Consumed by Truths (Truth or Lies 6)

I sob full on at his words. This can’t be how our story ends. This can’t be the end.

We are supposed to get our happily ever after. We are supposed to get to live. We are supposed to go back to the cottage in New Zealand. Or live in the mansion in Alaska. Or sail the seas on our yacht. Not this…

This can’t be real.

But I know that it is.

“It’s okay. Let go, Kai. I will always be with you. Death can’t separate us.”

Another tear falls, and I know it’s the end. The tear lands on my hands, and I lose everything. My hands slip, and I watch Enzo fall.

Death shouldn’t be peaceful, at least not dying young. But watching Enzo fall felt peaceful. Until he was gone. When the waves swept his body under them, and I could no longer see him. That’s when the peace was taken.

I sob into my hands as I’m completely broken. I can’t think. I can’t breathe. All I can do is cry.

I feel arms around me, but I don’t know whose arms. I’m lost. Enzo was wrong. I can’t survive this. I should have fallen over the cliff with him. I can’t survive to be a mother for our babies, not without him.

“You are strong,” Beckett says, pulling me back.

But I don’t feel strong.

“Enzo loved you. I love you,” he kisses me on the cheek before stepping into the ring.

I hear Archard yell, “Go.” And I finally snap out of my heartbreak enough to realize what is about to happen.

Beckett drops his gun.

“No!” I scream. “Fight back!”

But Enzo and Beckett had a plan, to ensure that I lived. That I would be the victor. That if only one of us survived, it would be me.

Felix smirks, looking at me like I’m next. And then he shoots Beckett in the chest.

He falls instantly to the ground.

I scream, but it comes out of me in slow motion, just like Beckett’s fall to the ground.

Archard snaps his fingers. And men run into the circle, grab Beckett’s body, and drag him away.

Two men I love—dead.

Two men who loved me sacrificed everything for me.

Archard breaks the silence. “The remaining rounds are the same. You will each be given a gun with a single bullet and twenty minutes to fight. If neither of you is successful in killing the other after twenty minutes, we will reset and start again until one of you is the victor.”

I stand from my broken spot on the ground and wipe the tears and snot on the back of my hand. I will not let their deaths be in vain. I will win. I will defeat Felix.

I walk into the circle calmly. Archard loads the two guns and hands one to Felix and one to me.

“It’s going to feel so good when I win. The first thing I’m going to do is hunt down those babies of yours—Finn and Ellie. Beautiful names. Staying with your father, you said?”

I growl.

Felix laughs as he tosses his gun from hand to hand. “That was a lie, Kai.”

I narrow my eyes.

“You thou