by Ella Miles
I glance behind us and see she’s right—more men storm out of the temple.
I have a gun with limited bullets. I don’t think Liesel even has a gun. We have no backup team coming to rescue us. It’s just the two of us, and as good as I am, I can’t take down this many men. We need a miracle.
And if someone has to die, it’s going to be me, not her.
28
Liesel
There are so many guns pointed in our direction right now. We are crouched behind a pillar. Langston has a gun with a limited number of bullets left. I don’t see a way out of this.
And yet, all I can think about is how much of an asshole my father was. It would’ve been terrible enough for the fact that he wasn’t around for most of my life. He ran a criminal organization and destroyed other people’s lives. And instead of simply letting me inherit whatever this treasure is, he created an elaborate game that I have no chance of winning.
My father wanted me dead.
He didn’t have the balls to do it himself, though. So he invented this game to ensure my death, but not after he thoroughly tortured me first.
Hiding the treasure had nothing to do with love, as he said in his letter. That story about him and my mother breaking up because the sheer quantity of the treasure sprouted greed was made up. They got divorced because he was a criminal, and my mother was an addict.
This is about control. My father wanted to control me even from death. He didn’t want to give me any money unless I earned it. He wanted to choose who I married, who I loved. He thought Langston was unworthy.
I look to the man crouched next to me, protecting me, knowing that he’ll probably die doing it. We could have loved each other so much sooner if my father hadn’t intervened. I have no doubt the reason why Langston tried so hard to hate me all these years is to save me. Loving me was dangerous.
I understand now why he was so hesitant to say the words. Not because he didn’t love me, but because he was afraid of getting one of us killed. I’m not going to let that happen. I just have to figure out what my dad’s endgame was.
Is this it? Is this where he expected us to die? He set a trap for us, letting us get so close to the end only to kill us instead?
Maybe, but it doesn’t make sense to me.
I rack my brain through all of the clues. I try to think of my father as the monster he is. The only monster I knew to be similar was Enzo’s dad. He, too, set up ridiculous games in order for his son to inherit his company. He, too, tried to control his son’s life.
This is no different. I just have to outsmart my father.
I’m beginning to think there isn’t even a treasure to be found. Then how are all these people getting paid? Why are they still loyal to my father after he’s dead?
There has to be a treasure. But what is it? Why hide it? Is it a reward or a way to punish me further?
My father was an evil man, so I lean toward punishment.
Suddenly it hits me all at once; I know what the treasure is! Still, it doesn’t help me figure out how to get out of this mess alive.
I grab Langston’s bicep. “Don’t you dare sacrifice yourself. You saw what happened the last time I thought you died; I died right along with you. Don’t sacrifice yourself.”
Langston takes a deep breath. “I won’t let you die. I have to protect you.”
“No, you’ve done that, and this is where we’ve ended up. Whatever happens next, we do it together.”
He nods.
“Promise me,” I demand.
“Only if you promise the same.”
“I promise,” we both say at the same time, looking into each other’s eyes. I can’t lose him, and he can’t lose me. We have no other option than to live or die together.
“What ideas do you have for getting out of here?” I ask.
“Not many. We are obviously outnumbered, so we have two options left, really. We try to fight our way out and get shot and killed, or we surrender and hope that gives us enough time to find another way out while they decide what to do with us.”
“I don’t love either of those options.”
“I don’t either.”
“We surrender together. We call their bluff,” I say.
“You don’t think they’ll actually kill us?”
“No, I think they will, but they will want to play with us first. They’ll torture us until the brink of death and then kill us. We can both survive the pain. That gives Kai, Enzo, Siren, Zeke, Beckett—any of them—time to come save us. Or as you said, it gives us time to come up with a better way to escape or convince them to let us go.”
His lips meet mine in the briefest of kisses, but his kiss tells me everything I need to know. Then his lips say it, “I love you, huntress.”
“I love you, killer.”
He grabs my hand, interlocking our fingers, and then we both stand with our hands up. Langston makes a show of dropping his gun.
“We surrender!” we both shout over the gunfire and yelling in our direction.
The gunfire almost immediately stops. The muffled shouts draw quieter.
“Don’t move!” someone yells at us.
We don’t. We feel two guns pressed against our backs, our arms are yanked behind our bodies, and our wrists are tied together with rope. Our eyes meet in a show of solidarity. If his eyes are the last thing I see before I die, I’ll die having loved and been loved, which is more than I ever expected out of my life.
The men shove us into the center of the terrace until we are surrounded by the entire squad pointing guns at us.
I glance at Langston, realizing we might have chosen the wrong course of action to get us out of here. This doesn’t feel like they are about to torture us. It feels like we’re facing a firing squad.
The woman from inside comes out with a smirk on her face.
“Have you decided?” she asks.
When we don’t answer, she tries again. “Have you decided which of you is going to die and which is going to live? Only one of you has to die; the other gets to live a long, happy life.”
Langston looks at me, and I know it breaks him to not try and save me, but I shake my head, and he nods. We are star crossed lovers destined to die together.
“Either both of us live, or both of us die; there is no other option,” I say.
The woman smiles. “Fine, it makes no difference to me. I get paid either way.”
“Look at me,” Langston says.
I turn my head and stare deeply into his eyes.
This is the moment when it all ends; we die.
I should be terrified.
Shaking.
Crying.
Begging.
I should be afraid of death. I’m not.
I smile. Langston smiles back.
We love each other. I have no regrets. If I only got to love Langston out loud for a day, it was enough. We got our one day. That’s more than most people experience after a lifetime of searching. Our love was real; it was all-encompassing. It was enough.
“Fire!” she screams.
I hold onto Langston’s eyes for as long as I can, but eventually, the hits of the bullets are going to knock me dead. I hold onto his eyes until the darkness comes.
The darkness comes too soon; Langston is gone, and I’m in hell.
29
Langston
Dying—what does it feel like?
Immense nothingness.
The darkest of darks.
I didn’t feel any pain, which shocks me. Death should be the worst pain, but all it feels like is a final end—an eternal end, an erasing of memories.
And yet, I remember her—Liesel, my huntress.
I may have forgotten everything else, but her love can’t be taken from me, not even by death.
My mind clings to the memory of Liesel.
Where is she? Is she dead too? Is she floating in this darkness with me?
I dip down, my stomach drops.
How is that possible?
/>
Am I an angel? Am I flying?
Voices register in my brain.
What is that?
I move my fingers. I still have fingers! They barely operate at first, but the more I wiggle, the more control I have over them.
Finally, I’m able to move them enough to feel my face. There is fabric covering my head. I push it up, and light blinds me. I try to close my eyes, but my lids move too slowly. Everything moves too slowly.
I’m not dead.
I’m on an airplane, by the looks of it.
Liesel is sitting down the aisle from me in a chair facing Corbin and Maxwell. She’s not dead, either. She’s very much alive.
Did they save us?
“Why did you save us?” Liesel asks them.
“You know why,” Corbin answers.
Maxwell looks annoyed and tired by this conversation, like they’ve already been talking for a long time.
She frowns. “The treasure.”
Corbin nods.
Liesel considers. “I’ll find the treasure, just leave my kids alone.”
Corbin smiles; it’s what he wants.
“No!” I say, but nothing comes out. They don’t look at me. Am I really here? Maybe I am dead?
“You will help me find the treasure; otherwise I’ll kill you and Langston, and all three of your children will grow up parentless. But first, I need proof that you’ve paid your sacrifice. I saw Beckett’s hands. Maxwell saw Siren and Zeke’s sacrifices. None of us were there to witness your sacrifice, however,” Corbin says.
“How do I prove it?” Liesel frowns.
“We’ll go to a hospital to get an ultrasound.”
Ultrasound? Do they think she’s pregnant too?
“That’s a waste of time. We need to go, now,” she insists.
“You need to pay your dues first.”
“Do you have a knife on you?”
Corbin frowns and looks at Maxwell, who reluctantly pulls out a knife. She snatches it from their hands, and then I watch in horror as she lifts up her shirt and plunges the knife into her lower belly.
“No!” I try to scream again. I try to kick, to fight, but in my drugged-up state, I can’t do any of those things.
She removes the knife, then takes off her shirt until she’s just in a bra and wraps it around her fresh wound. “Does that satisfy you? I sacrificed my ability to get pregnant. I injected the poison you gave me at the club, and I just stabbed myself in the uterus. There is no way I’ll ever be able to get pregnant.”
Corbin grins, pleased.
“That will do.”
My stomach twists, aching to go strangle the man to death.
Liesel speaks again. “Now I want something first. Take Langston back to his private island and ensure he gets medical help right away. Don’t hurt him or my kids ever again.”
“Very well. Maxwell, take Langston to his island and see that he gets medical help. Assure him that we won’t hurt or take his kids from him ever again.”
I lose consciousness. The next time I awake. I’m on a new plane, alone with Maxwell.
“Don’t worry, Corbin won’t kill Liesel,” Maxwell says. “He won’t kill her.”
The darkness pulls me under once again.
30
Liesel
Now that Langston, Rose, and Atlas are all safe, I’m able to focus on what comes next.
“What happens when we find the treasure?” I ask.
“You’ve realized that Langston isn’t going to be able to help you get the treasure on his own. The way your father set up the game was to make sure you’d fail if you chose to find it with him.”
“Yes, I realize that,” I say.
Corbin sips his whiskey. “Good, so let’s talk. I want the treasure. You’ll help me get it, and then I’ll let you go free. You’ll be free to live your life with the man you love and two gorgeous children.”
My heart sinks thinking about what that life would be, but it doesn’t matter. That would never be my life, no matter if Corbin intervened or not.
“No.”
Corbin frowns.
“Take me instead. Langston gets the treasure; you get me.”
He looks at me slowly. “You figured it out, didn’t you?”
I nod.
“Tell me,” he says.
“In my father’s story, the one with my mother, I was the treasure—the treasure that ruined their marriage, the treasure that wasn’t worth it. The treasure isn’t money or jewels. The treasure is a child, my child. The treasure is Declan.”
Corbin nods for me to continue.
“You never had Declan. You tricked me into thinking you did so I would go after the treasure for you. You just want to hurt me. You want to take all of my kids away from me so I’ll feel the pain Phoenix went through. The pain you all went through because of my father.”
“Very good. So you see, I can’t give Langston the treasure. I already caved to Phoenix and Maxwell, who both have big hearts and wanted me to give you the kids back. I won’t cave when it comes to Declan. We find him; I keep him. You go free and unharmed to return to what remains of your family—that’s the deal.”
I shake my head. It’s a horrible deal. It means I’m trading one kid for the other two. I can’t do that.
“No, take me instead. Take me and give Declan to Langston. You want to hurt me? This is how you do it. You separate me from all of my kids, not just one. You separate me from the man I love.”
Corbin doesn’t want to kill me; that would be too easy. He just wants me to suffer as his family did and continues to suffer to this day.
Corbin considers my proposition for a minute. For several long seconds, he doesn’t speak. He just sips his drink, thinking it over and looking at me. I don’t know what I’m going to do if this doesn’t work. What other options do I have?
This has to work.
“I know your secret,” he finally says.
I freeze.
“How?”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I do know, so I also know your deal is not a fair trade.”
I understand what he’s saying, but it’s all I have to offer—my life for Declan’s. I was put on this earth to save my family. I’m not going to fail at my one mission.
“All you’ve ever wanted to do is make me pay for the atrocities of my father. Take the deal. Me for Declan.”
More time passes. He considers his options. I consider mine.
“If you don’t take this deal, then you get no deal. You don’t find Declan without me. He stays hidden forever. This is the only way you get what you want.”
Another second passes before he holds out his hand.
“Deal.”
Thank you so much for reading Dangerous Lies! Langston & Liesel’s story concludes in Endless Lies
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Also by Ella Miles
LIES SERIES:
Lies We Share: A Prologue
Vicious Lies
Desperate Lies
Fated Lies
Cruel Lies
Dangerous Lies
Endless Lies
SINFUL TRUTHS:
Sinful Truth #1
T
wisted Vow #2
Reckless Fall #3
Tangled Promise #4
Fallen Love #5
Broken Anchor #6
TRUTH OR LIES:
Taken by Lies #1
Betrayed by Truths #2
Trapped by Lies #3
Stolen by Truths #4
Possessed by Lies #5
Consumed by Truths #6
DIRTY SERIES:
Dirty Obsession
Dirty Addiction
Dirty Revenge
Dirty: The Complete Series
ALIGNED SERIES:
Aligned: Volume 1 (Free Series Starter)
Aligned: Volume 2
Aligned: Volume 3
Aligned: Volume 4
Aligned: The Complete Series Boxset
UNFORGIVABLE SERIES:
Heart of a Thief
Heart of a Liar
Heart of a Prick
Unforgivable: The Complete Series Boxset
MAYBE, DEFINITELY SERIES:
Maybe Yes
Maybe Never
Maybe Always
Definitely Yes
Definitely No
Definitely Forever
STANDALONES:
Pretend I’m Yours
Pretend We’re Over
Finding Perfect
Savage Love
Too Much
Not Sorry
Hate Me or Love Me: An Enemies to Lovers Romance Collection
About the Author
Ella Miles writes steamy romance, including everything from dark suspense romance that will leave you on the edge of your seat to contemporary romance that will leave you laughing out loud or crying. Most importantly, she wants you to feel everything her characters feel as you read.
