DECEIT (B723)

by Hazel Grace

  “Atlas,” Mills answers. “It’s the girl.” I turn my neck to face the one in my buddy’s arms, the boy.

  Emmy would be perfect to raise a rowdy little shit. The thought almost makes me smile until Mills opens his mouth again.

  “Alaric.” His gray eyes slam into mine. “His name is Alaric.”

  I stare at him, hearing his words, but…that’s my name.

  Are these my fucking kids?

  My attention snaps back to the girl, Atlas, and I can’t fucking tell. She has pudgy little cheeks, and the only thing that resembles me is the hair color.

  No, no, she’d never do that to me.

  Not a secret this large. She’d definitely never stay with Alexander while carrying someone else’s children.

  I think.

  No, she wouldn’t let another man raise my offspring, right? Is it because she wanted to do something to subtly tell me how she felt? Is it because we went through so much shit? Is it in honor of me?

  Squashing the civil war in my head, I focus on the kids at hand.

  The stolen kids at hand.

  I think this one takes the cake over all the stupid shit we used to do.

  “Why do you have them?” Kyson’s question is livid-pissed. And for once, I’m taking Mills’s side. Ky will have to deal with it and whatever honorable bullshit that’s dashing through his head.

  “I need to feed them real quick.” Mills’s stormy eyes ping-pong between Ky and I. “It’s been a long day.”

  I bet.

  “And it’s gonna be longer if you don’t spill your shit,” Kyson shoots back, showing up at my left and playing big-brother. “You didn’t borrow Emmy’s car or steal her phone charger. These are her fucking kids.”

  “No shit,” he mutters, still bouncing Alaric.

  “Chill,” I drawl, who’s tapping his foot impatiently on the hardwood floors. “They belong to us.”

  A knock on the door behind us sounds and it opens promptly afterward, causing Kyson and I to both glimpse over to find Blue striding in with a few plastic bags in her hands.

  She frowns when she notices Ky and I. “Oh, hi.”

  “What are you doing here?” Kyson presses, crossing his arms along his chest and watching her walk to the kitchen.

  Her green eyes knit on us. “Could ask you the same question.”

  “So which one of you wants to tell us what the hell is going on? Believe it or not, I’m running out of patience.”

  Blue reenters the room, standing alongside Mills, and I don’t miss the reasoning.

  She’s supporting him.

  And Blue doesn’t support shit besides dick when she wishes for it.

  “Why does something always have to be going on?” Blue rolls her eyes as if Kyson’s questions are exhausting and sometimes they are. But something must be vibing him weird. “I’ve been telling you that you need to get that paranoia shit looked at.”

  “And you need to practice your adult skills and answer a question when it’s asked instead of avoiding.”

  She shrugs dismissively. “I didn’t like it.”

  It’s then that I realize this is it—us.

  The four of us, minus Marty, and how empty it feels. How no one tries to say her name anymore. That it weighs like a brick wall, that it hurts too much to admit, that we’ll never ever be the same.

  No one will ever take her place.

  “Blue—“ Mills exhales a defeated breath. “—it’s hopeless at this point.” She glances over at him before moving to the other side, standing directly next to Atlas as if she’s protecting her from us.

  “I’m not going to take her away,” I defend sharply. “If y’all body-snatched, I’ll help…take care of them. Just tell me what we’re up against.”

  “Remember you said that,” Mills recites cautiously before the baby he’s holding belches out. For something so small, it’s loud, and Mills quirks a small smile.

  I shrug. “Alright, what you need me to do?” Mills casts another worried look on Blue. “Did you off Alexander?”

  Some people may say they’re sorry they said it, but I’m not.

  I just wish I was there to participate.

  He shakes his head to my disappointment. “Nah…not yet. Atlas and Alaric—“ He gives us one more look over. His jaw tightening in aggravation and alertness. “—they’re mine.”

  My face contorts at the surface of his words as Kyson’s voice booms through next. “Explain. Now.”

  “I…” His eyes fasten to mine, glossing over with uncontaminated remorse. “Emmy and I—“ I lunge forward, forgetting that there is a two-month-old baby between us. That my destructive ways take nothing or anyone into consideration when it rears its ugly head.

  Kyson catches me by the back of the shirt and hauls me backward, getting me to trip on my own feet, but I catch myself.

  My elbow catches Kyson’s ribs as I start for him together.

  All I see is him.

  “Bish.” My best friend gets a hold of me again, arm wrapped around my middle to keep me from advancing any further.

  My eyes bore sharp daggers into Mills, and I’ve never wanted to kill someone as much as I desire to do right now. The betrayal on both sides is immediate, but it surfaces on him first and foremost because he’s in front of me, explaining that he fucked Emmy behind my back.

  He knows what she tastes like. How it feels to have her—

  “Motherfucker!” I roar out, the possibilities of everything they’ve done together starting to close in around me.

  My chest heaves in unsteady and shallow inhales of air. I opened up to her. I fucking married her. I loved her more than anything in my fucking life, and she fooled around with the ass clown known as Mills?

  When did she fuck him?

  I mean, they’re together a lot, but…I search around Mill’s place as though a glowing circle is going to point out where they’ve screwed in this house.

  It brings in all the spots we’ve fucked—which was almost any hard surface—and my skin crawls in disgust, and that linger adjective of heartbreak.

  She went to Mills after me.

  She ran to someone who could actually open the fuck up with his feelings because that’s Mills. He’s charming, funny, has that boy-next-door, I’d-love-to-meet-your-parents kinda aura about him. Someone who would make her feel wanted and loved.

  I’ve accepted him for who he is. It’s just him. He’s annoying as shit, but I would never think I’d get to the point where I’d want to for real murder him.

  Now I do.

  Painfully and slowly.

  “Listen—“ Mills attempts to cover Alaric’s ears, and it’s when nausea pulsates through my veins like I just pumped it in myself.

  Did they name their fucking kid after me? After they fucked God knows how many times they thought it’d be fun too?

  “You know I love Emmy,” Mills proceeds, and I swear he’s just asking for me to take out everyone in this space right now. “This seriously wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “I’m going to kill you,” I sneer through clenched fists. “You’re dead, Mills. I just gave you your only warning. And I’m going to make it hurt too.”

  I think I see him wince when Kyson steps between us, putting his rationality hat on and keeping the group calm.

  That time went as quickly as Mills started with the words Emmy and I.

  No sentence in the world begins with Emmy and I when the aftermath isn’t fucking and no plan B.

  This traitor in front of me lied, not only to all of us, but Emmy was about to go long term with another man.

  A man who was going to father kids that weren’t his.

  In this situation, it’s more than fucked because I can’t wrap my hands around her throat and squeeze. I’m not able to scream in her face for deceiving me in the worse possible way.

  You fucked Blue.

  “Let’s all take a breath,” Kyson decides. “At the end of the day, we’re all family, and we’re going to stick
together.”

  “Fuck you,” I growl, feeling each pump of blood hit my head. “They both fucking lied.”

  At least I didn’t. And I don’t have any long-term ties with the dick-loving chick in the room.

  “I wonder why,” Blue utters into her chest, and it’s all it takes for me to close the space between us.

  She moved forward when I did and doesn’t flinch because Blue welcomes and invites danger in her life.

  She has tea parties with it.

  I’m no dipshit that’ll punch her in the face because she copped an attitude with me when I clearly don’t appreciate it. That guy that’ll use his rage on anyone who taunts back.

  But I’m not going to lie. I’m becoming close to being that guy right now.

  “What role did you play?” I sneer, two inches from her face and inhaling her scent of watermelon bubblegum and weed. “You weren’t Ems’s biggest fan.”

  She meets me with a blank expression. “I liked Emmy. She didn’t like me.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “So, what’s your point?” My nostrils flare, and I back off her a tad. If the bullshit off her lips keeps hitting my face, so is my fist.

  I give zero fucks right now on what’s morally correct on the opposite sex. Male or female, anyone is going to get blasted if it keeps sounding like no one in this immediate circle gives a shit that Emmy and Mills were a thing at one point.

  Marty will care. Enlist him to help you execute Mills.

  “She’s just doing her part,” Kyson says from behind me. “You hurt Mills, Emmy is going to haunt you, bro. Can’t happen.”

  I avert my gaze from the second redhead in the room because Kyson needs to let this play out.

  This is not okay.

  This is far from fucking okay.

  Emmy fucked Mills. She fucked Mills.

  She let him in where he shouldn’t have been. Where I was. She fooled all of us because—yeah, Mills and Emmy were also close, but they never eye-fucked each other.

  I think.

  My mind warp-speeds through more thoughts that are clouded with rage as I attempt to think of any time Emmy and Mills may have given me the heads up on what they were doing behind everyone’s back.

  I come up with nothing.

  “I think Emmy would appreciate all the help Mills can get as a single father,” Blue states matter-of-factly.

  And again, I’m going to kill him and her if she keeps supporting this.

  Them.

  “What about Alexander?” Kyson asks. “What happened to him?”

  Blue and Mills share a look before the asshole takes the con. “He’s trying everything he can to get custody of the kids. He believes they’re his.”

  “Why?” Kyson asks. “And why would he—“

  “No clue. Dude has some sort of issues with it. He’s in denial.”

  “I can’t do this.” I must utter it out loud because three pairs of eyes fall on me.

  “They’re not,” Blue continues. “Every DNA test comes back negative. Even Lucien—“

  “Lucien?” Kyson and I repeat at the same time.

  Fuck man, this list keeps getting longer and longer.

  But he has no loyalty to us other than making sure we don’t die. The heads-up would’ve been nice, but he’s not B723. He wasn’t close family, and now Mills and Emmy have brought him into this and written on my hit list.

  “I’m going to need all the help I can get,” Mills conveys. “You can be pissed all you want, forever even. However, this is Emmy. These kids are Emmy.”

  “And you,” I leer through my taut jaw. “These are your kids.”

  I mean, we’ve obviously already established it, but I want him to finally deny it.

  I want a miracle.

  I want to not have to feel guilty about not wanting anything to do with these babies.

  I can’t.

  How does she expect me to now?

  She lied to me.

  She left me alone to fend for myself and how I have to fight off the loss of her.

  To live every day knowing I will never see or touch her again whether she married Alexander or not.

  Now I have to endure a life where Mills spawned off her kids?

  I’m not that forgiving.

  Not by a long shot.

  Nothing has gone to plan. I thought I’d have enough mental bearings to figure out how I was going to take Alexander and his brother down. However, for the first week of being alone, from being separated from my kids, I fall into what I can best describe as a dark hole.

  I can’t sleep.

  I can’t eat.

  I constantly worry about Alaric and Atlas in the hospital and if something went wrong.

  If Alexander tried to pull a fast one on me.

  I hired my own security to stand guard at the hospital to protect my kids. I wanted reports every hour on the hour, night and day. I even paid a nurse to keep my babies in a specific spot in the nursery so I could watch them through the security camera in the hall.

  I had called Mills so many times that I memorized his number. Even Blue would reach out to attempt and calm me down.

  Don’t even get me started on why I agreed to Mills having her know about my still being alive.

  I don’t trust her.

  I don’t like her.

  I didn’t want her, out of everyone in B723, to help. However, I was driving Mills insane, and anything to make things easier, I’d do.

  By the middle of the second week, I could move around better and didn’t need to take so many pain meds, but my depression deepened. It was only worsened by watching women in scrubs take care of my children when I couldn’t.

  I felt like I was in a glass prison. Happiness and peace were on the other side where my little family resided—my squishies—and I’m restrained by my sins.

  At week three, I slowly ate more. Mills came to visit me, being the first visitor I’ve had besides the almost run-in with the mailman last week.

  My best friend proceeded to chided and bitched that I looked awful. He double-checked my injuries and told me I needed to speak with someone.

  A therapist.

  Fat chance. They don’t make medication for people like us, and vocalizing how much of a stupid bitch I am isn’t going to make me feel better.

  So I began hunting Alexander. I began organizing everything I wanted to do.

  My ex is a straightforward man with a lifestyle that was pristine in the eyes of the public. He was the man who was not only handsome and kind but giving. He prided himself on understanding and being responsible, unlike his alter-ego.

  Nonetheless, he was better suited for protection than I gave him credit for or that he ever let on. Which I should’ve been privy to anyway if I did what I normally would’ve done. I let my lack of Bishop in my life overtake a background check and possibly catching onto red flags.

  The bank that he held all his money in changes their passwords every five minutes, preventing me from having already hacked in and cleaning him dry.

  The man I hired to—this is going to sound fucking horrid—get close to Alexander so I could see how air-tight his bodyguards were ended up being stabbed to death.

  Seeing him outside of being with me was something else altogether. I must’ve not noticed it before, like everything else, but he has a mini army at his beck and call.

  When we were out together, I never caught anyone safeguarding us from afar, but it wasn’t on my radar.

  God, I wish I had half a brain.

  So when my flawed science project of a man fangirled Alexander then attempted to offer him appetizers and an ice tea at a charity gala, he disappeared.

  From the security camera across the street from the hall, he didn’t make it but ten yards outside before Alexander’s men dragged him into a dark alley. Then the cameras were cut out within minutes, and I wasn’t able to get the footage back.

  Alexander apparently has hackers and people to cover his tracks. This was go
ing to be more challenging than I thought to get rid of.

  And while all this has been mind-blowing fun, I’m exhausted, which has proven to make things slower because I can’t focus.

  Every day that passes is a reminder.

  It’s another where the boys are grieving me when they don’t have to. Add on that Mills has been on my ass about hurrying up, and you have a wreck named me.

  So I’ve taken it upon myself to do everything, not leaving a trace of the old me behind.

  I’ve dyed my hair a dark brown and cut it to go just past my shoulders a tad. I’ve put in hazel-colored contacts and wear jeans and tees to not make me noticeable. I made it within a block of Alexander before he jumped in a car and took off. I have his schedule that I infiltrated off his secretary, who forwarded it to her personal email, the idiot. I’ve finally gotten into his password-protected phone and see every message that he sends out.

  Except nothing of use does, leading me to believe that he has another.

  Then he began searching for me.

  Well, his investigator has.

  My name has been searched for. My Instagram broke into my personal email, security cameras I had at my condo, and the GPS to my old phone.

  Alexander doesn’t believe the forged DNA tests, and he’s looking for a loophole.

  He’s hired an attorney to take this a step further. A forty-something-year-old shark that has brought CEOs, politicians, and celebrities down by pulling up any shady or misconstrued thing he can to make his case.

  My ex is looking to bring Mills to court, but without evidence of Atlas and Alaric being his, he might not have a leg to stand on.

  Unless he can get a court-ordered DNA test and a judge to agree, which then I can’t get my hands on the results…unless I’m there.

  My cell rings, and Mills’s name appears, sending my heart soaring with the opportunity to speak to my squishies.

  “How did their doctor appointment go?” I ask excitedly.

  “Oh, they’re fine,” he replies monotonously. “We have other problems. Actually, I have a problem.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Bishop and Kyson came over to visit today.” My body freezes even though I knew this might happen. Alaric and Atlas were coming home, and Mills and I weren’t going to be able to hide it for long if I didn’t hurry the fuck up.