Consumed by Truths

by Ella Miles

  “Truth or lie, I want to marry you today,” I say, wanting to change to something positive.

  Her eyes light up. “Truth.”

  “Marry me, today. I don’t want to wait any longer.”

  She licks her lips as she considers. “I’ll go to the courthouse with you. I’ll sign the papers and go through the motions. But when this is all over, I want a real wedding. With my father there. Any of your family there. With Langston and Liesel. And our children there. One where we can celebrate with everyone we love.”

  I smile. “You really forgave your uncle?” I don’t understand why she still calls him father if he's actually her uncle.

  Her nose twitches. “I believe in second chances. And he is the only grandparent our children have left. I think he loves me. I think he wants what is best for me. Even if he has fucked up in the past. I wouldn’t say I’ve forgotten what he’s done to me. But I forgive him. I’m willing to give him a second chance.”

  Second chances—that has been our entire life. I’m not sure I’m ready to give her father a second chance, but I can understand why Kai wants to.

  But when I look in Kai’s eyes, I know she isn’t thinking about her father. She’s thinking about her next entry for our truth or lie game, which at this point might as well be called truths. Neither of us can lie to each other anymore. And every truth she has spoken has been worse than the previous one. This next one is going to kill me. I can feel the change in her.

  I tug on her hand, needing her as close to me as possible. She climbs into my lap. I brush her hair off her face, and she rests her head against my chest listening to my heart thump, thump, thump.

  I hold her close, hoping the truth won’t destroy what I just got back. How could it? I love her. We basically said our vows to each other last night. Nothing can destroy what we have.

  But the tears falling down Kai’s face, coating my bare chest say differently.

  “Truth or lie,” her voice breaks.

  “Shh, it’s okay, whatever it is, just tell me,” I say stroking her hair. “Whatever it is, we can face it, together.”

  She swallows hard, refusing to let her fear win.

  “Truth or lie, the final game is a fight to the death. The final game—only one of us can survive.”

  I let her words sink in. No, that can’t be true.

  But I know it is.

  Only one of us can survive if the final game happens. Everything makes sense now. Why the men wouldn’t let us fall in love. To win the game, we have to fight each other to the death. It’s why they want us to both have heirs before the final game. And it’s why Kai’s uncle raised her instead of her father. Her father didn’t die in an accident. My father didn’t kill him because he’s a monster. He killed him because it was either her father or him. Only one could survive.

  Was there a time when my father wasn’t evil? Did the final game change him? Did killing a man he must have learned to respect over months finally cause him to crack? Is that what caused the monster to unleash?

  Or was he always evil?

  I’ll never know.

  But I know one thing—I won’t let the final game happen. I’ll kill Felix. I’ll kill every man in the Black organization. No one will be left to force the last game to happen.

  Then we will be safe.

  Then we can have our happily ever after.

  Only one can survive. But Kai and I are one. We will survive; everyone else won’t if they step between us and happiness.

  “What are we going to do?” Kai asks.

  “Fight.”

  14

  Kai

  We put everything on hold after our talk. Enzo assures me Felix is still in a max security prison, although he can't guarantee for how much longer. Which means it's much more important for us to get married now. We want to be one in all the ways that matter.

  I want a real wedding later, when this is all over. But for now, I need the piece of paper. I need the title. I need every tie to Enzo if he were to end up in the hospital. I want no doubt in our children’s mind if something were to happen to Enzo and me that we loved each other more than life itself. I want them to know how hard we fought for them to have the life they deserve.

  We have a lot of hard decisions to make in the future. A lot of impossible choices. But right now, we get another tiny piece of our happily ever after.

  Enzo rented a small boat, and we drove it to the town over. A much larger town that has shops where we can buy rings, clothes to get married in, and most importantly, a courthouse where we can get married.

  There is supposed to be a waiting period from the time we get the license to when we can actually get married, but Enzo dropped me off at a dress shop while he went to persuade them with money, and I’m sure something more violent if they resist. I have no worries I will be able to get married today.

  I walk through the rack of white dresses in the small dress shop. I chose not to go into a wedding dress shop. For one, I knew it would be hard to find a dress that fits me with my large bump. And two, it just didn’t feel right.

  None of these white dresses feel right either.

  And then I spot the rack of black dresses. They call to me. Reaching into my dark heart and pulling me forward. I walk to the rack and pull the first dress off that I see.

  It’s black, has a high waist, and then flows all the way to the floor. The skirt is sheer, almost see-through, and there is a high slit up the side. I know without trying it on that it’s perfect.

  I get the dress, and then head to the lingerie store next door to pick out something sexy to wear underneath. If I’m going to get married in a courthouse, in a rush, while pregnant with twins, I’m at least going to look sexy as hell while I do it.

  After picking out the perfect set of lingerie, I spot a jewelry store. I step inside.

  “Can I help you?” the man behind the jewelry cases asks.

  “Yes, I’m picking out a wedding ring for my soon to be husband.”

  He grins and pulls out a case of rings. “These are our most popular rings for men.”

  I spot the perfect ring immediately. “That one.” I point to the simple black ring.

  He picks it up and hands it to me. It feels warm in my hand, just like Enzo.

  “Do you do inscriptions?”

  “We do.”

  “Can you have one done in an hour?”

  He nods. “For the right price.”

  I smile and pull off my own ring too. I hand them both. “Name your price.” But I already know I will give this man everything I have, because today I’m marrying the only man I’ve ever loved. And to me, there is no price too high to make this day perfect.

  “Are you ready? We are going to be late,” Enzo says, knocking on the bathroom door of the hotel we rented for the night.

  “Isn’t it every bride’s right to be late to her own wedding?”

  “Yes, but since I had to bribe the judge to let us get married today, I don’t think it would be wise to be late.”

  I grin and put the last red rose into my hair.

  And then I step out of the bathroom. The look on Enzo’s face is everything I was hoping for.

  His eyes go to my dark black hair curled into long ringlets and stuck with red roses. They gaze over my sparkling green eyes and down to my red lipstick coated lips.

  He stops breathing when he takes in the dress. The dress fits perfectly around my bump, as I knew it would. The sheer fabric is just see-through enough to see the hint of my bra and panties beneath the layers but not so see-through that I feel naked. And the slit shows off my long legs.

  “Jesus effing Christ.”

  I laugh at his reaction. “What do you think?”

  “I think it’s not possible for any woman to look as beautiful as you do now.”

  I haven’t had many opportunities to dress up. But today, I’m glad I had the perfect opportunity.

  “If I didn’t want to marry you so badly, we wouldn’t leave this hotel r
oom.”

  I blush and walk over to him. He’s in a suit that fits him like a glove. I don’t know how he managed to pull that off. But he did. He combed his hair back, and trimmed his beard down but didn’t go completely clean-shaven, leaving just enough scruff on his chiseled jawline.

  “Good thing I want to marry you just as badly, or I’d have you against the wall.”

  “Is that right?” he grins.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I guess it’s a good thing we are getting married today,” he says, stepping toward me.

  “I guess it is.” I take a step, swaying my hips in the dress.

  Another step toward each other.

  Then another.

  Then we are so close, but not touching. If we touch each other, we won’t be getting married today. We will spend the rest of the day in this hotel room. So we don’t touch, but that doesn’t stop the electricity sparking back and forth between us. It doesn’t stop the lust lingering in our eyes. It doesn’t stop us from eye-fucking each other, slowing undressing each other with just our imaginations.

  “We should go,” Enzo says, his eyes staring so intensely at me I swear I could come just from his gaze.

  “We should,” I agree.

  Enzo forces his eyes away first, pulling his phone from his pocket to look at the time. “We really need to go. We are supposed to be at the courthouse in five minutes.”

  “Lead the way, hubby.”

  He grins and holds the door open. “After you, wifey.”

  Once we have left the premises of the hotel, Enzo takes my hand when it’s safe enough that we won’t turn around and run back to the hotel to fuck each other’s brains out.

  We stroll hand in hand the three blocks to the courthouse, definitely taking longer than the five minutes we had left for our appointment. But I’m not concerned. Nothing can damper today.

  We walk into the courthouse and into the room where we will be getting married.

  I gasp at the sight.

  It’s covered in red rose petals. The lights have been dimmed, and there are only a couple of candles lighting the end of the aisle.

  I look at Enzo, confused. “You did this?”

  He nods. “I know it’s not the fancy wedding. We will do that later with family and friends. But this is the one I will remember. This is when you become my wife. And I didn’t want our memories to be of a crappy courtroom. I wanted it to be as beautiful as you look.”

  “Thank you,” I say, doing a good job of keeping my tears at bay even though I’m very emotional right now.

  Enzo holds out his elbow to me. I take it and walk down the aisle with him as soft music plays.

  We reach the end, and the judge starts talking about love and what a commitment marriage is. I realize two strangers are standing next to us.

  “Our witnesses,” Enzo whispers into my ear as he takes both of my hands.

  I remember back to our first fake marriage.

  How lucky am I that I get to marry Enzo not once, the fake marriage, not twice, now, but three times, our future ceremony?

  “What?” Enzo asks with a grin. Neither of us is listening to the officiant, much like our first fake marriage.

  “Just thinking about the last time I was marrying you.”

  “I was stupid not to marry you for real then.”

  “No, this is perfect.”

  The officiant turns to Enzo. “Do you Enzo Black, take Kai Miller to be your lawfully wedded wife, for sickness and health, for richer or poorer, til death do you part?”

  Black, Enzo used Black as his last name—not Rinaldi.

  I grin. Happy that he used the name I’ve always known him to be. I’m not sure if Enzo’s legal last name is Black or not. But I have no doubt he has papers—passports, birth certificates, etc. that say his name is Black.

  And I want to be Kai Black, not Kai Rinaldi.

  “I do,” Enzo says.

  “And do you Kai Miller, take Enzo Black to be your lawfully wedded husband, for sickness or health, for richer or poorer, til death do you part?”

  “I do.”

  “You may now exchange rings as tokens of your love and symbols of your marriage.”

  Enzo reaches into his pocket to pull out the box I brought back from the jewelry store. I didn’t let him open it until now. I wanted the rings to be a surprise.

  He thought I was crazy. But he kept to his word.

  He opens the box, and I grab the ring I bought Enzo.

  “With this ring, I’m yours forever. I’m your wife. Your lover. Your savior. Your protector. Mother of your children. Your everything. Forever.”

  I slide the black ring I picked out and had inscribed onto his finger.

  “My heart belongs to stingray,” Enzo reads the inscription with tears in his eyes. “It’s perfect.”

  Then he takes the other ring from the box, the one his mother wore all those years, and takes my left hand.

  “With this ring, I vow to put you and our children first forever. I vow to be a loyal husband worthy of you. I vow to love you all of my days. I promise to protect you from all the evil that comes for us. I promise to never let another man hurt you. I vow to make up for all the mistakes of my past. I vow to be the father our fathers never were. With this ring, I’m your husband, forever.”

  He slides the ring onto my finger. And then I read the inscription that belonged to his mother along with the one I added.

  “My heart belongs to the devil, aka Black.”

  Enzo’s thumb brushes across the black ring as a tear drops down on top of it. I look up and see Enzo’s tears dripping down his face onto our joined hand.

  “Happy tears, I promise,” he says.

  I grin. “The happiest.”

  And just like that, everything else fades. It’s just us. And the need to be joined in our own way outpaces everything else.

  We forget we are standing in a courtroom Enzo decorated for our wedding. We forget two strangers are standing next to us watching us. We forget there is an officiant standing two feet from us.

  It’s just us. The two of us about to be the four of us. Enzo’s lips crash down on mine, cementing our new relationship before the officiant has a chance to say we are man and wife.

  The kiss brings up every emotion I’ve ever felt for this man. Love, passion, desperation, lust, anger, sadness, fear. They all creep up in my veins and explode out in this kiss.

  Both of us kiss like we didn’t just make a declaration of love in front of the world. Instead, this kiss needs to prove our love. And if this is how we prove our love, I want to spend our life proving it over and over again.

  “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the officiant says hurriedly before scurrying off.

  Enzo laughs against my lips. “I think we scared the officiant and witnesses off with your moaning.”

  “I was not moaning.”

  “Really? Then what do you all those cute little sounds you make when I kiss you?”

  He kisses me again, then moves down my neck so my moans can be fully heard.

  “Happiness, I call them happiness.”

  He smirks and devours my lips again. His hand slides through the slit of my dress, and up my thigh. He hooks his thumb in my black panties and starts pulling down.

  A moment of clarity stops me. “Enzo, we can’t! We are in a courthouse.”

  He bites my bottom lip, pulling it roughly into his mouth and I’m goo. I’m putty in his hands. I will fuck him here. I will fuck him in a filthy bathroom. I will fuck him in the park outside where everyone can see. I don’t care.

  He nuzzles his head against my neck. “You were saying?”

  “Fuck me, Black.”

  “I thought you wanted to wait until we got back to the hotel room? I had the room decorated with rose petals, candles, the whole works.”

  I shake my head as surges for desire shoot through me. “I can’t wait.”

  His eyes darken, as he slips a single finger in my panties and press
es against my clit.

  I about come at his single touch.

  He chuckles, his voice deep and heavy. “You can’t wait.”

  “Take me, Black.”

  I hear rustling at the door, and I know someone is about to enter—possibly a guard about to throw us out.

  But I know it won’t stop Enzo. We want each other too badly. Nothing will stop this from happening.

  “Do you trust me?” he asks.

  It’s a question he’s asked me before. But I’ve never trusted him more than I do now.

  “Yes.”

  He gets a devious look in his eyes, and I know I’m in trouble.

  Enzo lifts me up into his arms and kisses me again. “I will never get enough kisses from you, Mrs. Black.”

  I sigh. “I will never get used to you calling me that.”

  “You’ve earned the title, in more ways than one. You're my wife. My partner. You could run the Black organization as well or better than I could.”

  I run my hand across his jaw. “Definitely better,” I tease before nibbling on his bottom lip.

  “You are going to pay for that, wifey.” He slaps my ass as he carries me through a door I didn’t notice at the back of the room.

  We close the door just as I hear a guard enter the room.

  “Anyone in here?” the man shouts in the courtroom. I realize we are in what looks like a tiny office, most likely for the judge.

  I start giggling as I hear the guard continue to shout in the room.

  Enzo puts a finger over my lips, trying to silence me, but it’s not enough.

  “You’re going to get us caught,” Enzo whispers into my ear through my hair.

  My eyes shine because I know that’s not possible today. Today the universe is finally on our side. Today nothing can touch us.

  “Oh really, you are scared of getting caught?” I tease.

  I grab the belt around his waist and undo it. Then I take my time undoing the button and pulling down the zipper.

  I still hear the guard’s footsteps in the other room, but that only emboldens me more. Because I truly think the world is finally on our side. I think I could scream right now and the guard would mistake it for a bird. Nothing can touch me.