Page 18 of Pretty Lies & Ugly Truths

“Beach house?”

“Yes. I own close to a hundred acres of secluded land with beach front access. This house has a top-of-the-line security system, so no one will be able to get to you. I promise, you’ll be safe here,” I tell her, hoping to alleviate some of her worries, but if anything, it seems to have the opposite effect.

She leans closer to the door and further away from me, and it’s then I realize she’s not scared of someone else coming after her: she is afraid of me.

Good. She should be afraid, just not in the way she is probably thinking. I will never hurt her. I would sooner peel the flesh from my own bones before I would ever lay a hand on her—but that’s not to say she won’t get hurtbecauseof me.

“Breathe,” I remind her, turning so I face her dead on, “No one is going to hurt you—and that includes me. You hear me?” After a few seconds, she nods, and I open my car door, pausing before I get out to look back at her one more time.

“Oh, and Maggie—don’t even think about running. There is nothing around for miles but the ocean and marsh lands. Although I have no intentions of harming you, the alligators might have other ideas.”

Fear flashes in her eyes, and her loud gulp can beheard over the sounds of the cicadas dancing in the night air outside. “And while I enjoy a good hunt, if Iwereto chase you down, it wouldn’t be to track you through the swamp. It would be for something much morepleasurable,” I tell her, my eyes dropping down to where the neckline of her dress dips low enough to give a hint at her delicious cleavage, “for both of us.”

Her mouth falls open, and I watch as a delicate flush creeps up over chest and neck, all the way onto the round apples of her cheeks. My cock twitches, and I suppress a groan, quickly slamming the door on those thoughts, both figuratively and literally.

It’s as I’m grabbing her bag from the back, trying to push any lingering inappropriate thoughts of Maggie to the back of my mind, that I begin to question—what in the hell I was thinking, bringing temptation straight to my fucking doorstep?

After showingMaggie to the guest room, I check in with Jayce to make sure our captive is still behaving himself.

“What?” he grumbles into the phone in leu of a proper greeting.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, sure, if by okay, you mean I now have one of the enforcers for the Irish fucking mob chained up in the marina. Then yeah, everything is just fucking peachy,” he answers, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“What the hell is going on, Archer? I did everything you asked of me. Now, I think you owe me a full explanation. I thought we were done with this shit. What happened to a fresh start and all that?”

“That was all your inspirational bullshit,” I remind him. I didn’t come here for a fresh start. I came here to be alone. There is no starting fresh for me, not with all the blood on my hands. People like me don’t get to just start over and live happily ever after or whatever other bullshit they spout in the movies.

Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t care less about all the men I’ve hunted. Most of them were murderers, rapists, pedophiles…you name it.

No. They were nothing but a bunch of lowlifes and scum. I have no regrets. Those men got exactly what they deserved. But when my baby sister paid the ultimate price for my sins—well, there’s no coming back from that.

After Cecelia died, I was blinded by hatred. I sought my revenge on those responsible for her murder—all but one,my conscience reminds me. Maggie took care of him, though…but at what cost?

In the end, it didn’t matter. Nothing made the pain go away. It didn’t matter how many men I slaughtered, nothing could erase my guilt.

Consumed by grief and determined to outrun it, I took off like a thief in the night, making sure to cover my tracks along the way. I had no plan, no idea where I was going. I just kept driving until I found myself face to face with the turbulent waters of the Atlantic and thought this was as good a place as any to finish out my days.

When I bought this run-down cottage, my plan was to drink myself into oblivion, to numb the pain and wait for my demons to overtake me.

Jayce, he wasn’t having that shit, though. He enlisted Beck’s help, and together they managed to track me down, found me in the middle of the day, passed out in a puddle of my own vomit. Looking back now, I can admit it was not one of my finest moments. At the rate I was going, had they not shown up when they did, I wouldn’t have lasted another month.

I was angry with Jayce when he forced me back into sobriety, not wanting to face the reality of the damage I caused our family, but he never gave up on me, and for some strange reason, he has never once blamed me.

I know that the only reason I’m alive right now is because of his stubborn ass, and I owe him my life. It’s only for him that I keep going.

“You’re right. I do owe you an explanation, and I promise I’ll give you one. Give me twenty minutes, and I’ll meet you at the dock.”

Hanging up, I pull up the surveillance footage for the cameras I have installed in every room, clicking on the one for the guest room. A smile plays across my lips and a low chuckle escapes when I see Maggie has barricaded herself in by pushing the white oak dresser up against the door. It’s cute that she thinks that would actually stop me if I wanted to get to her, but I commend her effort. She is smart and resourceful, and I like that.

She is now laying on her side with her eyes closed. She looks so small and fragile curled up in the center ofthat king-sized bed, and even though I have seen firsthand that she is perfectly capable of defending herself, the thought of anyone hurting her re-ignites a fire in my blood.

Closing the screen, I lock up the house and drive down a partially obscured road leading to a long dock, where I see Jayce is already waiting on me.

I tell him everything I have learned so far, including the connection between Maggie to the murder he cleaned up for me a few weeks earlier. I hold back on telling him about her currently staying with me. For some reason, I can’t explain, I don’t want him to know.

Once I am finished, he asks me, “So you think this girl is somehow connected to the Irish mob?” I agree, it sounds crazy to me too, but there are too many coincidences not to consider it a real possibility.

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