by Ella Miles
We walk into the living room, where I find Enzo, Zeke, and Siren already on the couches. Siren’s eyes are puffy, like she’s been crying. Zeke rubs her back in slow circles, like that is somehow going to bring my kids back. Enzo sits sternly, completely lost in thought.
Then I spot Beckett walking in from the kitchen. He looks like a wreck. Puffy eyes, pale skin, a slumped curve of his spine as he walks. The pain he feels is immense—good. He had the most important job. I trusted him. He failed.
He doesn’t apologize. He knows there is no use. There is nothing he can say that will bring my kids back.
Liesel walks over to him. I expect her to yell at him for failing. He deserves it. He deserves to be punched in the face and kicked in the balls. The suffering he’s feeling is nothing compared to what Liesel and I are going through.
Liesel wraps her arms around him. “We’ll get them back. It’s not your fault. We should have known not to trust Phoenix or Maxwell. We’ll get them back.”
He rubs her back with his arm. “No, don’t blame yourself. Blame me.”
“We do,” I say, answering for her.
She shoots me an angry glare.
“It’s okay. I can take it. Hate me, not yourself,” Beckett says.
She shakes her head and then pulls him into the living room. She chooses to sit next to him on the loveseat. Kai sits next to Enzo. I stay standing, looking down at them all.
“Tell me we already know where they took them. Tell me we already know where they are hidden. Tell me we already have eyes on them.” I look between everyone sitting in this room moping, crying, and emotional. The only people who have the right to feel that way are Liesel and me; everyone else has a job to do.
“St. Kitts,” Siren and Zeke say.
“Cancun,” Kai and Enzo say.
“Atlanta,” Beckett says.
I let out a breath. Thank god for them. They may have pissed me off and betrayed us before, but damn do they know how to do their jobs when we need them to.
I look to Liesel, who looks to be near tears at their answers. The question is, who do we go with? There are only two of us, and we have three kids to save. How do we choose?
“Good. Get a team and plan together to go with you. I want each of you to have a detailed plan in half an hour, then we move.”
I storm out onto the back deck, suddenly needing air to breathe as I realize I’m one person, and I can’t go after three kids myself at the same time. I’m not superman. I have to trust that others can do their jobs.
I hear the sliding door open and then close, and I know Liesel is standing out on the deck with me.
“How do we decide?” I ask her.
She steps next to me and then grips the railing like her life depends on it. She doesn’t answer right away. How could she? How do you choose between children?
“We don’t,” she finally says.
“What?”
“We let our friends go. We let them do their best. And then we go help the one who fails.”
The ocean crashes hard against the shoreline at her words. We both stare out at the sea, knowing that’s the best plan. But it feels impossible to stay put when my kids are in danger.
My kids.
They will always be my kids. I don’t care whose blood runs through their veins—they are mine. Just like the woman to my left, who is wearing my ring. She may have only married me because of a stupid quest, but I’m not giving her up.
I do know something that I can do while we wait to figure out which rescue team is going to need our help the most. I dig into my pocket and pull out the envelope that has the next task in it. I have to complete this task before we can head to Tokyo to get the final task and the location of the treasure. A treasure we can use to get the kids back if all else fails.
I open the envelop and pull out the note. Liesel notices me, but she’s content to just stare at the ocean.
I read the note.
Make her fall in love with you so deeply that nothing can pull you apart.
I read the words twice through, trying to ensure that I’m reading them correctly. Make my wife fall in love with me. I’m pretty sure she already is, even though she won’t admit it. She won’t say the damn words, not that I have either.
How do I prove we love each other so much that nothing will pull us apart? Especially if we won’t even say the words?
I’ve spent my entire life hating her, and she hating me. Hating her is easier, but you can’t hate someone without first loving them. The hate was more because we couldn’t be together than because we truly hated each other.
This should be an easy task, but it won’t be for so many reasons. Liesel is stubborn, and for whatever reason, she’s scared to love me and for me to love her. She won’t admit to loving me easily. Not only do I have to get her to admit it, but I have to be able to prove it to a stranger when we go to collect the next clue.
I fiddle with the edge of the crisp white paper before it slips through my hands. It dances high in the sky as the wind takes hold of it before dipping into the ocean.
Liesel and I both watch the piece of paper disappear into the water. Liesel could just as easily slip through my fingers.
Getting Liesel to truly love me is going to take everything I have. But that was my plan anyway from the second I said I do. There is no going back, not after she’s mine. Fuck the consequences.
No—there are no consequences of her loving me. If Liesel gives me all of her love, I will protect it with everything I have. I will give her the world. I will kill any man or woman who stands against her. Being loved by her would be one of the greatest honors of my life.
I just can’t love her in return. Not openly, not in the way she deserves.
The note didn’t say that I need to love her, though. It just said that she needs to love me.
I can make her fall in love with me so hard that nothing will break us up. We can be a family once we get the kids back, along with the new edition that I feel in her womb.
“Do you know what you need to do?” Liesel asks, still not looking at me.
“Yes, I can do it easily.”
“Good.” She nods.
Get her to love me without falling completely in love myself, that shouldn’t be too hard.
But I already know this is only half of the task. Last time she had to betray me, and I had to forgive her. So this time, I have to get her to fall for me, but what will she have to do?
3
Liesel
What did the note say?
I was dying to know as I watched it flutter into the ocean. Langston won’t tell me, though. He can’t tell me, just as I couldn’t tell him that my mission was to betray him.
What pain is Langston going to have to inflict on me?
It won’t be anything compared to the agony I’m feeling knowing all three of my children’s lives are in danger.
Outside, rain starts as I stand in the living room hopelessly staring out a window, waiting for news. News that the teams have arrived at the locations, news that they’ve succeeded in getting through, news that my kids are safe.
I hate standing in Enzo and Kai’s house doing nothing, but I know we need to wait. We need to be ready to go if one of them fails.
I hear Langston walking up behind me, but I don’t turn around to face him. All I want is news that my kids are safe. Or news of which direction we should head—anything but doing nothing.
I count the raindrops as they run down the window. I grip the neck of my oversized white T-shirt, just needing something to grip onto.
I feel Langston’s hand on my wrist, and he gently gets me to let go of my shirt before he laces his fingers with mine.
I go to pull away, not wanting to be with anyone right now, but he tugs me back. I finally glance at him. His pupils are dilated, his cheeks flushed, the vein in his neck is bulging, and his breathing is erratic.
“I’m just as scared to lose them as you are. We are in this together,” he t
ugs me to him as his other hand strokes my back.
“I don’t want to be comforted right now. I want to feel all the stress and anxiety. I failed them. I deserve to feel this way.”
He shakes his head, obviously disagreeing, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t let me go either.
“Let’s eat.”
I look at him like he’s crazy. There is no way I can eat at a time like this.
“We need to have our strength if we have to go help. We are eating,” he commands.
“No.” There is no possible way I could eat right now.
He frowns. “Huntress, do you want to get your kids back?”
“Of course.”
“Then eat.”
“No, I’ll just throw it up. I’m too nervous.”
He narrows his eyes at me suspiciously, like he thinks I’m lying.
Finally, I yank my hand free of his grasp.
“Huntress,” he says my name like he’s begging me. “Trust me, if you want to do something to help the kids, then you need to spend time with me. Preferably eating, but we can also come up with something else to do if you don’t want to eat.”
I study him, trying to determine what he’s not saying. My eyebrows jump up as I realize what he’s not saying—this has to do with the note.
The note is the key to getting the treasure, which might be the only way we can get the kids back if our teams fail. But what did the note say? What does he have to do?
“Trust me, huntress. I won’t hurt you,” Langston says, brushing my hair off my shoulder as he leans in and tenderly kisses my neck. Shivers tingle down my body at the soft touch. It feels wrong to feel anything remotely near pleasant when my kids are in danger.
“It’s not wrong to feel connected to me right now. It’s not wrong to feel good when the world has turned bad. Don’t ever feel guilty for feeling something for me, no matter what is going on, no matter who is in danger.”
“All I feel for you is hate,” I say softly as my thumb plays with the ring on my finger. The ring has started to disintegrate since it’s made of stems and thorns.
Langston wraps his arms around me from behind and pulls me into a hug. “Have dinner with me.”
I close my eyes as I lean against his hard chest, feeling calmer with his arms around me. I nod against him even though my stomach churns at the thought of food.
Langston leads me out onto the deck, and I gasp at the sight. The small circular table has a white table cloth, a bouquet of fresh flowers, two lit candles, two plates filled with food, and two wine glasses filled with red wine.
“Is someone else here with us? I thought Kai sent all the staff away so we could be alone?”
“She did. I did this; you were in such a trance you didn’t notice.”
He leads me over to the chair that has a better view of the ocean, pulls the chair out, and then waits until I sit. He’s being such a gentleman. It’s strange.
I smile weakly at him as he takes his seat across from me.
He flashes me a much more sincere smile in return. His actually reaches his eyes. It’s meant to soothe my nerves, but it just makes me more anxious as I try to guess what it is he’s going to have to do to me. Betray me? Hurt me? Ruin me?
He’s the only man who has the power to do any of those things—the only person in the world outside of my kids who can hurt me.
His smile drops when he reads my mood, or maybe he can actually read my thoughts.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says.
“You don’t always get a say in whom you hurt.”
Our eyes lock for a second in the pain that is our world before the smell of the food finally hits my nose, and I glance down at my plate. It makes me laugh.
“I made your favorite foods,” he says, his voice full of pride.
I bite my lip to hide a smile. It’s boxed macaroni and cheese with cut-up hot dogs. A giggle escapes despite how hard I tried to hide it.
“Don’t laugh. Is macaroni and cheese not still your favorite food?” He says it so seriously that I laugh even harder.
“No, nowadays I prefer my pasta with some actual nutrients in it. Nothing with more chemicals in it than actual food.”
He laughs finally. “I know, but Kai and Enzo’s fridge didn’t have much to make anything except what the kids like. So it was this or frozen pizza, and since I’ve already made you frozen pizza, I thought this would work best.”
I shake my head with a smile as I pick up my fork and stab a piece of the macaroni before taking a bite. The smell overwhelms my senses and flips my stomach. I don’t want to eat, but I need to try—Langston’s right about that. I start chewing, but something is off.
“Um…it’s crunchy,” I say.
Langston’s nose is curled up as he chews his own bite. He spits his food out into his napkin, which gives me permission to do the same without insulting him or insinuating that I’m pregnant or something.
“What did you do to it?” I ask, now inspecting the pasta to see that half of it looks completely undercooked, while the other half looks overcooked.
“I followed the directions on the box.” He frowns before testing a bite of the hot dog.
I roll mine around on the plate and sink my fork in it, realizing that it takes too much effort to sink the tongs of the fork into the flesh of the hot dog. I put my fork down and watch Langston try a bite.
His face turns green, and he barely gets his napkin to his mouth before he spits it out.
“So I shouldn’t be expecting my new husband to cook for me every night then?” I joke.
He runs his hand through his hair, and I notice some sweat coming through his T-shirt.
“I promise I’m a better cook than this. I’ve made boxed macaroni and cheese and hot dogs a hundred times for Rose and Atlas. I don’t know what happened?” He stares at the food again incredulously, like it did something wrong to him.
His cheeks pink. He’s sweating even more now. I don’t know why he’s so nervous, but I try to ease his mind by lifting my wine glass.
His eyes bulge as he watches me drink the wine. I know he thought for sure I was pregnant, but I’m not. Short of peeing on a stick, drinking my wine will have to convince him.
Except, one taste and I’m spitting the liquid out as I get a mouthful of cork.
“What’s wrong?” Langston asks.
“Um…the cork disintegrated into the bottle. It’s more cork than wine at this point.” I put the glass back on the table.
Langston inspects his glass, takes a small taste, realizes I’m right, and then sets the glass back down in a huff.
“I’m sorry. I can order delivery.”
I shake my head. “It’s okay. I’m too nervous to eat much anyway. I’ll eat once I know the kids are safe.”
He nods with a frown. “What happens when this is all over?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean with us. What kind of life do you want? Where should we live? What do you want out of life?”
I look out at the ocean. The sun has begun to set. We should get some news from how the missions are going. “I can’t imagine this ever being over.”
“It will be sooner than you think. What do you imagine our lives like then?”
Our.
That word sounds so nice leaving his mouth. We haven’t had ‘our’ since we were kids. I’m not foolish enough to think that just because I have a ring on my finger that anything is going to change. I’ll still live alone, and Langston will continue to be an incredible father.
Langston stands up then. It’s clear he’s not happy with whatever he sees on my face. He takes my hands as he kneels in front of me.
“Stop thinking that your life going forward is going to include anything but me and the kids in it,” he says.
I shake my head. “You can’t make promises like that, killer. You might hate me when this is over.”
“I already hate you,” he says with a wry smile.
“
For real,” I say. When he says he hates me, it means I love you, or as close to love as he can feel. “And nothing will change once the kids are safe. They aren’t mine, not really. I’d make a terrible mother.”
His eyes narrow as he clenches my hands tighter. “You’d make a wonderful mother.”
I want to argue more, but there is no use doing that now, so I don’t.
“Once this is all over, I see us building a house on a private island somewhere. We have more money than we need. We’ll live on the island, the five of us.”
I’d rather live in the house he already built—our dream house. I don’t care that he and Phoenix lived in it together already—it’s mine.
“We’ll live happily ever after as we watch the kids grow up until they leave us to start their own lives. We’ll get a dog, maybe some cats to fill the house while we wait for grandchildren. Maybe we’ll start a charity for underprivileged kids.”
He grips my hands tighter until they feel clammy. I don’t know what the lead up is. He’s about to drop the other shoe, something that will bring my world crashing down like always. I’m not ready for him to hurt me, even if he’s doing it to get the treasure and help bring back the kids.
I see him reach for something in his pocket, but he misjudges and bumps the table. The plates rattle around, distracting me from the doom I’m feeling.
I watch as one of the candles twirls around before knocking over onto the table. A second later, flames dance over the tablecloth.
“Langston,” I say, entranced by the flame.
“You love it?” he asks. “If not, I can get you a different one.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about; all I can see is the fire growing bigger behind him. He has no clue. He’s focused on whatever annihilation of my heart he’s supposed to be doing to me.
“Langston!” I shout, still frozen.
The single word is enough to get Langston’s attention this time.
“Shit,” he curses as he drags me away from the table before I catch on fire.
He drags me into the house before running back outside.
I don’t watch him through the window. I don’t care that our makeshift date or whatever it was Langston was trying to accomplish got ruined. I’m relieved that we didn’t get to the hurting me part.
