Fated Lies (Lies 3)

He narrows his eyes at me.

“So people in my life who might do something like this are Enzo and Kai as retaliation against what I did to Siren if she hasn’t come forward and told them the truth.”

“Why would they kidnap me?” He raises an eyebrow.

“Okay fine, they wouldn’t. Waylon doesn’t have a lot of family that would retaliate for his death, but he does have several loyal employees. Nolan Price, his campaign manager, also used to work at his law office. I’ve always been suspicious of him. There are other men at the law office who were close to Waylon, who didn’t think highly of me: Laurence and Christopher. I don’t know about the enemies my father made, but I’m sure there are plenty. And then, of course, there are the countless strangers who think they have a right to the money my father hid.”

Still such a strange thing to me—my father hid away a mountain of treasure, told me not to find it, and then made public the fact that said money exists. There has to be something I’m missing, something I don’t understand. That or my father is just a cruel, conniving man who wanted to ruin my life.

“What about Maxwell?”

I frown. “Maxwell? My bodyguard? He works for me. He doesn’t know about the money. He didn’t really care about Waylon. Why would he go after us?”

“Just a suspicion. He was more skilled than he let on. He didn’t always use his skills. Instead, he chose to pretend he was just an ordinary bodyguard and didn’t have training. But that man could rival most of the men we hire.”

“Hmm, how did I miss that?”

“Maxwell is an attractive man who is good at manipulating people. It was easy to miss when you spend your time drooling over him.”

“Are you jealous of Max?” I bite my lip as I smile brightly, loving that Langston is jealous of Maxwell.

“Max? My point exactly, you didn’t even call him by his full name. Clearly, you had a soft spot for him, which would make it easy for him to attack us.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re jealous of Max. I love it!”

“I’m not jealous of anyone.” The vein in his forehead bulges.

He’s totally jealous.

“Well, by that logic, Phoenix must have kidnapped us then. She’s good looking, more skilled than you give her credit for, and she even married you so she could get close to you and kidnap you.”

“Leave Phoenix out of it,” Langston growls.

I smirk, happy to have hit a nerve.

“Then who do you think is holding us?” I ask.

He stares off past me as he thinks. For a moment, I think he’s figured it out, but then he sighs. “I can’t think of a specific person off the top of my head, but maybe that isn’t what we need to be focused on. We should be thinking about the traits of th

e person holding us and how to fight back.”

“Hmm, well, what do we know? We know they have a castle with a tower.”

“We’re deep in a forest.”

“How do you know that?”

“The smell of pine.”

I take a deep breath, and sure enough, I smell the pine. How did I miss that before?

I nod. “Okay, so we are in the forest or mountains somewhere, but not somewhere too cold.”

“We know the man likes to hide his identity from us, so either we know the person or they’re afraid we will eventually escape and don’t want us to know who they are.”

“That makes sense. We also know that they are trying to get information from us, which is why they keep drugging and torturing us. But they don’t want us to remember the torture or their identity, hence the drugging.”

“We can assume they are after the money or treasure or whatever your father left for you. Am I right?” Langston looks at me like he thinks I might be hiding something from him. I am, just like he is, but not about this.