Consumed by Truths (Truth or Lies 6)

Because he fucking gave me hope. He dangled the one thing I want more than anything in the world in front of me. And now I don’t know what to do with that.

“Where is she?” I ask, showing no restraint—playing all of my cards at once.

Felix laughs. “Safe. Alive. And mine.”

I shove him hard against the brick wall behind him. “Where. Is. She?”

“Safe, with the man I planted in her life. She has no idea he’s the enemy. No idea the man she’s falling in love with is also the man who will snuff out her life with one phone call from me.”

“Liar.” I slam him against the wall harder. There is no way Kai is falling in love with another man. Not so soon. Not while still pregnant. Not possible.

“Pull out my phone,” Felix says, taunting me.

Don’t listen to him. He’s a liar.

But my hope that Kai is alive overrules any common sense I have when it comes to Felix.

I release him, pull out my gun, and aim it at his head again as I reach into his pocket and pull out his cell phone.

“Look at the text messages from Beckett,” he says.

I open his text messages. And find the messages. Hundreds of messages. All pictures of Kai.

These could be fake. He could have manipulated old photos of Kai to make it look like she’s still alive somewhere else.

But it doesn’t stop my heart from speeding rapidly at the thought that Kai is alive.

She’s alive.

For the first time in weeks, I have hope. I have a reason to live that doesn’t involve killing other people.

“How?” I ask.

“If that is the question you are asking, it’s, as usual, the wrong one. Kai is strong, fearless, and unstoppable. Do you really think she was going to let me kill her with a little explosion? She fought harder for her life, for her child’s life.”

I frown.

“You should have had more faith in her than that. The fact that you believed she was dead so easily is ridiculous.”

He’s right. I should have fought harder for her. I should have searched the end of the earth for her.

I scroll through more pictures of her. Still not fully believing that she is alive, even though I have pictures in my hand. Felix is a liar. This could all be a lie, to torture me with.

But then I see the clearest image out of the bunch. Most of the pictures are blurry or half shots of her taken quickly so that she won’t notice that a picture is being taken. But the last image is the clearest.

It’s a full-on shot of Kai, her belly has doubled in size since the last time I saw her, there is a fresh pain in her eyes, and there is another man with

his hand on her shoulder.

I told Kai when she ran, to really run. To not look back. That I would find her. And she hid in the last place I or anyone else would ever look for her.

But it wasn’t enough, Felix found her. And now I have too.

I will keep her safe.

“So you see, you won’t kill me,” Felix says.

I growl. “You underestimate my need to keep Kai safe.”