Hidden Truths

by Megan Erickson

  “Tara—”

  My hands that had been clutching him to me reversed. I curled my fingers into fists and shoved him.

  He rocked back, and I didn’t look at his face. Couldn’t. Didn’t want to. All of that. I got off the dresser in an incredibly ungraceful jump slash stumble and pulled up my jeans and underwear. Tears were blurring my vision and I didn’t know what the fuck I was going to do, where I was going to go.

  I searched my pockets and my purse. Keys, keys, where are my keys? That was when I froze. I didn’t have my keys. I slowly turned to face Lance, taking in his boots, and let my gaze slowly drift up his body to see that he’d dressed as well, and he stood with his feet braced, hands on his hips, face shut down. Completely. This wasn’t even the face I’d seen at the bar, because that one had been hungry.

  This was…nothing. Blank. And it fucking terrified me.

  I swallowed and mustered up what little courage I had left. “I’d like my keys please.”

  They were in his jeans front pocket. I could see the bulge.

  “No,” he said. That one word in that unbreakable tone told me there was no way I was getting those keys. Not ever.

  “It’s my car.”

  “I know that.”

  I held out my hand, and we both watched it shake. “Lance, please let me have my keys.”

  “Will you leave without me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then no.”

  I gritted my teeth, and oh God, I felt a gush between my legs. I needed to clean up, and I didn’t need the reminder of what we’d just done. I tried to count the weeks in my head, figuring out where I was in my cycle but goddamn that was too much math right now.

  “Please—”

  “I didn’t know your last name until today,” he said. “But now I know. And Tara, that means I can’t let you go. You know that.”

  I closed my eyes and bit into my lips. I did know that. Fuck. I looked at him again and some of that impassiveness had cracked. I could see past the mask. And he was angry. Fucking furious. Whether it was me or the situation, I wasn’t sure. I shared in his anger though. This wasn’t fucking fair.

  “What do you plan to do with me?” I asked. I didn’t try to sound pathetic, or weak. He knew me too well for me to play games with him now, for me to act like a damsel in distress.

  “Use you to get your brother to come out of hiding.” Lance said the words around clenched teeth, like the very act disgusted him.

  “I would have thought that was below you, to use a man’s sister to get to him.”

  “You don’t know me,” he spat back.

  “Touché,” I said softly. “And what do you plan to do with my brother when you find him?” He didn’t answer, and my heart lurched in my chest. “You think I’ll go along with your plan? That I’ll just be easygoing Tara and allow my brother to walk right up to you? You’re fucking crazy.”

  “Right now, I already have word spreading that I have you. This word will get to your brother. You leave me, and I take him to his enemies who will do far worse to him than I will. You behave and lead him to me, and it’ll be better for everyone.”

  I couldn’t believe it, I couldn’t believe this man who’d held me after the fire, who cradled me to his chest like I was precious, who promised he’d look out for me, was just like every other fucking man I’d ever met.

  “You promised,” I said, my voice giving away my lost battle with my tears. “You promised me you’d look out for me. I’d believed you. I should have known you'd be like every single person in my life!”

  I threw my bag at him, just because I needed something to do, some way to hurt him, then I stomped toward the bathroom. “I’m showering because I can’t stand to be in the same room with you.” I made it to the door before I turned around and hissed. “Fuck. You.”

  I slammed the door behind me, turned on the shower, and collapsed onto the tile floor with heaving sobs.

  I wasn’t sure how long I cried, but I eventually managed to collect myself and shower using the travel size toiletries on the sink. I scrubbed myself, but nothing could wash away the feeling of Lance’s hands on my skin, and the places he’d touched inside me.

  What sucked the most, was that I actually would have rather been lied to this whole time. I wished he’d known all along who I was and groomed me. Yeah, I really honestly thought that. Because knowing how he could be, what we were together when we were just two strangers? The pain of having that ripped away now because of my last name was excruciating. Hell, I thought I’d felt pain when my apartment had gone up in flames. But to feel everything Lance and I had been growing between us now slipping between my fingers like ash was unbearable, a deep-seated ache that wouldn’t dull.

  I didn’t think about the fact that we’d just had unprotected sex and I wasn’t on the pill. Nope, wasn’t going to think about that. I was going to pretend it didn’t happen. The unprotected part. Because the sex? I didn’t regret it. Even now that I wanted to strangle him, I was glad he’d given that to me one last time, that we’d been us before it was ripped away from me.

  I walked out wearing nothing but a towel, because I’d thrown my bag at Lance rather than bring it in the bathroom with me. I wasn’t about to put my dirty clothes back on. He sat on a chair by the small desk, feet braced apart, cell to his ear. He glanced up as I walked in, and his eyes tracked me. My bag lay at his feet. I thought for a second about turning around and running out the door. In a towel and with no car. That was how desperate I was.

  But where would I go? With both Lance and Reb after me, I didn’t have much of a chance. I wasn’t some criminal mastermind.

  “You can send all that to me here at the hotel?” Lance was saying, his eyes never leaving me as I dropped to a closed-knee squat at his feet and rifled through my bag. I pulled out a pair of underwear and turned my back to him, sliding it up my legs from under the towel. I still felt him there, between my thighs. And for some reason, that made tears once again prick the back of my eyes. Nope, no, wasn’t going to cry again.

  I dropped the towel and began to put on my bra as Lance cleared his throat. “Tara.”

  I ignored him and clasped the hooks behind my back.

  “Tara, do you need anything? Got a friend who’s sending us some supplies.”

  I turned around with a glare so hot, I hoped it would incinerate him. His eyes didn’t waver from my face even though I stood there in my bra and underwear. “Yeah, a bodybag to put you in after I smother you in your sleep?”

  He didn’t laugh, and he didn’t roll his eyes. If anything, he looked guilty as fuck. Good. Except… maybe it would have been better if he’d just treat me with scorn now. I would have an easier time hating him.

  Into the phone, he said, “I’ll buy her what she needs with the cash. Send what you got.”

  The person on the other end of the line talked for a while, and the longer he talked, the more Lance’s head hung. Then he rubbed his forehead with his fingers. “You were the one who suggested this in the first place. Now I got her, and you wanna give me shit. Fuck you, Hal.”

  I paused at that and then continued to get dressed in a pair of leggings and oversized shirt. Lance mumbled a goodbye, and I turned around to see him staring at the phone in his hands.

  “I thought you said you didn’t know who I was?”

  He didn’t look up. “I didn’t. I knew Bryan had a sister. The guy helping me out suggested I find you as collateral. I said no.” He huffed out a frustrated breath. “I wish I’d known who you were all along. Fucking wish it so hard…”

  His voice trailed off and I found myself saying. “Yeah, me too.” He glanced up at me then, and our eyes locked. I hated that his look could still tear through me, digging right down to the marrow of my bones. I looked away and retreated to the bed. “I’m assuming I can’t have my phone?”

  A muscle in his jaw jumped. “No.”

  I nodded and slid under the covers. “Thought so.”

  “I’m sor�
�”

  “I don’t want to hear that you’re sorry, Lance. I really don’t. Because I’m fucking sorry too. So goddamn sorry that I love my brother despite all the ways he’s fucked up my life. Because before that, he tried to unfuck it as best as he could.” Surprisingly, no tears came. I was all cried out today apparently. Good, about time I hardened up.

  I slid down until my head rested on the pillow, and then rolled onto my side, eyeing Lance where he hadn’t moved from his chair. He’d placed his phone on the desk beside him, head hung low.

  “So my brother for your brother,” I said. “That’s the deal? Then you’ll be happy, is that it?”

  He lifted his head just enough for me to see his bloodshot eyes. A streak of sympathy pierced me before I remembered he was holding me hostage. “No, I probably won’t be happy.”

  “So what’s the point?”

  “The point is that I spent four years in jail for involuntary manslaughter and during that time, I found out your brother killed mine. The last of my family alive. Every single day I woke up behind bars and I plotted getting your brother back. I was helpless for four goddamn years and now I’m not.”

  That was a lot to take in, so I started with the first thing. “You were in jail?”

  Lance gritted his teeth and ran a hand over his hair. “My brother wasn’t good at staying out of trouble. I bailed him out more times than I could count. I was the older brother, the responsible one, and no matter what shit he pulled, I was gonna be there. One time that was a bar fight. Arrived to drive my brother home to find him getting beat in a back alley with a fucking pipe by three guys. I saw red, and waded in and…” His teeth were going to crack if he clenched them any harder. “Punched some guy and he fell against a dumpster wrong. Cracked his neck. Dead.”

  Lance, for all his intensity, wasn’t a violent man. It wasn’t there in his eyes. I knew, because I’d seen plenty of violent men. “Shit.” I remembered now, too. The guy who died had been one of the new recruits to my brother and Reb’s band of assholes. I already knew the rest of the story, but kept my mouth shut.

  “Trent tried to take the fall. I wouldn’t let him. Went to jail. Turned out the guy I killed was one of your brother’s. He couldn’t get to me, so he got to Trent. By the time I got out, he had a turf war with Castor’s crew and fled town.”

  This was such a sad fucking story, and I hated that I cared, hated that my heart pounded in my chest for Lance, for my brother, for all the fucked up shit that had led to this moment. “So what were you doing in Waterstone?”

  “Waiting for him to come back to get his safety deposit box.”

  Oh, so he’d been doing the exact same as me. “Me too.”

  He tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

  “Bryan left town, left me. All I had was Reb, and I didn’t want to be dragged back into the life. I left and went to the one place Bryan had told me about. Waterstone. He said he had a safety deposit box and he’d be back sometime for it. That was the only contact I’d had with him. He was laying low, because Castor wasn’t the only one who would love to see Bryan six feet under. So, I stayed and waited.”

  Lance didn’t look pleased. “So he abandoned you?”

  “He had to get away. He isn’t exactly beloved. He’s a fucking criminal. He told me that Castor promised not to involve me, but according to Reb, Castor went back on that promise.” I heard myself defending my brother, like I’d done all my life to everyone who told me to cut ties with him. I’d lost all my friends because I’d refused. None had wanted to be involved with me as long as I was in contact with Bryan.

  “He left you,” Lance said, eyes burning. “To the fucking wolves.”

  “Your brother got you put behind bars! Don’t sit all high and mighty over there.” I rose up on one arm and pointed to my chest, seething. “Don’t act like you have some moral high ground over me and my brother. Okay? What exactly was Trent involved in that he was getting the shit kicked out of him in an alley by my brother’s guys?”

  Lance picked up the remote to the TV and viciously shucked it across the room, where it hit the opposite wall with a clatter. “Don’t fucking talk about my brother!”

  “Then don’t talk about mine!” I screamed back. “You wanted me? You have me! Don’t try to justify whatever you plan to do, because I don’t want to hear it. Just leave me the fuck alone and do what you have to do.” I gave him my back and pulled the covers over my head.

  I could still hear him breathing, and his shadow loomed over the bed. I could see the shifting light underneath the thin blanket. I thought he’d touch me, and I braced, but he didn’t. I wasn’t sure how long I lay there, waiting for something to happen.

  But eventually, the shadow over me shifted back, and I heard him say. “I wish, more than any-fucking-thing, that I didn’t know what it was like to hold you.”

  Then the balcony door opened and closed, and I stared sightlessly at the blanket over my head until I fell asleep.

  Ten

  Lance

  Trent had been wild, resistant to authority, and so goddamn charming. Me, on the other hand, I was the older brother who took on too much responsibility. I was determined and ambitious. I did what I was told.

  I was also stubborn. Stubborn as fuck, something that could be great in a lot of situations. Beneficial. It meant I never gave up. I was persistent.

  Except right now, that trait was fucking with my head. I’d spent years planning this—getting my revenge by taking down Bryan Drayer. I’d learned when I got out of prison that he’d already been knocked down a peg or two. His territory where he sold his guns and his drugs was a place of constant warfare, so much that he was forced out.

  Out on the hotel balcony, I took a drag of my third cigarette in a row and watched the lumpy form of Tara in the bed. She hadn’t moved. I assumed she fell asleep.

  Our last conversation replayed on a loop in my brain, and goddamn but I wanted to take a knife to my skull and cut it out. None of this was sitting right with me. I was sick to my fucking stomach over using her to get to her brother. In fact, I was sick to my stomach over all of it.

  I’d gone to prison for involuntary manslaughter, but the word involuntary was fucking key. All I’d been trying to do was rescue my brother. I wasn’t a violent person—I made furniture for a living. I’d once made a damn good living at it. I had a beautiful cabin and a decent nest egg. Then I’d lost it all on lawyer’s fees. I knew how to fight because in prison, I had to get smart, look big, be tough. I hated every fucking minute of it. I didn’t want to use my fists. I liked running my fingers over soft wood, beautiful details, and the soft skin of a woman. Tara.

  I groaned and dropped my head in my hand just as my phone buzzed. I answered it without lifting my head. “Yup.”

  “Lance.” It was Hal again.

  “You got me.”

  “Word is Castor’s crew is stepping it up. They want Bryan out of hiding to take him out once and for all. That might have been why Reb was coming for Tara. He heard too and was trying to get her safe.”

  “She’s safer with me than that bastard. Where the fuck did he think he was going to keep her?”

  “Don’t know. How long you staying there?”

  “Not sure.”

  Hal was quiet for a minute. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  I finished off the cigarette and dropped it on the concrete floor. I ground the butt with my boot just as Tara rolled over in her sleep. Her dark hair was over her face, and she pushed it off, eyes still closed, lips parted. So fucking beautiful, it made my heart hurt.

  “I’m thinking I don’t know what I’m doing,” I said to Hal. I’d told him my history with Tara, that I’d had no idea who she was until…until Reb showed up.

  “If Drayer was in front of you right now, what would you do?”

  Violent visions filled my head. Ugly things, actions I’d thought about for years but when I tried to picture myself actually doing all of that to Bryan…the images faded
.

  Hal’s voice cut through the fog. “And what if Tara was watching?”

  I wanted to throw up. She was asleep with my come still inside of her, and I planned to use her to find her brother and fuck him up?

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “Fuck. Fuck me, Hal. Fuck.”

  “I’ve supported you this whole time. You got out of jail so goddamn angry at the world. I thought you’d changed, that the man I knew was gone. I was prepared to give you anything, including Bryan Drayer’s head. But Lance…” His voice cracked on my name, and the sound was like a knife to my gut. “Lance, you haven’t changed that much. You still have the same heart, and this isn’t you. You’re not this man. When this is all done, can you live with this? Can you live with how you used Tara, and whatever you plan to do to Bryan?”

  Tara’s eyes blinked open, and our gazes locked. She didn’t move, and the hurt and sadness and—fuck me—regret in those brown eyes…nearly undid me. I’d done that. I’d made her look like that.

  My voice came out stronger than I thought it would. “Is the word going around that I have Tara and I’m holding her until I see Bryan?”

  “Yes,” Hal said hesitantly.

  “Good.”

  “Lance—”

  I hung up the phone before I could hear any more.

  Tara hadn’t moved, and her eyes tracked me as I opened the sliding glass door, came inside, and shut it behind me. I sat down on the side of the other bed, facing her, and braced my elbows on my knees. “Sleep well?”

  She narrowed her eyes at me.

  I softened my voice. “Look—”

  “Nope,” she bit out. “Nope, nope, nope, Nopetown population one.”

  I stared at her.

  She sat up and flung a finger at me. “You don’t get to come in here with that soft voice, the same one you used the night of the fire. The one that I loved, that made me feel safe and cared for. The same fucking voice where you promised me you’d look out for me. The same voice you used when your mouth was on my skin, your hand between my thighs. No, No. No!” She screamed it at my face, her expression full of rage and passion, and fuck maybe something was wrong with me, because she’d never been this beautiful. She was magnificent angry—fiery and confident.