Page 3 of Deceptive Lies

No idea who these men were or what they wanted, and they didn't seem inclined to offer any answers. From his spot in theliving room, Cooper could see that the front door had been rammed off its hinges, that must have been the boom that woke him. These men in his home all had weapons and given that he didn't hear the sound of sirens and knew that the attack on his house must have been loud enough for some of the neighbors to hear, he had to wonder if maybe the men in blackwerethe cops.

But why would the cops break into his house?

And where was his mom?

It was Jax’s gasp that had his head snapping up. His stepbrother was looking toward the top of the stairs, and the look on his face told Cooper that whatever Jax was looking at, he wasn't going to like.

He didn't want to look.

Yet he had no choice.

His head turned of its own accord.

There, at the top of the staircase were his mom and stepdad.

Both were in handcuffs, both had blood on their faces and fresh bruises already forming.

Just like that his world changed forever.

Cassandra, Cole, and Jax all began to cry. Cade and Jake began to shout angrily at the men who had turned their world upside down while he and Connor stood there in shock.

“Mommy,” Cassandra wailed. “I want my mommy! Mommy! Mommy!”

Cooper woke with a start, his baby sister’s screams from that night eighteen years ago still echoing in his ears with as much clarity as they had when he and his siblings had been forced to watch as their parents were dragged down the stairs and thrown into the back of a van.

They hadn't been allowed to say goodbye.

There had been no last kiss, no last hug, and no last exchange of I love yous.

That was the last time he’d ever laid eyes on his mother. A couple of days later, his family was informed that his mom and Jake and Jax’s dad had both committed suicide in their cells.

The charges that put them there—treason.

A crime neither he, his siblings, nor his step-siblings believed.

He was now sitting on a plane on his way to Egypt to hopefully finally prove his mother and her husband were innocent of that crime.

July 9th

11:32 P.M.

How was she supposed to sleep when her entire body ached and throbbed?

Willow Purcell groaned as she shifted slightly on the thin mattress she’d been given to sleep on. A mattress that did one step away from nothing to protect her from the hard stone floor of her underground cell.

It was so dark in there that it was impossible to see her hand even when she held it directly in front of her face. And that was after being locked in there for hours.

Every day for almost two weeks it had been the same thing.

Beatings.

Torture.

Starvation.

She did her best to keep a record of the passing of the days the only way she could, by gouging another mark into the floor of her cell with the end of the chain keeping her bound to the floor.

Twelve marks.

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