Hard Truths (Kiss Her Goodbye Book 1)

by Rebecca Royce

  “Fair enough.” He poured me some water, and we ate in silence, me focusing on staying awake the whole time. I didn’t miss that he hustled my plate away quickly and suggested we go watch the sunset together in the living room.

  It was pretty coming in over the pond.

  Warden shook his head. “I’m never going to look at that pond the same way. From now on, it’s an alligator breeding ground.”

  “Oh come on now, isn’t it more beautiful for its dangerous nature?”

  Warden nudged me toward him, and I eventually ended up with my head on his shoulder. I probably didn’t know him long enough to do so, but he didn’t object. “I am going to end up drooling on your shoulder.”

  “You won’t.” He didn’t seem concerned. “You slept in the car. No drooling happened. Just relax. If you fall asleep, you fall asleep.”

  As though his giving me permission made it possible, I knocked right out. I dreamed. I was tied up, chains around my hands and feet. I wore gray pajamas, and I shivered because it was freezing outside. I was in Warden’s off the grid house but there was no furniture in it. Everything was barren, empty. I’d been alone for days. My stomach clenched with pain, and I’d peed myself. Several times.

  The door opened and closed, turning the light back on. Chained to the wall and unable to move, the automatic lighting system had long since turned off, leaving me in the dark. Warden stood there staring at me.

  “Well, you’re still alive. You must have a lot of body fat to live off of.” Warden’s eyes were hard. Gone was the charm and only left was the nasty edge. He hauled me up even as my knee threatened to give out. “If you don’t drown, the alligators will love eating you. Or maybe you’ll do both.”

  “Please don’t do this.” I never thought I’d be hoping to be shot in the head.

  I jolted awake. The sun was down and the lights were on in the living room. W read a paperback that he dropped as I jerked off of him. “Hey. Are you okay?”

  “I…” My heart raced. “I’m sorry. Bad dream.”

  He put his hand on the side of my face, stroking his finger over the bruise where I’d been hit. “Want to tell me about it?”

  “I…” I’d told Trace about how he featured in my dream, and he hadn’t denied it was possible. Did I want to know if Warden would feed me to the alligators? “I was tied up in this house. It was empty. I’d been alone for days… and then you fed me to the alligators.”

  He shifted slightly. “Huh. Now, that would be an interesting way to get rid of a body.”

  Like Trace, Warden was not helpful with this issue. It did help to know where I stood, even if it made me want to puke.

  “I can and have killed someone, Everly. I’m not going to expand on that. But it’s not my job to do so usually. Those screens you must have seen in the basement when you went down there in Judson’s house? That’s my job. I’m the money guy. I make people wealthy or I take it all away. I do that both for The Alliance and for myself. I wouldn’t so much kill you as I’d make it so you lived on the street.”

  I put my head in my hands. “Please don’t put me on the street.”

  “I can’t see the need to do that to you. I might do it to your dad. Are you prepared to have him living with you?”

  I groaned. “Fuck, Warden.” He snorted, and I lifted my hands away to see him looking at me with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t even know if I can look at my dad. He killed my mother. How do I live with that? I mean… I hardly remember her. He raised me. But the point is that happened because he had her killed.”

  “She was unfaithful, yes?”

  I kicked him gently with my foot. “That’s a little bit extreme. One does not get murdered for sleeping with a biker and fooling around on one’s accountant husband.”

  “One does if one’s accountant husband is Alliance.”

  He was really not letting go on this. “And all those poor women marrying Alliance men and having no idea they’ve stepped into some alternative dimension of misogyny and delirium. Beware single women. Alliance men don’t play by the same rules.”

  Warden laughed, throwing his head back. “See? You’re not afraid of me at all. I mean not in the least bit. So no more nightmares. I wouldn’t go anywhere near the alligators to throw you to them.”

  “Oh, thanks.” I sighed. “I feel so much better.”

  “I have something that might make you feel better. I Googled it at the doctor’s office and while the medical community doesn’t endorse this at all… and I’m not a doctor… I thought that a little marijuana might make you feel better.” He lifted that eyebrow again. I reached out to touch it, stroking my hand over it. He tilted his head. “Unless you don’t smoke pot.”

  I leaned toward him. “Do you?”

  “Rather regularly, actually. I prefer it to alcohol. No pain for having done it the next day.”

  I grinned. “I could be game.”

  Warden pulled a bag out of his jacket. “Well, then. Let’s give it a go.”

  Who knew that when Warden went on the run he brought with him a bag of happiness?

  I’d never slept better. Or maybe I had. All I knew was the next morning I woke up on the couch I’d conked out on with no headache at all. I was still injured—hugely, so—and the doctor had warned me that I would feel better way before I was. I wasn’t going to go run a marathon. But it was nice not to have a headache.

  Warden slept on the other side of the couch. Our legs had gotten tangled up in each other as we’d slept on opposite ends of a too small couch. But it had worked. I guessed neither of us had thought about using the other couch or any of the bedrooms when we’d dozed off in a haze of relaxation.

  He’d snored a little bit. It wasn’t a loud, obnoxious sound, more like he breathed deep and was really lost in sleep. He was unabashedly breathing. I shook my head. Sun shined through the window. I rubbed my nose, sitting up.

  Warden stretched his hands over his head before he opened his eyes. He blinked awake. “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself.” I patted his legs. “Good morning.”

  I got off the couch and made my way quickly to the bathroom. Like the kitchen, the hot water took a long time to come, but it did and there was running water for a shower. I took a fast one and dried off. When I came out, wrapped in a towel, I realized I still had my suitcase from the Caribbean. That meant I had my outfit from dinner, my bathing suit, and my work clothes. I didn’t want to put back on the outfit I’d been beaten up in on the beach.

  I’d been in it too long.

  “Not that I don’t appreciate the view.” Warden had taken off his shirt. He was built like he’d been carved out of stone. I’d never seen anyone as strong. “But is something wrong? I mean, you can parade around in your towel all you want. It just seems odd for you.”

  He wasn’t wrong. “I need clothes. I could put back on my bathing suit cover-up.”

  Warden rubbed his chin. “No, that won’t do. We didn’t think of that and you were too concussed to be thinking of anything at all. You need clothes. We’ll have to get some. There’s a general store not too far. It’s a drive, but it’s the closest. We can go ahead and go now. I’ll supplement some of the food here. I think we might actually need more than we have. Besides, it’s not like we have a lot else to do today.”

  In the meantime, I’d put back on what I’d worn earlier. “What? You aren’t going to take away someone’s life savings today?”

  “The day is still young, gorgeous. The day is still young.” He winked at me, turning around to head into the bathroom I’d just exited. I sucked in a breath I was glad he didn’t hear. He had almost exactly the same scars Trace had. It was like they wore matching pain on their backs.

  Training…

  The question was when they’d gone into that training. As young men? Had that made them the kind of people who shot others in the head and destroyed their finances? Or had it simply enhanced their already inherent talents?

  Were they the alligators in the pond
or had someone thrown them to them?

  I shook my head. This was getting way too deep.

  I put my clothes on, deciding I’d take the bedroom downstairs unless he wanted it, and I arranged what I did have in the closet. The bedroom was a nice size with a queen bed and a small closet. So far, I’d only seen one bathroom in the house and W had waited for me to use it, so I was going to guess it really was just the one.

  I wasn’t going to complain. This could have been a lot worse. I walked back out to find Warden coming down the stairs. He carried a sweatshirt in his hand. “Take it. When we get to the store, I want you to put this on and keep your head down. I’m not really worried about it, but anywhere we go that could have a camera could be traced. I don’t want to get our faces on camera.”

  I took the sweatshirt. It was dark blue and hooded. The scent of peppermint hit my nose. I brought it closer. It was one of my favorite smells.

  “Do you really think they’re searching for me? I mean, as far as they knew I was some chick that Trace was fucking. Why would they be looking for me at all?”

  He touched my face where I’d been hit. “Your head is better today isn’t it?”

  “That didn’t answer my question. Yes, my head is better.” My stomach rumbled. I was seriously hungry. “Do you think they’re looking for me?”

  He shook his head. “I have no idea. I would imagine that once you got away they came looking for you. We can only assume it was just the three of them there. But maybe there were two people watching for you guys. Maybe they’re now looking.”

  I supposed that made sense. “I’ll keep the hood on.”

  “Good. Oh, and I don’t ever want to hear about you fucking Trace. Or Derrick. Or the bogeyman. Okay? When you’re with me, you’re mine. I don’t share. I don’t care what you do when you’re not with me. I also don’t do relationships but with me, you aren’t fucking anyone else. Got it?”

  I opened and closed my mouth. “I don’t remember fucking you at all, Warden.”

  “When you say my name it makes me hard.”

  Well… that was something. I couldn’t help it, I let my gaze drift lower. He wasn’t kidding. There was a bulge in his pants. I swallowed. “I can see that.”

  “We haven’t fucked yet, Everly. I’m not a monster. Or at least not that much of one. You’re concussed. Few more days of you healing and then I’m going to make it so you can’t think of anyone else but me. Understand? While we’re together, you won’t remember anyone else’s name.”

  I pulled on his shirt. “I find the arrogance hot, Warden, but you’re setting yourself up to have to live up to a lot of hype here. Most of the time, I find myself disappointed.”

  He kissed my cheek, holding his lips there for a long second. It felt like he branded me. I closed my eyes for a second until he pulled back.

  “You won’t be disappointed. And you can imagine that for the next three days.” He held up that many fingers. “Glad your head is better. It must be the pot.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Or maybe it was just time and being careful.”

  “Well you don’t know it wasn’t the pot.” He shrugged at me. “Come on, gorgeous. You need clothes. Let’s get them.”

  I followed him. “You don’t know it was the pot. Can’t prove it either way.”

  He put his arms around me. “See? You’re not afraid of me at all. I can’t think of another person on the planet who’d be holding up as well as you.”

  The grocery store-slash-convenience-store-slash-diner-slash-liquor-store was huge and the only thing around for miles except for a fireworks store a little bit down the way. The sign outside said it also sold bait. We’d be stopping there on the way back. I did want to see if we could catch some fish.

  No one inside the store made any eye contact with each other. We were clearly not the only people there who didn’t want to be noticed. A small television screen hung above the cash register, catching my attention. I quickly dropped my eyes. I wasn’t supposed to be looking at screens. Still, I’d seen Derrick’s face, and it had caught my attention. I couldn’t look, so I listened.

  The host of the entertainment show called him the Blond Bomber. I smiled. He was that, very blond with his man bun sitting right on top of his head. He’d been seen all over New York with a different model every day. The tabloids called him back.

  Little did they know what had taken him away in the first place.

  Warden didn’t look up at the screen. He seemed interested in the collection of old paperbacks in the corner of the room. I needed clothes, and I set out to get them. So Derrick was doing just what he’d been told to.

  How far was he taking it? Why did I think that was my business?

  Chapter 13

  In terms of clothes, I managed to get some shorts, some jeans, and some t-shirts. They were mostly plain and cotton. I grabbed some candy bars, some vegetables, some canned goods, and some hamburgers with all of the fixings for them. I wasn’t going to try to cook anything fancy, mostly because I was bad at it, but also because we were pretty limited with what we could actually do from the food store here.

  Worst came to worst, I’d eat chocolate all week. Maybe after everything that had happened lately, I deserved to. It would go really well with Warden’s ganja kick. I bent over to look at some socks. I did like to wear them to bed. The hood on my head fell down as I stood back up. My heart sank into my stomach, and I yanked it back up as fast as I could, dread settling on me like a cold burst of water.

  Were the men with the guns just going to burst through the door?

  Warden’s hand came down on my shoulder. “You okay?”

  “My hood fell,” I whispered to him. “I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.”

  “Hush.” He tipped my chin so I looked at him. “Don’t apologize for that. Accidents happen. No cameras in this store. Anyone see you?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so, but I wasn’t paying attention exactly. I concentrated on pulling the hood back up.”

  “Good. Then don’t worry. Get what you need?”

  I nodded at my basket. “Yes. I just don’t have any money to pay for it.”

  “Well, then it’s excellent that I’m paying. Come on.”

  The woman behind the counter chewed gum, loudly. It was more like she snapped it. I hated the sound. Why couldn’t she just not do that? Was chewing somehow difficult for her?

  “Get everything?” She asked me, not W, even though he’d handed her the cash.

  I nodded. “Yes. Thanks.”

  Blonde haired gum chewer leaned forward. “Your boyfriend is hot.”

  I almost corrected her. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that Warden was absolutely not my boyfriend. But then she clicked her gum again, and I didn’t want to tell her the truth. It was as though her annoying gum habits made me want to lie to her. “Thanks. Yes, he is.”

  I leaned up and kissed Warden right there, leaning against the counter, as though I had every right to do so. “Come on, honey bear, let’s go.”

  “Ah, sure.” He took my hand while I led him out to the car. We got out there, and he backed me into it. “If you didn’t want to be remembered, that was not the thing to do.”

  “She was going to remember you anyway. Because you’re so hot.” I mimicked snapping my gum. “Besides, I’m not good at this. I’m the kidnapped victim. If you wanted someone who would be good at going on the run I’m afraid I’m not your girl.”

  He shook his head. “I was wondering when your brat flag would show up. Get in the car. Let’s go buy bait.”

  “Sure thing, honey bear.” I liked that nickname. I was going to stick with it for a while. Even if it irritated him and maybe more so if it did.

  My brat flag? I got in the car and buckled my seatbelt. Well, he could just kiss my ass.

  We bought the bait along with rods and anything else we might need to fish. It was on the way to his home I discovered he’d never done it before. Warden liked the idea of fishing, b
ut he’d never actually been. He might not like this. But that was okay. It would pass some time.

  I’d really never stopped to notice how completely dependent on electronics I was. Plus, the fact that I couldn’t read was really proving to be a problem. What were we going to do for two weeks? Or what was I going to do? Warden could do as he liked.

  “Hey, W.” I deliberately used the letter. He’d called me a brat. He was going to get brat for a little while.

  He rolled his eyes. “That was Kade’s idea. He’d gone and done it before I had a chance to weigh in. You’d never have been calling me W. My lord and master, maybe.” He winked at me. “Sorry, you were saying?”

  “I was never going to call you my lord and master. Just so you know, honey bear.”

  Warden side-eyed me. “I don’t think I like that better.”

  I shrugged. “Tough.”

  “You’re going to punish me for the brat comment. I see. I see. Okay. We’ll go with honey bear. You had a question, Brat?”

  I snorted. It felt good to laugh and to not have pain doing it. “What is your last name? I know Trace’s. It’s Hill. He was Doctor Hill the whole time at the conference. And I just heard Derrick’s on television. It’s Norris. Do you have a last name or are you just Warden like Madonna?”

  He side-eyed me. “It’s Warden White.”

  “For real?” It was totally possible he was messing with me giving me that name.

  W drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I’m serious. My mother thought it sounded… distinguished. And American. They were very anxious for me to sound American when I was here. They thought I might make a go of it in the movie industry or something. I don’t know. Remember, I wasn’t supposed to have this life. I was the extra kid. My father is half Saudi, on his mother’s side. He, and then eventually we, spent a lot of time living overseas with family when I was growing up. My mother—blonde and blue eyed farm girl that she was—wanted us to sound like her family, to connect us to them. She always hoped that would make them like us better. Our tan skin was a problem for her family. Other families might not have felt that way. Hers did.”