Trapped by Lies

by Ella Miles

  She narrows her eyes, trying to understand what I’m doing, but I see her fear. I see her pain. She’s exposed to me, and I see all of her.

  I take out my phone, pulling her number out again, I type in the change to her contact.

  “You are nothing,” I say, showing her my phone.

  “Take it back,” she sobs.

  “No, you are nothing. Nothing but the daughter of a maid—my maid. You should be cleaning this yacht, not living the life of luxury in your penthouse condo.”

  “Stop.”

  “The only reason you have anything is because of me. Because I let you. I let you leave my house. I paid for your college. I got you into Harvard. Me—not you.”

  Her eyes darken, and I see the fierce fire. Let it out Liesel, let it go, stop making me hurt you.

  “I ensured your grades were straight A’s by bribing your teachers. Every friend you ever met was me. I paid people to befriend you.”

  “Liar.”

  “Am I?” I walk toward her, and she tries to hop away, but it only gives me room to circle her like she’s prey.

  “Then how come you know I speak the truth? Everything good in your life was because of me, and I didn’t even care about you. I still don’t. You were just a puppet for me to play with.”

  “Stop,” she says again, this time her voice is weak, not fierce. We are getting closer.

  “You were my father’s greatest fascination, and my biggest pain in the neck. It was fun watching my father play with you though. And you enjoyed it, didn’t you?” I seethe against her neck.

  “I didn’t,” she cries out loudly, so loud I’m sure everyone heard her.

  Fuck, I hate myself. I hate myself so much for this.

  End this. Now.

  “Admit it, you’ve hated me this entire time that I’ve hated you. Since the moment you met me and saw me kill my mother, you hated me. All of your supposed feelings for me were just a trap. Just a way to gain knowledge about me to use later. So you could hurt me later.”

  “No,” she whispers, her voice weak as her head drops.

  “How does it feel?” I purr over her shoulder.

  “What?” she looks up.

  “To know that you are nothing.”

  I hook my foot under the rope tying her legs together and pull. She collapses to the floor, dropping to her knees before me. If I was my father, I’d make her suck my cock. She is at the right height for it, after all. But I’m not my father. I never will be.

  But then why do I feel like I am?

  I walk behind her and squeeze my tears down because I feel every drop of Liesel’s pain. And I hate it. I hate myself. I hate my father. I hate all of it.

  End this.

  Stop the pain.

  “How does it feel to know I chose Kai over you?” I circle back to the front so she can see me. See the pain and thinking all of my pain is for Kai, and none of it is for her.

  I stand tall over her, looking like the complete demon that I am.

  “How does it feel to know I broke my promise to you because of her? I will always choose her over you.”

  And then I choose the words that will break her. The words will be a lie, spoken full of truth.

  “How does it feel to know I love Kai when I could never love you?”

  She sobs. All she has ever wanted was to be loved by me. And I could never give it. She thought it was because I could never give it to anyone. And she was right. I can’t. But she thinks I love Kai in a way I could never love her.

  “I hate you,” she finally says from the floor, naked, exposed, and vulnerable.

  “I know; as I hate you.”

  Then the fire returns, and I prepare myself for the storm she’s about to blast me with.

  “I could have saved your mother,” she shouts.

  Her truth.

  Her secret.

  It guts me, just as she said it would.

  “How?” I growl.

  She couldn’t have, could she? I killed her with my bullet. She was dying, and I ended her suffering.

  “Your father and you left your mother to die on her own, but I stayed. I watched. I snuck into the room, and she was still alive—very much alive.”

  No, that’s not possible.

  She sits up straighter, watching how her truth hurts me. “Your mother begged me to save her. To get help. I could see that although you shot her, it wasn’t fatal. She would die a slow death, bleeding out. She collapsed to the floor when you shot her so you could think you were saving her from the pain by putting an end to her suffering. But she didn’t die.”

  “Why didn’t you save her? Why didn’t you call for help? My father and I left the premises that day. You could have saved her. Called an ambulance. Nothing was stopping you.”

  And then I see the monster in her eyes. I wasn’t the only one who gained a monster that day. “Because I saw the pain in her eyes. I saw the evil. She still loved your father despite everything he did to her. She loved him—the monster, the devil himself. And because she loved him, I couldn’t let her live. So I left. I let her die on that floor alone.”

  I close my eyes holding in my pain. It’s not fair to hate Liesel. We were young.

  My father was the one who started it all.

  He shot her.

  I finished her.

  Liesel left her.

  We all betrayed my mother. We all played our own little part. And nothing we do now will bring her back. The only woman who could ever love me. She may have had her faults when it came to loving my father, but she loved me and that’s all that matters.

  I reach into my boots and pull out my knife.

  Liesel’s eyes go big, thinking I’m going to hurt her with it to get my revenge, but I will never seek vengeance when it comes to her.

  I slice through the ropes, freeing her, and then I remove my shirt and pull it down over her arms, dressing her like a broken doll. Because she’s as broken as Kai and me.

  The pain of her words hurts me, but I deserve them. Because I hurt Liesel. And she will never forgive me for it, just like I can’t forgive myself for hurting her to win a stupid game.

  So I turn and walk to the door that unlocks now that I’ve succeeded in my mission.

  I won the second game, but somehow, I also lost. I let the monster out, and now that he’s free, it’s going to take everything to cage him again.

  I let the monster win, and I lost everything in the process.

  Fuck you, father.

  21

  Kai

  I pick up the gun.

  I know it’s the deadliest weapon. The only one I know how to yield because Zeke taught me.

  How ironic that one of the men responsible for teaching me how to use a gun will be the first I use my skills on.

  Ironic and sad. Because I don’t want to hurt him. But the only way to save Enzo from himself is by ending this—fast.

  As quickly as possible.

  The other weapons would only draw it out. I don’t know how to use a whip. I’ve thrown a knife, but that was mostly luck, and I can’t get that close and hurt Zeke. He’s not tied up. He would never let me hurt him. The only weapon where I can keep my distance and still hurt him is a gun.

  I hold the metal in my hand, hoping that me holding it will be enough for Zeke to change his mind. Enough for him to stop this.

  “Don’t make me hurt you, Zeke. End this. I will have only won two rounds. I won’t win more than two rounds. I don’t want to be Black any more than you want me to.”

  “I can’t. We don’t know what the next round will be. We don’t know if Enzo will be able to beat you. I can’t let you win this round,” Zeke says, still keeping his hands in his pockets. He doesn’t look afraid. Not one bit. He doesn’t think I’ll shoot him, but he forgets how much I love Enzo. I will do whatever I can to save him.

  “Enzo is strong enough. He can win at anything.”

  Zeke shakes his head. “He’s strong, but so are you. You are more equal in th
is fight than either of your fathers ever imagined you would be. Enzo may have grown up in this world. He may be better prepared, but your father prepared you more in the single day he sold you than Enzo’s father prepared Enzo over the course of a lifetime. You developed more strength in a single day facing that kind of pain and loss of control than Enzo ever has.”

  I hate Zeke for speaking the truth.

  He stares down at the gun I’m loosely gripping. “You’ll shoot me; I don’t doubt it. You might even kill me in order to save Enzo. You love him. You want to protect him. But you forget you aren’t the only one who loves him. I love him too. And I love you. And I will do what I can to protect you both—including die. My life means nothing compared to yours.”

  Who hurt you, Zeke?

  “The love between you two is epic. It’s the kind of love that only happens once in a million times. A love that will bring about change. Maybe it will end the world, or maybe it will save it. But it’s that big of a love. You have already figured that out, and as soon as Enzo stops fighting it, he will realize he loves you too. And once you declare your love to each other, you will be unstoppable.”

  Tears, dammit.

  So many tears pour down my face. Zeke is as hurt and broken as Enzo and I am. Why didn’t I realize it before? Why did I let him get hurt the first time? This would be so much easier if I didn’t already care about Zeke. If I hadn’t already betrayed and hurt him.

  “Dammit, Zeke,” I say, dabbing at my eyes with my shirt.

  He smiles gently, like the gentle giant he is. Any woman would be lucky to love a man like Zeke. He shouldn’t give up his chance to save Enzo and me.

  I hold up my hand; the gun pointed at Zeke as I feel my time running out. Already, Enzo could have hurt Liesel. He could have whipped her. Beat her. Hurt her. And I can’t let him.

  “Please, Zeke, just tell me,” I whisper through my tears.

  “It’s okay,” he says, knowing what I have to do, but it doesn’t change what he does.

  “If you say you want to save the love Enzo and I have, then you won’t make me do this, you will end this. You will stop Enzo from hurting me, because if he hurts Liesel, I will never forgive him.”

  Zeke cocks his head. “Yes, you will. You love him. Love can forgive anything.”

  My hand shakes. “I can’t forgive this. I’ve already forgiven too much.”

  “It’s okay, Kai. I’ll forgive you. Enzo will forgive you. And you will eventually forgive yourself.”

  My heart breaks so far open I’m not sure I can put it back together. A giant hole forms, endangering everything I care about.

  Not time.

  Not love.

  Nothing will fix it.

  I’m permanently broken. Because I have to choose between two men I love, and I already know who I’m going to choose—Enzo.

  And that breaks me more than anything. Most love isn’t tested like this. Most love isn’t this big. Most love doesn’t require you to give up everything and everyone you love in order to keep that love. But my love for Enzo does.

  Our love is toxic. It’s wrong. As Zeke said, our love is destined to destroy the world.

  All the more reason to let go of it. Save Zeke. Choose Zeke. Let Enzo go.

  But saving Zeke means I’ll end up alone—never to fall in love again. Because Zeke is right, the love I feel for Enzo is a once in a million kind of love, and once I’ve felt that I will never settle for anything less.

  But I’m selfish to keep Enzo’s love even though it will end up destroying me and everyone else who enters our lives.

  “Zeke,” I warn, as I blink away the tears.

  Zeke takes a deep breath as he ties his hair back, and then he closes his eyes, putting his hands in his pockets, letting me hurt him.

  I swallow.

  I can do this.

  I can do this.

  I can do this.

  But when I fire, more of me breaks. I only graze the outside of his shoulder, but it’s enough to cause pain and for me to know I’ve sacrificed everything because there is no coming back from shooting someone you love.

  “Ready to talk?” I ask. Please.

  “No, never, stingray. You’re not strong enough. You can’t hurt me,” Zeke taunts—trying to make me shoot him again. Trying to take away some of my pain. But then he shouldn’t have used his adorable nickname for me if he wanted me to shoot him.

  Fucking, dammit.

  It only makes me love him more.

  I aim again, this time for his other shoulder.

  And then the door opens.

  I turn with wide eyes as I see Archard standing at the door.

  “The game is over,” he says.

  I drop the gun so fast I’m afraid it will go off from the impact when I realize I didn’t put the safety back on. But thank God, it doesn’t.

  It’s over, all over.

  The relief that washes through me is everything.

  But then, I realize what it means. Enzo hurt Liesel. He got her secret.

  And it crushes me.

  First, I walk over to Zeke and examine the flesh wound I caused on his shoulder.

  He laughs, shaking me off. “I’m fine. You barely hit me. If that’s your aim, we need to practice some more. If you are torturing someone, the goal is to shoot them where it hurts.”

  His words are meant to make me laugh, to make me feel better, but they don’t.

  “Hey, stingray.” He lifts my chin with his finger. “I forgive you, but honestly there is nothing to forgive. You were protecting Enzo, and I love you even more for that.”

  He pulls me into a hug before I can argue.

  We are okay.

  This won’t come between our friendship.

  Even though it should.

  Even though it hurt me to hurt him.

  Even though the cut is only skin deep, it’s enough to know what I would have done.

  “Go,” he whispers, knowing I need to see Enzo. I need to find out the truth. I need to know what he did to win.

  Archard has already left. So I run out searching.

  Nothing.

  There is nowhere to go down here except our rooms. And I don’t think Enzo went there. At least not until he has officially been declared the winner.

  So I go up. Up to the top deck and I find them—Archard and Enzo.

  I walk slowly over. Enzo won’t meet my gaze. In fact, I’m not sure he recognizes I am here at all. And I can’t feel him like I usually can.

  I can’t feel his cold.

  I can’t feel his love.

  I can’t feel his pain.

  “Good job, everyone. Round two is officially over,” Archard says.

  I hiss when Archard says ‘good job’ like we are competing in a track event.

  Fuck him.

  “Enzo is the winner. That means you are tied—one to one. I will schedule the next round soon, determined by Kai’s father. Until then, I guess it’s back to sailing the ocean,”Archard says trying to lighten the mood. But the mood will not be lightened.

  Archard realizes he is no longer welcome and leaves us alone on the small top deck. The deck has the best views, but the smallest surface area. It is empty except for the two of us.

  Enzo still doesn’t look at me. He hides—like a coward.

  “What did you do?” I ask.

  Finally, he looks at me. And the anger etched there is not what I was expecting.

  I was expecting pain, agony, regret, and the need for forgiveness. Instead, I got rage.

  So I push more. “What the hell did you do?” I step into his space, filling it with my own anger.

  “I won. What the hell does it look like I did?”

  I see the sweat on his brow. The bulging of his veins. The grip of his hands. Whatever he did to Liesel was physical. It was painful and required all of him.

  I take a step back. “I can’t believe you hurt her.”

  He growls at my words. “Does it shock you, that I’m a monster? I thou
ght you had already learned that lesson, baby.”

  “Don’t call me baby,” I say, and I feel the hole in my heart expanding. Bigger, bigger, bigger. If it gets much bigger, it will rip completely in half. As it is, I’m not sure I can forgive him, and I don’t even know how he hurt Liesel, just that he did.

  “What. Did. You. Do?” I ask again. I need answers. I need to see the monster. I need to know how big of a monster I am when I forgive him.

  His eyes dig into my soul and pull out my truth. “The same as you. The only difference is I was faster. I found my monster sooner.”

  “I hate you.”

  “Good, at least we agree on something.”

  “Stop!” Liesel’s voice booms over everything. We both turn in her direction as she stands at the top of the ladder that leads up here, looking more like a girl than the sexy woman I know her to be.

  She looks at Enzo. “You don’t get to hate yourself. You did what you had to do. What you did wasn’t that bad. I’ll heal, I always do. Just give me a few days.”

  Then she glares at me. “And you, you don’t get to be pissed. You don’t get to determine if you forgive him or not. There is nothing you need to forgive. She lifts the T-shirt I realize is Enzo’s to reveal her untouched body. I hadn’t even realized Enzo wasn’t wearing a shirt; I was so consumed with my own pain.

  “He didn’t hurt me, at least not physically. He found another way to get my secret. And my secret hurt him more than it hurt me.” Liesel stares up at the man we both love. “And he chose you. He saved you. His father forced him to choose, even from his grave. He saved you. He kept his promise. Don’t hate him for it.”

  And then, she’s gone.

  And I know her words are the truth. I shouldn’t hate him because he did save me from completely ruining myself. From physically harming Zeke. He found a way to save us all with the least damage done.

  “You hate me, truth or lie?” Enzo says.

  I think for a second, but I already know my answer. “Truth.”

  He nods.

  “You hate me, truth or lie?” I ask.

  “Truth.”

  I swallow hard. We both hate each other, but only because of how much we love each other. You can only truly hate those you love, and I know now that Enzo saying he hates me might be the closest I ever come to hearing him say he loves me.