Taken by Lies (Truth or Lies 1)

“You deserve to feel everything you did to Kai. Too bad I don’t have years to spend torturing you. A few hours will have to do.”

I kick him hard in the stomach. He gasps and wretches. Possibly even vomiting in his mouth.

“I’m sure you kicked Kai when she was down. I’ve seen the bruises and broken ribs.”

I kick three more times for good measure as his body slams against the wall, breaking him free of the chair, but his hands are still trapped behind his back. He stumbles to his feet.

Good, I’ll enjoy the fight more now that he’s standing.

I slam my fist into his jaw over and over in quick succession. His face coloring and swelling before my eyes as blood swells from the cuts.

“Did you punch her like this? Bruising her body repeatedly? Did you enjoy it like I am?”

He twists away, but he has nowhere to escape.

“What about stabbing?”

His eyebrows raise as I pull a knife from my pocket and extend it. He tries to retreat back, but I grab his arm and thrust the sharp blade into his shoulder and twist.

He cries out, but it’s muffled.

“How many times did you stab her? Three, four, five times?” I ask, pulling the knife out before jabbing it back into his other shoulder, extracting more vengeance.

Tears start down his eyes. Stirring more energy in me to continue as I know how many tears he pulled from Kai. Zero. She would never cry in front of this monster. She kept them all buried inside. One day she will explode, and I will curse myself when those tears fall.

“You burned her too?”

I find a lighter on his nightstand and hold the flame to his neck. He screams as the flame sears his skin—music to my ears.

For hours I continue the torture well into the night until I’ve lost track of time. I let the devil live inside me all in the name of getting revenge for the pain Kai lived, but I don’t do it for her. I do it for me. Because the evil inside me needs a life to defeat.

Jarod lays broken on the floor. A mess of blood, tears, and piss.

I lean down close to his ear, knowing he is seconds away from begging for a conclusion. For me to kill him.

“I think we’ve covered everything you did to her, except one. Rape.”

He sobs and closes his eyes in fear.

“Don’t worry; I’m not a sick fuck like you. I won’t rape you.”

I pull the gun from my waistband. “But I am done with you.”

I fire—killing him. And closing the biggest mistake of my life. I let this man hurt Kai, and now I’ve rectified the situation. It won’t matter to Kai. She’ll still think I’m a monster for what I did, and rightfully so. But at least now I took back what was mine.

19

Kai

Enzo’s gone.

He has been. For almost three wee

ks.

He vanished. It’s like he wasn’t even here. I imagined him.

No.