Stolen Lies (Truths and Lies Duet Book 2)

by Nikki Ash

  “Touch me,” she commands, her blue eyes intense as she drags me away from the fact that our daughter is still missing and nothing will be normal until she’s found. “Right now, it’s just us, Kostas.”

  Failure and loss fade for the moment as I run my fingers along her throbbing clit over her panties. She cries out in surprise when I rip the fabric apart and toss it away. Her hips lift and she clenches around my cock. I easily circle my fingers in a way that strums my wife into having the most beautiful sounds leave her lips.

  Someone knocks on the door and we both grind out words at the same time.

  “Go the fuck away!”

  “We’ll be out in a minute!”

  Our eyes lock and I thrust hard against her, pinching her clit in tandem with each glide inside her. When I notice blood on her leg, I run my free fingers through it, marveling at the smears along her tanned flesh. Her body seizes with pleasure and her breasts jut forward as her back arches. I’m captivated with how wild and so damn beautiful she is as her pussy squeezes the fuck out of me. I groan, nearly collapsing as my balls tighten and then my release spurts furiously inside her. Cum leaks out as I slide in and out of her, filling her with everything I have. When I’m wrung dry, I slip from her hot body and stagger back, trembling and my still-hard dick dripping.

  “Fucking gorgeous,” I hiss, my eyes raking down her perfect body and settling at her pussy.

  Bright red and raw from being fucked hard.

  Thick, white cum runs down her used slit toward her ass crack.

  Shaking thighs as she recovers from her orgasm.

  I step closer despite the spinning around me and collect my cum on my finger. Our eyes meet when I push it back into her needy body. She whimpers and squirms as I fuck my jizz back into her cunt with just my finger. Once I’m sure it’s deep inside where it belongs, I curl my finger up and seek out the part of her that’ll make her scream. She shakes her head as though she can’t take any more, which only urges me to show her she can. I add another finger and press the hot, throbbing spot inside her until she grips the edge of the desk with both hands and bellows my name. Her hips ride up, doing their own little dance to meet the movement of my fingers until she comes down from her high. I slip my hand away from her and admire the dark, pink depths that remain open and inviting to me. With one clench, she hides that part of herself from me, sending more cum pushing out of her pussy.

  “I need…” she whispers, closing her thighs. “I need to shower and change and eat and…oh my God, you’re bleeding!”

  I shrug as I glance down at my white dress shirt that’s seeping with blood. “It was worth it.”

  She sits up and then stands in front of me. Her dress falls into place and I want to pout over the fact that I can’t watch my cum slide down her inner thighs. “Let’s go home and get cleaned up so we can find our girl.”

  “Talia,” I growl as I grip her throat and draw her to me. I press my lips to hers. “I love you.”

  Her lips break into a smile—one that’s been missing the past twelve hours. “I love you too.”

  “We’re going to find her.”

  “I know we are.”

  Talia

  It’s been five days since Kostas and I stood in front of all of Greece and pleaded with the people to help locate our little girl. Five days since he offered them millions of euros to locate Aris and Selene. And it’s been five long as hell days of sifting through the thousands of leads that end in nothing but dead ends. Everybody wants a chance at the money, which means everybody thinks they’ve seen our little girl. I’ve sat in Kostas’s office with him and his men for hours upon hours, clicking on lead after lead, blowing up image after image, hoping to spot one of them. I’ve seen several dozen redheaded women, hundreds of men in suits, and I’ve looked at enough babies that they all have blurred into one of the same. But none of them are the people we’re looking for.

  It wasn’t until my eyes were itchy and I felt like I was going cross-eyed that Kostas ganged up on me with my mom and made me go home to take a break. I begged and pleaded, but they insisted.

  “Cara mia,” Mom coos. “Please, you have to eat something.” She pushes the homemade chicken soup closer to me. The aroma fills my nostrils and my stomach growls in hunger. I can’t even remember the last time I ate something besides an energy bar. “You need to be strong for your little girl, and in order to be strong, you must take care of yourself.”

  She leans in and rubs her thumbs along my cheeks and then under my eyes. “You have dark circles under your eyes. You need to sleep.”

  “I have slept,” I argue, pulling my face out of her grasp.

  “More than a couple hours,” Phoenix adds. He’s been staying at the hotel, helping to check out any leads that come through that Kostas feels are worth investigating further, which is almost all of them. My husband is determined to find our daughter, and if there’s a slight possibility someone’s lead could be the one that takes us to her, he wants it investigated. He has hundreds of men scouring the country on top of the thousands of leads that are being emailed and called in.

  And with each passing hour, each lead that hits a wall, I get more anxious that Aris has disappeared where nobody can find them.

  “Talia, please,” Mom begs. “Just a few bites.”

  Not wanting to argue with them, I bring the spoon to my lips. But before I can take a bite, I imagine my daughter locked up somewhere with Aris and Selene, hungry and tired and cold, and a sob racks through my entire body. I drop the spoon back into the bowl, and hot liquid splashes out, burning my hand. “How am I supposed to eat when I don’t even know if my little girl is being fed?” I push the bowl away. There’s no way I can eat until I know she’s safe in my arms and her tummy is full.

  I stand at the same time Mom does. She envelops me in her arms and I breathe in her floral scent. “What if she’s hungry?” I cry out. “Or lonely?” My entire body shakes against my mom’s as she holds me tight. I can feel an anxiety attack coming on, but I already know I won’t be able to stop it. I’ve been having them every day since Zoe was taken. “What if they’ve hurt her…or worse…” I can’t even finish my sentence. My words are cut off with my cries. My head pounds so hard it feels like my entire body is vibrating. My heart is racing, and my legs feel like noodles.

  “Talia, you have to calm down,” she says as I begin to hyperventilate. She walks us over to the couch and helps me to sit. I try to take in gulps of air, but it’s hard to breathe. My sweet little baby is somewhere out there with two crazy psychos who don’t love her. They don’t even care about her. Anything can happen to her, and every second she’s gone is less of a chance of ever finding her alive.

  Stefano appears in front of me with a glass of water. “Here, sweetheart, take these.” He extends his hand with two pills, but I shake my head.

  “No, I need to be awake and lucid in case a solid lead comes in.” The last thing I want is to be out cold when my daughter needs me.

  “Talia, you can’t keep going like this,” Mom demands. “Please, it will help you to calm down and rest. If a lead comes through, we’ll wake you up. Kostas is handling it.”

  I want to argue with them, but they’re right. I haven’t slept in what feels like days. My body is over exhausted and shaking like a leaf in a storm.

  With trembling hands, I take the glass and pills from Stefano. After swallowing them, my mom pulls me back into her side and rocks me until my body gives up and my eyes close.

  My eyes flutter open, and when I look around, I see I’m in my bed. I listen for Zoe. The villa is quiet. Is she sleeping? What time is it? Does Kostas have her? And then I remember she’s not here. She’s missing. And my heart cracks all over again.

  My phone vibrates on the end table and I grab it to see who is calling. Kostas. I check the time. It’s ten o’clock at night. I’ve been sleeping for almost eight hours thanks to the pills Stefano gave me.

  I quickly answer the call, hoping he has good news.
“Have you found her?”

  “No, there’s been no leads that have panned out.”

  My heart falls into my stomach. No leads. In a couple hours, it’s going to hit midnight and it will be another day without my baby girl.

  “I was calling to check on you,” he adds. His voice sounds worried. My mom must’ve told him I had another anxiety attack.

  “Are you in your office?” I ask, sitting up and throwing the blankets off me.

  “I am, but you need to get some sleep,” Kostas says softly.

  “I’ve been sleeping all afternoon. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  I shower quickly, get dressed, and brush my teeth to get rid of the bad taste in my mouth. Then, I head to Kostas’s office, Basil hot on my trail. I’m thankful for my ever-present shadow. Mom and Stefano must’ve gone back to their villa for the night.

  On the way, I see Phoenix walking down the pathway. He gives me a sad smile. “I was checking out another lead,” he says. “Another dead end.”

  “Thank you for helping.” I wrap my arms around his waist and give him a hug.

  “There’s nowhere else I would be,” Phoenix assures me. “We’re going to find her, Talia.”

  I want to believe him, but with each passing day, my hopes are shattered more and more. None of it makes any sense. If Aris wanted money, he would’ve contacted us by now. If he wanted to use her as a bargaining chip to steal the business from Kostas, he would’ve reached out. And since Kostas made sure to announce publicly that Ezio is dead, Aris has to know by now that his father is no longer alive.

  But he’s been completely silent. And that’s what worries me. If he took her with the intent to keep her, he could be anywhere by now, and we may never see her again. At least if he took her with the purpose of using her to negotiate, we could give him what he wants and get our daughter back. The problem is Aris believes Zoe is his. A lie I told at the time to save us, but now regret.

  As I walk through the doors of the office, I see Kostas and a thought hits me. “Kostas.” He glances my way and walks toward me. “You told the world that Zoe is your daughter.”

  “Yeah…” Kostas gives me a confused look.

  “Aris thought she was his. If he heard your speech, he knows she’s not his.” My hands cover my mouth as I remember what Aris said to me when I told him Zoe was his.

  “Talia, talk to me,” Kostas demands.

  “Aris warned me that if he ever found out the baby wasn’t really his, I would pay.” I lied to him for over a year, swore up and down the baby was his… “What if he took her to use her as a bargaining chip, but once he found out she wasn’t really his, he changed his mind?” My heart begins to race, and my head feels cloudy. Another anxiety attack is surfacing. “He could be keeping her just to make me pay.” This could be all my fault. I never should’ve lied to Aris.

  “Talia, calm down,” Kostas says, taking me in his arms. “It doesn’t matter what Aris knows or doesn’t know. It changes nothing. You told him what he needed to hear to keep you and our little girl safe. We’re going to find her.”

  “Boss,” Adrian calls Kostas over. “Check out this image.” He blows up a picture on the computer screen. It’s of a man who meets Aris’s description carrying a baby, but we can’t see any faces.

  “Where was this taken?” Kostas asks.

  “The airport about thirty minutes ago,” Adrian says.

  “He wouldn’t just walk through the airport,” I say out loud. Aris is too smart for that, even if the man holding the baby looks almost identical to him.

  “Probably not,” Kostas agrees. “But we’re following every possible lead.”

  He looks over his shoulder. “Phoenix,” he barks. “Airport.” Without asking any questions, Phoenix comes over and gets the information from Adrian then takes off.

  We spend the next couple hours going through emails and calls of leads. When it’s nearly four in the morning and I can tell Kostas is dragging, I tell him we need to go home. He looks like he wants to argue, but doesn’t.

  When we get home, he takes a quick shower and meets me in bed. With his arms around me, I snuggle into the crook of his neck. “Six days,” I whisper. Tomorrow it will be a week.

  “We’re going to find her,” Kostas says for a millionth time, his voice filled with as much conviction as the first time he said it.

  As my eyes are closing, his phone rings loudly throughout the room. He leans over and answers it. “Yeah.” He sits up straight, knocking my head off his body. “You sure?” I can’t hear who he’s speaking to, but whoever it is, is talking fast. “I’ll check right now.”

  Kostas places the phone on speaker and pulls up his email app. Peering over, I look to see what was emailed, and right there in color is a picture of Selene holding our daughter.

  “That’s her!” I gasp.

  Kostas

  “On my way,” I growl, slinging my body out of the bed on a frantic hunt for clothes. “Pick me up in front of my villa in two minutes.”

  Talia flies out of the bed and starts dressing. “I can’t believe they found her. Is it close? How long until we get there—”

  “Not we,” I bark out as I button my jeans and yank on a white T-shirt. “Me.”

  “Hell no,” she screeches as she throws on her own clothes. “I’m going.”

  I don’t have time to fight with her on this. All I do have time for is to grab my Glock from the bedside drawer and stalk out of the bedroom. Talia comes trotting after me. When I open the door, Basil is standing beside Adrian’s SUV, talking to him.

  “Hold down the fort,” I bark out to Basil.

  He nods before stepping away. I open the rear door and assist Talia in getting in before climbing into the front passenger seat.

  Talia starts to sob in the back seat. When I glance back, I see that Adrian already loaded up the car seat. He feels it too. We’re bringing her home. Thank fuck we have the cover of the dark, early morning. The last thing I need is for someone to tip Aris off.

  Adrian hauls ass out of the hotel property and gets onto the main road. When he’d emailed me the pictures, he also emailed the location. Two hours from here on the other side of Crete Island near a small airport. Aris may have thought about trying to leave via plane but decided against it at the last minute because he has to know I have eyes everywhere, especially ports and airports. The motel we’re headed to is a piece of shit one that hookers and johns use. I cringe thinking what sort of cesspool my baby’s living in right now.

  “Who’d the tip come from?” I ask as we drive.

  “A maid.”

  “Just a maid?”

  “Just a maid.”

  “Good,” I grunt. “We won’t owe any roaches shit. You’ll have to get the maid to safety. The moment we wire her the money, she’ll have a target on her back.”

  “Zoe first, maids later,” Talia offers from the back seat.

  I look over my shoulder and smile. “Zoe is always first.”

  The two-hour drive is tense and quiet. I answer calls and check in on different people. My main concern is Aris and Selene getting tipped off before we arrive. Soon, we’re creeping through a small town twenty minutes from the coast. The sun has risen and a few restaurants blink their signs offering hot breakfast, making my stomach growl.

  Zoe first, coffee and bagels later.

  “It’s up here,” Adrian says.

  “I’ll go around front and you check the back,” I order to him.

  “I’m going with you,” Talia says, trying her shit with me again.

  I whip around and reach for her hand, pulling her close to me. With my eyes burning into hers, I kiss the back of her hand. “Not today.”

  “But—”

  “I need you safe inside the SUV ready to drive off. Understood, moró mou? If Adrian and I should get injured, I need to be able to pass Zoe off to you and you get the fuck out of here. Please, for once in your stubborn fucking life listen to me.” My words are spoken harshly to
her, but I can’t keep my wits about me if she’s behind me. No fucking way. I need to be able to act without question.

  Fat tears well in Talia’s blue eyes, but she nods, sending them loose from her lids and skating down her cheeks.

  “I love you,” I whisper to her. “I need you to do this.”

  “I can do this,” she says fiercely, swiping at her tears with her free hand. “I love you too.”

  I kiss her hand once more before releasing her to pull my Glock out of the center console and readying myself to act. Adrian parks a little ways up the road where we can see the small, aging, and decrepit motel, pointed toward the main road for a fast getaway. Several cars litter the parking lot.

  “Which unit?” I demand.

  “The maid said room six there on the end of the east side.”

  “We’ll walk over to the west side and split around the building from there. Shoot first, ask questions later. At this point, put a bullet in Aris’s skull. We can’t risk him getting away. Zoe’s safety is our primary concern.” As much as I want to torture the fuck out of him, I can’t let it cloud my judgment.

  Adrian and I climb out of the SUV. When I glance back, I can see Talia scrambling to the front seat. Good girl. With my Glock ready, I nod at Adrian and then quietly walk along the front of the motel. He disappears around back. I pass by rooms one through three without incident, but when I get to the fourth room, I hear muffled crying not far off.

  Zoe.

  Panic swells up inside me and I quicken my pace, no longer worried about hiding. My sole focus is my daughter, whose crying gets louder the closer to room six I get. When I make it to the door, I press my ear to it.

  “Shut up, stupid baby! Just shut the fuck up!”

  When I hear what sounds like a slap, I step back and kick the door in. It slams against the wall and I charge inside, my gun drawn. Selene has Zoe in her arms and picks up a gun beside her. Zoe is red-faced and squirming, clearly pissed at being struck by this psycho cunt.