by Ella Miles
I don’t regret falling in love with Aria, because she saved my life more than she knows…
My heart is racing, jonesing for another hit. I need it. I’m desperate. I need a hit right now. My legs are shaking, I’m sweaty, and I can’t get enough oxygen in my lungs.
I need the drugs. It’s been too long since my last hit.
I bought drugs meant to be sold, but instead, me and my friends used them. Not this time. This time, I’m selling them and only using a little bit. I just need one hit, then I’ll be able to function again.
I’m supposed to meet the buyer here, on the edge of this sea town. I’m so damn tired of the sea salt smell and the humid, sticky air. Beach towns are overrated.
I turn down a road and into the alleyway where I met him last time, but I don’t see him.
Am I early?
Late?
I don’t know. I don’t have a watch. Or a phone.
I have no way to figure out if he’s coming or already left.
But I’m not going anywhere. For one thing, the alleyway is spinning.
I need to sit down.
So I do.
“Ow,” a high pitched voice says.
I stumble over and look down at what I stepped on—an angel.
Did I die?
I must have.
The girl smiles up at me when she sees my reaction. Yep, I’m definitely dead. No girl looks as sweet as her.
She’s leaning against the wall, playing with something in her hand. Even though she’s sitting on the dirty ground in the alleyway next to a trash can, she looks clean and smells like flowers.
“You should sit down; you don’t look so well,” she says.
I slump to the floor next to her.
“Are you sick?” she asks with big eyes.
I nod. I’m always sick. Except when I’m high, which seems to be less and less these days.
“Here,” she says, removing her denim jacket and draping it over my shoulders.
I stare at her with bug eyes.
“You are shaking. You must be cold. The jacket will help.”
I nod. It does help. Although not as much as a hit of heroin would.
“What are you doing here?” I ask her, still assuming I’m dead.
Her beautiful bright smile drops. “Hiding.”
“From what?”
“Not what, who,” she answers. Her eyes drift down the alleyway, looking lost in a cloud of gloom.
Okay, so she’s a dark angel. She hides behind her pretty eyelashes and big smile, but I can see the darkness now. She’s had a rough past, same as me.
I study her closer and realize she’s young. Seventeen, maybe eighteen.
She’s either running from her parents or a boyfriend.
“Have a boyfriend?” I ask.
She shakes her head, and I have my answer—she’s running from her parents.
“What’s your name?”
“Aria Torres.”
“I’m Hugo Martinez.”
She nods, giving me a polite smile. She tucks her hair behind her ear, and that’s when I see it, the blueness around her eye.
If I was in a better place, I’d get up and run after her dad. I’d kill him for touching such a sweet angel. But since I can barely keep myself sitting upright, I don’t think I can manage chasing down a grown man.
Aria reaches over and grabs a bottle I didn’t notice before. She takes a sip of the beer and then hands it to me. “Want some?”
I take the bottle, the alcohol barely addressing my jitters, but I appreciate the taste and gesture.
“What are you doing in an alleyway like this, Aria? You could be enjoying the beach.”
“The same reason you are.”
I frown. This girl should be doing nothing I’m doing. I lean my head back against the brick wall behind us.
“So, what do you like doing for fun, Aria?”
Please don’t say drink or drugs. You’re better than that. Give me hope.
She frowns. “I don’t know. I don’t do anything for fun.”
“Well, if you could, what would you do?”
She thinks for a moment, scrunching her nose. “Sing.”
It seems like an admission she’s never made to anyone else before. But she made it to me. I feel my jittery heart do strange things—like flip for this girl.
“What do you like to sing?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never tried singing before.”
“You want to sing, but you’ve never tried it before? How do you know you are any good?”
She smiles. “I don’t. Don’t you have dreams you’ve never tried before? Skiing, surfing, painting?”
I don’t tell her that I’ve done all of those things. I grew up privileged. That doesn’t mean that the darkness didn’t find me, too, just like this girl who has nothing. This girl, who has been beaten, abused, and yet she still smiles. She still has hope.
“Well, I think it’s about time.”
“Time for what?”
“Time that you sing.”
She frowns. “But I don’t know how.”
I laugh. “Yes, you do. Singing isn’t something that has to be taught. At least not at first. Sure, to get good at singing on key and harmonizing and stuff, you might need lessons, but you don’t have to be good to start singing. You just sing.”
“Okay, if you don’t need lessons, then you sing,” she says with a raised eyebrow.
I walked right into that one.
I think for a moment, trying to come up with something to sing. Then I open my mouth and sing ‘Moves Like Jagger.’
Siren smiles. “Did you write that?”
I frown. “No, it’s Maroon 5. Haven’t you heard it on the radio?”
She blushes. “My parents don’t have a radio.”
Oh.
Shit.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pushed you.”
But then she opens her mouth and starts singing. A song I’ve never heard before. One I’m sure she’s written herself.
You hurt me.
Destroyed me.
Made me turn to darkness to survive you.
The pull is too great.
I can’t resist your temptation.
It’s the only way to survive you.
Even though it destroys me.
And yet, I still love you.
My mouth falls open as she sings. I was wrong about everything. This girl can sing. She doesn’t need lessons or practice. This girl could be on the radio right now if she wanted to be. If the right person listened to her, the pain in her life would vanish.
But that’s what makes her voice so special—the pain behind it. The life experience.
“It was horrible, wasn’t it?” she asks, her voice timid.
I shake my head. “That was the most hauntingly beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.”
She swallows hard, and her mouth goes dry as she stares at me like I’m someone to awe.
Then—an electricity I’ve never felt with a woman before. I need to touch her. She seems to need it too.
We’ve found something here, connected in a way neither of us was expecting. We are two lost souls in need of saving. Maybe we can save each other.
I touch her cheek.
She touches my chest.
And then we kiss.
Our lips brush. Our tongues tease. And the beautiful thing that is Aria encompasses me. I’m hers—forever.
I don’t know how I’m going to hold onto something so beautiful. So precious. So forgiving. But I’m going to try.
Finally, I see it—the needle next to her leg. And I see the darkness in her eyes as I kiss her. She’s facing the same monster as I am.
The pull of drugs.
She’s not shaking like I am, and she doesn’t have needle marks all up and down her arms like I do. She can still be saved from the deepest layer of darkness.
I can save her. I can protect her. And maybe her goodness, her kindness, her ability to f
orgive will be enough…because I already know I’m going to have to ask for her forgiveness.
My love wasn’t enough to protect her.
Her forgiveness wasn’t enough to save our marriage.
Love isn’t enough to protect against darkness.
What I did was unforgivable.
When I was planning our life together, I forgot one thing—Aria fell in love with me too. And love makes people do unpredictable things. Aria is the strongest person I know, but I broke her heart. I didn’t realize how fragile it was since everything else about her is strong.
I know what’s coming, and I deserve it. I need it to happen. Despite everything, I still love Aria. But she’s no longer Aria. Aria is gone. She left the second I shattered her heart.
She’s Siren now. She finally found a man worthy of her. I just hope my plan works. I hope the pain brings them together, like it did us. And I hope, unlike us, they cherish their love instead of letting it destroy them.
But I better not be here to watch it happen, because Aria isn’t the only one with a fragile heart. I can’t watch her get her happily ever after, while I’m the reason ours ended.
36
Zeke
Julian drives me to Hugo’s house. I must be crazy to trust Julian, even for a second, to get her back. I don’t have a choice—Julian knows Hugo and Siren’s history better than I do.
“There,” Julian says when we pull up in front of a small beach house on the far end of the island.
I pull my gun out. Hugo’s a dead man if he sold Siren. A dead man.
Julian pulls a gun out as well. I’ve never seen him get his hands dirty, never seen him wield a gun, but for Siren, he will. He loves her, which is the only reason I brought him along. He’d die, before he’d let her die.
He may have been a good actor. He may have acted like he would kill her if I didn’t behave, but no way can Julian kill Siren. Just like there is no way I can kill her. There is just something about her that lures men in. Only she can decide if we get to live or die.
We march up to Hugo’s front door. I pound loudly on the door, my gun in hand, and Julian standing on my right.
Slowly, Hugo opens the door. We don’t give him time to talk. We both ambush him back into his house until he’s sitting in a chair in the center of his living room with both our guns aimed at his forehead.
The house is a mess. There’s trash and empty alcohol bottles everywhere. That isn’t what has me worried, though. The track marks on his arms worry me. The redness in his eyes. The brokenness. The needles on the coffee table.
Hugo is high. Who knows if we will be able to get answers from him.
“Where is Siren?” I ask.
“Who?” Hugo asks.
“Aria, your wife. Where is she?” Julian asks.
“Oh, her,” Hugo’s head drops, and I swear he’s seconds away from passing out, puking, or keeling over dead. I’m just not sure which.
He’s no longer the man I knew before. He’s not the man who would fight for Siren, the man who would make threats. This man is empty, broken.
Julian kicks him in the leg. “Wake up! Where is Aria?”
Hugo’s head drops again, and he shakes his head.
I study him, trying to figure out how to play this. How to get the information we need? We need to know where Siren is. If he doesn’t tell us, it could take us days to find her instead of hours. I don’t want her with another man for any longer than she has to be.
“Where is she?” I ask, calmer.
Hugo looks at me in the eyes, and for a second, I see clarity. He looks over at Julian, and his eyes get cloudy again.
“Julian, make him some coffee or something. He’s so high he won’t be able to think straight.”
Julian doesn’t like taking orders, but he wants Siren back just like I do. He reluctantly marches into the kitchen to make coffee.
I squat down in front of Hugo. “Who did you sell her to?”
“Northern Spain. The number is in my pocket,” Hugo answers me.
I exhale a deep breath as I reach into his front pocket and find a note. I have her location and a phone number. I can find her. I can save her.
Hugo grabs my shirt, holding me close. “Don’t break her heart. It’s fragile. Protect it at all costs.”
I frown, not understanding.
“Promise me!” His voice gets louder.
I don’t know why I’m making promises to Hugo, but I am. “I promise.”
Hugo grabs my gun and aims it at his heart.
I realize what’s happened—Hugo’s hurting. His heart is broken. He really did love her.
Three men.
Hugo.
Julian.
And me.
We’ve all fallen for her. Siren’s love is the kind that consumes you. It’s all any of us can think about—loving her. She’s strong, independent, and secretive—a true siren with the power to kill us all. She just has to decide if she wants any of us alive.
Divorcing Hugo was the final straw. He lost. And now he can’t survive without her. It hurts too much. She destroyed him.
I don’t understand their love story, but I don’t doubt now that they loved each other. I don’t doubt that he loved her more than she loved him. Even though she traded ten years of her life to save him, he still loved her more. And in the end, it was his demise.
“Do it,” Hugo says.
I look at him closer. He’s already dying. He’s gaunt, just bones. If I don’t kill him, the drugs will. For a moment, I feel sorry for him. Ultimately, he simply wasn’t strong enough to keep her love.
Am I?
No. I’m not sure any man is.
But that’s a discussion for later. For now, I get to kill a man who hurt Siren. I get to get her vengeance. Hugo may love her, but he still sold her. He cheated on her. He nearly raped her. He locked her into a marriage when she was never his to begin with.
The only way to keep Siren’s love is to let her be herself, let her be free. Let her be Siren and hope your love is enough. You can’t cage her in like Hugo did.
You can’t trap her into vows like Julian does.
You can’t force her to tell you the truth when she’s not ready like I do.
I don’t know how Siren needs to be loved, but all three of us are doing a horrible job. All three of us are going to end up dying with a broken heart, just like Hugo.
I consider letting him die slowly and painfully, but it’s not my style. And I don’t think it’s what Siren would want. She loved him once. She wants him to die honorably, before he loses himself completely.
He closes his eyes, welcoming death. I let him die with a bullet in his heart, putting him out of his misery.
Julian enters when he hears the gunshot.
“What the hell? You killed him before you found out where Aria is?”
“No, I found out where she is.”
“Where?”
“This is where our partnership ends.” I shoot him in the shoulder, not enough to kill him, although I want to desperately. I’m afraid he’s working for a more powerful man—the one whose money that really is. I don’t want to piss that man off by killing his number two, not at least until I know who he is.
Then I leave. I know where to find Siren. I just hope I’m not too late. And I hope I’m doing the right thing by saving her. If I know Siren, she’ll most likely shoot me for saving her.
37
Siren
I can do this. I can escape. I can save all these women.
Three men drag me in chains to a grand room, and suddenly I’m not so sure.
No, don’t doubt yourself. You’ve been in worse situations before. You destroy men. Manipulate your new owner just like you do every other man.
“You can go,” the man sitting in a large chair says to my guards.
“But, sir—”
“Unchain her, then leave,” his voice is loud and booming. It’s meant to scare me. It doesn’t, but it drives some fear into his
men.
They fumble with the chains around my wrists and ankles.
And then finally, they leave. It’s just me and him—the man who bought me.
I grin. This will be too easy.
No, if I was just trying to free myself, it would be easy. This is harder, saving six other women.
“Who are you?” I ask, wanting to know the name of the man I plan on destroying.
“Bishop,” he answers. His answer surprises me. He doesn’t tell me to call him mister or master. For all I know, Bishop is his first name and not his last.
“Well, Bishop, it’s nice to meet you,” I say, walking over to the window to see my escape options. I’m on the third floor—jumping out the window isn’t a good route.
“Is it? I would have thought it was the opposite of nice,” Bishop says.
“Maybe, but I’m not like most women. I like to know who the monsters are. I don’t run from them. I destroy them.”
His eyes soak me in. “That you do. But I’m not like most men either.”
I smirk. “All men are the same.” Except Zeke, Zeke is different. He’s not a monster.
Bishop stands and walks over to the window I’ve been studying. His eyes are blue, his hair blonde, and his skin fair. He doesn’t look evil. The best men hide who they really are.
“You’re wrong. I’m different,” he says.
“How are you different?”
“I’ve felt pain you’ve never imagined. It turned me into a different man. A man who wants to see others experience similar pain.”
“Don’t worry about me; I have a high pain tolerance. You’re not going to be able to hurt me.”
He reaches out and touches my chest. “You’re wrong. I know exactly how to hurt you. And I’m going to enjoy every second of it.”
“And I know exactly how to hurt you.”
“Oh, I hope so. I hope you are the one who can finally hurt me because I’ve grown tired of the easy ones. It would be good to feel something new.”
I frown. This man is unusual.
He snaps his fingers. A woman enters in chains being held by a man. She looks awful. She’s had enough. But there’s something familiar about her.
