Stolen by Truths (Truth or Lies 4)

Liesel’s eyes flick back and forth between us in a disappointing scowl. “Why?”

“Because Enzo is gone, and we can’t get him back. We tried. Wherever Milo took him, we can’t get to him. There is nothing we can do. Except for fucking drinking and hoping we die before the pain consumes us,” I yell.

The room is silent—for a second.

And then Liesel blocks my sunlight with her curvy body. The look on her face says I’m as dead to her as she is to me.

“And what would Enzo do if the roles were reversed?” she asks, her voice short.

I can’t look at her.

“That’s right, he wouldn’t sulk. He would spend every second of every day trying to save you,” she says.

“We tried! I’m not strong enough to save him.” My tears threaten again. I thought my tears were done after the first week when I cried until my eyes burned and I couldn’t force any more tears out. But apparently, my tears were just hiding somewhere because they are back in full force.

“Maybe you aren’t strong enough,” Liesel says, not holding her words back.

Langs

ton growls.

“You don’t get to be pissed off at me; I’m the only one still sober enough to try and fight to get the man we all love back.” Liesel stomps to the bathroom, and I hear the sound of water running. Then she returns to me. She looks at Langston. “Get her ass off the bed and into the shower. Don’t worry, I made it cold so your precious skin can handle it.” She looks at me then back to Langston. “You shower after her, you reek.”

Liesel starts stomping to the door, not waiting for us to follow her orders. I don’t know how she’s functioning. She lost the man she loves, too. I guess because she’s lost Enzo so many times. She lost him the moment he told her he couldn’t love her, and she’s had years to deal with it. I told him I loved him, and he didn’t say it back, somehow that makes everything worse.

“I thought you were stronger than me. I thought you might be the one to break through to him. The one he could actually save because you would be strong enough to save him back,” Liesel says sadly from the door. “But I was wrong. You don’t deserve a man like Enzo.”

And then she’s gone.

I look over at Langston who looks as hurt as I feel.

Liesel is right. I don’t deserve Enzo. I’m not strong enough. I’m not worthy. But that doesn’t mean I get to drink my life away.

Langston doesn’t get to either.

None of us are strong enough on our own. But maybe the three of us together are strong enough to find a way out of this. As much as none of us are worthy of his love or protection—Enzo is worth it. He deserves to be saved.

4

Enzo

Milo Wallace can’t kill me. At least not until the games are over.

And I don’t know if that makes me feel relieved or horrified.

I can’t die.

I can’t be killed.

But that doesn’t mean death isn’t my eventual fate.

As soon as the Black empire is legally Wallace’s, I’ll end up with a bullet between my eyes.

But that is months, possibly years, from now.

Right now, I’d kill for a bullet to end my misery.

I’ve been separated from Kai Miller for three minutes and thirty-five seconds. I’ve counted every single one of them. And every single second hurts.