Hard Truths (Kiss Her Goodbye Book 1)

by Rebecca Royce

  I paused for one more second, silently willing Judson to come along. I didn’t know what Kade meant by blowing the place, but given that he’d constructed this in the first place, I was pretty sure he actually meant blowing it up.

  “Come on.” I held out my hand. “Don’t make me do this alone.”

  Judson tilted his head for a second before nodding once. He put his hand on my back. “I remember how to go. He drills everyone on the escape plan.” Judson urged me forward even as he shoved the gun back into his belt, hidden away from view. “Now it doesn’t seem so outlandish.”

  “Kade plans for everything. He’s amazing.”

  Judson shot me a look I couldn’t understand as we ran down the tunnel that Kade had taken me down the first day here. I was going to lose even more clothes. It was a stupid thought but all I could focus on as I charged forward. I was glad I’d gotten dressed and not stayed in pajamas.

  A boom sounded behind us, and I whirled around. “Kade?”

  “He’s fine. I can guarantee he didn’t blow anything with himself still in there. He’s not that altruistic. Trust me. We all have plans, and self-sacrifice isn’t on the list of things to do.”

  That was interesting. “The Alliance doesn’t inspire that kind of action?”

  “Not from us,” Kade rushed toward us. “I’m not committing suicide in the name of the cause. Move.”

  I pushed myself back against the wall as he practically ran me over to press on a button that opened a lid. I glanced upward as the sounds of the outside hit me.

  “It’s like we’re going up a sewer drain.” I felt stupid as soon as I’d said it, but this whole thing was just so bizarre I wasn’t sure I could have been more articulate.

  They both ignored me. Or maybe there was just no response to that statement either of them could make. Kade climbed the ladder. “Going first to check that it’s safe.”

  I nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Yep.” He disappeared upward.

  I turned toward Judson. “So what brought you to this neck of the woods today?”

  He grinned. “I wanted to check on Kade. He’d been remarkably uncommunicative. Of course, now I know why. Trace, Warden, Kade, and Derrick are all in knots over you. How are you doing that?”

  It was more like the other way around. I was a mess over all of them. But this was Judson and I couldn’t help but play with him a little bit, even given the situation, which didn’t call for levity. “I don’t know. You’re the one who likes to tie things up, Doctor. How am I managing to do it?”

  He lifted his brow. “Maybe you’ll find out. Going to move through all of us?”

  “Are you willing to share?”

  Kade poked his head down. “All clear. Come on. Hurry up.”

  I had meant my jab back at Judson to be easygoing, but now that I’d said it, I wanted to know. Was he willing to share? The others hadn’t seemed to care, each of them knowing someone would come before or after. How did that work for Judson and what he told me were his sexual preferences? Once he tied up a woman was she his and his alone?

  I climbed the ladder, finding myself on the side of the road next to Kade. Judson was fast after us and Kade quickly shut the lid that did in fact look like a sewer covering. We stood, the three of us together, exposed on the street. Would there ever come a time when I didn’t feel like I was being watched? Now that I thought about satellites and surveillance it was as though being outside meant being tracked.

  “I have the plane.”

  Kade nodded. “Good. Take her somewhere.”

  Hold on. I grabbed his arm as though I could stop him from leaving, even though he’d made no moves to do so. “Where are you going?”

  “I have to set up a location for us elsewhere. We can’t be without a base.”

  “Do you just have a bunch of mausoleums sitting around waiting for use?”

  He smiled slowly. “Not mausoleums, no. But other places. This was my favorite.” He cupped the side of my face. “Don’t worry. I land on my feet, and I’m good at blowing things up. It was my special skill in The Alliance. It was what they decided I should be doing for them. I’ll find you again. You can count on it. In the meantime, Judson won’t let anything happen to you. Despite his being an idiot today, he’s actually rather good at staying alive.”

  “I know better than to let this happen.” Judson looked away. “I’ve had things on my mind, and I made an error in judgment.”

  Kade shrugged. “No worries. Just lost years of work building that thing. Just means I get to do it again. I like projects. Take our prisoner somewhere safe. We still need her father. But I call dibs on killing him.” He stared at me for a second. “That is if she doesn’t kill him herself.”

  Me kill my father? I snorted. “You’ve got the wrong impression here. I’m more likely to just ignore him for the rest of my life.”

  He stepped back. “We’ll see.”

  Judson took out his phone. “It’s a burner. I’m calling the pilot. I’ll tell him to get the plane ready to go again.”

  “That’s good. Get her someplace else.” Kade pointed at me. “Do I need to get rude to you? Isn’t that how Trace and Warden left you? With mean words.”

  I shook my head. “Always have to do the opposite of everyone else.”

  He winked at me. “Be good. I’ll see if I can continue to hustle your father along. Then you can be done with all of us.”

  Judson nodded with his head. “Let’s go. A car is going to get us a mile down the road.”

  Kade took off running in the opposite direction just as a warm rain drizzled down on us. I hurried to catch up with Judson. He was the prettiest of all the guys, but I wouldn’t have called him effeminate, not even when I first met him. Now, slightly dirtied from our climb, he looked the most disheveled I’d ever seen him.

  “You didn’t have to take me,” I called out to him. “I could have stayed with Kade.”

  “I think you might have blown up Kade’s life even more than the explosion did.” He turned around. “I didn’t know we were all so desperate for affection. Maybe I should have invested in weekly meetings with escorts for all of us.” He held up his hand. “I don’t mean prostitute. Don’t get yourself all worked up. Just a female to talk to. We’ve clearly all been alone too long.”

  It wasn’t lost on me that his mind had gone so quickly to prostitute when mine hadn’t done that. I kept my face serene. If there was one thing I’d learned about all of them, and Judson wasn’t proving to be any different, they had layers on top of their layers to sludge through to find the men underneath.

  The question was did I feel like doing it again? I didn’t know. I guessed I’d find out. “So where are we going?”

  “I’m still trying to decide that. I have until we board the plane to tell the pilot. Anywhere you want to go?”

  He couldn’t be serious. “We’re on the run, right? I mean there are satellites bearing down on us right now that will find us and then The Alliance will send men to kill us. Where do I want to go? Where do you go to hide?”

  “Truth is, I don’t hide. Not well, anyway. I can’t maintain it for very long. First off, I have a practice to run. Unlike Warden and Kade, I can’t just vanish and continue on remotely. I have to actually see my patients.”

  That made sense. “Trace must have to teach and show up for work, too.”

  “Right. But he has these so-called research trips he can go on that allow him to disappear. Again, I can’t really disappear. That being said, I also hate it. I don’t like running.”

  Yes, he’d stood there like he was going to kill the man after him as though it was no big deal. “What do you propose we do then? Go stand in the middle of somewhere busy and start shouting we’re here come and get us?”

  “That’s stupid. I’m also not that. No, but I think there has to be something I can do to be useful. I was trying to be that for Kade. I thought he might need help. I didn’t realize he was… distracted.”

  I sh
ook my head. “I didn’t ask for this. You understand that, right? Whatever you think you know about what has gone on with me and the others, it wasn’t exactly my choice. You all took that from me. If I’ve made the best out of it, then so be it. I’m not going to apologize or take your judgment. Go ahead and choke on, Doctor.”

  He laughed, a surprising sound. “Not one person in a million would speak to me like that. Not even my own mother spoke to me with that sarcasm. My sister, when she was alive, everyone spoke to me with deference. Pretty much since I came out of the womb.”

  “Then you’re overdue.” A car pulled up ahead and the driver must have spotted us because he came to where we were. Judson opened the door, and I climbed inside. He followed me, telling the driver to take us the airport.

  It had been so long since I spoke that I almost forgot what I’d last said when he answered me. “I suppose that you’re right. Go ahead. Keep verbally assaulting me. It’s kind of hot.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You don’t think I’m hot. That’s not how you would think, anyway.”

  “Think that you know me?”

  That was a good question. “I’m finding that I’m an excellent judge of character and the longer this goes on, the better I’m getting at it.”

  He looked out the window. “I think you’re very pretty if that means anything to you. I don’t, however, care very much if someone is attractive or they’re not. I’m much more interested in what makes a person tick on the inside. That’s where… sexual desire comes from for me. That spark on the inside. I know where we’re going.”

  His abrupt change of subject caught me by surprise. Judson jumped from one thing to another. I was still stuck on the ‘he found what was inside attractive not on the outside.’ In fact, I loved it.

  “Where are we going?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back, his head against the headrest. Judson closed his eyes like I hadn’t asked the question. It took me a second to realize he was really not going to answer my question.

  I stared out my own window. Every time I changed which one I was with I had to get used to being treated like I didn’t have choices again. But maybe I never did. Maybe I’d simply adjusted to the cage that was Kade like I’d done with Warden and Trace. I had to figure out how to ignore the bars that were Judson now.

  Or maybe I wouldn’t get used to it.

  I closed my eyes. We couldn’t be terribly far from his private airport, but if he could pretend to be asleep, so could I.

  We stayed in silence the rest of the way and all the way through takeoff. He must have communicated where we were going with the pilot or maybe these Alliance lunatics could speak telepathically. I rolled my eyes at my own joke. He’d probably texted him when I’d closed my eyes to feign sleep.

  This wasn’t the plane I’d been on with Trace. No, this one looked like it belonged solely to Judson. It had the initials JS all over the place, even engraved on the handles of the chairs. I’d never actually seen anything so ostentatious before. It made me smile. If Judson was the kind of person who could be teased—and I didn’t know if he was—I’d do so right now.

  He tapped on his phone, and I chewed on my lips, wondering if I should just keep quiet. “What kind of doctor are you?”

  That seemed a pretty good topic to broach. He didn’t look up from his phone. “I’m a plastic surgeon.”

  I hadn’t expected that. I didn’t know what I’d been thinking, but it hadn’t been that. Maybe I watched too much television. I kept picturing him in blue scrubs as he ordered people around operating rooms to save their lives in trauma or something.

  Of course, a plastic surgeon had improved my life. Without him, I’d be horribly scarred on my face. They did tremendous good. They just weren’t that red headed actor running around Grey’s Anatomy. Yeah, I might have had a thing for him. I sighed. My mind was going in all kinds of directions.

  “Did you always want to be a doctor?”

  He lifted his gaze before he answered. “Are you making conversation for the sake of filling silence?”

  “I’m talking because I’m interested. I’m not going to stay in silence with you for the next however long we’re together. I’m a talker. If you don’t like it, drop me with one of the others.”

  He rubbed his chin. “I wanted to be a doctor, yes. It was also what The Alliance thought I’d be best at. My family has a history of working in medical care. We’re good at it. That being said, my grandfather was an oil baron so we have a history in that, too. I didn’t know which way I was going to get shoved. But the cost benefit analysis placed this as my top usefulness. That’s what I’m doing.”

  I opened and closed my mouth. “You’re talking about yourself like you’re a commodity.”

  “That’s what I am. In your own way, that’s what you are, too. Sure, you’re left alone. You’re female. You can’t be in The Alliance. Fine. But I would bet money that even before you knew about us, you would have ended up married to an Alliance man. You’d never have known it but that’s what would have happened.”

  I shook my head. “I have always managed my own personal life. My father had nothing to do with it.”

  “For now. Five years from now you’d suddenly have met someone. Alliance loves to marry Alliance.”

  He’d officially made my temper rise. “I was never going to be a pawn.”

  “Eighty-twenty you were.” He stretched out his legs. “Play denial if you want. It’s a dangerous game.”

  “Like your sister was a pawn?” I shifted in my seat. “Only she knew what she was doing when she married Derrick even though she shouldn’t have.”

  He leaned on the side of his chair, his gaze hardening instantly. “They’ve been talking to you about Alyssa.”

  “That’s what happened right?” I wasn’t going to be intimidated. “That’s how she got to continue. Marry Derrick, Alliance. And maybe get to continue on engraved airplanes living the life she was born to. Only it got her killed. So let’s not make this out like it’s all hunky dory. That’s not how this works. Every second of it sucks. Go ahead and live this life. It’s not like you had any choice right? You’re all victims in your upper level echelon of privilege and leadership?”

  He cleared his throat. “Whatever you think that you know from watching the outer tier of this circle you’ve only recently become aware of, don’t fool yourself into thinking you understand. You don’t. You never will. Yes, it got my sister killed. She didn’t know when to keep her mouth shut. Make sure you don’t make the same mistakes. She mattered, and they killed her. You don’t.”

  Ouch. I’d walked right into that one.

  Chapter 21

  I must have dozed off, because I woke up as we were landing in Boston. I’d never been there, but as per usual lately, I was being taken all kinds of places I’d never seen before. Although I doubted I’d get much touring time wherever we were ultimately heading. Not to mention, I once again didn’t have the right clothes. Hot. Cold. Hot. Cold. Blow up clothing, leave them in Vermont, abandon them in Florida…

  I once again had nothing to wear. A cold wind blew at me the second the main cabin door opened, and I shivered. Judson must have noticed because he took off his coat and handed it to me.

  “You’ll be cold.”

  “Less than you will. I was in Vermont this morning. I’m dressed for this weather. You’re not. We’ll need to amend that.”

  I’d just been thinking the same thing myself. “I keep having to get new clothes.”

  “Some people would love that.” He put his hand on my lower back, escorting me off the plane. The cold air hit me hard, and I ducked my head further into J’s too-big-on-me coat. It smelled like whatever cologne he wore. It was a dark but pleasant smell and not one I knew, meaning that it wasn’t in any magazines or department stores I’d been in.

  After I got to the bottom of the stairs, Judson charged up a little bit until he was slightly in front of me. He took my hand in his gloved ones for a se
cond before he let go and handed me the gloves. I raised my voice to speak to him over the noise on the runway. “I can’t take your gloves and your coat.”

  “You can and you will.” He didn’t look at me when he spoke, and I took the gloves out of his hand. There was something about the way he’d given me that order that made me want to do what he said. It was different than Kade, who I might have tried to openly defy just for the sake of argument. I didn’t mind pushing at Judson if he was wrong, but there was something in his manner that simply made it easier to comply. It was actually… a relief.

  A car waited around the corner from the private runway, and we got into it. “You haven’t told me where we were going.”

  He nodded. “We’re going to my home. I have one in Boston. It makes it easier to get to the lodge in Vermont.”

  “The lodge? Is that what you call your island home? The lodge?”

  He shrugged. “Like the engraved plane my father gave me on my thirtieth birthday, he named the house in Vermont, The Lodge. All of it is ridiculous. I get that. Pretentious or whatever word you’d want to call it. I get it. But I am who I am, and I’m not going to apologize for it any more than I’d ask you to. You don’t have to like it. I don’t care.”

  If that was a reminder that rich people had feelings too then I was sufficiently chastised. What did I care what he called his house? Why was I poking at him like that? I wouldn’t want him commenting on the way that I lived, or if the reverse was true, if someone was poor, I’d never mention the details of their lives in a disparaging way either.

  “I apologize.”

  He stared at me for a long moment. “We’re going to my house. We’ll be safe there overnight. If your father comes through tomorrow with all the paperwork we need, then we can just go back to the house in Vermont. We’re close. If he doesn’t, then we’ll spend tomorrow doing some things they’ll never look for. After that we’ll go from there. If we get attacked in my home, I’ll deal with it. Despite evidence to the contrary, I am capable of defending myself—and you. I’ve been distracted. That’s managed.”