“This part is easy, Alyssa. Don’t play all your cards now.” I dropped my hands from Judson and Trace, to touch her arm. She stared at it like it was a foreign body she’d never seen before. “We should stop arguing like we can’t be civilized. This part is easy. At the end of the day, you want me to open that lock, and I’m telling you that I will. I absolutely am going to do that. I’m not even going to put up a fight. You have to give in on some easy things. You have to leave us alone. No more shooting at Trace and Warden. No more threatening us in any way. We stay away from the Alliance. Don’t lose the ballgame now that you’ve just gotten to the ninth inning.”
While I was speaking to her and wanted her to understand what I said, I used my baseball analogy on purpose. That was for Derrick. He couldn’t blow this now. I wouldn’t lose him to temper. I wouldn’t bury him because he was pissed off.
“Okay. I’ll leave you all alone.”
And she would. I’d see to it, because if she didn’t, I’d tell the whole Alliance what she had done. And if there was anything I knew about the short tempered misogynists running the Alliance, it was that they were going to be really pissed that a woman had gotten the upper hand on them.
But before that I had to keep us all alive. “That is so great. I knew you could be reasonable, and so can I. There’s just one more thing before then that we’ll have to agree on before I’ll go with you to New York and get that locker open.”
My body buzzed. I had no experience with any of this, and it really was just me making this up as I went along. I could be doing everything wrong. I knew from firsthand experience that sometimes people just had the upper hand on things. Alyssa wasn’t stupid. She’d managed to survive this long.
“What’s that, Everly?”
I walked over and took one of the coffees Constance had brought in earlier. I took my time drinking it. I couldn’t look at anyone. She was going to refuse what I first offered. Of course, if she surprised me and said yes, I’d have been thrilled, but that would be stupid on her part. No, I needed her to walk into my second offer.
I needed her to think I didn’t know what I was doing. And maybe I didn’t.
“I want you to give each of my guys a gun. They’ll still be outmatched while we go to New York. But that’s the only way I can be sure they can defend themselves and you’ll keep your word.”
Marcus spoke for the first time. “That’s insanity. We’re not giving them guns.”
No, of course they weren’t. “They have to be allowed to defend themselves or the second I get finished here they’re going to be in danger. I won’t have that.”
Warden lifted both his eyebrows slowly. If he saw what I was doing, he at least had the good sense to not really indicate it, and Trace was keeping quiet from his usual disclosure of whatever I hoped to keep hidden.
“Derrick is a trained assassin. He doesn’t get to have a weapon in this house. Not until I’m sure he’s on my side.”
I ignored the last dig. She was always going to say things that might hurt me just to get that rise. Mean girls were always mean girls even when they were psychopathic power wielding lunatics and not just sixteen-year-old social climbers. Although, at sixteen I might have found it to be the same kind of problem.
I walked over to Derrick. “He’s the problem? You don’t want to arm Derrick? You have a house filled with trained assassins.”
Their peers hadn’t been able to kill Trace or Warden but this was different. Anyone with minor training could point and click at close distance or when someone was sleeping. They couldn’t stay awake for the next however many days this took, watching their backs. Not alone, anyway, and I wasn’t going to leave them here either.
We stayed together. That was how this worked.
“Fine. Then they come with me. We all do this together.”
She lifted one eyebrow, one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. She was clearly a person who had time for that kind of thing. I hadn’t had any time to even consider my own. When this was over, I wanted to be the kind of person who could go get her brows done.
Alyssa was trying to figure out what I was thinking. I could see it in the tilt of her head. If only she understood how readily my mind wandered in periods of stress to the ridiculous and mundane. Eyebrow shaping. Fingernails. How much I really wanted to eat pizza right then. With mushrooms.
“I didn’t plan for it to be anyone except Mercer who came with the two of us. It would practically be a girls’ trip.”
Visions of getting massages with Alyssa hit me hard. I did not want that. “Maybe we can make it more like a double date.”
The more we moved the more chances we had to get away from this woman. I’d open the lock if we had to, but I wasn’t above running away from her either and regrouping now that we had all the information we needed. We’d always been playing this game with one hand behind our backs. We couldn’t know how to win if we didn’t know against whom we were matched.
“I like that.” She waved her hand in the air. “It’s been too long since we went to New York City. One thing about having to pretend to be dead is that you don’t get out as much as you’d like. Mansion to mansion, it got terribly boring. In the meantime, today let’s go to the beach.”
I wasn’t going to the beach. There was already a shark circling me on dry land. I wasn’t going to risk my luck with the Pacific Ocean.
* * *
Mercer indicated his head, and Kade rose. Right now, it looked like he was tied to the other tech guy. I met his gaze, and he nodded at me. We’d gotten what I wanted, and he was acknowledging it. I walked forward fast and kissed him square on the lips. He wrapped his arm around my back, drawing me close.
I pressed our foreheads together. “You’ll get us out of this.”
“I just keep fucking up.” He kissed my cheek. “Don’t count on me to come up with anything. I’m why we’re in this mess.”
I shook my head. “I’m always counting on you, Kade. Don’t give up.”
I stepped back. It wasn’t going to be Derrick who made this all go away. There were too many guns, and despite his tough guy attitude, a bullet just as easily killed him as it would me. Warden and Trace had survived being shot. I wasn’t going to take a third risk.
“I’m going to be in my room,” I announced to the general population. If the cameras Mercer had on us were trailing me, maybe they’d miss something on the guys. That was a small chance, but one I took anyway.
“But the beach.” Alyssa laughed. “I’m still convinced we can all be friends. You can keep sleeping with my brother, Everly. And Trace, Warden, and Kade, too. We’ll share Derrick. I mean, he’s my husband, so that’ll be on my terms, but that’ll be fine because you’re sleeping with my brother.
I rolled my eyes. Some statements weren’t worth dignifying with an answer.
* * *
Derrick
I didn’t remember Alyssa being this ridiculous, but then again I’d seen her through the eyes of my hard dick most of the time when we’d been together. It wasn’t that I found her to be that physically attractive, actually. She was pretty, but I’d been a professional baseball player and a rich kid before that. I’d had plenty of women in my life and most of them had been more than pretty. On the physical side of things, I couldn’t really complain about how the women I fucked looked.
Of course, none of them held a candle to Everly, and I didn’t think she knew how physically attractive she was. Or if she cared.
Alyssa blathered on. I used to love the sound of her voice. It was so sophisticated. She’d been exactly the kind of girl who had never been interested in me before her. Well-educated, wealthy enough to match my own, and from the right Alliance family. My father had always told me I’d never be able to get anyone like her. But then she’d been interested.
And I had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. Damn if I hadn’t loved her. I truly had. I’d mourned her, sworn revenge, and this whole time she had been alive? There was something sick and ridiculous
about that. Worst thing was that she’d never loved me, and I’d known it.
Of course, now she seemed obsessed but that had nothing to do with loving me. That was pure old-fashioned jealousy. I’d moved on. I half expected she showed herself for that reason.
I stared at Evs as she left the room. My gorgeous girl. Nothing about how I felt about her was based in rhyme or reason. The funny thing was… on paper she was exactly like Alyssa. Well-educated, Alliance family, beautiful. She would have checked off the entire boxes, the same ones that Alyssa had. The difference being that she wasn’t without compassion, without a soul.
So we had fifteen guards wandering around with guns, and I had to do something about that so that Everly could be safe. If I polled the other four guys she was in love with, I’d almost guarantee they were on the same page. Except maybe for Judson. Poor guy was shell-shocked, but at least he hadn’t lost his mind and turned back to his sister.
Not that I thought that he would. Judson loved Everly. We all did, and fuck us all because not one of us knew what the hell to do with that except to practically smother her and promise her whatever she wanted whenever she asked for it.
Instead, we were all in this house in Hawaii together with fifteen armed guards. Fifteen I’d seen. There could have been more. But I’d start with fifteen. I’d kill Mercer and Marcus. They might even thank me. There was something wrong in their devotion to her. Elijah and Jedidiah, too. They were minor Alliance members that I hardly knew.
The four of them. What were they getting from Alyssa? Anyone could get their dick sucked for twenty dollars if they wanted to. And Alyssa wasn’t really that good at that. I smiled.
My wife shot me a look. “What are you grinning at?”
“Nothing at all, actually. Come in my room again and I’ll forcibly remove you. I don’t hit women, but if you put your fucking hands on me again, I will kill you. I will do that.”
Everly had left. I had no reason to be standing here at all. Wherever she was, I’d never be far. So long as I drew breath from my body. Fifteen guys. I could take them all. But Everly hadn’t wanted me to. I’d picked up on her signals. She had some notion I shouldn’t die. The big heart on that woman. Somehow Everly could be both brutal and kind. I hadn’t known both could exist in the same space.
* * *
Everly
I stared out the window. The beach really did look inviting and Constance dropped off a bathing suit. Well, a two piece skimpier than any I had ever worn before. It would show every mark on my body and I was sure that she meant it to. I stared at the pink strings that were supposed to be my bathing suit and threw it at the door as Constance left.
I wasn’t going to act like I was on vacation when I was absolutely not.
The door opened and closed, Trace coming in. I leaned against the window as he walked toward me. I shook my head. We couldn’t talk about things. It might have been better if we just all stayed away from one another until we were in New York. Even then, maybe not. Technology was going to make this miserable.
He wrapped me up against him, neither of us speaking. Finally, he said something. “Did I ever tell you about the day I decided I was going to figure out how human beings got to Mars?”
Well, that couldn’t have been more surprising if he’d said he wanted to wear a bunny costume and hop around. That was a huge shift in conversation, but I supposed it was a safe topic. What did Alyssa care why Trace wanted to get humanity to Mars? “No. I mean, I know it’s your objective. That’s why you were after James Robert but no… the details… I don’t think so. We might have discussed it a little but that was back when I was still trying to escape you rather than, you know, get you in my bed and love you forever.”
He rubbed his nose against my hair. “Say things like that to me forever. I was nine years old and everyone was looking at Mars through a telescope in my very expensive private school. The teacher looked like the actor Bill Hader. I didn’t know Bill Hader back then but when I look back at it now he looked like Bill Hader.”
“Funny how memory does that.” I let him pick me up and walk me over to the bed. We lay down together, facing each other. It was strange to do this knowing both of us would stay totally dressed.
He leaned on his elbow. “He used to wear a bow tie. With everything.”
“Well, you remember it so it worked. He was memorable.” I touched the whiskers on his cheeks, loving the rough feel of it.
“Right.” He nodded. “The thing was he kept talking about the Red Planet. The Red Planet this, the Red Planet, that. And then the asshole stops the whole class and he says oh, Trace Hill, you can’t see it because you’re colorblind. Class, Trace has a disability. And he just starts screaming about it. Or at least it felt like he did. On and on. Or at least it felt that way. All the eyes were on me, their perfect working eyes that could see the red of the planet Mars.”
I winced. “That must have felt really awful. I’m pissed on your behalf. It was not his business to expose you like that.”
“A different time. I’m just enough older than you that things like privacy laws weren’t exactly followed. I stormed away from the telescope and stared at my desk like I could drill a hole in it with my gaze. But rather than cry, which is what I’d have done if I wasn’t afraid someone would report to my father that I was a pussy—his word—I got focused. I didn’t know about the Alliance yet, but I knew that I could somehow grow up to do something, and I swore it would be Mars. One way or the other, even doing what the Alliance wanted from me in terms of careers, I’ve worked toward it ever since.”
Just from this one story alone I felt like I knew him even better than I ever had. “If we leave the Alliance, you never get us to Mars. Why not go yourself?”
He pointed to his eyes. “I’m broken.”
“Trace…”
He kissed my lips. “I don’t mind anymore. I like my eyes. They’re what I see you with, and I wouldn’t change a thing about them. I wouldn’t alter a cell in them, a connection in my brain. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever had the privilege to gaze on. And I don’t care about Mars. Oh wait, I just heard that. Your last name Everly Marrs. I am getting Mars. The better version.”
My mouth fell open. “Did you plan that? How long have you been planning the Marrs, Mars connection?”
“Literally just now. I’m not that creative.”
I laughed. It was the best feeling in the whole damned world until it wasn’t. My laughter rapidly changed to tears until I was weeping against his shoulder. I didn’t know even what for. Maybe it was simply that once again everything was fucked up.
Trace didn’t say anything. He held me, a strong wall against whatever might come through that door next to screw with my equilibrium.
When I was wrung out from crying, so much so that I should have fallen asleep, a strange peace came over me instead. Trace had told me that whole story about Mars and it was beautiful in how exposed he’d made himself doing so. He wasn’t a man who showed vulnerability easily and yet he’d spoken to me, knowing we’d be heard.
I lifted my head to stare at him. Hell in a handbasket, he’d made that all up. There might be reasons he wanted to go to Mars but none of it was because of his broken eyes. He lied. I couldn’t indicate I knew. Why had he done that? What did he want me to know in that story he’d needed to convey like that for me to hear? The Mars comment. Not being that creative. Yes, he was. He was the most creative, conniving person I knew. So good, I’d fallen for it.
He’d given me a backstory. A reason for him doing what he did. A fake one, but nonetheless a motivation I could carry forward if I wanted to, as an explanation for how Trace became Trace. We were in Alyssa’s house, taken prisoner. It had to be about her. Alyssa’s backstory. How did Alyssa become this way?
What was her vulnerability?
She was a woman, born with Judson into an Alliance household where she shouldn’t even have known the Alliance existed. Judson had once said Alyssa was extremely charismat
ic, better than him, smarter. He’d been unable to keep secrets from her. She’d learned of the Alliance.
A smart, dynamic personality told of a secret organization she’d never have a hope of joining except to marry a member, who could only tolerate that she knew, and deliver more Alliance babies into.
She did just that. Then Derrick floundered, not advancing. How was she supposed to be satisfied with her peripheral role if the starring player with her couldn’t be counted on to handle advancement? She broke all the rules. Exposed her knowledge to try to push Derrick forward and she was punished for it. The men who would later be her lovers, who she would use sex to control, sent her to Ben’s basement.
I knew that place all too well. I’d been beaten in it. So had she. Alyssa might have had at one-point scars on her back that matched my own. I didn’t see them today in her white cocktail dress that exposed her back. Judson offered to fix mine, and I’d declined. They were battle wounds, but she might have felt differently. Someone fixed her back for her.
She was never rescued. She never had anyone who turned around and betrayed Ben for her, no one offered money. Jud hadn’t known she’d been taken and Derrick was tied up, restrained from helping her. There would never be the chance of rescue. She spread her legs for a sadist, when she wasn’t a masochist and likely would not have consented to it, and so it began.
Everyone who ever hurt her became her captive… sexually… until she controlled them all. Then she moved on. Forget those who hurt her, she’d taken those she needed. All of it until she could control the Alliance.
And the only thing in her way was me, and a lock she couldn’t open.
Was it possible, given the same set of circumstances, I could have been Alyssa?
When I spoke, my voice was hoarse. “Funny how you can really get to know someone when you study their circumstances.”
She’d been surrounded by Alliance men her whole life. As was evident to me all the time, they didn’t know how to love, and they had almost no one to show them how. My five had me, and I was arguably as fucked in the head as they were.
Deadly Truths: Kiss Her Goodbye #3 Page 20
