Page 51 of Beautiful Liar

“Just what? Just trust you? Just let you keep your lies while you yanked me of mine?”

He kissed me and for a fleeting second I wanted to submit. Me. Submission meant getting stabbed in the back. Literally. I shoved him away. He released me, tears brimming in his eyes. “After the games. I promise,” he said. “I’ll tell you everything after we get back.”

I didn’t see the lie in his eyes. But neither did I sense the complete truth. “Nothing after the games will matter, will it?”

His chest rose and fell as he tried to control his breathing. He cupped his mouth, lowered his hands, ran them across his thighs. “No. Maybe not.”

“So tell me now.”

I saw the war in his eyes. The indecision. The love, if I could call it that. But he took another step away from me and shook his head.

I turned my back on him and for a heartbeat, I thought he’d stop me. He didn’t. I walked into the bathroom and closed the door. The barrier between us too much and not enough. I heard him on the other side, sobbing.

Why? What was he hiding that he couldn’t tell me? I thought of all the fucked up truths I’d told him. The way I had meant to kill my own family before I realized the kind of people they were, what Cillian had done to me. Tomás knew everything about me, and he couldn’t trust me with his own shit.

I pounded a fist to the door. Then another. Then another. I heard an abrupt silence beyond then the door knocked against the frame as if he’d used it to slide to the floor. Another knock as if he tapped it with the back of his head.

“Kieran,” he said.

I placed my palm on the door as if I could feel him on the other side.

“I promise. If … after … I’ll tell you everything. Even if you don’t stay. Even if you don’t want me. Please. Just give me this.”

I couldn’t respond. I locked the door and turned on the shower.

Chapter Twenty-One

Tomás

I’d lost my fucking mind.

I had forced Kieran to tell me he loved me, and he did one better. Love wasn’t enough. The word was not enough.

And I couldn’t hold on to it. I couldn’t fix us because there was too much wrong in me. Not Kieran. Kieran was perfect. He deserved perfect.

And he finally realized that. I saw it in his eyes. He wouldn’t settle for the guy who kept lying to him. He’d spent his whole life lying to those he loved. I knew that. I should’ve known that my lies would weigh too much on his already tired soul. I had no choice but to play Luca’s game. If Kieran was right and Alessandro knew about us, about Cillian, he’d have every reason to have us murdered. Or … what did he want fromme?

Kieran had locked the bathroom door and ran the shower.

End of discussion.

The collar lay on the floor, discarded. An omen of what waited for me. Enzo was Alessandro Mancini who was Wren’s father who Wren believed killed his mother. I should’ve been planning my escape from Arcadia. Fuck the lockdown. Fuck the funeral games. If I wanted to get out of here, I was sure I’d find a way even if I had to travel by foot through the damn mountains into Canada. And die there because I wasn’t a fucking survivalist. My playground was the city, not here.

I don’t know why I picked up the collar on my way out. I should’ve left it there. Trashed it. I stuck it inside my hoodie pocket instead. I threw the hood over my head, ignored everyone in the living room and walked out.

The evening sky was already dusted in pinks and grays. A few students lingered throughout the path. The energy ripe with tension. Arcadia no longer the sanctuary it led everyone tobelieve it was. Blood would be spilled.

And I couldn’t run from it. No one could.

I turned down the path and caught sight of Ashton and his buddies hanging off the porch of one of the houses. Not theirs. They were waiting for me. I walked and they followed.

Fuck it. I wasn’t running.

I turned and Ashton met me face to face. He hadn’t been this much of an asshole when I first met him. The bodies behind him gave him the courage he needed to realize he was truly a fucking asshole.

“What?”

“Join us.”

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