Hard Truths (Kiss Her Goodbye Book 1)

by Rebecca Royce

  He ignored her, taking my hand and bringing me outside with him. I shivered. If I’d known I was going back out here, I’d have grabbed my coat.

  I’d wanted to see the basement, and apparently, Marco was bringing me right to it. He put out his hand, and I took it to mean he wanted me to stop, to wait. I almost told him I could understand him but didn’t. I wasn’t ready to start giving up what little control I had of things. Self-preservation was the name of the game.

  I stopped. He walked forward and knocked on the door. Then he waited. The door swung open and J came out. Well, at least now I knew where they were. He asked Marco what he wanted and the other man communicated my need to see T. Only he didn’t say T. When Marco signed his name he spelled out T’s name. Usually, when someone had been around for a while they could be gifted a name by the ASL community. It was a special honor. I didn’t have one but I’d only ever been on the outskirts of things.

  It seemed that T was as well. I pretended not to watch as Marco spelled out T’s name. His hand moved quickly through the spelling. T.R.A.C.E.

  I stored this fast. I would still call him T. He didn’t have to know that I knew, but T had suddenly become the man in black who gave me a job and whose first name was Trace. Or maybe it was his last name. This could all be last names. No that didn’t feel right. His name was Trace. Trace something.

  J told Marco he’d grab Trace. Marco was going to be the key to this. He was a nice man. He’d helped me, he was clearly a caring individual. He might help me get out of here. I would make it up to him for lying. Somehow.

  As J disappeared back into the basement, Marco turned to me, a questioning look on his face. Did he know that I understood? I smiled at him, doing my best impression of a vague doll. Trace came upstairs. Now that I knew it, the name really worked for him.

  Trace. Trace whatever his last name was with his wavy dark hair, his constant black clothes, and his face. I had to remember. T was Trace. The second I blew this it was all over for me. They’d clamp down on Marco and that would be that for secret information.

  “You need something?”

  I held up two different folders. The ones filled with the yeses in one hand, and the noes in my other. “I’m done.”

  “We’re going to see each other at dinner shortly. Couldn’t wait? I’m right in the middle of something.”

  My stomach clenched. “I’m not feeling well.” I wasn’t even lying. I had a headache right between my eyes. “I’m not going to eat. I wanted you to have this. I could have waited until tomorrow I suppose. I don’t know the rules for any of this.”

  He took the yes folder from me, and then the noes. “What did you use to decide?”

  “Well, since I was given oh so many rules to use and told such important details,” I made sure he heard the sarcasm in my voice, “I just had to go ahead and decide from the small details who might be interesting to have around every day.”

  He lifted his lids slowly. “Well done. I’ll take a look. The small details are always what matter. In life. In all things. Particularly when dealing with The Alliance. Small details. Now, you said you don’t feel well. What’s wrong?”

  “I have a headache.” I stepped back. “Might have something to do with being kidnapped and held against my will, kept from my family, all that good stuff.”

  He nodded. Knowing his name had humanized him. Trace actually seemed like he might be a person who could be reasoned with.

  “It’s interesting about your family isn’t it? I mean your father knows we have you, he knows where we have you. And yet there won’t be any police arriving, the FBI won’t be raiding the house. He won’t even show up here himself. He’ll do what we want to spare your life… but I’m wondering just how important you could possibly be to him. Maybe the whole fixing your face incident was as far as he was willing to extend himself.”

  Anger surged through me, and I poked him right in the shoulder. “You’re an asshole.”

  Forget Trace, he was purely T. And I’d add bully to the category that I had him in now. He and K could share that title together. Mean bullies.

  “Am I? Or am I just asking you to confront the truth of this situation? You’re smart. I can tell. Ask yourself about your father. He had your mother killed, and he’s abandoned you here. I might not be so anxious to return to his loving embrace.”

  That was it. I was done. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t cry, but then again I’d made lots of promises to myself I hadn’t managed to keep over the years. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t order dessert when I’d had to go up a pant size. I’d broken that. I’d promised myself I’d run an extra mile but I’d gone home after doing my minimal run. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t buy another pair of shoes I didn’t need, they were sitting in my closet.

  Tears flooded my vision. I let them fall. He’d seen them. If I ran away that would add insult to injury. “And now that I’ve seen, you can congratulate yourself on pointing out just how pathetic I was in my delusions and in how you took the clouds from my eyes to show me just how alone I really am.”

  “We’re all alone. From the moment we’re born until we die, we’re alone, Everly. Love exists, but most people have a pathetic facsimile they accept out of fear of being what they’ve always been.” He shook his head. “Trust me. Nothing has changed just because you can see it for what it is.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “So you’re what? Seeing yourself as my savior, T?”

  I wasn’t prepared for him to kiss me. I would have expected him to hit me first. It turned out that a kiss could be just as punishing as a slap when it came down to it. T grabbed me by the back of the neck and took possession of my mouth as though he had every right to do so. I’d been kissed before. Many times. But none of it had been what this was. It was in that second that I realized I’d only ever known the kisses of boys before. Trace was a man.

  A pissed off, punishing man.

  His lips didn’t gently press to mine. No, they hurt me. I squirmed against him as though I would get away, even as my body craved more from him. In seconds, I had stopped fighting. He dragged me closer, not asking me if I wanted more but taking from me as though he had every right to do so.

  T never gentled the embrace. It was angry when it started and just as furious when it ended. He stepped back, and I nearly fell over before I righted myself.

  He didn’t say another word before he left me standing there on the lawn in the now much colder night, slamming the basement door behind him as he disappeared into their world. I blinked. My head had been so clouded. What had happened to Marco? Where had he gone? I didn’t even know.

  But I was alone in the cold Vermont night on an island where nothing made sense.

  I wiped my eyes and then my mouth. He had tasted like mint. I loved it, and I hated myself for loving it. What was the matter with me? This had to be early onset Stockholm Syndrome.

  Except for the fact that T was hot. He’d have been hot anywhere I encountered him. Of course, I would never have encountered him because he was close to forty, and I only ever saw mediocre boy-men in bars.

  My headache, which had dulled outside, reared back to life in a major way. I ran in the house and got to my room as fast as I could. I closed the door but didn’t lock it. Why? I wasn’t even kidding myself. If Trace was to suddenly decide he wanted to come into my room, I was going to be more than okay with it.

  I laid my head on the pillow. I didn’t have any painkillers, which wasn’t surprising because I hadn’t purchased any for my apartment. D couldn’t have deposited it in J’s house for me if I didn’t have it. Why hadn’t I gone to the pharmacy?

  I groaned. I used to get headaches a lot but hadn’t for years. This had to be stress related. I rolled over. It was going to be a long night.

  I must have fallen asleep because a knock on the door woke me later. It was hard to wrench my eyes open, but I managed. I made my way to the door to find J standing there.

  “Hi.”

  I had
to find my voice. “Hi.”

  “You missed dinner. T says you have a headache.” As if mentioning it made it flare back to life, the pounding, which had dulled, rushed back into existence.

  “I do.” Why was he bothering me about this?

  J held out his hand. “I realized you might not have what you need.”

  I practically ripped the medicine out of his hand. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Take some and if you find yourself hungry, I’ve asked Constance to keep food for you tonight in the fridge so you can warm it.” He stepped back. “Feel better, Everly. I know you’ve had a long day. Good work with T’s job issue by the way. Hugely well done.”

  I wanted to ask him more about that, but I also wanted to take my pills. “Thanks. I need some water.”

  He stepped into the room, looking around. I guessed he intended to stay for a minute. I made my way to the bathroom and poured some water into a cup. I took the pills. I really needed them to work fast. Sometimes, the time between taking meds and the onset of relief were the longest of the whole ordeal.

  I walked back into the room. He stared out the window. “Nice view from in here. I have the other view. I never come to this side of the house.”

  “It’s huge.” What was I supposed to say to him? Thank you for giving me a nice room to stay in while you hold me hostage?

  He nodded. “Initially, the whole thing was built so a great-grandfather could take people bird hunting. As far as the locals are concerned, that is what we still do here. We kill birds.”

  “D killed a deer today.”

  J nodded. “Yes, I heard all about it. Quite a mess he made hauling that thing through the house. D can be downright savage, but he means well. Most of the time. I guess we’ll be eating venison. Not my favorite game. But it is local. And we imported the damn things to shoot them last year, so I guess it’s good he’s hunting them before they run out of food and starve.”

  I sat down on the edge of the bed. “I don’t have the slightest idea what to say to you right now.”

  He turned around. “Are you comfortable in here?”

  “No.” If I’d been a guest I’d never had said that. My southern manners dictated certain behaviors. I hadn’t had a mother around and my father didn’t notice small things, but I’d had plenty of women to teach me what was and wasn’t to be said. Not once had anyone dictated to me the proper way to speak to the man who held me hostage. He wanted to know if I was comfy? Fine, I’d tell him the truth.

  “What’s not working?” He looked around.

  I shook my head. “The sheets are horrible. The comforter is scratchy. I hate them.”

  J leaned over and touched the bedding. “You’re right. These are awful.”

  I blinked. I’d kind of thought to piss him off. After the incident with Trace, my every response was raw and miserable. I didn’t expect him to agree with me.

  He looked up. “I’m going to find out what happened to your bedding. If we don’t have it, we’ll get you something better. You might be here awhile. I don’t want to sleep on that. I don’t blame you.”

  This was too much. “J, I’m your prisoner. You could lock me in a dungeon and leave me there to rot on gruel.”

  “Everly, let me tell you something. If the rest of The Alliance were to find out what your father did, they would come for you and that is exactly where you would find yourself. I’ve been in those places. Be glad it’s only us blaming him for now.”

  I had been kidding. “There can’t really be dungeons left. I mean, not in the civilized world. Sure in places I would never want to be, but there aren’t dungeons here in your basement or wherever you live when you’re not here, right?”

  I didn’t know why I wanted to know, but suddenly knowing felt pivotal.

  “There is no such thing as the civilized world. We only pretend there is. That’s not the question you wanted to ask me.”

  I swallowed. “Sure it is.”

  “No, it’s not. You wanted to ask me what your father did. What crime or wrongdoing did the man commit to land you here, stuck with us, trying to figure out your way?”

  I supposed I did want to know. It was hard for me to think of my father at all. As T had pointed out, he wasn’t the man I’d thought him to be. I didn’t know how to deal. “Well, I know he kills people. I know he has basically abandoned me here. So yes, I suppose I ought to know. What did he do?”

  “He altered documents that prove membership in The Alliance. All of us can trace our right to be in The Alliance to before Christ was born. He fabricated things, questioning the succession rights of over two dozen members. All people who stand against a certain faction. Now, the majority of our members don’t want this kind of problem. They’ll stand with truth because they know tomorrow it could be them who finds themselves suddenly in question. That’s what your father did and that’s what he’ll have to undo. He has to prove that we’re true members. He has to show he lied.”

  He was basically going to audit the membership of a secret organization to prove he’d committed fraud? “Can’t you all just present your papers? I mean, if it were that important I’d think you’d keep your lineage or family trees in a vault somewhere.”

  “We do, but our papers are being called into question. He’s going to go get the originals and he’s going to do whatever he has to do to show how he lied. That’s what your father did. And when he is done we will take control of The Alliance and let you go.”

  That really did seem like quite an undertaking. “Since before Christ was born, huh?”

  I leaned back on the bed. I wasn’t going anywhere anytime fast.

  Chapter 6

  J made no moves to leave my room. Did he want to talk? I was still dealing with my pounding head. “Wouldn’t it make sense to have a historian look for the proof you guys need and not, say, a small time accountant?”

  “Your father has been dealing with billions of dollars for years. He’s not small time. And he made this mess, he can fix it. He’s handled ancient documents many times. Jeb decided he wanted to play with the big time Alliance members. He picked a side. The wrong side. And now he’s made his bed. Or yours as the case may be. With scratchy sheets.”

  I couldn’t help my smile. That was sort of ridiculously cute. I didn’t get the impression from J that he did ridiculously cute very often. He rocked back on his feet like he couldn’t believe he’d done it either.

  “What do you do when you’re not locking women in towers? Sorry, houses.”

  He blinked. “You make it sound like you’re Rapunzel. I promise you a haircut if you want one.”

  “Thanks.” He had successfully avoided my question. “T told me what he did for a living.”

  “Did he now?” His voice went up with the question. “What did he say?”

  I quickly got the impression that maybe T wasn’t only a school instructor. “He said he’s a teacher.”

  “That he is.” J nodded. “I suppose he didn’t go on to say what he taught. I’m a doctor. I can be vague, too.”

  I rolled over onto my stomach. “And doctors can just take massive amounts of time off and stay in a house with me?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll be going back and forth. We all will. After this week it’s unlikely you’ll have all five of us at the same time. Do you get a lot of headaches?”

  “Only under stress.” I told him the truth.

  “Right.” He closed the distance between us, then put his hand on my head. It was a bizarre moment. I still had no idea what J wanted. J, the casual homeowner, who was kind to his staff and had me locked on his island, was a doctor. I’d once read the phrase “undressing me with his eyes” but I couldn’t say as I’d ever had that happen before. Although his hand stayed right where it was on my head, I felt naked. It was hard to explain otherwise. Somehow, with just his eyes on me, J had stripped me bare.

  He let go of me and stepped back. “You would respond, wouldn’t you?”

  The tone of hi
s voice could best be described as intrigued.

  “To what?” My throat had gone dry.

  “If I touched you. Right now, you would respond.”

  I didn’t deny it. If I squirmed, I was pretty sure my panties would be wet. “I’ve always liked sex.”

  “Always? In your massively long life you’ve always liked sex?” His voice was low, still gentle. “You’re barely out of diapers.”

  I shook my head, which moved his hand slightly. He stroked my forehead with his thumb, and I wished it were a different part of my anatomy he touched. “You can tell yourself that if you want to. If it makes it easier not to see me as a grown woman.”

  J dropped to his knees, staring at me from next to the bed. I missed his hand on my body. He didn’t say anything, so I spoke again. “How old are you, J?”

  “I’m thirty-five.”

  I had thought he was younger than the others. Not by much, but I supposed if he thought I was young then every year counted with him. “Is it true men get better in bed as they get older?”

  His smile was fast. “You’re wicked, Everly. It’s too bad that women can’t be Alliance. You’d fit right in.” He got to his feet. “To answer your question, if a man has to brag about it, he’s not any good. You’ll have to wonder how I would have answered your query that was meant to provoke me.”

  “Did it?” I rolled back over. “Provoke you?”

  “Here’s the thing. I have a certain… taste… when it comes to women.”

  I continued to try playing it cool. I hadn’t intended this, but now I couldn’t seem to stop pushing at him. If I ended up with him between my legs I’d hate myself in the morning but love it in the moment. Why did I want to fuck these guys? Why didn’t I want to gouge out their eyes? It might be more helpful. This wasn’t some novel from the 1980s. My magic pussy wasn’t going to suddenly make him decide to let me free as it gave him a new outlook on life.

  I was more likely to end up dead in the basement when he got sick of fucking me.

  Still, I’d poked this bear. I couldn’t let it go. “What would that certain taste be?”