  She smiles at me sweetly when she sees me sitting in my usual corner of the room on the floor. She doesn’t berate me or tell me my bones would heal easier in the bed. She also never asks how I’m doing—realizing that even if I’m doing better, I’m still in a dangerous place and that isn’t an encouraging question to ask.

  Instead, she sits cross-legged on the floor in front of me.

  “How many hours did you sleep last night?”

  “Three or four.”

  She nods, showing no reaction to my answer. She never does.

  “Still getting nightmares?”

  “Yes, I woke up three times from them and after the last one, I just decided to stay awake.” I went from sleeping twenty-four hours a day from exhaustion to only sleeping three. My body doesn’t know how to react. So I go from one polar extreme to the next.

  “Have you been able to keep food down?”

  “Yes.”

  She never asks how much I’ve been eating. I eat enough, but not as much as she’d like, I’m sure.

  “How is walking?”

  “Still difficult, but the swelling in my foot has gone down.”

  “Would you like to show me?”

  I bring my foot out from beneath me and show her. She nods at the progress.

  “How is your pain overall?”

  “Manageable.”

  Miranda looks to my bottle of painkillers that have been sitting on the nightstand. I haven’t taken a single one. Not because I enjoy the pain, but because I’m afraid they will knock my frail body out. It’s one of the reasons I don’t sleep well either.

  “Would you like me to prescribe you something to help you sleep?”

  “No.”

  She purses her lips, obviously wanting to tell me something, but not sure she should say it. She doesn’t like pushing me. I don’t know if it’s because Enzo threatened her, or if she just realizes if she pushes she might lose any progress we have made.

  “What?” I ask.

  “I was thinking about your sleep. Sleep is the most important part of your healing process. Of course, I would like you to eat more. I would like you to take more medication and get some x-rays done. But if I had to choose one thing to focus on for you, it would be sleep.”

  I sigh. “I can’t control when my nightmares come or how much sleep I get. And I won’t take anything. It doesn’t make me feel safe.”

  She nods. “I’m not asking you to take anything.”

  “Then what are you asking?”

  “I’m asking if there is anything that would make sleeping safer for you?”

  I look at her wide-eyed. I’m pretty sure there is something, although I would never ask for him. I’m not even sure if it was a dream or reality. But the first few nights I was here and slept for hours uninterrupted, Enzo slept with me. He held my body all night, keeping me warm without overpowering me. I’ve never slept so peacefully, but maybe it was just because I was so exhausted and it had nothing to do with him.

  “Maybe a stronger lock on the door would help you? Blackout curtains? Sleep during the daylight and staying awake at night, if that is more what you are used to. Take a relaxing bath before you sleep. All I ask is that you try to get more sleep. It’s the most important thing for your body to heal.”

  “I will try.”

  “Good, thank you.”

  Miranda studies me a second longer. “For what it’s worth, Kai, you are healing. Your cheeks are filling back out into light shades of pink, your eyes aren’t empty holes anymore, and you have fat and muscle returning to your body. I know the healing process can be frustratingly slow, but be patient with yourself. You will get better. And you will heal in ways you didn’t even realize you needed healing—just be patient.”

  I nod.

  She stands. “If you need anything at all, give me a call. Mr. Westcott has my number. Otherwise, I’ll come back in a couple of days.”

  Miranda doesn’t wait for a goodbye or acknowledgment from me at all. She leaves without expectation of a hug or a handshake or a verbal goodbye. I like her as much as I can like a person, which isn’t much, but I’m thankful to have someone watching over me and ensuring that I’m healing. Albeit slowly and on my own terms.

  I lean my head back against the wall. I know what comes next, and I’m not sure I can handle it. I wish everyone were as gentle and understanding as the doctor.

  A loud tapping rattles the door.

  I don’t have to welcome him in, he just enters.

  “Good morning, Miss Miller,” Westcott says with a large tray of food.

  “It’s Kai,” I say for the millionth time.

  He ignores me and sets the tray on the nightstand.

  “I brought you pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, and toast. There is also a side of fruit. A smoothie, yogurt, and orange juice. And then I brought you both coffee and tea since I wasn’t sure which you preferred and you still haven’t told me.” He looks resentful.

  I haven’t told him because I don’t even know which one I prefer. Not anymore.

  “Would you like to eat out on the balcony today? It’s a beautiful day. It would be a shame to waste the sunshine. Vitamin D is essential for healing you know.”

  I frown. If it were so important, then the doctor would have recommended it.

  He sighs when I don’t answer and lifts the tray to set it down on the spot on the floor next to me, knowing this is the only way he’ll get any food in me, if it’s within my reach.

  I take a piece of the bacon off the plate and start nib
bling on it. Its probably not the best for my stomach, but it tastes good.

  “Is there anything else I can get or arrange for you today?” he asks.

  “My freedom.”

  He ignores me as he always does.

  “Actually…” I sit up straighter. “You can do something for me.”

  His eyes grow big and an automatic smile forms.

  “Can you arrange for blackout curtains to be installed in the room? And several locks on the door that can only be locked from the inside.”

  He frowns.

  “Westcott? Can that be arranged?”

  “Yes, of course. Mr. Black wanted you to have anything you requested.”

  “Except my freedom. I’m to stay locked in this room?”

  “The door is never locked. You are not a prisoner in this room as much as you think you are. You are welcome downstairs or on the balcony or to visit the beach if you so wish.”

  I smirk. I can go anywhere on the grounds where they can keep an eye on me.

  “When is Enzo coming home?”

  Westcott doesn’t answer me. But I think it’s because he doesn’t know, not that he was told not to tell me.

  “Anything else, ma’am?”

  I shake my head.

  Westcott leaves me to try to muster down some of the food and drink. I decide to test the coffee and tea today. I should know which one I prefer. I taste both, and my stomach feels like hurling, the bitter taste they both leave in my mouth is too much for my bland tastebuds.

  Gross, how do people drink either? I know some people want an IV of coffee hooked up to them, but I don’t understand why.

  I sigh. I don’t like coffee or tea. I’m not sure I can like anything anymore.

  I nibble more on the bacon. I guess I like the bacon.

  I continue my best to eat, and within an hour there are men in the room installing curtains and more locks on the door. I try not to hide and shrink away when they enter the room, but I can’t help it.

  They won’t hurt me, I repeat to myself. They won’t hurt me.

  As soon as the men leave, I run to the door and close all the locks. Each one is different and uses a different mechanism to close along a different part of the door. Some high, some low, some in the middle. It would take a lot to get through the door.