A Beautiful Lie (Unlocked #1)

by Amelia Rowe

  I made a mental note that she was protective over Patrick, like he was her father. But I was losing her.

  “Look,” I pleaded. “Please. I think this is my only chance. I’ve been looking for my parents my entire life.” She was unmoved, now standing up from the table.

  “What would he do if he found out his daughter came to find him and you sent her away?” It was the last card I had, the guilt card. She stopped and threw her head back, taking a deep breath.

  “Fine.” She sat back down. “You have two minutes to tell me why I should believe you.”

  Luke’s words that this part wasn’t a lie surfaced in the back of my head. This was all true.

  I ran through my entire story for Nikki. Being abandoned at a police station. Growing up with a family who didn’t want me once their miracle baby came. That I was twenty-two years old. I willed tears to brim into my eyes, but not enough to spill out. Was my sadness genuine? What was I yearning for?

  Her expression remained unchanged as I recited the details. When I added the final flourish – that I’d been working hard the last year at the law firm to afford my small apartment in Queens – Nikki crossed her arms and considered me.

  “I need to step out for a moment. I will be back.”

  Without another word, she rose from her chair and left the room. My immediate urge was to reach for my phone and text Luke, but then I decided against it. If my father was really guilty of the things they said he was, anyone who stepped foot into his hotel was likely to be at risk of being under surveillance. The thought brought forth an iron taste in my mouth.

  A moment turned into ten minutes. That turned into almost a half hour before the door cracked open. Nikki had returned, and this time she wasn’t alone. An older gentleman, balding, and dressed business casual in a button-up and black pants, accompanied her.

  “This is Dr. Neiman,” Nikki explained. Where had she found a doctor at short notice? “He’s going to do an expedited paternity test. If you don’t hear from us within twenty-four hours, do not come back. Otherwise we will be forced to get authorities involved.” Her words were a bleak warning. I was still digesting them when Dr. Neiman took his position in front of me.

  “Open.” He motioned to my mouth. I parted my lips and he withdrew a Q-tip from a small vial. He quickly swabbed the interior wall of my cheek, dropped the swab back in the vial, and nodded.

  “Is that it?” The process was so quick, impersonal.

  Nikki nodded and opened the door to the room, showing me out. “Twenty-four hours.” Those were her last words to me.

  When I realized that our meeting was over, I felt deflated. I wouldn’t even get to meet him? I had built myself up, prepared myself for the shock, only to be shown the door.

  I walked through the lobby in silence. Why was I feeling so disappointed over someone I’d never known? Plus, this wasn’t the way Alicia’s plan had originally gone.

  The wind had been knocked out of me. What if Luke had been wrong about this whole thing? What if they never called me? I started walking toward the station to make my way back to the West Village.

  My phone vibrated against my leg in my coat pocket. A missed text message from Luke.

  LUKE: Change of plans. Sending a car for you at seven.

  I sighed and shoved the phone back into my pocket, dreading an afternoon spent waiting alone.

  17

  Luke

  Despite my dedication to the Blake case, I had other responsibilities as a Watchtower employee. So when Joanna called right before noon, I had to go meet her down at the Hope Center. When I arrived, the police were on the scene and the front window was shattered.

  “A brick,” she mumbled, arms crossed, staring at the damage with jaded indifference. She had seen a lot since she started working there. “It hit Jenny pretty hard.” Jenny was a longtime resident we’d rescued from a brutal pimp in Queens.

  “Is she alright? Do they know who did this?” Even though my appearances at the Hope Center had recently been few and far between, I was protective over this place, its residents, and its director. Adam had never given me the responsibility of watching over it, but it was the one space where so many felt safe.

  Joanna shrugged her defeated shoulders. “Could be a group of unruly kids, could be a scorned ex-lover of one of the residents here. Who the fuck knows.”

  The situation made a long afternoon seem even longer. Nina’s interview would almost be done, and not knowing the outcome was killing me. Alicia had requested a debrief that night. It was too dangerous for me to go pick Nina up in the car. We were going to have to re-think everything, including the way we communicated.

  “Nice of you to show up now,” Joanna murmured as we filled out the paperwork to report the incident to the Board. In that moment I felt like an asshole. Maybe deep down I knew she’d wanted more than I did, even though I’d never given her any indication that what we had was serious. But now that Nina was around, I didn’t see her as much.

  “Things have been a little crazy at the office,” I apologized, not wanting to crush her with the truth.

  “Ah yes, those things you can never talk about.”

  It was company policy not to divulge the details of an operation to anyone other than the investigative team working it. Everyone else got quarterly updates in the email newsletter that detailed our wins over the last few months.

  “Please,” I sighed. “It’s just not a good time for me.”

  “I know you’re with her.” The statement was matter-of-fact. Like it was something that everyone knew.

  “Who?”

  “Adam’s sister. Nina.”

  “Joanna,” I said, but she looked back down to the papers. There was no use trying to make things right at that moment. So instead, I made myself useful for the rest of the afternoon. I called someone out to repair the window, dealt with the police, helped Joanna with paperwork, and ensured the Center was back in working order. I only glanced up at the clock when I looked out the new front window and realized it was falling dark outside. It was six forty-five and I had fifteen minutes to get to Carter’s place, where the meeting was going to take place.

  I found Joanna back in the supplies closet, restocking the shelves. “I have to go.” I was glad the words came out sounding more like an apology than anything else.

  “So go,” she responded, not turning to look at me.

  “Finally,” Alicia scolded when I finally walked into Carter’s place. There had been an issue with the subway so I’d had to come back up and find a cab. I didn’t walk through the doors until seven fifteen. Nina was sitting at the kitchen table with Carter.

  I don’t know how the guy lived the way he did. His apartment was similar to his personality – a dark cave. Whenever I stopped by, the shades were drawn and only dim lights were scattered throughout the place.

  “Hey.” Nina blinked up at me when I walked to the table. Her face was colorless and her shoulders slumped. As much as it killed me to see her this way, part of me breathed a sigh of relief that she’d come down from her expectations that morning of a blissful family reunion.

  “You alright?” I tried to ask the question in silence, but it was no use. Everyone heard my concern. Nina nodded.

  “So let’s get right to it.” Alicia called the meeting into session. The entire team had gathered. “What have you got for us, Nina?”

  “They gave me a paternity test.”

  That was a little alarming. I had assumed they’d wait for that formality until later down the line, that Patrick would want to assess the situation before creating some sort of permanence like that.

  “They don’t fuck around.” Carter leaned back into his chair.

  “No, they don’t.” Alicia’s voice was heavy with concern. “What’d they say?”

  “Twenty-four hours. They told me that if they didn’t contact me by then, not to come back.”

  All any of us could do was wait. Alicia went into planning mode. We had to be confident th
at they would contact Nina, but I could see it written all over Nina’s face that she had zero confidence that any of this would work out.

  Bradley handed over a burner phone. “This is the only way you should communicate with any of us. Nobody outside of this circle should know that it even exists. We also got you a new cell. Give me your other one and I will destroy it.” He slid the two new phones over to Nina, who looked at me with pleading eyes.

  “I can’t give you my phone,” she begged me. “What about my contacts?”

  “Don’t you have them backed up?” Her anxiety came off a little strange. In the time I’d known Nina, she didn’t even seem to have many friends. “I’ll do it for you right now,” I offered. She bit her lip, still not willing to hand it over.

  “Nina, you have to. We put this new number with the false address in Queens on the application. This is how they will contact you. We can’t risk having anything pop up that might give us away.”

  Her eyes darkened. Reluctantly, she reached for the phones and slid them into her pocket. The three of us stared at her, waiting for her to turn over the old phone. “Just give me a minute, okay?”

  She excused herself from the table and walked to the other side of the apartment, then opened her phone and began to punch on the buttons. Probably trying to erase everything, I thought. Little did she know how easy it was to recover the information from the device.

  I made a mental note to check her phone before Carter destroyed the memory card. If there was something she was hiding on there that could potentially jeopardize the entire operation, I had to know what it was. Otherwise, she would have no problem giving it over.

  “Are you sure we can trust her?” Alicia asked quietly, showing her first indication of doubt about the whole plan.

  “Of course we can.” It was a position I would defend any day of the week. “You guys, this is Adam’s sister we’re talking about. She’s on our side.”

  My boss shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I hope you’re right about this, Nolan.”

  And in that moment, I said a silent prayer that I wasn’t on track to fuck up Adam’s entire operation. I’d done all of the ground work, but if it went wrong now, it was all on me. And I had to own that.

  “Here.” Nina tossed her phone at me. “Take it.”

  Then Alicia ran through the different scenarios with Nina – what to say when they called. “From what you’ve told us, they will only call if it’s positive I guess.”

  There was a strange energy around Nina’s new phone. Knowing that it could go off at any second with life-changing news created a thick tension.

  “Before you go home, we’re going to the gym,” I said as we packed up an hour later. It was where Nina had found her confidence for the first time, and at that moment I saw a girl falling apart in front of me.

  She barely responded, but didn’t resist me either.

  When we got to the gym, the after-work crowd had left but the smell of fresh sweat still lingered in every corner. Without a word, Nina took her place in front of the bag and began the different combinations I’d taught her during our previous visit. I watched her maneuver the self-defense techniques like she’d done them a million times. Her small, lithe body was more capable of protecting her than she realized.

  I approached her from behind, and grabbed her. She released herself from my grasp with a defensive move. When I pinned her against the wall, she gripped and twisted my arm to get out of the hold.

  “You’re learning,” I grinned.

  But there wasn’t much happiness coming from her. One look in her eyes told me that Nina was fighting through fear and anger. To bring her back, I pressed my mouth to hers. And she responded, ready to receive me in a way she never had before.

  “Fuck me,” she begged. The strange demeanor that she’d been carrying around since the previous day dissipated, giving way to frantic passion. Before I could slow her down, she was pulling me out of the gym and headed toward my apartment. “I can’t wait for you anymore.”

  I wasn’t worried until I heard the panic in her voice. By the time we crossed the threshold into my apartment, her shirt was already stripped off. In no time, she was in the state of herself that I had grown more accustomed to: naked, sprawled on my bed, fully open to me and whatever I wanted to give her. She had nothing to hide behind. The only thing Nina had was an urgency to be consumed by something.

  I stared down at her, and for the first time fully understood that we were each other’s safety. After Perrot’s exhibit, at her lowest point, Nina had run to me. When I doubted my ability to fully love another person, I opened myself to trying to love her, despite the memories. And now Nina needed to feel safe in a different way. Her need to be consumed by anything in that moment was carnal.

  “Please,” she begged, the pleading in her voice cresting.

  There was no ceremony about this. No lead up. No tension building. She needed this and I had to be the one to give it to her. I wanted to give it to her, to make her feel safe and whole. But if we were going to go down that road, I was going to be in charge.

  “Slow down,” I told her, standing before the bed, removing my shirt. With each breath, her breasts heaved. Leaning over her, I took one of her pert nipples into my mouth and sucked hard.

  “Ahh,” she moaned in pleasure or pain, or both. “Please just take me.”

  I loved hearing her beg. The girl who never asked for a thing in life could barely handle another second without me deep inside of her. But she was going to have to wait.

  “Turn over,” I demanded. Her eyes flickered with uncertainty. Still, she did as I said and turned so that her perfectly shaped ass was in my line of sight.

  I gave it a small slap, just enough to sting. We hadn’t crossed the line when it came to sex too much. I was going to test her this time. She moaned again, but didn’t block my hands. So I slapped her ass again, this time a little harder. Her back arched up toward me and she squirmed, emitting soft urges for me to continue. My hand connected one more time, hard enough to leave a red mark on her right cheek.

  An audible gasp escaped her. “Is that making you wet?” I whispered into her ear, massaging my hand up her inner thigh to her opening. I slid a finger inside of her, easily because she was dripping.

  She whimpered beneath me. What she needed right now was something to take away the anxiety and the uncertainty of the next few hours. “Harder,” she begged.

  But she didn’t realize she was not in charge. Instead of obliging her, I spread her legs from behind and propped her up so she was at an angle where she could receive me. I throbbed for her and it was at the point where I was only teasing myself. I reached for a protection and then, without another moment’s hesitation, I slowly slid myself inside of her.

  She nearly gave out from the pressure of having me inside of her. I felt her tense from the strangeness of being taken from behind, and then relax around me. Just when she got used to me, just when my movements started to fall into a rhythm, I raised my hand and delivered a harder smack to her ass. She fell forward under my force and I went with her, making sure I never left her.

  “I will always keep you safe,” I promised, settling back into long, deep thrusts. “But you have to promise me that you will be extremely careful.” I moved faster and deeper. I fucked past the barriers she constructed around herself, the ones she walked through life clinging to. I fucked her down to her bare soul, to where she could no longer hide from the world.

  She writhed with pleasure.

  “Oh my God,” she breathed, now moving her hips to reach out urgently for me. And when we could both no longer take it, I raised my hand to deliver one final blow to her ass and watched her body receive it by dissolving into a deep, intense release that matched my own.

  “All better, I presume?” I teased her, wrapping her still-quivering body into the bed sheet and pulling her into me. Exhausted, she didn’t respond. Instead she buried her head into my chest. I lay there, running my fingers thro
ugh her hair while she drifted off to sleep, her demons now pacified.

  When I was sure she was fast asleep, I slipped out of bed over to my coat, where I’d stashed her old phone into a pocket. Just as I suspected, she’d erased everything on the phone.

  “What don’t you want me to find?” I asked nobody in particular as I booted up my laptop to restore the phone. It only took minutes to get everything back.

  The first discoveries were innocuous – mostly pictures of her and the other dancers at the shows. I smiled at a picture she’d taken of me when I was passed out. But then I got to the text messages.

  She had multiple deleted messages.

  TOMAS: You owe me.

  TOMAS: I will find you.

  TOMAS: Was this your plan? To be the ugliest piece of shit the world has ever seen? Only an ugly bitch like you could ruin me.

  Guilt washed over me. She wasn’t hiding anything, she was terrified and probably ashamed. I put her phone back and walked over to her sleeping figure. She stirred lightly in her sleep.

  “You’re beautiful, Nina Parker.”

  Some hours later, when it was still dark out, I awakened to the sound of her sobbing. She was sitting up in bed, her head rested in her palms. With each breath, her body shook.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” I sat up beside her, drawing her into me.

  “They called,” she sobbed. The hair on my arms stood on end. “The paternity test came back positive.” She let her head drop into her hands. I tried to read her body to see if she was more sad or more relieved about the whole thing. But the only way to describe her was emotional.

  I sat in the bed beside her, and wrapped her in my arms. “What else did they say?” I stroked her hair, trying to keep the focus of the conversation on the plan. This was a positive development.

  “First thing tomorrow,” she said through gasps. “She said he wants to meet me for breakfast.”

  So it was really happening. Everything that I’d worked so hard to prove was turning out to be true. I just hated that Nina had to be involved at all.