Twisted Secrets

by Keta Kendric

  My gaze landed on Megan. I didn’t have the slightest clue as to how I was supposed to help her. Her head was laid across my lap, and the rest of her body was tucked into a tight knot on the seat. A riotous mass if thick curls was all over the place. Her anguished cries had gone on and on until she’d either passed out or run out of sound. Occasionally, her body would jump with a start. I was as helpless with her as I had been seeing my cousin lose his life. So, I simply rubbed her head and let her suffer in peace.

  My mind fell on my team and Aaron’s. It’d been over an hour since we’d left them in the heat of battle. I placed Aaron’s phone to my ear and dialed D.

  “Yeah,” he answered. His voice breathed a touch of life back into my deflated body.

  “You don’t know how fucking happy I am to hear your voice. Did you all make it?”

  “Yeah. Marcus took one in the back, but it didn’t hit anything vital. Gavin took a leg shot. It missed his dick by an inch, but he’s good. We had to flee on foot. So, we couldn’t pick up the package.”

  Fuck!

  “I’m about sixty miles out, but I’m going back to get my cousin.”

  “Let me know what time,” D said.

  “No, D. You guys have put yourselves through enough shit. I got this.”

  “Let me know what time,” D repeated. His adamant voice let me know that he was about as hardheaded as Aaron was.

  “I’ll text you later tonight,” I replied before I ended the call.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Ansel

  After D hung up, the idea of avenging Aaron took over my mind. Like Megan, I was going through the motions. All I could think about was the fact that I was never going to see my cousin again, and the assholes who had taken him from me.

  As badly as I wanted to kill someone, I had to take a page from Aaron’s book and calm the fuck down. Patience wasn’t my forte, but if I was going to avenge my cousin and do it right, patience was going to be a necessity. I couldn’t allow what had happened to Aaron to happen again.

  We checked into a flea-bag motel that was nestled on a desolate back road, hidden from the main flow of traffic. I shared a room with Megan because I was afraid to leave her alone. She was like a zombie, eyes dead, mind on autopilot, and not talking.

  I couldn’t get her to eat, drink, or utter a word. I could tell it in the helpless lean of her body and the haunted glint in her eyes that she just wanted to die. My cousin’s death was ripping my heart apart, but Megan had sunk to a whole other level.

  I couldn’t even enjoy the fucking fact that I’d had her naked in the shower with me. The poor girl was so out of it, I’d had to strip her out of her bloody clothes and help her to shower. Once I got her cleaned up, I dug through her backpack and helped her into the pajama set she’d packed.

  After tucking her into one of the beds in our room, I stood over her and observed. Aaron told me to take care of her, but I feared that there wasn’t enough of her left for me to take care of. My finger stroked her damp curls before I brushed a few away from her face. “Don’t worry, Megan. I’m going to get those motherfuckers. All of them. I’m going to dismantle DG6. Either they die or I die.”

  Seeing Megan like this pushed my mind further into revenge mode because I wasn’t sure if she was going to recover. Hell, I didn’t know if I would recover. All I kept seeing was Aaron’s lifeless body on that ground and that bullet when it struck his head and sent his body flying back against that tree.

  I dialed the number I’d been dreading for hours. When I placed Aaron’s phone to my ear, Uncle Shark answered on the first ring. “Aaron?”

  Fuck! How was I going to tell him that his last son was dead? “Unc, it’s me, Ansel.” I swallowed the fucking mountain-size lump in my throat.

  “Where the fuck is Aaron, Ansel?”

  “Unc, Aaron’s gone,” I choked out. My voice didn’t sound like my own having to speak those words.

  “Mother Fuck!” my uncle yelled into the phone as some object in the back ground struck with the force and sound of thunder.

  Someone in the background must have asked him what was wrong. I heard him say, “They killed Aaron. They killed the only son I had left.” His growling voice returned loud in my ear. “They’re going to fucking die or we die.”

  My robotic reply was automatic. “I agree, Uncle Shark. They are going to die.”

  The line went dead.

  ***

  Moments later, I rolled to the edge of my wobbly mattress and fought gravity to keep from tumbling to the floor. Swiping at a few droplets that edged down the side of my head, cold sweat clung to my skin. The last twenty-four hours had my brain quaking and about ready to explode as my mind conjured the events that had led to the greatest lost I’d ever suffered.

  Aaron had visited me in my dreams and in my unconscious state, I didn’t have any other choice but to listen to his wise words. His last words hadn’t been those he’d spoken to me in those woods, telling me to take care of Megan. Instead, his last words had just seared their way into my brain, presenting a lesson I should have learned long ago. Aaron’s words had been so loud in my head that they had downloaded themselves into my memory banks.

  “Don’t do anything until your head is clear. Don’t go after anyone. Don’t fucking plot any revenge scenes. Take Megan and go the fuck home. It’s over. Don’t engage. Don’t do shit. Go the fuck home and work on your patience.”

  Patience had always been my greatest weakness. It had also been the one thing Aaron had been harping on me to embrace and practice for years. The way I felt right now with a heart full of vengeance, I didn’t know if I could abide my cousin’s words even when I knew the best thing to do was to adhere to them.

  I glanced over at Megan. Her body was pulled in a tight ball, nothing more than a lump under the covers. She was hurting just a bad as I was, but the difference was she had released her grief. Her problem was that she had so much inside that it had consumed her.

  Only a part of my heart was left inside my chest, but the part I had left had to be strong, sure, and careful. “I can no longer be who I was,” I mumbled in a low tone. I couldn’t be the hot head, hot-tempered, arrogant ass that I’d always been.

  I had to find the patience I’d never had and embrace it like it was my last breath. At twenty-six, I’d finally learned a life lesson in the harshest way possible. I had to lose the one person who meant the most to me to learn how to embrace my own life.

  Aaron had left me the one thing that meant the most to him in his life—Megan. Now that my mind wasn’t as clouded with thoughts of revenge, I could think more clearly. I could no longer walk carelessly into danger as I once had before. Patience was going to be my new guide.

  Megan had survived for a decade without endangering anyone’s life except her own as far as I knew. She’d been siphoning her strength wherever she could get it. She knew how to be quiet, humble, and patient. Her methods weren’t the most practical or even sane, but she’d done one hell of a better job at keeping herself safe than we had.

  This was all my fault. Aaron was dead because of me. If only I’d let Aaron plan this out and not rushed him into this madness. Megan blamed herself for Aaron’s death, but he’d decided to enter the fight. As well as I knew my cousin, once he’d decided on something, there was no changing his mind. If I’d been in Aaron’s shoes, knowing what I knew now, I would have done the same damn thing. Aaron had decided on Megan and the devil himself couldn’t have ripped that woman away from my cousin.

  My uncle wanted retribution for Aaron’s death and he was likely going to get it or die trying. I was going to help him, but I wasn’t going to make any moves unless provoked. Nope, I was going to sit my ass down for once in my life, grieve my cousin’s death, and take care of Megan like he’d asked me to. For once, I had to accept that I’d been beaten.

  Bruised, battered, and bloody, I had to heal, and I had to ensure the woman lying in that bed would heal as well. I was going to listen to my cousin and fin
d the one thing I’d never had—patience.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Megan

  About six months later…

  It had taken me months to find some semblance of normalcy again. Aaron’s death had nearly killed me. As a matter of fact, I think I’d died and had been revived several times as large chunks of time had gone missing from my head.

  If it hadn’t been for Ansel and the promise I’d made Aaron that I would go on and fight, I wouldn’t have survived. I’d been held up in Ansel’s California home the entire time, and DG6 either couldn’t find me or thought I was too much trouble to be bothered with.

  Ansel had been patient with me and caring, but I knew he still grieved for his cousin as much as I did. He’d made every attempt to get me out of the house over the months, but I wasn’t ready and I didn’t know if I would ever be.

  Ansel had never told me about where he went when he left for days at a time, but I knew it had something to do with DG6 and avenging Aaron. Just like I’d begged Aaron, I begged Ansel to leave it alone and let me run. However, Ansel was just as hardheaded as Aaron and wouldn’t hear of it. I was afraid he’d end up getting himself killed too.

  As I sat on Ansel’s large leather couch in the living room, flipping absently through the TV channels, the doorbell rang. Normally, it wasn’t a big deal to hear a doorbell ring, but in the six months I’d lived with Ansel, his doorbell had never rung. I didn’t even know that there was a doorbell.

  Ansel’s maid slash house manager, had taken some leave, and Ansel had left, dressed in one of his suits, informing me that he had a business meeting to attend to.

  Therefore, I was alone in the huge seven-bedroom, five-bathroom, immaculately decorated home. Like Aaron, Ansel had standards that were surprisingly refreshing and somewhat sophisticated. Ansel’s standards were pricier than Aaron’s were, and considering who he led you to believe he was, you’d never know he lived like a king. Other than guns, I still wasn’t sure how Ansel made his living, but he lived well.

  At a glance, I didn’t see a shadow on the other side of the designs in the thick glass of the door. The only other people on the property with me were the four around-the-clock guards that Ansel insisted on at all times. I’d caught enough of one of their conversations to know that the guards were some of Ansel’s friends from when he was in the military. I’d already met Scott and Marcus, who’d visited for about a month but had left a few weeks ago.

  The guards never rang the doorbell because they all had keys and ensured they announced themselves before entering. Maybe, one had accidentally hit the doorbell or forgotten his key inside.

  Ding Dong. The bell rang once more. Its alarming sound danced against my eardrums and filled my body with tension. My wide-eyed gaze shot back to the door as I stood on wobbly legs.

  I crept closer to the thick glass door. The shadow on the other side appeared out of nowhere, making me slide to a quick stop, my bare feet squeaking against the floor. Although my body was no longer in motion, my heart was beating double time.

  The asymmetric designs of the etched glass in the door made the shadow appear tall, dark, and menacing. Had DG6 finally tracked me to Ansel’s house? All I knew of my location was that we were somewhere in the state of California. Ansel never told me where I was, and I didn’t ask.

  Up until now, I’d felt safe in the huge house. The place was more secure than a damn fortress. A palm print, retinal scan, voice acknowledgment as well as a six-digit code got you as far as the front door. Whoever was at the door, had blown through at least five security measures. If this was DG6, it meant they’d killed the guards and they were finally about to kill me.

  Tired of running, being afraid, and worrying about when they’d finally find me, I crept closer to the door. My gaze locked on the dark figure on the other side. A part of my brain was telling me to run like hell and hide for as long as I could, but another part was telling me to open the damn door already.

  My glance went back to my phone sitting on the coffee table, and I jumped with a heaving sigh when the doorbell chimed once more. Ding Dong.

  “Open the damn door, Megan,” I whispered nervously to myself. There didn’t appear to be a weapon in the dark figure’s hand.

  “It’s one of the guards, Megan. Stop being paranoid,” I scolded myself, mumbling under my breath.

  Reaching up to the keypad, I punched in the code to disarm the alarm with shaky fingers. My gaze was locked on my unsteady hand as I reached up to flip the first deadbolt, my legs trembling under my body.

  My stomach was rolling in knots, my heavy breaths blowing harshly past my lips. I forced myself to reach for the last deadbolt, the only thing keeping me from seeing if it was death waiting on the other side of that door or if my paranoid brain needed to relax.

  The sound of the final lock flipping open may as well have been a gun blast to my eardrum. My trembling fingers twisted the doorknob, but I paused before springing it all the way open.

  I inhaled deeply, closing my eyes as I pulled the door towards me, waiting for the bullet to strike or the knife to slice into a major artery. The heat from the bright sun enveloped my body, the low chirp of a bird’s voice found its way to my ears, but I remained in place standing with my eyes glued shut.

  After about five seconds of standing there, I’m sure looking like an idiot, I opened my eyes, and the vision standing before me made my heart freeze in my chest before it exploded.

  “Aaron?”

  Part II

  Chapter One

  Regina

  The night of the farm rescue…

  A vibrating rumble shook me from my dreams, and I jerked awake fighting my sheets and comforter to get out of bed. A skin-grating noise like the sky was being unzipped found its way to my ears before it started to rain bricks.

  Instead of climbing from my bed gracefully, my left foot lost its fight with the covers, and I fell to the floor with a hard thud that shook my insides and emptied my lungs of oxygen.

  The constant booms of what I assumed was weapon fire caused trembles to shake the ground above. I was probably in the safest place on my family’s farm—the cellar they’d converted into my home and office. I remained in place, lying on my floor as I contemplated sliding under my bed.

  The men who guarded the farm often practiced shooting at targets, so I was familiar with the muffled sound of gunfire. However, this was much closer than usual. It sounded as if guns were blasting off right above me.

  The flashing blue numbers, the only light that waved through the darkness in my room, told me it was 3:52 a.m. and it would still be as dark outside as it was in my room.

  Although I lived on the basement level, it didn’t hide the fact that it sounded like a war was raging outside. Confined to the cellar, I was rarely introduced to what went on outside.

  It hadn’t always been so, but thanks to my family, my life had been converted to a lonely, dreary shell of what it used to be. Before I was uprooted and transplanted here, I’d lived a normal and somewhat pampered life. The daughter of the infamous Emilio Dominquez, I’d breezed through medical school with ease at Cornell University in New York before entering their residency program.

  After my father’s death, I became enslaved by my own family. I was yanked from my residency at the Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital after I’d invested a promising eight months in my career. Here at the farm and without my father’s intervention, I was forced to do the jobs my family assigned me or risk being eaten alive by the den of slithering poisonous reptiles that they were.

  Another loud boom rattled the surface above me to the point that vibrations danced over my skin. On my belly, I slid under the bed as my gaze searched pointlessly through the darkness. The only explanation was that one of my family’s enemies was outside, retaliating for a crime we’d committed against them.

  However, this was the first time I was aware of that our enemy had located and attacked the farm. After being here for nearly three years, I was su
re that no one would find this desolate plot of land that sat in the middle of the flat plains in Texas.

  The hate I held for my family knew no bounds. I knew I should be grateful for the few rays of light they shined on me, but I was filled with too much scorn to be grateful to my family for anything. They allowed me two weeks of freedom. One week every six months. During my weeks, I leaped to freedom like a dog who had been chained to a tree in the backyard.

  My family hated me. A friendly conversation—not ever. A warm hello was never going to happen. Not even a half-eaten chicken bone was going to be thrown my way as far as my family was concerned. My family was run by a horde of men who hated women. It was as if their blood was tainted and their minds were programmed to disburse blatant disrespect and hatred among the female population.

  During my last break, I’d had so much pent-up loneliness inside me from being caged up at this farm that I’d called all my friends, rented the best hotel room and spent my time relishing the company of people who treated me like a person.

  My family had made my friends believe that I was practicing medicine in Mexico as an explanation as to why they didn’t see me often. Because of who my father was, it wasn’t a big stretch. The idea sounded like a good one, and they’d bought it. However, I had accepted the fact that if they were truly my friends, they’d have known that I’d never taken an interest in practicing medicine outside the United States because I’d never intended to leave New York.

  My mother was a beautiful African-American woman that my Mexican father had met in New York. I had one picture of my mother that I’d stared at so much that I’d memorized every line of her face. She’d died when I was seven, so I hadn’t gotten much of a chance to get to know her. I’d chosen to live in New York because it was the only connection I had left to my mother. But, my family had even taken that from me.