Page 76 of Wicked Lies

“Nooo,” she wailed.

Nick’s mind blanked. The fist of deception squeezing his heart was making it difficult to breathe. Once again she’d played him, and he fell for it. Nothing mattered anymore.

Another bolt of lightning flashed through the apartment, followed by a room-shaking clap of thunder. The lights flickered for a second, and Nick sprung from the side. He grabbed Carlos’s wrist, yanked hard, and drove his foot against the outside of his knee. There was a pop and a grunt of pain as Carlos hunched over and staggered back two steps.

Another boom of thunder rattled through the room, but Nick barely heard it. His focus shrunk to include Carlos and the gun in his hand. In a nanosecond, Nick’s street-fighting days came flooding back—survive and play to win.

They wrestled the gun between them as more flashes of lightening and thunder shook the room. The lights flickered off, a gunshot rang out, and Nick sagged against the weight of Carlos’s body. The .45 hit the stone floor, and the lights flashed on again.

Carlos clenched his gut, pain distorting his face. “I’m sorry, amigo, I’m sorry.” Then he stumbled to the door and fled.

Nick swiped the gun off the floor, his chest heaving, his mind spinning with questions but no answers. Friendship—trust—even the woman who twisted his heart into believing in love didn’t exist.

He staggered to the couch and threw himself onto it, suddenly exhausted.

Cheryl flew to his side. “Are you all right?” She ran her hand over his midsection. “Did you get hit?”

“I’m fine.” Another fuckin’ lie. Nick rested his head against the cushions as his brain frantically tried to make sense of what just happened. He glanced at his phone. Fifteen minutes ago he counted Carlos as a trusted friend and considered a future with Cheryl. Fifteen minutes and everything he thought to be true flipped sideways.

* * *

“I never meantto hurt you. You have to believe me. I didn’t want to lie to you.”

Nick stared at the ceiling, his eyes hooded. “But you did—again.”

“Frank didn’t give me a choice.” Cheryl had to make him understand.

“There’s always a choice.”

“Between you going to jail and ending up dead. I don’t know about you, but I picked jail, and then I couldn’t go through with it. I couldn’t bear to see you hauled away for something you didn’t do.”

“And you could’ve told me all this, and we would’ve figured something out together, but you didn’t.”

“I thought I could fix it somehow. I was afraid of Frank. I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me again and think I was working with him, but worse, I was afraid I’d lose you.”

He raised his head and pierced her with his ebony eyes. “So instead, that’s exactly what you did, lied.”

“I know I screwed up, but I’ve been lying and bending the truth for so many years—it’s always my go-to.” A weak excuse but sadly true.

Nick cocked his head. “Explains a lot.”

She released a slow breath. “So, you understand?”

“Sure, lying to you comes second nature. It’s what you do, but if what we had was real, you would’ve come to me with the truth, but you didn’t.”

“I wanted too. I really did, it was just—”

“You didn’t trust me enough to come clean.”

“No, no, that’s not right.” Her words rushed over each other, but she couldn’t let him think what they shared wasn’t real. “What we have is special for me.”

Nick leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, resting his head in his hands. “I’ll text Samson and have cash put into an account in your name—whatever we owe you for working at the club and a little extra.”

Cheryl stared at him, astonished he thought this would placate her and then realized he was dismissing her. The coldness in his voice reminded her of the first night at the Pit when he talked to Jimmy—removed, uncaring, and devoid of emotion.

“I don’t want your money,” her whispered reply echoed with pain.

Did he have any idea of the depth of her feelings for him? How leaving him would demolish her and strip her bare?

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