Consumed by Truths (Truth or Lies 6)

Prologue

Kai

I thought death was my greatest enemy.

I thought nothing could be worse.

I thought death was the ultimate end.

I couldn’t be more wrong.

Death isn’t the end.

It isn’t the enemy.

At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

Death isn’t what broke my heart—Enzo did.

He’s broken my heart so many times before.

He’s let me down.

Let me get hurt.

But those times were nothing compared to how I feel now—that pain was nothing.

Because when he broke my heart before, we weren’t in love. We didn’t have a child on the way. We weren’t facing our greatest enemy.

I’m not mad. It’s not Enzo’s fault he couldn’t stay away. It’s not his fault he didn’t know the risks. It’s not his fault he didn’t know why I hid away, pretending to be dead.

But of course, Enzo found me.

How could he not?

We’ve been drawn together from the start. Like two trains on a collision course. We’ve been going full speed toward each other, damn the consequences. Somehow, we’ve managed to avoid the derailment, the explosion, the end. But we can’t avoid it anymore. We can’t stop ourselves from colliding.

We’ve both tried applying the brakes. We’ve tried heading in different directions. But somehow, we always find our way back to the other.

And when we meet, it’s not a gentle embrace; we mix together like fire and ice. And the quake we cause can be felt for miles around.

We aren’t good for each other.

We aren’t good for our baby.

We aren’t good for the company.

We aren’t good for the world.

But that doesn’t stop us.

Nothing can. We can’t stop ourselves.

Both of us have tried to stop loving the other. We’ve pretended to hate each other. We’ve tried living apart. But we can’t. Our attraction to each other is too great.

But I thought this time, we’d remain apart. I thought the illusion of death would separate us. That’s what’s in wedding vows after all: ‘…til death do us part.’

Death is supposed to be the end.

It’s supposed to part us.

But in this case, death didn’t part us. It didn’t end us. Our love is too great for death to get in the way.

Enzo found me.

He found me.

I was dead.

But it didn’t stop him from searching. It didn’t stop him from feeling me everywhere. It didn’t stop him from loving me.

The problem with love like ours is that it is all-consuming.

We can’t think, breathe, or exist without the other.

We need our love to live.

So Enzo didn’t have a choice but to find me. He couldn’t live without me. And I was barely living without him.

He found me.

I should have been ecstatic. Jumping for joy. Floating on a cloud. Feeling all the cheesy metaphors.

My heart should have been whole. Instead, he broke it deeper.

The only thing keeping my heart beating was that I had finally found a way to protect all the people I loved. I was protecting my baby and protecting Enzo.

But then Enzo returned, crashing back into my life, and I knew we would never be the same.

Death isn’t the end. Nothing can keep Enzo and me apart.

But the world is going to wish that death did. That we were truly over and gone. Because Enzo is about to set the globe on fire with our vengeance, and I’m going to turn anyone in our way into ice.

Because even though my heart is breaking, knowing I can’t protect Enzo, it won’t stop me from taking on the world to meld our hearts together. Mine is forever broken without Enzo. And I’ve realized the only way to heal is to put our broken pieces together.

The world may wish I had stayed dead. But the world should have known there is no killing a love like ours.

One of us must die, so the other can live.

The words of my father haunt me.

But I don’t fear them anymore.

Because dying to protect the man I love is exactly how our story should end—not with a happily ever after. Such a thing doesn’t exist in our world. Our love story ends with sacrifice, an epic end.