by Ella Miles
Reckless Fall
Sinful Truths Book 3
Ella Miles
Copyright © 2020 by Ella Miles
EllaMiles.com
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Cover design © Arijana Karčić, Cover It! Designs
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Contents
Free Books
Truth or Lies World
Prologue
1. Siren
2. Zeke
3. Siren
4. Zeke
5. Siren
6. Zeke
7. Siren
8. Zeke
9. Siren
10. Zeke
11. Siren
12. Zeke
13. Siren
14. Zeke
15. Siren
16. Zeke
17. Siren
18. Zeke
19. Siren
20. Zeke
21. Siren
22. Zeke
23. Kai
24. Siren
25. Zeke
26. Siren
27. Zeke
28. Siren
29. Zeke
30. Siren
31. Zeke
32. Siren
33. Zeke
34. Siren
35. Hugo
36. Zeke
37. Siren
38. Zeke
39. Siren
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Truth or Lies World
TRUTH OR LIES SERIES:
Taken by Lies #1
Betrayed by Truths #2
Trapped by Lies #3
Stolen by Truths #4
Possessed by Lies #5
Consumed by Truths #6
SINFUL TRUTHS SERIES:
Sinful Truth #1
Twisted Vow #2
Reckless Fall #3
Tangled Promise #4
Fallen Love #5
Broken Anchor #6
Prologue
Siren
The truth is a strange thing.
I’ve always been one who valued the truth. I always spoke it even if my actions or behaviors were less than one hundred percent true.
I’ve tried lying. Time and time again, but I can never get the words out, that’s how important the truth is to me.
The day I started working for Julian Reed, the truth started to bend. My entire life became about working for a man I hated. I thought I was doing it for love. I thought I was protecting Hugo Martinez, a man I loved. A man I envisioned forever with.
But is it really love when it’s one-sided? If the man you love doesn’t love you back?
From the day Hugo betrayed me, I made a vow to myself to never love again. I told myself I didn’t need love. I definitely didn’t need a man in my life. I told myself I was a strong, independent woman. I owed no loyalty to him but was unable to sentence Hugo to death, which is what I would have done had I ended my vow to Julian. So I kept my promise to Julian to ensure that Hugo stayed alive. I think some small part of me hoped that my sacrifice would make Hugo fall in love with me again, even though I knew I would never accept his love. He didn’t deserve to die for his betrayal. It’s not Hugo’s fault he fell in love with another woman.
Love is, after all, uncontrollable. If we could tame love, we would choose to only fall for those people who would make the best match for us. Ones in the same social circles, the same financial status. Ones our families approve of. We would only fall for the safe ones. Ones who only made us better instead of bringing out the worst in us.
But we don’t get to choose who we fall for. We just fall…
Carelessly.
Whole-heartedly.
Recklessly.
For months now, I’ve told myself I’m not falling. I can’t fall. I’m incapable of loving, not after being hurt so many times by men. I told myself that Zeke Kane was just like the rest of the men in my life. That he was as bad as all the rest. But at every turn, he proved me wrong. He saved me time and time again, at the expense of himself. He protected innocent women from being sold. He showed me that he cared—about his boss, his friends, his family, and even me. He could have loved me if I had let him.
But Zeke thinks I betrayed him, even when I didn’t. He thinks I hurt him. And that’s what I want him to think. It’s the only way to save him. The only way for him to eventually get free. And now I have the perfect plan to get him out of this mess with Julian. A way to get him off the island.
I can save Zeke, earn my redemption in his eyes. There is just one problem…I’ve learned that I can lie, at least to one person—myself.
I’ve been lying for months. Telling myself I can’t fall in love, and I sure as hell can’t fall for a dangerous man like Zeke. If I was going to fall, I should fall for a teacher or banker, not a man in this crime world.
The truth is, I did fall. My heart fell off a cliff the day I met him, and it’s been falling a little more ever since. Until now, I’m so deep in love with him that I can’t think straight. I can’t breathe without inhaling Zeke’s smell. I can’t dream without Zeke in my head. I can’t exist without him. But I have to.
Zeke may think I’m a selfish bastard, someone who has betrayed him time and time again. The truth is, I love him. I’ve always loved him. I’ve never betrayed him. I just can’t tell him the truth.
1
Siren
Falling in love is easy; not getting hurt is the hard part. Not destroying the one you love—that’s the hardest of all.
I stare down at the man lying in the hospital bed. My first love—Hugo Martinez. He looks so broken and shattered. His face is beaten up. Tubes connect to his arms. Bandages cover his body. And the gentle sound of a beep on the machine next to him is the only indication that he’s still alive and not dead.
Hugo made me believe love is real. Sure, I’d thought I’d felt it before with my high school crush. When I fell in love with the stray dog in the neighborhood. When Nora became my best friend. And sure, that was love. But it’s not the same as falling in love.
When I fell for Hugo, he became my everything. I couldn’t think except of him. I couldn’t plan my day without him in it. I couldn’t breathe…
I became a little obsessed. No, obsessed isn’t the right word; I became enchanted with him. Hugo could do no wrong in my eyes. He was it. The elusive one. I knew it from the moment he kept me from putting another needle in my arm and yanked me up off the street where I was planning on offering my body in exchange for money. Hugo saved me from a life of sin. He saved me from myself. If I had slept with a stranger for money, I wouldn’t have survived. I would have never forgiven myself.
And then he kept saving me. From the drugs. The depression. The anger. He saved me from it all.
At twenty-one, he felt like a man, while I was barely eighteen and still acted like a child. Hugo helped me find who I was. Taught me self-defense. Bought me my first guitar. But then, he became so much more.
He taught me how to kiss. When his lips touch
ed mine, fireworks exploding was an understatement.
When his fingers explored my body, toe-curling orgasms followed.
Hugo was my match. He made me a better person, and I was in desperate need of becoming a better person. I was desperate to have something to live for. And Hugo filled that void. He gave me more than something to live for; he gave me my life back.
I came alive against his lips.
I thrived in his arms.
And I learned to find purpose even when Hugo was gone.
Which became more and more often. I didn’t realize Hugo was fighting his own battles while I was becoming stronger. I didn’t realize he was making his own plans even while proposing forever with me.
I didn’t realize that falling in love with Hugo meant giving him the ammunition he needed to kill me. He had the ability to wipe me from this earth with one blow—and he did.
After Hugo betrayed me, I became a different person. One incapable of love. I gave it all to him. Married him. Sacrificed ten years of my life vowing to work for Julian in order to save his life.
And Hugo shit all over my love. He showed me not only how little he cared about my feelings, but that he enjoyed hurting me.
I tried to take my heart back. I tried to ease the pain in my chest. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t re-capture my heart.
It took me a while to get over the disloyalty, to be able to breathe again. And when I did, I wanted to take the vow back. Let Hugo deal with his own mess, even if it meant Julian or the drug lord Hugo owed money to would kill him.
But as much as I act heartless, as much as I want to punish bad men, I couldn’t sentence Hugo to death. I tried. I’ve tried countless times over the last seven years when Julian ordered me to do something I didn’t want to do. But I couldn’t.
Call it love.
Call it heartbreak.
Call it loyalty.
Call it whatever you want. I feel like a coward every time I can’t let Hugo go, but it’s not just letting him go that holds me back. If I end my vow to Julian, I have no doubt that he would kill Hugo. Julian is the reason Hugo is in the hospital—to remind me what will happen if I break my vow.
I look at Hugo lying in the bed, lifeless. I could kill him. It would be so easy. Suffocate him with the pillow. Snap his neck. Unhook the tubes providing him life. Push too many narcotics through his IV.
I could end this. I could be free. At least of Hugo.
I stand over his bed, considering how easy it would be to kill the man who both gave me back my life and then ruined it.
But I can’t kill him, because I’m not heartless. And Hugo still holds the tiniest piece. A piece that has turned cold, black, and unfeeling.
I look back to the hallway that Zeke escaped through. His words will haunt me forever. He won’t protect me anymore. He won’t save me; that was his vow.
Those may have been the words he spoke, but I know what he was really saying, I won’t love you anymore. I won’t let my heart fall anymore.
He may have never said I love you. But we were close, even though we shouldn’t have been. We both tormented and betrayed each other time and time again. I did everything I could to make Zeke hate me. I claimed it’s because I don’t want to fall in love again. Thought I pushed him away only for selfish reasons—I don’t want to give a man the power to hurt me again.
But it was a lie, maybe the first lie I ever told myself.
Because I didn’t push Zeke away to save myself, I pushed Zeke away to save him. And he still fell for Julian’s trap. Because Zeke isn’t like Hugo, he’s a man of honor. A loyal man. A man who loves with everything he has. A man capable of changing the world.
He doesn’t deserve to be trapped in this life. He deserves to be free. To return to his friends. His boss. His life.
I’ll be trapped here forever. I have three years left of my debt to Julian, but that isn’t the only thing keeping me trapped, holding me hostage.
My heart clenches, looking at the empty hallway. Zeke is most likely headed back to Julian now, trying to find a way to get out of his own deal with him or figuring out how to complete it as fast as possible so he can get the hell away from me.
Hugo may hold a tiny piece of my heart I never got back, but Zeke holds the rest of my heart. It belongs to Zeke.
Because I fell…
Hard.
Stupidly.
In love with Zeke.
I fell too fast.
I fell too hard.
Long before I ever admitted it to myself. I tried to protect Zeke from my love by making him hate me. But it backfired on me.
I’m done hiding my love, but it’s too late.
Zeke hates me.
Good. That means there is no reason to hide how I feel. He’ll lash back and try to hurt me, and I’ll let him. Because I deserve it. I failed to protect him from Julian. But I can set him free.
I look back at Hugo. I want him dead. But first, I want the tiny piece of my heart he still holds. It’s not his. I want it back. I want to give Zeke Kane everything—my entire heart. Even though I know how much it will hurt when he doesn’t love me back. Even though I know the pain when he betrays me. Wrecks me.
I want to feel it: the good and the bad. I want to show him how much I love him. I want to fall, screw the consequences. My life is no longer mine. But my heart, my heart is all that I have left to give. And if I’m going to give it up, I’m going to give it to a man like Zeke.
A man who, in a different life, I would have loved from the moment I laid eyes on him. I would have loved out in the open. We would have made each other better, instead of bringing out the worst in each other. Hating Zeke didn’t save him, maybe loving him will.
“I hate you,” I say.
“You sure about that? Because your puffy eyes and running nose say differently. You came running back to me as soon as you found out I was in the hospital,” Hugo answers, without opening his eyes.
Did he really speak? Or am I imagining he did?
Either way, he’s right. I did. I shouldn’t have come back, though. And Hugo can’t read me as well as he used to. Because this isn’t love, this is heartbreak. And it’s nothing compared to how I felt watching Zeke walk out the door.
2
Zeke
Siren’s fucking married. She’s capable of love. She’s not heartless. She can fall in love, just not with me.
She hurt me once, shame on her.
She hurt me twice, shame on me.
I won’t let her hurt me a third time.
My heart may have been falling, but seeing her run to another man. Seeing her pain for a man who was hurt, that turned my heart to stone.
I will never let her in again. I will never love her. Never care for her. Never consider her on my side. I will never protect her again.
She betrayed me to Julian, and now she’s married to another man. I don’t care if she claims she doesn’t love him. That he hurt her, and they just haven’t gotten around to divorce. I don’t care what her excuses are. I’m done.
Done with her. Done with my deal with Julian. I’m done.
I want out of here. I’ll make sure Enzo, and Kai, and Langston, and Liesel are safe and protected by killing Julian. Then I’ll destroy Siren, so I know she will never come after my family. I won’t kill her, I’m not vicious enough to be able to finish the job, but I’ll get my message across that if she comes for me, she’s a dead woman.
I’m tired of playing games. I want answers. And I don’t trust Siren. I want the truth. And the only way I’ll get that is from Julian.
I drive fast toward Julian’s house. Away from the hospital. Away from her—my siren. She will never be anything but a siren. The devil in disguise. The woman who told me who she was with one word. And I was too stupid to believe that she might be what she claimed—a monster.
I drive, imagining what Siren would say if she were riding next to me. How pissed off she would be that I’m driving too fast. I’m being reckless. I’m going to
get into a car accident.
I smirk.
Good, let’s see if she would come running to my bedside if I were to get into a car accident. I doubt it.
I press my foot down on the pedal harder as I turn a curve, the truck swerves, but I make the turn, barely avoiding rolling off the edge of the hill and down the cliffside. It doesn’t slow me down, though. It only makes me drive faster, trying to outrun my pain.
Somehow I make it to Julian’s drive without crashing. I throw my door open and jump out, slamming the door hard behind me—wishing I could hurt Siren the way I just hurt the door. But I can’t hurt Siren, because she doesn’t care about me. She just likes watching me bleed.
I pull my gun out of my pocket as I storm inside Julian’s house. One of his servants spots me and turns on the spot, heading back down the hallway when he sees my gun. I’m going to finish what I should have done months ago. I’m going to kill Julian Reed. And then I’m getting the fuck off this island.
I march down the hallway, to Julian’s office, the scent of cigar smoke leading the way. I kick open the door and aim my gun at his head.
I should fire immediately, kill him without questions. But I want answers. I need answers. I need closure, so when I leave, I won’t have Siren floating around in my head, fucking with me.
