Stolen Lies (Truths and Lies 2)

Prickly tears of defeat burn in my eyes as my heart rate races.

I don’t want to give up. I’m not ready to give up.

When my gaze flits back over to my little girl, my eyes land on the gun in the center console, and my thoughts go to Kostas. He wouldn’t even hesitate. If he were in my shoes right now, he would kill this asshole. It’s me and Zoe or him. And I’m choosing me and Zoe.

I can do this.

I am Talia Demetriou, wife of a fucking mob boss.

I pull over on the side of the road and get out, not wanting him to make it over to where my daughter is. I flip the safety off and wait for him to exit the vehicle. And when he does, I’m momentarily stunned. Estevan Galani. The man my husband shot in the dick. Of course Aris would hire a damn enemy to guard his house. Those two roaches deserve each other. At least one of them is about to be exterminated. Kostas can deal with Aris.

Pointing the gun right at him, I pull the trigger.

Pop!

The gunshot echoes loudly, making my ears ring and Zoe scream. He stumbles back, but doesn’t fall. Fucking damn roach. Crimson swells where I clipped his shoulder.

“You bitch!” he growls, pulling his own gun out.

Before he has a chance to hurt either one of us, I pull the trigger again and again and again. Until he hits the ground. I stare in shock at the bullet holes littering his chest.

I shot him.

I fucking shot him.

My hands are shaking, and my body is numb. I just killed a man. One who would’ve done the same to me, I remind myself. As I turn around to run back to my vehicle, I run right into a hard wall. No, not a wall…

“That wasn’t very smart,” Aris says.

I lift the gun to shoot him, but before I can, he snatches it out of my hand.

“Get your daughter from the vehicle, now,” he barks, “and get your ass in my car.”

My eyes dart around me, wondering if there’s any way I can still escape. There are woods on both sides, but there’s no way I’ll make it to grab Zoe and run without Aris stopping me.

As if reading my thoughts, he snarls, “Don’t even think about it. Get your fucking ass in the car.”

We walk a few feet, when I hear a moaning sound. That asshole is seriously not dead?

Aris hits me with a hard glare, then stalks over to him. With the same gun I used, he points it at Estevan’s forehead and shoots. His brains explode, and I lose everything in my stomach.

Everything’s a blur as I pull Zoe from the seat and clutch her to my chest. I can feel the tears falling, but I’m numb to them. I sit in the front seat of Aris’s Porsche and inhale my sweet baby’s hair.

Please don’t hurt us.

Please don’t hurt us.

Zoe is no longer crying now that I’m soothing her, and she babbles to Aris when he falls into the front seat. He says something to her before peeling out and taking us back in the direction we came. When we get back to the house, Selene is sitting on the couch with an icepack pressed to the side of her head.

“You fucking bitch!” she hisses.

“Enough!” Aris booms. “I have to go clean up the fucking mess you made,” he says to me. “And since you can’t play nice with Selene, and I can’t risk you trying to escape, you can now consider yourself a prisoner.”

“Oh, now I can?” I scoff. “I’ve been your damn prisoner for the last year.”

Aris smirks wickedly. “No, Talia, you were my guest. Now, you’re about to see what it means to be my prisoner.” He forces me into my room and I set Zoe in her crib, so I can deal with him, but when I turn around, the door is slammed shut and it’s locked from the outside. Motherfucker! I race through the bathroom to see if that door is unlocked, but as I twist the knob, the lock clicks in place. He locked me inside! With a hopeless sigh, I slide down the door and press my head against the wood. This was it. This was my one chance. And it’s gone. And now we’re worse off than before.

Zoe’s babbling has me standing and going to her. Lifting her out of her crib, I bring her over to my bed and lay her next to me. Holding her tight, I stroke her soft black hair until her eyes flutter closed and she falls asleep, and then I let myself fall asleep as well.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

My eyes shoot back open.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Is someone knocking on the door? Nobody ever knocks on the door. Carefully edging off the bed, so I don’t wake Zoe, I go to the window to see who’s there. I can’t see the front door, but I can see part of the driveway.