Broken by Lies

by Rebecca Shea

  “You don’t feel warm.”

  “Probably just a little stomach bug. I think I’m going to lie down.” I wiggle out of his grasp and walk around him.

  “I’ll lie down with you, but I have something for you first.” Alex pulls a small box out from his pocket and hands it to me. “Open it.” He moves toward me, the scent of his cologne filling the air around us. It’s soft and masculine and has the power to weaken my resolve, but it’s the box sitting in my hand that has my knees shaking together.

  My heart stammers in my chest as my fingers run across the smooth dark blue velvet case. With shaky hands, I lift the lid and there sits a beautiful gold necklace with a diamond encrusted compass charm dangling from the thin chain. I gasp. I’ve never owned a piece of jewelry in my life, let alone something this beautiful. I look up, and Alex has a sincere smile on his face as he watches me. I fake a smile again as I’m wondering if his smile is another lie.

  I wonder what lie he’ll tell next, and I wonder if it’ll be the one to break me.

  “ALEX,” SHE WHISPERS quietly, running her fingers across the beautiful compass. “What is this for?” She bites her lip, and I can see her heart racing by the steady pulse of the vein in her neck.

  Do I tell her the truth? The truth that I need her as much as she needs me? The truth that I don’t want to live without her? The truth that she is the only good thing in my life?

  The truth that I love her?

  “Because you stayed,” I finally say. “You loved me enough to stay. You don’t know what that means to me.” I reach out and brush a strand of hair off of her face, tucking it behind her ear. She flinches at my touch and pulls away slightly, but I see tears in her eyes—a sign of conflict.

  My smile falters. “If you don’t like it, I can return it.”

  “No,” she says quickly, pulling the chain from the box. “I love it, but you didn’t have to do this.”

  “I wanted to.” I’d do anything for you.

  She unhooks the clasp and reaches behind her neck. I turn her around and remove the chain from her fingers, fastening the clasp and fixing her hair. The necklace sits perfectly on her chest.

  “Em.” I tip her chin up so she looks me in the eye. “It kills me to hear you say you have nobody. You’ll always have me. You’ll never be alone or lost again. I don’t know if I believe in fate, but something brought us together at that hotel. I took one look at you and knew we needed each other.”

  Tears spill from her eyes, and she swats them away.

  Before I lose my nerve, I tell her, “I love you, Emilia.” Then she lunges into my arms and sobs into my chest. I’ve never been good at comfort, but if I could take away all of her pain, I would.

  She clings to me as if she doesn’t believe what I’ve said. “Alex,” she stutters between breaths. “Before you say anything else, I need you to be honest with me.” She slides her hand into mine and pulls me toward the couch in the living room. She sits but puts some distance between us. I notice her slouched shoulders and balled up fists in her lap.

  “What’s going on, Em?”

  “Are you going to hurt me?” Her chin quivers.

  “Never,” I cut her off. “Why would you even ask me that?”

  “The picture.”

  Shit. I swallow hard. “What picture, Emilia?” I play stupid. She saw the fucking picture.

  “The picture of me on your computer. And the one of my dad, and my mom, dead. Why do you have those, Alex? What’re you doing with them?” Her voice shakes.

  Wait, what? I saw the one—of her. But that was it. “What’re you talking about? Pictures of your mom and dad? I don’t have pictures of your parents, Em. I don’t even know who your parents are.”

  “You do. On your computer in your office. I saw them this afternoon.”

  “Shit.” I rake my hands over my face. I knew something was wrong last night when I saw her picture, but the only man that has the answers I need is locked up, and I can’t ask him.

  “Tell me, Alex.” Her voice is angry, her face sad. “If you love me, tell me the truth.”

  I fumble for words, helpless. “I don’t know the truth, Emilia. That’s the truth. I don’t know.” I know I need to get to that computer and see what else is on there, but I’m more worried about Emilia at the moment. “Here’s what I can tell you. I transferred files from a computer in Mexico to a flash drive. That’s where those photos came from. I haven’t even had time to look at them.”

  “Whose computer did you transfer files from?” Her voice is clipped.

  I scoot toward her on the couch, but she shifts back further. She looks fragile and frail, yet so strong. Beneath her tears is the most beautifully broken woman I’ve ever met. But instead of the truth, I’ll break her with more lies.

  “A business associate.” I don’t look at her as I spill lies. I can’t tell her it was my father’s computer. Before I can tell her the truth, I need to get answers for myself.

  But she sees through my lie and jumps up from the couch, running into her room. I follow close behind, and she grabs her bag and begins shoving clothes into it.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Leaving,” she snaps. My heart drops.

  “No you’re not, Emilia. I cannot lose you. I love you.” I can’t let her leave like this. And I sure as fuck can’t let her leave now. Not when I know my dad knows her whole fucking family. Something is not right here.

  “Like hell, I’m not,” she rages. “You said yourself if I tried to leave, you’d let me. I’m leaving. I can’t trust you.” Her voice shakes and her movements are clumsy. She’s breaking down, losing control, but it’s the words she just snarled at me that hurt me the most. I don’t trust you. Those words cut me and my heart falls.

  “Emilia. I’m the only person you can trust.” I grab her arm and try to turn her to look at me. “Stop. You need to calm down and let me figure out what’s going on.”

  “Don’t touch me.” She yanks her arm free and runs to the nightstand for her journal and an envelope. She pulls out cash and throws it on the bed. “That should cover everything I owe you.” Then she hikes her bag onto her shoulder and stomps out.

  “You don’t owe me anything. Em, don’t leave. I love you,” I yell at her again. Anger and frustration—but mostly fear—course through me. If she walks out that door, I can’t protect her. She’s the first woman I’ve ever loved and I cannot lose her. “Emilia.” I chase her out to the elevator. “Please.”

  She steps inside, clearly struggling to keep her emotions in check, but she’s not stopping. She’s not coming back to me. I can see it in her eyes—disgust.

  “I love you, Em. Please. Stay. Let me figure this out. I’ll get you answers,” I beg her as the elevator doors close in my face.

  I PACE THE condo, my stomach in knots. She left her phone on the bed next to the cash, so I have no way of reaching her. I’m panicking. Fucking panicking. I’ve never felt like this before. I step over the broken vases and the picture I tore off the wall in my rage a moment ago, and I stomp into my office to finally look at those files.

  I click on the folder titled “Research” and the image titled “EA.” It’s Emilia. The initials of her first and last name identify the image, Emilia Adams. JM stands for Jeffrey Martin, the judge overseeing my father’s case. I recognize his photo immediately. As I click through more photos, I find more of Judge Martin and more of Emilia. Emilia mentioned seeing her mother and her father. My stomach flips when I make the connection. Jeffrey Martin. Judge Jeffrey Martin is Emilia’s father.

  “Holy shit,” I mumble and rub my chin. Emilia is a pawn in this game, and she’s played right into my father’s hand. I continue clicking through a few more pictures, but it’s the last photo that sends chills down my spine and bile rising into my throat. It’s of Emilia’s mother lying dead in a pool of her own blood on the trailer floor.

  “The fuck.” I shut my eyes and close the image. Picking up my cell, I scroll through my contacts
, finding the name of the only person I shouldn’t trust, but I do. I press send on the screen and listen to the phone ring.

  “I need to talk to you,” I say, sputtering out a location to meet before hanging up. Then I toss my phone on the desk and bury my face in my hands, fighting back the tears that have been on the brink of breaking free all day.

  I STAND OUTSIDE the church that called to me like a beacon in the darkness. I didn’t know where else to go, and I knew this was where I needed to be. Adjusting my bag on my shoulder, I tip my head back and look up at the bell that strikes loudly at the top of the hour.

  “Emilia?” I hear his voice before I see him.

  Father Mark slips out of a side door and locks it behind him. “Is everything all right?”

  I shake my head, words failing me again. He must think I’m an idiot.

  Eyeing my bag, his eyes become sympathetic, and he invites me inside. I follow him in and sit in the last pew, setting my bag on the ground next to me. We sit in silence for minutes before Father Mark turns to me.

  “Where are you going to go?”

  So, he knows I’m leaving. I feel a lump in my throat and shrug. I shrug because I don’t have an answer. He nods quickly and drops his eyes to his hands, which are laced together in his lap. “Alex is a complicated man, Emilia. When he told me about you, I prayed you wouldn’t get caught up in everything.” He pulls a hand free and whirls it around the air between us.

  “You know about his business?” I blink at the floor. I can’t believe Father Mark would know.

  “All too well.” He sighs. “Emma, Alex’s mother, used to confide in me about how the business was destroying her family. She was so worried about what her boys were being exposed to—drugs, guns, violence. She grew up in a nice family not too far from here. They were a poor family, but a nice and loving family. Emma wanted that for her children; a loving, nurturing environment. And Antonio gave her everything she didn’t have growing up—money, a nice house, a car—but she quickly realized what the cost of those luxuries was. Her family. She wanted to take the boys and leave it all behind, but Antonio wouldn’t hear of it. He loved her, but he loved the business more.”

  He shakes his head sadly, then continues, “She came to me for help. Asked me to get the boys out of school so she could take them and leave. It wasn’t unusual for me to pull children from class and have them help me here in the parish. I had a funeral I had to be at, so I told her I’d help her the following day. She was killed that afternoon. I never got to help her.” His body sags with age-old secrets and a grief I know all too well.

  He keeps his eyes downcast and his voice low. “I know it wasn’t my fault, but to this day, I carry the guilt of knowing her death could’ve been prevented if she’d left that day, had I helped her get those boys out of the parish school. It would’ve taken me five minutes…” He sighs. “Instead, I watched a family be destroyed, one son handed over to his aunt and uncle, and another left behind to be raised in a life of horror.”

  Horror… Alex never chose this life. I know that. Still…

  “Emilia, I don’t know where you’re going, but go. Get away from here.”

  “I am.” I just need to figure out where.

  “The further away the better.” He places his hand on mine, giving it a fatherly pat. “Take all the time you need here, Emilia. And if there’s anything I can do to help, please ask.”

  “Thank you, Father.”

  He offers a kind smile and leaves. I lose track of time as I sit in the wooden pew. The church grows darker as night settles in, the only light coming from the overhead lights that shine down on the altar in the distance.

  I pray again to a God that probably won’t hear me—but I beg him for direction, for clarity. I even kneel and rest my forearms on the back of the pew in front of me, bowing my head in silence as if the answers to my prayers will suddenly come.

  I hear the door behind me open, but I’m too lost in my thoughts and my own sadness to care. Moments later, a hand rests on my shoulder, and I raise my head.

  Sam? How did he know I was here?

  “Hey,” he says quietly. “Need a friend?” He spots my bag on the ground and looks back to me.

  “I do.”

  “Come on.” He reaches for my hand. “Let’s go.” With his other hand, he grabs my bag and we walk out the back of the church and into the hot Phoenix night. Another summer monsoon is brewing and lightning reaches across the dark sky to the south. Sam guides me to his car, which is parked on the street. As I settle in, I glance back and see Father Mark at the top of the stairs, watching us before he retreats inside.

  “Did Father Mark tell you where to find me?” I ask, curious.

  He shakes his head slowly, but keeps his eyes focused straight ahead. “No.”

  “Then how’d you know I was here?”

  “Alex told me.”

  SAM AND I sit at a small table in the kitchen of his house in an old historical neighborhood of downtown Phoenix. The bungalow-style house has been remodeled, but touches of the old have been left behind to complement the new modern interior. Sam and I haven’t spoken since he told me it was Alex that told him where to find me.

  In my mind, I try to weave together the web of lies that have been spun to me by both of them, but I’m coming up empty.

  Sam sits silently, waiting for me to ask questions, while I sit equally as silent and wait for him to offer me answers. Neither of us is willing to go first. We’re both headstrong and not willing to budge. Maybe these are our greatest strengths, or maybe our biggest downfall.

  It’s a showdown. Who will break first? Of course it’ll be me, but until I do, Sam and I shift uncomfortably in our chairs. Sam sends emails or texts from his phone. The muscles in his forearms stretch as he rolls his fingers on the table and then his foot begins a light tapping on the floor. When he tires of that, he runs his hands through his hair and rubs his temples, a light groan emanating from the back of his throat. I take note of everything he does. He’s a beautiful man. Complex and dedicated, waiting out my stubbornness. I find these qualities attractive and frustrating all in the same breath.

  “Why would Alex call you?” There they are, the first words I’ve spoken in hours, and I submitted first. I’ll let him win the battle of willpower because I need answers.

  His eyes dart from the wall he was studying to me. “He needed me.”

  “That’s a lie. He doesn’t need you,” I snarl. “He doesn’t trust you.”

  He exhales loudly and rubs his chin. “You’re right. He doesn’t.”

  “Then why would he call you?” I demand.

  “I don’t know, Emilia. I’m trying to figure all of this out myself. But when he said you needed me, I knew I had to find you.”

  “Why?” I frown, growing more agitated by the second.

  “Because I care about you.” His face is conflicted, as if it pains him to say that.

  “You don’t even know me,” I whisper.

  “I probably know you better than you know yourself.” His eyes dance between mine. He runs his hand over his face and sighs deeply.

  “Does he know I’m with you?” I ask, my voice strained.

  “No. Do you want me to tell him?”

  “No.” It would hurt him. Damn him. Even with all of his lies, I still don’t want to hurt him.

  “I’m sure he already knows anyway.” He shakes his head, annoyed. “For years, we’ve watched each other’s every move. He knows you’re here.”

  It wouldn’t surprise me. Alex has always seemed to know my every move. Of course that’s because he’s always had his goons following me.

  Sam smirks suddenly, like he can see the wheels turning inside my head, see how frustrated and torn I am about everything. Maybe even how torn I am between him and Alex. It’s stupid. I love Alex. I don’t love Sam—but there’s an attraction to Sam.

  The room has gone silent again, and I bury my face in my hands. “So tell me. You coming into the café to s
ee me, and our dinner together… that was all professional, wasn’t it?”

  He stares long and hard at me before his face softens. “It started as professional, Emilia… but then it became personal. I told you I care about you.” I don’t want to believe him, but I do.

  I grit my teeth. “I didn’t know anything about Alex or the business until a few days ago, Sam.”

  “I know,” he admits. “It took me all of three minutes to know you didn’t have a clue.”

  I scowl at him. “I won’t give you anything on Alex or the business. So, if that’s why I’m here, I’d like to leave.”

  “You’re not going anywhere, Emilia,” he says firmly, his eyes warning me.

  SAM GRABS A blanket and pillow from a closet in the hallway and tosses it on the couch. “I’ll sleep out here and you can take my bed.”

  I huff, although there’s no point in arguing. He’s the epitome of a true gentleman; he’d never let me sleep on the couch. To be honest, I don’t have the fight in me tonight to argue anyway.

  I saunter into the bedroom and collapse into Sam’s bed. My tense muscles finally begin to unwind, and I inhale deep breaths in hopes of calming my mind. Rolling to my side, I watch the lightning stretch across the sky through the window. I watch the lightning and the clouds roll in before the wind finally takes hold, branches whipping through the air and the roof creaking as the intensity picks up.

  Thunder cracks loudly and reminds me of the summer storms we’d get in Illinois. Mom and I would lie together on her bed and listen to the rain and wind and pray that our trailer would make it through each storm.

  As the storm outside strengthens, I slide out of the bed and stand near the window. The air outside is thick with dust, and the first drops of rain slap against the window. Suddenly, a dark figure moving across the yard catches my attention, and I scream, jerking out of view.

  “Emilia!” Sam comes barreling through the bedroom door, holding a gun and wearing only a pair of boxer briefs and his unbuttoned dress shirt. “What happened?”