by Jenna Mills
She never got a chance to finish. Aidan rose up and lunged for her. And through the thickening smoke she went down, shooting again as she went. But the fire was there, too, at the edge of the bed, racing closer to the curtain. "Aidan—"
He twisted toward me, and his eyes went wild. And then somehow he was there, on the other side of the bed, climbing on top and tearing away the curtains, tearing them and throwing them away from the flames, grabbing the comforter and the sheets, grabbing it all and heaving it.
Ten seconds. No more than that could have passed. Then he was on top of me. Straddling me as he worked the bindings. Freeing first my wrists, then my ankles. And then I was in his arms and he was cradling me and running through the wall of smoke.
"I've got you," he promised. "I've got you."
Flames licked in all directions, eating up the walls and darting along the ceiling. There was no doorway, no way out. Only the window. He didn't hesitate, holding me with one arm while grabbing a chair with the other and smashing it through the glass as he carried me through the small opening, onto the verandah.
Warm muggy air swallowed us, but he kept running, along the edge of the balcony to the opposite side of the house. There he kicked in another window and lunged back into the house, into a room not yet consumed by the inferno. From there we made it to the hallway, the staircase, down to the foyer, through the front door and into the yard, as far away as we could, to the shadow of an old oak tree. There, finally, to the scream of sirens against the night, he went down on his knees...but didn't let go.
"Aidan," I murmured, but even just that, his name, turned into coughing. "My God," I rasped. "Aidan."
At last he pulled back. His hands. They were on my face. So big, one on each side. Framing, cradling, much the way he'd cradled my body. And his eyes. They were on mine. They were on mine, and they were locked, a silent communion that whispered through me, healing as quickly as it destroyed.
Hold him. Hold on. It was all I could think. Him. He was here. He was really here.
Him.
Everything before.
The scene in his office.
All staged.
Lies.
To protect me.
From this.
The nightmare.
His nightmare.
His world.
The one he couldn't escape.
"You came," I whispered. "You came."
"You're safe," he said, and his voice. God. It was that black magic voice again, rough and broken, but strong and smooth. "You're safe."
I swallowed hard. "It was her. Danielle. She's out of her mind—"
Trembling. His hands, big and strong, were trembling. Aidan's were.
I reached for them, needed so badly to touch—and saw the blood. On his fingers. "You're hurt—"
He grimaced.
I pulled back, memory returning, memory falling together, of those final moments, of the way he went down and the gun in her hands, and I saw it then, what I hadn't seen before, the blood on his jeans, at his thigh. "She shot you—"
But he'd carried me out anyway.
"Sh-h-h," he rasped, and then I was back in his arms, back in his arms and against his chest, and he was holding me, holding me so, so tight, holding me against his chest, against the frenetic riff of his heart. "Never again," he vowed as the scream of the fire engines wailed closer. "She's never going to touch you again."
The Man Behind The Mystery
Ten days.
That's what the assignment was.
Ten days with Aidan Cross.
Ten days to tear down the walls.
To explore what was on the other side.
To find the man.
The man behind the mystery.
Ten days to change his life.
Then I would go home. Go back to my life. To before....
Except, I didn't get ten days, and going back wasn't possible.
To my life—to before.
Not after finding a way through the walls.
Not after finding what was on the other side.
It was my first night with Aidan, at the book signing, that I first found myself wondering why he plays a role that doesn't make him happy. Why he lives a dream that I could already tell is more like a nightmare.
Now I know.
He plays the role, he lives the nightmare, because he has to. Because it's what's expected of him, all he knows. All he has left. Because every time he allows himself to venture away from the safety of the lie, someone gets hurt.
The masks he wears aren't masks at all. They're armor. Armor he straps on day after day to face the world. He is alone because he has to be. Alone because every time he lets someone in, lets someone close, tragedy takes them away.
His stories are filled with darkness because that is all that he has known. For him, everything becomes a contest, because he's learned what happens when he shows too much of his hand. He's learned not to trust. That truth can be turned into the ultimate weapon.
He is a man willing to lift the knife to his own heart, if doing so will keep the blade away from those he cares about. Who controls every second, every breath, because doing so is the only way to keep the world from spinning away.
It was my fifth night in his world that I asked him for five words. Five words that best describe him. While I waited for his reply, I jotted my own: energetic, challenging, drowning, controlling, sad. Then he gave me his: patient, unpredictable, deliberate, curious, alone.
But we were both wrong. Those aren't the five words. Those aren't the truth. His truth.
Misunderstood.
Wounded.
Sacrificing.
Strong.
Loyal.
Those are the real words.
That is his truth.
I'll never forget standing in his back yard, while the world around us slept, when he asked me if I had a title for my story. He surprised me by voicing titles of other pieces I've written. And when he spoke the words Little Girl Lost, it was as though he'd stolen a peek straight through to my soul.
But now those words echo through me, and I find myself playing with them. Toying. Twisting. Because it's not just little girls who can become lost. It's little boys, too. Every word I wrote, all those months before I stepped foot into his world, were about him. Aidan—Nicky. That walls seemingly in place to hide, can instead...protect. Isolation isn't only about being alone, but about being afraid. That the illusion of having it all—having everything—is all too often the perfect shield for the reality of utter emptiness.
So you keep acquiring, keep achieving, keep trying to fill the void, but you never will, never can, not until you realize the emptiness is inside you, and what's needed to fill the chasm is not something material, that you can buy or acquire or put on display. It comes from somewhere else, that place inside, the one you walled away so long ago, the longing feels more like a faded dream than a memory.
I was right that fifth night, alone in the shadows of the old mansion, the one he bought for his wife, the one where she died. Nicky Ramirez is still there, walled away behind all the broken pieces of Aidan Cross's life. Nicky, the boy from before.
Who loved thunder and lightning and rainy nights.
And garlic roast.
And the smell of bonfires.
Who saw me watching him through my uncle's window.
And never forgot my braids.
He's still there.
Still holding on tight.
Afraid to let go.
Still waiting for a happy ending to begin.
Epilogue
"This is one hell of a piece of writing."
Nicholas Ramirez, a.k.a. Aidan Cross, put down the freshly-sharpened pencil he'd been studying. "She took her assignment very seriously."
Detective Marc Edwards leaned back in his chair, studying the man once again sitting across from him. Blank. As always, Cross was completely blank, an empty page.
A story waiting to be written.
&nb
sp; "Grief-stricken," Edwards summarized. "Alone. Tormented." It was all there, word for word, an intimate psychological profile skillfully woven into an exquisite defense. "You come off somewhere between a candidate for sainthood and tragic hero." And with each page, disgust and rage had pierced deeper. "Not to mention fully exonerated."
Cross shifted in the purposefully uncomfortable chair. "Is that why you brought me down here? To review Kendall's writing?"
So smug. So confident. The bastard didn't even have the decency to pretend—or look upset.
"I brought you down here to tell you I wasn't born yesterday," Edwards said. "And that I know what game you're playing."
The same one he'd been playing for the past five years.
Cat—
"Game?" Cross asked benignly.
—and mouse.
He dubbed himself the master.
"This changes nothing," Edwards said. Because he wouldn't let it. "These are only words, a story." With absolute precision, he placed his hand against the pile of lies and spread his fingers. "No different than all the others you've told me."
Finally, Cross's expression broke. Finally, a single brow lifted. "Are you implying Kendall didn't write this? Surely you've taken the time to validate details about events I couldn't possibly have known."
He had. He'd talked to everyone Kendall Lawrence referenced in her writing—except for one person. Except for the mysterious A. He'd confirmed everything else she'd written. Most damning, of course, was the morning he himself had found her at Cross's house. Day 5, she labeled it. That was the morning he himself had spoken privately with Kendall. Unless Cross had his entire house wired, which was always a possibility, only the two of them knew what was said.
"I believe she wrote some of it, yes," Edwards acknowledged. But the truth remained. Sloan Rivard, Dauphine, Adelaide...they were as capable of lying as Cross. "Maybe even all of it," he acknowledged. "Exactly like you manipulated her to." Because writing didn't mean authoring. The words, the detailed story Kendall Lawrence committed to paper, were classic Aidan Cross.
His expression returned to nothingness. "Manipulated?"
Edwards was careful to keep his expression equally empty. "She fell for it," he said. "She fell for you...exactly like you planned for her to." Cross had begun seducing her the moment she walked through his front door. Bringing up the past. Stirring memories. Framing their dialog. Luring her first into his world...then his bed. "It's what happens next that I question. Where she is now."
What happened after Kendall Lawrence went back to Colorado.
Why no one had seen her for over four weeks.
Why her car sat untouched in the garage of a secluded rental cabin deep in the mountains.
Why her cell phone had sat unused for over a month.
Why a cup of long cold tea was found next to her open laptop.
Why there'd been no withdrawals from her bank account—or usage of her credit cards.
Cross's shoulders rose, fell. "How many times do we have to go around this same circle?" he asked, exactly as he had the morning after Kendall had first been discovered missing, before the manuscript was found on her laptop. "I've told you all I know."
That she flew back to Denver to finish writing.
Because their ten days were over.
The guilt slashed harder. Regret. Edwards could still see her, damn it. He could still see her bright, questioning eyes, the curiosity...and the stubbornness.
This one was on him. He should have stopped her from getting too close to Cross. He should have kept a better eye on her.
He should never have let things go this far.
And with the knowledge, the rage inside him twisted. If it weren't for the camera in the upper corner of the interview room, carefully documenting every second...
"Let me tell you what I see," he gritted out. "You played her. You started the very first night, making her uncomfortable, unsure, positioning yourself as the misunderstood hero she needed to defend—save. You played her like a fucking song, the whole time seducing her into writing exactly what you wanted her to write." Every look. Every touch. Every carefully-staged encounter...
All designed to elicit an equally-planned outcome.
"Your alibi." It was a first. "You got her to write your alibi—not only for crimes you've already committed, but for the one you were still planning." It was brilliant...diabolical. "You never planned to kill her that ninth night at the old house." Because he still needed her, hadn't been done with her yet. "You were simply staging the dramatic ending." Complete with a conveniently non-life-threatening gunshot wound. "Writing yourself as the hero, rushing in at the last moment to save the day and make her think everything was okay." To make everyone think that. "That you weren't a monster. That you'd been protecting her all along." Noble. Self-sacrificing. "That she could trust you. That happily ever after really could exist."
Cross's eyes met his. "That's cold-blooded."
"Yes," Edward said. "It is."
Another Aidan Cross hallmark.
He sat there, eyes flat, the lines of his face hard, with white lines fanning out from his mouth and his jaw shadowed—exactly like the last three times. After Laurel, there'd been emotion. After Laurel, he'd cried.
But Danielle...
Taylor...
Ashley...
Nothing.
Not a story waiting to be written, Edwards realized. That's not what Cross was.
He was a story that had been completely erased.
He'd tried, damn it. Tried to warn them all about the danger of being involved with a psychopath.
"There's just one problem," Cross said, his voice so mild he could have been reading a nursery rhyme. "You have no proof. It's your story—no one else's. Mine ends with hugging Kendall goodbye at the airport. "
But that's where he was wrong. Or lying. Because they both knew that wasn't going to be the end.
"She was in love with you, goddamn it." Completely blinded. "Is that why you got rid of her? Because she got too close? Or was that your next move all along?"
Finally the veneer vanished. The mask—the wall Kendall talked about. The one that concealed the real Aidan Cross. That hid what was on the other side.
"That's what you want, isn't it?" he accused, and for the first time, his voice shook. "You want me to be the monster. You've always wanted me to be the monster. That way you haven't been chasing your own fucking tail for the past five years. You haven't been letting the real killer walk free—"
"This isn't about what I want."
"Bullshit." Cross surged to his feet. "It's about you and your blind need to prove that you're right. Hell, maybe it's you," he muttered with a dark laugh. "Maybe it's always been you. Danielle. Tay. Ash. You couldn't pin Laurel's death on me, so you keep trying—"
Edwards pushed out of his chair. "Now there's a story."
"Isn't that the way it plays in the movies?" Cross went on, the veneer sliding back into place. Cool. Calm. Once again in control. "The person you least suspect—" He shrugged. "Kendall's coming back. When the time is right. When she feels safe. She'll come back and she'll tell everyone how wrong you are."
Smooth. He was so damned smooth. Practiced. He had a perfectly-prepared line for everything. "It's been a month. You're not the least bit worried something happened to her?"
"You're looking for the wrong woman." Cross's voice was as flat as his eyes. "Danielle is the one you need to find. Find her, and maybe Kendall reappears. But that's not what you want, is it? That's not how your story ends. "
No, it wasn't.
Because Kendall Lawrence was not coming back.
And they both knew it.
She wasn't hiding.
She wasn't scared.
She wasn't anything, not anymore.
Edwards felt his expression twist. "How long did it take you to come up with that one? Did it come easily?" Did he have it planned all along, that at some point he'd turn one of his victims into the culprit? Or
did that ingenious twist come to him later? "All I have to do to validate your claim is find a woman who's been dead—excuse me, missing—for four years."
"Exactly." The blue of Cross's eyes darkened. "Now, are we done?"
Edwards held himself very, very still. "For now."
Their eyes met, held. Then without another word, Cross turned and walked toward the door. And Edwards watched him. Watched him reach for the handle. Watched him walk away.
Again.
Aidan Cross.
The Master of Suspense.
Consummate Perfectionist.
Purveyor of Darkness.
A man fully confident in his own world.
The author of his own story.
They all ended the same.
It was only a matter of time until the next one began.
But Edwards would be ready.
And this time, he'd make sure the ending was his.
Because Aidan Cross was right about one thing—the best stories never end the way everyone expects.
Epilogue v2
Aidan Dead
The manuscript sat on the gleaming glass of the coffee table. Beyond, bright sunshine poured in through the wall of windows, illuminating the giant waves pounding the beautiful Belize beach.
"You can't publish this."
I heard the words, and felt everything inside of me tighten. On a slow breath I ripped myself away from the seagulls diving into the shimmering blue waters, to the man who'd arrived at my uncle's vacation villa only a few hours before. He sat there, in the wicker chair on the other side of the table, watching me. Detective Marc Edwards.
He held one page in his hand.
"Maybe not now—" I started, but he didn't let me finish.
"Not ever."
Two words. That's all they were. But they landed there, right between us, with the force of a sledge hammer.
"Kendall." That was Sloan. He sat beside me, close enough for him to slide a hand to my thigh.
Automatically I stiffened.
"You know that's not how it happened." Gentle. His voice was so, so gentle. Too gentle.