Under the Lies

by Green, Sarah E.

  For our siren to be okay.

  And in the early hours of the morning, I plan to help her with that.

  So I strip out of my sweats and I step into the shower where I have to bite back a curse. Jesus Christ, it feels like the flaming pits of hell are raining down upon her. Her pale, pale skin is scorched a molten red.

  My hands reach out, tracing down her arms to lace over where her hands are folded over her stomach.

  “I woke up wishing I never came back,” she whispers.

  I tighten my grip around her like she’s about to slip through my fingers and melt down the drain.

  I keep quiet. I don’t agree with her. Coming back home was the best thing she could’ve done. For me. Selfish, I know, but I don’t give a damn. Her life might’ve been easier when she was away, but it wasn’t as full. And I’m cocky enough to think that she’s seeing the world in a wider spectrum of colors now.

  I know I am.

  “Why do you say that?” I finally ask.

  “Everything would’ve been easier. I would’ve just had school to focus on. No sister. No family secrets revealed. No weapons trying to harm me.” She twists her neck to look up at me, and I notice there’s still a faint knife mark on it. With one hand I reach up and trace it.

  “But then I got to thinking.” She turns in my arms, pressing her chest to mine. “If I never came back, I wouldn’t have had this.” Her hands move up my body, finding a home around my neck. “I wouldn’t have had this time with you.”

  My eyes narrow at her words as her lips touch mine. It sounds like she’s forming a goodbye. I don’t like it. So when I kiss her back, I make sure my lips imprint against hers, that she feels them skate across her entire body as they travel down her neck, her chest, and knows there’s more between us than this physical need.

  I need her like I need the air in my lungs.

  Like the sun needs the sky and the moon needs the stars.

  She’s the light to my dark.

  Self-expression and words don’t go hand and hand for me. The best way I can tell Sayer what I can’t put in words is through my actions.

  So I sink to my knees, scalding water beating down my back as I kiss down Sayer’s stomach, down to her sex.

  She trembles under my touch and her fingers pull at my hair. “Noah.” She sounds broken and I want to be the bandage keeping her together. “We don’t have time for this.”

  Technically she’s right. We have to get to The Underground and deal with Harlow, but I’ve spent weeks letting Harlow pull me away from Sayer and I’m not about to let it happen again.

  Harlow can wait.

  Sayer can’t.

  There once was a time when I said I didn’t want Sayer’s heart but I’d give everything to steal it now.

  “We have all the time. They can wait,” I tell her as I massage her ass cheeks. “You can’t.”

  She doesn’t protest as I bring my lips toward her, tasting the sweetness that’s her. God, I could have her for breakfast, lunch, and dinner never going hungry again.

  Sayer sucks in a breath as my tongue reaches out to trace her clit, jolting under my hands.

  I smile into her skin. So responsive to my touch.

  Once I thought of Sayer Brooks as a weakness, a downfall I refused to let happen. Turns out I was wrong. She’s a strength I never knew I was missing.

  I wanted to go slow, to savor her, but a taste isn’t enough. Slow isn’t who I am. Who we are. With my hands tight on her ass, I haul her to my mouth, holding her there as I devour her.

  Her hips rock against my face as she breathes my name, begs for more.

  I tease her, play with her like the doll she is. So perfect and put together, I love watching her come undone like this, by my mouth, my hands. Her nails bite into my shoulders as my teeth graze her clit, her walls spasm around my tongue.

  With a growl I push her against the shower wall, hauling one of her legs over my shoulder for better access at the sweet pussy she’s given me.

  “Noah, I’m close.” Her nails dig deeper into my skin. Hard enough to draw blood and the thought alone has another growl slip through.

  God, she’s perfect as she gets lost in herself, in the sensation building inside her. She’s glorious as she comes undone, my name whimpered in a strangled worship.

  And it’s here, on my knees before this beautiful woman, that I know.

  Sayer Brooks is the siren that’s ruined me.

  Trepidation pumps in my veins. I’m standing with Reeve behind a one-way window, staring at Noah as he sits across from my sister at a metal table. Gabe stands behind her, his arms crossed over his chest and his face wiped clean of any emotion.

  The only person missing is Thea and when I asked Reeve where she was, he told me not to worry about it.

  We’re in another room at The Underground, on a floor between their stolen gallery and the casino floor. Noah told me this is where they bring people who try and cheat at the card tables.

  “This feels like an interrogation room in a police department,” I mumble as I stare at my sister and my—well—Noah.

  “Have a lot of experience in one of those?” Reeve asks from where he leans on the opposite side. He doesn’t look at me, his gaze trained on the room before us as well.

  “No, but I bet you have.”

  Reeve chuckles, but it’s cold, devoid of any humor. “Sweets, you have no idea the kind of prisons I’ve been in, but I can promise you none of them have been like this.”

  I tear my eyes away from the glass. “What do you mean?”

  “Never been arrested, but that doesn’t mean everything has been all sunshine and rainbows.”

  I frown.

  “You look good, baby.” Harlow’s voice snaps my attention back to the room. She can’t see us through the glass from her side of the room, but she stares at the exact spot I’m standing and her lips pull into a smile.

  “And you look like you’re deranged.” Noah sounds almost bored. The tautness in his shoulders says otherwise.

  The chilling smile drops to a frown. “She’s turned you against me. I always knew this would happen.”

  She.

  Harlow means me.

  We’re all tense, waiting to see what happens now. This has been the entire point of everything, Noah and me, but now that it’s here the pill is almost too big for me to swallow.

  My sister is back.

  My sister is the one who sent the letter, the pictures.

  My sister was behind it all.

  I know we never got along and there’s no love lost between us, but I never knew the hatred she had for me was so strong. Ran so deep.

  When Noah brought me into this room, he and I didn’t exchange words. We didn’t have to. He let me in by dropping the screen that’s always present behind his eyes. He was gaging to see where I’m at, how I’m holding up.

  He’s been doing that all morning. Taking care of me.

  After going down on me in the shower, he haphazardly dried us off before picking me up and carried me toward his bed. He tossed me down and made sure no thoughts occupied my head but him and us and the amazing heights he was bringing me to.

  Noah ravished me to the point of the bed sheets popping off the mattress and made me question if I’d be walking funny after.

  Harlow reaches across the table toward Noah. Gabe stops her, grabbing her wrist and pinning it to the table.

  No touching.

  My sister simply smiles up at Gabe’s sullen face. Gabe does nothing but keep her arm flat on the table. She looks back to Noah. “So you have me. Congratulations. What’re you going to do with me, now?”

  “I’ve spent countless hours since you were gone imagining seeing you again.” Noah shifts forward.

  Harlow smiles, not listening to the malice in his tone, only his words.

  “Would I wrap my hands around that dainty neck and shake you until I heard a snap?” I shiver at the darkness that’s crept into his tone. “Would I tie you under the pie
r and let the tide decide your fate? Hours, Harlow. I’ve spent hours trying to decide what to do with you, but now that you’re here I can’t do any of those things. Care to guess why?”

  I thought I knew all the sides of Noah Kincaid, but hearing his voice and the dark pleasure in which he speaks makes it clear that there are still some layers I’ve yet to peel back. And right now I’m seeing the mastermind, the ringleader of The Underground at work.

  He should frighten me right now, the voice he’s using is one of nightmares, but if anything, my body hums with seeing him in this position. In power.

  Harlow and I were born with many differences, but it seems we have one thing in common.

  Our reaction to Noah Kincaid.

  She’s staring at him the same way I do, like he’s a mystery waiting to be solved, a magnet we want stuck to our side. “Because you don’t have the ledger,” she sings, pride clear in her words. She still has the upper hand.

  The room goes quiet.

  “As long as I have it,” she continues. “You can’t do anything.”

  “You so sure about that?” Noah’s voice is soft, lethal and has Harlow straightening her spine.

  “What did you—”

  “You talk in your sleep, Harlow. I’ve never forgotten that. A person can have a full-blown conversation with you, and you won’t even know it.”

  I don’t need to see Noah’s face to know he’s starting to smirk as some color drains from Harlow’s face.

  “It was so easy for Thea to ask you in between snores where the ledger was and for you to tell her. I think she was even a little disappointed she couldn’t have more fun coaxing it out of you.”

  I startle, hearing a knock from the other side of the glass. Gabe smiles as Noah tilts his head toward the door. “Don’t you love when people are right on time?”

  A crease appears between my sister’s eyebrows as Gabe opens the door and Thea walks in. Noah turns his head to watch her and I see that devilish smirk firmly in place.

  Thea struts in the room, fanning herself with a thick, worn leather book.

  “That’s the ledger?” I ask, tearing my gaze away from the room to look at Reeve, who doesn’t bother to spare me a glance as he nods.

  When I turn back to the scene unfolding before me, I see my sister unravel. See the confidence she’s sat there with slip and be replaced with a nervous nibble to her lip. “No,” she whispers, only to say it again a little louder.

  Noah pushes away from the table to take the ledger from Thea. He runs a hand down the spine like it’s a tender animal. As he walks back to my sister, he glances at where I stand from behind the glass and winks.

  “Is it killing you?” I ask Reeve, seeing three of his friends. “To not be in there—”

  I’m asking an empty room. Reeve just waltzed into the interrogation room. Leaving me all alone.

  “Fuck this,” I say and storm out, walking the short distance and bursting through the door. It clangs against the wall and every. Single. Head swings toward mine.

  “Sayer,” Noah growls, his face stone while his eyes rage a fire at seeing me here. Not that I can really fault him. Last time I was this close to my sister she had a man hold me at knifepoint. And he did tell me to stay put.

  It’s not my fault he hasn’t learned I’m not going to listen.

  “What’s she doing here?” my sister hisses through her teeth. If disdain could kill, I’d be dead on the floor right now.

  I give her a small wave.

  She lunges at me.

  And the room erupts into chaos.

  Noah moves toward me the same time Thea pushes Harlow back into Gabe, whose arms lock around her in a vise grip. She struggles in it and almost kicks Thea in the chin with how high she’s able to get her leg. Luckily, Thea’s able to catch my sister’s ankle and twist, making Harlow turn into Gabe’s chest.

  Reeve stands between us all, chuckling.

  “What’re you doing here?” Noah asks again. We’re so close, standing toe to toe and I breathe in his scent. The familiar smell of amber and mahogany mixed with deep tobacco instantly making my muscles relax.

  “Reeve left the room and I got lonely. All the fun was being had in here.”

  Noah watches me and I hope he doesn’t call me out in the sarcasm I couldn’t quite keep out of my words. I hope he knows that I have to be here like everyone else in the room, maybe even more so.

  Harlow might’ve stolen and sent them on a wild goose chase, but for twenty-five years she’s made my life literal hell. What other person can say that their sister buried them alive? That’s taking sibling antics to a whole new level.

  I have to be here because I can’t keep hiding from Harlow. Not standing up to a bully isn’t going to make them stop.

  Seeing all this pass over my face, Noah gives me a sharp nod before turning back to my sister. He doesn’t move away, choosing to stay close to me.

  Harlow stares at us with an icy glare, still trapped in Gabe’s hold.

  “Now.” Clearing his throat, Noah speaks like the last five minutes didn’t transpire. “What were you saying about having the ledger?”

  Harlow looks away from glaring at me to stare at the ledger, seeing that her bargaining chip is no more.

  She’s lost.

  “What’re you going to do to me, Noah?” But that doesn’t stop her from using a flirtatious tone with Noah right in front of me.

  My fists clench at my sides.

  “Nothing.”

  Excuse me?

  Everyone looks to him in shock.

  He’s not going to do anything? After all this time, seriously?

  Before I can slap him upside the head, he adds, “I’m not physically going to harm a single dark hair on your head, Harlow. Not when I’m banishing you out of the city. No longer are you allowed to step foot in Haven Harbor.”

  Harlow might not be an idiot, but she also doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut. “That’s…so unlike you.”

  She stares at Noah like he’s a stranger. So are his friends.

  Me? I can’t form any thoughts, not when he turns his attention toward me. “Yeah well, I made a promise to someone that I intend to keep.”

  Gorgeous and fierce, his gaze burns into my skin as his words wash over me. Bathing me in these warm fuzzy feelings that twist me from the inside out.

  He remembered.

  “But you have a lot of enemies, Harlow.” Noah looks back at her, watching the color slowly leave her face. “A lot of people who want to get their hands on you from all the shit you’ve done and I was just at the top of the list. So you better run and you better hide, you don’t have The Underground’s protection anymore.”

  I don’t think I’ve ever seen my sister so pale by the time Noah’s done talking. Gone is the anger in her face, replaced by a sense of fear that touches even me. She’s being kicked out of the only place she’s ever called home and that’s worse than any kind of physical punishment.

  Which is why Noah did it.

  By keeping the promise he made to me many weeks ago, he gets to hit Harlow right where it hurts.

  Her hubris.

  He’s taking away the one thing she can’t get back.

  Her freedom.

  Her home.

  And I wish I could make myself feel bad, but for the first time in my twenty-five years, my warm and compassionate heart has turned cold.

  “You can’t be serious,” she finally says, but it’s weak. Slight panic hangs onto the edges. Harlow looks scared.

  And Noah feeds off it.

  He gives her a predator’s smile. “A hundred percent.” He steps close to where she’s still locked in Gabe’s arms, pinching her chin between two of his fingers.

  Noah brings their faces together. His voice is chilling enough to bring goose bumps to my skin. “If I ever see you or get even the tiniest whiff that you’re back, I will find you. And I will end you. I won’t give a shit at whom you’re related to. Understood?”

  M
y sister doesn’t nod. She can’t. He has her trapped between his two fingers.

  She stares at him, instead. And for several beats, they stay locked in that position until finally Noah lets her go and steps to the side. He gestures toward the door. “Get her out of here.”

  Gabe and Reeve flank either side of my sister but they take several steps before Noah’s voice stops them. “Oh, and Harlow? You have five minutes to get out of this city once you leave this building.”

  It takes at least ten minutes to reach city limits from here. Harlow doesn’t say that. She doesn’t say anything as they take her out of the room.

  And as she goes, relief settles into my bones with the knowledge that this is finally over.

  But that quickly gets replaced with trepidation.

  It’s over.

  Noah doesn’t look at me as Harlow leaves the room. Instead he turns to Thea. “And Sam?” he asks, like picking up a conversation from earlier.

  “He gave the names of the other people who helped Harlow. They were all the ones involved with the cemetery stunt,” Thea informs him while I shiver at the mere mention of that night. I can’t sleep in complete darkness anymore. My sister stole even that from me.

  “They’re on level B2 in holding.”

  Level B2? “How many floors are in this place?” I ask. It might be a renovated mansion, but there’s only so much space a house can have.

  Noah doesn’t answer, but I’ve been around him enough to know that he’s now lost in his mind. Swimming with ideas.

  Thea shrugs. “Enough for everything we need. Remind me to give you a tour sometime.”

  I nod, but a weight settles in my gut.

  Thea talks like I’m still going to be around, but I can’t help but remember our conversation at the sushi restaurant.

  “What am I supposed to do when this is over?”

  “Then you get to go back to your apartment with your cat and return to life as usual.”