Vicious Lies

by Ella Miles

  She couldn’t be a teacher or a hairstylist or a maid in a hotel. No, she had to be a maid for a man who took whatever he wanted with no regard for life. No regard for consequences.

  I never thought I’d be back in Miami, let alone the tiny one-bedroom home that I once shared with my mother. That was when I wasn’t sleeping at Enzo’s or even Langston’s. I did anything I could to avoid coming here when I lived here. I never thought I’d visit now that I’m an adult with options.

  Still, it’s the place I feel my mom the most. I should have visited before, but I just couldn’t.

  “Hey, Mom. You’ve been taking care of the old place?” I ask to the sky as I walk inside. My mom died from an overdose the same night I learned that my jackass father was still alive on my eighteenth birthday.

  The house is empty. There is no furniture. No sign any human has stepped foot in here since the time my mom lived here.

  I sigh and look at Tiffany’s phone. It’s nine o’clock in the morning. I have a long time to wait.

  Thankfully, I have my nightmares to keep me company.

  I sit on the floor in the corner of the living room, and I wait, hoping my hiding spot is good enough to hide from the devil.

  Two minutes left until midnight.

  Two minutes left until I win.

  That’s when I hear the car. The slamming of a door shut. The honk of the horn as he locks the car. The heavy footsteps as he approaches the house.

  Langston’s here.

  I know it without looking up as the front door opens.

  He found me.

  “You’ve gotten better at hide and seek, I see,” Langston frowns at me.

  “And you’ve become more of a monster,” I shoot back.

  12

  Langston

  I almost lost.

  I almost didn’t find her in time.

  Liesel almost won.

  Almost…

  It wouldn’t have really mattered if I didn’t find her the day I said I would. The game we play is invisible, with invisible rules, and invisible rewards. We are playing a game without all the pieces, without knowing how close the other is to winning, without even knowing if we are playing the same game or different games.

  But we do know one thing—we both share lies. Lies that keep us from freedom, from living the life we want.

  It’s time to end this.

  Time to finally finish our game.

  To have a winner.

  Our game is nothing like Enzo and Kai’s game was with official rules and an empire to gain at the end.

  Our game is nothing like Zeke and Siren’s game, spilling sinful truths that harm more than they help.

  Our game is simple: lie until you can’t lie anymore. Try to get the upper hand. Try to get the other to fold first.

  That’s what having control of this meeting was about. We were always going to eventually meet. But on whose terms—mine or hers?

  I got here just in the nick of time. I won this round.

  But Liesel has gotten more skilled than I give her credit for. She may live a cushy life now, yet that doesn’t mean she hasn’t been honing her skills on the side.

  She put out fake leads, trying to throw me off her trail, so I had no choice but to consider every lead. There was no way for her to hide once she decided to board a plane, car, or boat. She couldn’t hide from me; she never could.

  I thought I had found her when she boarded a plane to Paris. Of course, she would choose the most extravagant, beautiful place to try and hide. She wouldn’t take one of the dozens of flights she booked to the middle of nowhere.

  I boarded my own flight and followed her to Paris. To my surprise, I found a woman who looks strikingly like Liesel and yet isn’t. They could be twins if I didn’t know that Liesel has no siblings, no family. She gave up her family.

  Once I arrived and realized my mistake, I only had hours left to find Liesel before my time was up. I had followed all the leads she left for me. I searched all the surveillance at every airport, bridge out of the city, bus stop, harbor and found no sight of her.

  I wasn’t going to find her via my usual routes. She slipped by undetected. My only choice was to choose one last place to search for her. She could have been anywhere, but that’s when I realized where she had chosen. The one place I knew she’d never go. My own backyard.

  Miami.

  Her mother’s house specifically.

  Now, I’m standing in the small, broken-down room face to face with Liesel.

  I say room, because this has never been a house, definitely never a home. It’s barely big enough for two people to breathe in comfortably. A strong wind would knock the whole building down.

  Liesel hardly stepped a foot inside her mother’s home growing up, and it surprises me the strength it took her to come back here to Miami—the place that ruined both of our lives.

  “You win, okay? You win,” Liesel finally says, the pain etched around the edges of her voice. She hates losing as much as I do.

  I take a closer look at her. She looks like she’s been on the run for months instead of days. This is the first time in decades that I’ve seen her in anything less than designer clothes. She’s usually radiating confidence and beauty. Right now, the oversized rags that cling to her body scream homeless.

  She did everything she could to avoid me. To escape, hide, and prevent me from winning. I should compliment her on her hard work, but I won’t. I like watching her squirm.

  I glare down at her as I step further into the small room, forcing her to stand and step back to avoid me touching her. She hates showing defeat, but she hates me touching her more.

  “What do you want, Langston? I’m tired of our game.” Her eyes drag up my body in my dark jeans and a fitted gray shirt.

  “Really? Then why did you run? You know the only way to end our game is to finish it. Declare a winner once and for all. But we can’t finish the game if we keep avoiding each other.”

  She shakes her head as the corner of her lip rises into a smirk. “You have no idea what finishing the game means.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe I know more than you could imagine.” We talk in circles, neither of us speaking the truth. Neither of us showing the other our cards. Neither of us showing the other the final move we need to make to win.

  “You owe me a debt, my huntress.”

  “I already offered to pay you for that debt, even though you don’t deserve it. The arrangement was that I would kill the man, you would just be present to give me plausible deniability.” She pauses for effect. “Instead, you murdered him.”

  I pet my chin, staring at her, as she continues to pout and throw a mini tantrum, reneging on our agreement. She’s forgotten our deal. One we made a long time ago.

  “Are you finished?” I ask.

  She folds her arms over her chest in a huff. “No, but I’m sure you’re going to interrupt me to spew your lies.”

  “No, I’m going to interrupt you to remind you of an agreement we made a long time ago.”

  Her wheels start turning as I speak. “We were five when we made that deal! You can’t hold me to that now.”

  “We’ve kept every other promise we’ve made. We lie, but we keep our promises.”

  She rolls her eyes. “I promised to hunt. You promised to kill for me. And if either of us failed, then—“

  “Then, we owed the other anything we wanted—and I want you.”

  You might think the promise was something silly little kids promise each other—like play getting married or promising to never give each other cooties.

  That might be what it was for Liesel. She hunted down a spider in her room, but couldn’t go through with killing it. So she called me. I promised to always kill for her. She promised to hunt down any creature.

  It may have started as innocent kids making silly promises. But for me, it was so much more. We promised each other a life if we failed. And we’ve both failed more times than we can count.

  I’m read
y for my life.

  I’m ready to end this.

  I’m ready to learn her truths while keeping my lies.

  I’m ready to win and take the truth of that moment, along with hundreds of others to my grave.

  Liesel will never know my truth, but before the end of this year, I’ll learn hers.

  I watch Liesel closely as she realizes what’s happening.

  “You’re really going to use a promise that we made when we were kids to get me to go with you? To take me as your prisoner? To convince me to follow you? To become your slave? To let you own me?” Her voice gets louder with each question.

  I’m silent.

  She knows I’ll use whatever I can against her to get her to come with me. She can either come willingly, or I’ll take her. She can’t keep running and hiding.

  Her chest rises and falls quickly under her stained sweatshirt. She’s considering her options and realizes she has none. She needs answers as much as I do.

  We both need answers.

  We both need truths.

  We need to continue to hide behind our lies until the bitter end.

  What happened that day when we were five changed the course of both of our lives and led us here.

  “What will it be, Liesel? Will you come with me willingly, or will I take what is owed to me?”

  She shakes her head slowly. “You evil bastard. You have no right to take me. I’m not yours. I’m not your property!”

  “I’ll take that as a no, you won’t come willingly.”

  “I will fight tooth and nail. And I will never stop fighting. You know my past. You know the pain I’ve endured. You will never break me. You will never get any truths from me.”

  “I know.”

  “Then what do you want with me? My body? To fuck me every night like your whore?”

  I’m silent.

  “You want my money? My power? My name?”

  I don’t answer her. I let her throw her theories out. I let her spill her lies. I let her expel her anger out. Better to get it out now than later.

  “What do you want with me?” she yells.

  I step closer, and to my surprise, this time, she doesn’t back away. She’s done running. She’s ready to fight. I’m prepared for her to draw a knife, a gun, even blow up the entire house with both of us in it if she has to. I knew she would fight when she was done running. It’s exactly what I want.

  I grab her wrist and yank her to me until my breath is just above her mouth. I pause, lingering for my words to make the most impact.

  “I want the same thing I’ve always wanted—I want to know what was on your half of the paper. I want to know the truth, not the lies. I want the treasure that secret leads to. I want to take everything from you. I want the truth, Liesel, and I don’t care what I have to do to get it.”

  “Why do you want the treasure? You have more money than you could possibly ever need.”

  “To ruin you.” Like you ruined me.

  “You won’t kill me,” she says, her voice shaking, not sure if her words are true or more lies.

  “If killing you gets me the secret, I will.”

  Then I shove a sleeping pill into her parted lips and cover her nose and mouth with my hand.

  She struggles for a moment as she backs into the corner of the wall. Her eyes go big, and the veins in her eyes turn bright red as she struggles for breath but still refuses to swallow the pill.

  “I’m crueler than you’ll ever be, Liesel. You don’t know how far I’ll go. You may think what I did to Siren was savage, but it is nothing compared to what I will do to you.”

  She stops fighting as more oxygen leaves her body. Soon she won’t have a choice but to surrender.

  She closes her eyes hard and then opens them defiantly before finally swallowing. I may win this round, but she thinks she’s only allowing me so she can fight another day. So tomorrow she can slice my balls clean from my body.

  I kiss her neck, thanking her for swallowing the pill that will soon knock her unconscious.

  “I can’t wait for you to fight back, Liesel. I’m going to enjoy every second of it. But for now—sleep. Tomorrow you can fight.”

  I remove my hand, and she gets one solid breath in before she collapses. I catch her in my arms, finally having a moment to really study her. To hold her close. To revel in the fact that she’s finally mine.

  Mine—if only that were true.

  13

  Liesel

  Life or death.

  How much does Langston know?

  Does he know my truth or only part of it?

  Does he know the missing piece of the puzzle I’ve been desperately trying to put together for years?

  No, there is no way he knows the truth, but he does have the missing piece of information. There is no way to know its significance without the rest, which is why he needs me.

  I hear the roar of the plane engine near my head, giving me a pounding headache.

  I want to open my eyes, but I won’t, not until I’ve figured out every clue I can while Langston still thinks I’m asleep.

  I’m surprised I’m on a plane. I thought he would take me back to Enzo and Kai’s compound to be tortured until I told the truth. Or at the very least back to Langston’s house, which is also in Miami.

  I’m a monster with plenty of dark savageness in my heart, but it doesn’t mean that I deserve to be taken like property.

  So why am I on a plane?

  Is the plane flying around in circles to confuse me before he inevitably takes me to the dungeons in the Black house? He thinks if I don’t know where I am, I’ll be more scared. He doesn’t know there is only one thing I fear.

  One thing in the entire world—and Langston can’t use that fear against me.

  No one can.

  Not anymore.

  I smell coffee brewing nearby, and I’m desperate for a drink. It would help my splitting headache from Langston’s sedative.

  But I doubt Langston will serve me coffee now that I’m his slave.

  Dammit.

  I’ll survive whatever he has planned for me. I’m more than strong enough. I’m a survivor.

  But that doesn’t mean I’m happy about it.

  In the end, Langston will pay with his life for what he’s about to do to me.

  He thinks fucking me against my will will bring back all the horrible memories from that night. It will make me talk. That he won’t even have to actually fuck me to get me talking, just threaten me with rape.

  I smirk. He doesn’t know me at all—not anymore.

  “You can open your eyes. I already know you’re awake,” Langston says.

  “Why? So I can look at your ugly face? No, thank you.”

  Langston sighs. “Get up, Liesel. Don’t make this difficult.”

  “I’m not going to listen to a word you say. I’m going to make this as difficult for you as possible.”

  Then the bastard puts the cup of coffee right under my nose. It’s a heavenly smell and my parched mouth waters. I’m desperate for a taste. My body betrays me and opens my eyes, showing how desperate I am for the cup of coffee.

  I reach for the cup—he jerks it away just out of reach.

  I grit my teeth together to keep my steaming anger inside. I feel the burning anger in the pit of my stomach shoot up my chest like lava, but I won’t let it gush all over him until the right moment. As much as I want to tell him off right now, I don’t have any power on a private jet miles over the ocean.

  I sit up on the couch and lean my head back against the wall.

  Only then does Langston hold the cup out to me again.

  I don’t immediately reach for it this time. I just watch him, trying to figure out the thoughts churning in his head. There was a time when I knew exactly what he was thinking before he spoke it.

  “Take it, Liesel.”

  That only makes me want to disobey more. But damn do I want that coffee. No, I need it! It may seem ridiculous, but I know that I need t
hat coffee to survive. I’m going to need every bit of my strength, every drop of caffeine to fuel me.

  I snatch the cup out of Langston’s hand and drink it before I feel any self-pity that makes me want to throw the cup of coffee in Langston’s face.

  The coffee tastes like heaven to my dusty mouth. It’s warm and rich with a hint of cherry and chocolate—my favorite.

  I look up at Langston, expecting him to gloat. To say ‘good girl’ or something condescending, showing that he’s in control instead of me.

  Instead, Langston stares at me like he’s seeing me for the first time. His eyes have narrowed, his jaw clenched, his mind closed off. I can’t tell if he’s angry, or happy, or confused, or annoyed, or pissed, or turned on. All I know is there is a lot of emotion brewing beneath the surface of that half scowl, half awe expression.

  We sit silently as I drink my coffee. I don’t know what’s about to happen next; this might be my only moment of happiness for the day, week, month, year…

  So I savor every sip.

  Down to the last drop.

  Langston stands up just as I’m about to finish my cup and walks to the front of the private plane and disappears through a door, leaving me alone in the back. Some people might try to take this chance to snoop, to find a weapon, something to help me escape.

  But that would be a waste of time. Langston is better at wielding a gun than I am. Even if I had a gun or knife, he’d stop me long before I was able to wound him. And there is no escaping on a private jet.

  Langston returns a minute later with a pot of coffee and a plate of scones. He snatches the cup from my hand, refills it, then hands it back, before putting two scones on a plate next to me.

  He doesn’t give me an order, but it’s clear in his gaze that he wants me to eat or he’ll force-feed me.

  My queasy stomach makes my decision easy. Whatever he drugged me with has made my head dizzy and my stomach upset. I need food. I pick up one of the scones and nibble on it.