Vicious Lies (Lies 1)

I end the call. Kai is going to keep to her word and call me every day this week. And then again the next week. There is no stopping her once she gets going. She’s the boss for a reason. Her orders are followed, no exception.

I don’t have a clue how to get out of this.

I walk back into the bathroom and look at the words again—five more days.

The words have started to fade, and soon they won’t exist at all. Then I’ll be second-guessing myself, thinking I made it up.

Five.

More.

Days.

What will Langston demand of me then?

I have an idea—and I suspect I just found out my excuse for why I can’t go on the girl’s trip. I’m with Langston—that would shut Kai up. She wouldn’t dare interfere if she thought there was a chance that Langston and I could get together. She knows nothing about my life here. She doesn’t know about Waylon.

Langston has a plan to extract a debt from me in five days.

I smirk as I drop the towel, knowing that Langston is watching.

I’m not going to wait five days. I’m done waiting, and I’m done playing by his rules. This is going to end much sooner than five days.

10

Langston

Liesel thinks she’s going to win.

Not this time.

We’ve been fighting since we were kids. Fighting an invisible war with each other—one that was never spoken about. One that neither of us knew the terms, rules, or even what we would win. We just knew that we had to win.

Since we were five, we’ve been fighting, hurting, deceiving one another.

Why?

Because hurt people, hurt people. And we’ve been damaged more in our youth than any of our friends could imagine.

Our battles didn’t always involve hurting one another. Although, that was the majority of what happened.

We were enemies—usually fighting and angry at each other. Liesel was chasing my best friend, Enzo, and I thought she was annoying. So I would tease her, piss her off. That’s how our relationship started.

Later as we grew into horny teenagers, the lust started. The attraction grew, but I was beneath her. She was after Enzo, the man with power, not me—his side-kick.

The lust turned to sexual frustration and then serious feelings we both had no right to feel, which just pissed us both off more. We both knew from a very young age that we

could never ever be together.

If we could have escaped each other, if we could have never met, we would have. As much as we needed to stay apart, the world kept pushing us back together over and over again.

Things have changed.

We can’t keep living our lives like this. We can’t keep battling forever. This war has to end. This is the start of our end.

It’s not going to be easy for either of us, but it’s necessary.

We’ve both been holding onto secrets for too long, since I ripped half of that envelope out of her hand—it’s time.