Kiss Me with Lies (Twin Lies Duet Book 1)

by S. M. Soto

  The trees rattle with the piercing sound. Animals scurry, every trace of life leaving me for dead at his hands.

  “God, you guys even scream the same.”

  My chest cracks, hysteria clawing at my throat. This whole time I thought fate, the gods, wanted me to find the truth and get justice for Mads. Little did I know, they just led me to the same fate as her.

  I really was the one meant to die.

  I can’t let this happen. I won’t let him get away with this.

  “Help me!” I scream and kick, growing angry as he tries to tighten his hold. His fist plows into my face, stunning me silent for a few seconds. It gives him just enough time to secure his grip around my bicep and yank the driver’s side door open.

  “Get in the fucking car.”

  I buck against him in one last futile attempt. My last fuck you to him and all the Savages. When something cold is jammed against my temple, and I hear a loud clicking sound, I freeze. Every muscle is wound tight as realization sets in, causing dread to swirl in my gut.

  “Ah, good. You’re not so fucking stupid, after all.”

  Slowly, with the barrel of Vincent’s gun still pressed against my head, I get inside the driver’s seat. I don’t know what he’s doing here. It wasn’t his place I broke into. How did he even know where to find me?

  Vincent snatches the keys out of the ignition, where I left them, and nods toward the seat belt.

  “Put it on, and don’t try any bullshit. I’m not in the fucking mood tonight.”

  My hands tremble violently as I reach for the seat belt. I’m hyperaware of him moving around the front of the car, his gun still trained on me while he watches my every move. My heart is hammering violently against my chest, and everything feels heavy. The air, the pain in my heart. That same pain leaks into my chest, dripping incessantly.

  Vincent slides into the passenger seat, slamming the door as he goes. He shifts in his seat, pointing the gun at me again. Sweat breaks out across my forehead. I can’t focus with that thing pointed at me. I can’t think of anything, but his finger slipping on the trigger and my brains splattering everywhere.

  “Drive.”

  Bile rises up my throat, a fresh round of tears blurring my vision. “I-I …”

  “So help me God, Mackenzie, if you don’t start this fucking car and put it in drive, we’ll kill you just like we did your sister, and believe me, that’s a death you won’t want to relive.”

  My eyes widen, shooting to his. In doing so, I find myself staring down the barrel of the gun. It looks harmless from here, but I know it isn’t. That’s the only reason I take the keys from his hand and start the car. I’m on autopilot as I press on the brake and put the car in drive, going back the same way I came.

  I lick my dry, cracked lips, glancing at him out of the corner of my eye.

  “How did you even find me, anyway?” My voice doesn’t even sound like my own. It’s barely a croak at this point.

  “I have my ways. Now, shut the fuck up and keep going.”

  My hands tighten on the steering wheel. I grit my teeth together, trying to suppress the sudden bout of anger. It causes a burst of adrenaline to kickstart in my veins and slowly spread through my body.

  “Why?” I grit out. “Why Madison?”

  Vincent tsks. “Come on, Mackenzie. You know it was never supposed to be Madison.”

  It’s like he’s somehow managed to snag the air from my lungs. It’s like he has the organ in a vise, and he’s squeezing, making sure I can’t pull in a stable breath. He’s suffocating me without laying a single finger on me.

  I choke, stray tears of anger leaking. “Why me?”

  “You were the easiest target. You were the one no one would miss.”

  Everything I’ve ever felt about myself crashes down. Suffocating me. Drowning me. All of it tenfold. It’s one thing to feel that way about yourself, but to listen to someone speak it into existence, to hear that a group of assholes thought the same thing is truly heartbreaking.

  Not only was I deemed unimportant enough not to be missed after being murdered, but I also got my sister killed in the process. It was never meant to be her. It was supposed to be me.

  It was always supposed to be me.

  The realization is a punch to the gut. I press down on the accelerator once we reach the winding road that trails around the state park.

  “You’re a bastard,” I whisper-hiss, pressing down harder on the accelerator.

  “Slow the fuck down, you psycho bitch. This is a fucking cliff.”

  “You took everything from me.”

  My vision is blurring, the edges are quaking, and a spill of red is leaking into my line of sight, blinding me. My anger is boiling in my veins, thrumming through every nerve and cell, so much so, my jaw is aching with how hard I’m grinding my teeth.

  “You had nothing to begin with!” Vincent suddenly shouts, making me jump unexpectedly. My hands jerk on the wheel, and the car swerves dangerously close to the edge of the cliff for a second.

  “Keep it the fuck together, Mackenzie!” he shouts, sounding slightly panicked.

  I slam my eyes shut, shaking my head, trying to get rid of all the voices that are on a boisterous repeat.

  I can hear my sister shouting the same words at me, “Keep it together, Kenzie!”

  My mom in her soft chastising lilt, “Please,, sweetie, calm down.”

  My dad’s rough, deep, reproachful baritone, “Get yourself together, Mack.”

  My grandpa’s soothing tone. “You got this, Peanut. Hold it together.”

  The voices are blending. They’re growing in volume like blaring sirens in my ears. I can’t hear myself think. I can’t focus.

  “Open your fucking eyes, you dumb bitch!” Vincent curses. He grips the wheel, yanking it, and the car jerks. My eyes fly open, and I realize we’re losing control. My anger, my guilt, my sadness, all of it combusts, and like a rubber band snapping beyond its point, I let go of the wheel and start blindly swinging at Vincent.

  He shouts, trying to hold on to the gun and keep the car on the road, all the while trying to fight me off. My gaze snags on the pistol, and I start fighting him for it. I don’t realize it, but my foot presses harder on the accelerator. He fights. His fist slams into my face repeatedly, but I keep trying, fighting against the binds of my seat belt.

  My fingers curl around the cool handle, and just as I try to yank it toward me, he curses, and next thing I know, we’re airborne. I slam on the brakes blindly. The tires screech until there’s no more road for them to screech against. Everything follows in slow motion. My grip on the gun falls, and darkness and trees swirl past the window as we spin like we’re on a Tilt-a-Whirl. My stomach jolts, and bile rises.

  The scraping noises come second, then pain.

  The sound of glass shattering. Pain.

  The sound of metal crunching. Pain.

  The sound of my own scream. So much pain.

  When I wake, it’s in a world of agony. I’m shrouded in darkness. There’s something tight banding across my body. And the smell. Christ, what is that smell?

  Something drips. It sounds like the faucet back at my old apartment. No matter how tightly you close the valve after shutting the water off, it still drips.

  Drip, drip, drip.

  Slowly, I blink my heavy eyes open and try to move, but in doing so, pain rips across my body, and I choke from the overwhelming agony. I try to see past the darkness, but everything is black. I slam my eyes shut and open again, but each time, nothing changes. I hear a sharp intake of breath beside me, and though it takes all my strength, I crane my neck to the side, finding Vincent, hovering upside down. It takes me a second to realize we’re both upside down.

  The car must’ve rolled down the cliff, and when I look out his window, I can see the moonlight streaming in and the trees. I glance toward my side, and it’s pitch-black.

  It takes me a second to process. To realize I’m trapped. My door and my side of the winds
hield are against the earth and a tree, caging me in. Tears of fear and pain spring to my eyes.

  I take stock of Vincent. He’s hanging, covered in blood, but his eyes, pinched with pain, watch me closely.

  I try to get my body to move. Anything I can do to run and get away from him, but he must see the calculating gleam because he starts reaching to unlatch his seat belt. His entire face shrouds with pain.

  “Fuck!” he hollers as he unlocks his seat belt. His body slumps forward, and the car rocks dangerously. Outside his window, I can only see the sky and the tops of the trees. I can’t tell if we’re on flat land or if one more quick movement will have the car rolling again.

  I try to move, but pain rips through my body again, keeping me immobile. When I look down, a sob catches in my throat. There’s a shard of something sticking out of my body. The sight of it makes me even more lightheaded from hanging upside down. When I look to the side, I see him watching me, his eyes trained on the shard of metal piercing my body. His brows dip, dark shadows passing over his features when he looks back up at me, searching my face.

  He scoffs, the sound is wet and terrible sounding. “Of course, you’d fucking survive that. Your sister fought till the end, too.”

  I curl my teeth over my lips in a snarl, but the strain has fire erupting from my wound. Every part of my body hurts, even my face. As I stare at him, I try to put the pieces together, but before I was missing something; I thought it was all of them. I just never understood how it could be possible. I get it now.

  I can only hope Vera and Kat will see past their anger once they start reading and follow through with my wishes. It’s the only way.

  God, Jack is going to be so pissed off with me.

  “It was you,” I choke out through the pain. “You were the only one who did it, didn’t you? Nothing else was making sense,” I whisper, my face pinching with agony. “But that’s because you did it all on your own, didn’t you? You knew this whole time who I was because you were keeping tabs, making sure I stayed away, and all the while, you tried to keep the rest of the guys in the dark.”

  His face sours. With shaking arms, he pushes himself upright, rocking the car dangerously. He has a mean gash on the side of his head that’s leaking blood. By the way he’s looking at me, it’s obvious I look no better, if not worse. At least he doesn’t have something impaled through his body.

  Each breath is getting harder and harder to pull in. The pain is all-consuming. My grasp on reality is slipping. It feels like I’m hovering between sleep and consciousness, and the darkness is threatening to pull me under.

  I need to understand, though. I can’t close my eyes without hearing the truth, once and for all.

  Tears fall from my eyes, landing somewhere below me. “W-Why? Why couldn’t you just let her go?”

  He chuckles darkly and starts to cough abruptly. The sound is wet. Definitely not healthy. So I’m not the only one who is in need of major medical help.

  “Me?” Pushing past his own pain, he leans into me, his face hovering in front of mine, the harsh lines glowing with rage. “You mean us.”

  My stomach tightens at the maniacal look in his eyes. I start shaking my head even before his next words come.

  “I wouldn’t have been able to do any of it without him. How else do you think Baz knew how to keep you around? He used your pain, your vendetta against you. He made you fall in love, didn’t he?”

  My face cracks into a grimace, and I start to sob, not wanting to hear any more. Vincent bares his teeth, and my eyes widen, all the air escaping my lungs when his fist curls around the object lodged inside me and he pushes, slowly killing me as he delivers his parting words.

  “We shared her together. We killed her together. That’s the piece you were missing, Mackenzie. The man you’ve fallen in love with murdered your sister and planned to murder you, too.”

  He shoves the metal in a little deeper, and with a shattered heart, my hold on consciousness slips. I choke on my breath, and then, like a curtain falling, everything fades to black. The last thing I hear is glass cracking and the sound of a door screeching on its hinges.

  He’s getting away.

  Too bad I’ll be dead by the time someone finds me.

  To Be Continued…

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  So, I guess if you’ve made it this far, you either, one: liked the book and decided to read till the end. Two: you hated the book and hate me, and basically just flipped back here to curse me out in your head. (Don’t worry, it happens. No hard feelings taken.)

  No, seriously. To everyone that has made it this far and cares about anything I say, I am so so appreciative of you. I’m so fucking grateful for you. And I promise, all your questions will be answered in Bury Me with Lies, and I can guarantee you now, the prologue in book two is a doozey!

  I started writing Kiss Me with Lies on a whim in 2018 while I was supposed to be finishing Love and Chaos. *Insert eye roll here* I was absolutely fascinated and enraptured with the characters from this duet and I found I had to rip myself away from them just to get other work done. It was like their story demanded to be told.

  Each time I came back to write KMWL, thinking I was ready, I never quite was. For the longest time while writing, I thought I had all the answers, but one thing would lead to another, and all these goddamn characters would go rogue on me. One essential element that stayed true constantly was Mackenzie. She was such a relatable character, for obvious reasons. She’s flawed (obviously), beyond broken, and she often makes the wrong choices just like so many of us.

  I found myself growing agitated with her as I wrote because sometimes, she felt like a broken record, I felt like her decisions were idiotic and there were so many other ways she could’ve went about things, but…I think that’s the fun isn’t it? Mackenzie is as real as a character can get. So, whether you hated her or loved her, I hope you guys will continue to read to find out what happens next in Bury Me with Lies.

  I’m used to rewrites and multiple drafts of one story, but this one…Christ in heaven, this one took a few drafts before Mackenzie’s story could truly unfold the way it was supposed to. The first handful of people I want to thank for this final product are:

  My editors. Paige, Jenny and Becky, thank you guys for asking the hard questions, for imploring me dig deeper.

  To Sarah Grim Sentz. I adore you. After that first copy of KMWL I sent you, I was determined to change your view of Baz and Mackenzie, and in the end, I hope I succeeded. You’re a Rockstar and I’m so lucky to have you.

  Annette Brignac and Michelle Clay. Your constant support means the absolute world to me. You guys are the best PA’s/the best “Book Mom’s” a girl could ever ask for. I thank my lucky stars you two are in my life every single day. Love you both to the moon!

  Jenn Watson and everyone at Social Butterfly. Thank you. Thank you for believing in me as an author. Thank you for all the sound advice and marketing strategies my simple mind would never be able to come up with. This entire release wouldn’t be possible without any of you, and I am so beyond grateful that I have you guys on my team.

  To my family and friends. Thank you for making it awkward when you read a sex scene from one of my books, and suddenly change the entire way you look at me. I appreciate it.

  I also want to thank the bloggers who took the time to read this book. I am so so appreciative of the time you take to read and review. I live for every graphic, every beautiful teaser, and everything else in between.

  And to the real Rockstar’s here:
To my readers. You guys blow me away every single release and this one is no different. I am so beyond blessed I get to create stories for you guys to love or hate. Thank you for once again, allowing me to do what I love. And even though this year has been a tough one for me personally, I am so very grateful I have you guys in my corner, constantly rooting for me, constantly supporting me. Not to get too emosh here, but, well, I love you guys more than you’ll ever know.

  Please consider leaving a brief, honest review if you have time.

  Always grateful,

  And with so much love,

  Selena (S.M.)

  S.M. Soto was born and raised in Northern California where she currently resides with her son. Her love for reading began when she was a young girl, and has only continued to grow into adulthood. S.M. lives for reading books in the romance genre and writing novels with relatable characters. She refers to herself as a bit of a romance junkie. S.M. loves to connect with readers and eat copious of donuts that will surely lead to her demise.

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  Stay tuned for brand new releases from S.M. Soto!

  Bury Me with Lies

  The shocking conclusion to the Twin Lies Duet

  Coming Early 2020

  Add to your TBR on Goodreads

  Preorder here

  Jake Wilder

  A single parent/best friend’s brother standalone romance

  Coming 2020

  Add to your TBR on Goodreads

  Check www.authorsmsoto.com for updates