Page 17 of Fighting With Light

“Is anyone going to wonder where you are or if you need to check in with them?” I ask her. I checked her texts and calls. There have been a few outbound calls to a Violet, but that’s it. There are also texts from this Violet and one to a Ben. The text between her and Ben made me angry for a minute until I realized he was her security. She texts him in the morning and it’s about one in the morning, so we have time before she sends her check in text.

“Yeah, I text Ben in the morning, but it looks like it’s still dark out so he wouldn’t be concerned at themoment.”

The pull in my chest eases a little. At least she isn’t screaming and fighting me, and for some reason, that makes me sad. I don’t like to compare what I’ve been through to what others have, but something tells me she could understand a lot based on her unique reaction to being tied up and unafraid.Maybe the fear was beaten out of her, too.

“Why are you here, Aelia?”

She stops wiggling and looks me in the eye.

“Is it so hard to believe that a mobster’s daughter needs a vacation?”

I shoot her a look and she sighs, collapsing back into the pillows.

“I’m sure you could see how this—” I gesture between us, “—looks. Me, you, the same off-the-beaten-path resort on a tiny island in Indonesia, the rock climbing. I’m all for coincidences, but this is too good to be true.”

“Yeah,” she mutters. “That’s fair. I don’t know how I’m going to get you to believe me, but I’m here because I want to be.”

“There has to be more than that,” I prod her.

Her heavy gaze rests on me as if she’s trying to make a choice. “You know how I said I don’t like to be home a lot?”

“Yeah?”

“I would rather move from place to place all over this planet than live under the same roof as Marco Costa ever again. I’d rather disappear, change my name, get facial reconstructive surgery than live under him. Does that answer your question?”

My eyes widen and I cough, hiding my surprise. “Yeah, it does. So, you didn’t even know I was here?”

She rolls her eyes and stares up at the ceiling before meeting mine.

“No, I didn’t know Liam Coldwell, youngest of three, son of Esmarie Coldwell, would be here.”

When people lie, they tend to make unnatural eye contact. Their eyes widen too much as if they are trying to force the lie, but their body inevitably gives something away. Some people, after they lie, will be so happy they got you to believe it the corner of their mouth will tip up. Others will respond withapprehension, hoping you took the lie. So either Aelia is a practiced liar, which I wouldn’t put past her, or she’s telling me the truth.

“So youdoknow about me.”

She rolls her pretty green eyes again. “Yes, Liam, I know about you. I just didn’t know what you looked like because I simply didn’t care. What my father does has nothing to do with me.”

I chuckle. “You’re kidding, right? You know how absolutely ridiculous that sounds,” I say, surprised at her…odd sense of responsibility to her family.

“Oh, the irony is not missed on me. I could say the same thing about you, Liam.”

“Okay, fair, but you still need to answer my question.”

She lays there for a moment and it’s like a pop up storm rolls in on the ocean. It was a sunny day, now all the sudden the waves are thrashing, and nasty. The sun is blotted out by the storm clouds and your boat might be flipped by the massive swell coming your way.

She looks at me and her green eyes have gone emerald. “I have no business telling you this, but screw it. I hate my father more than anyone else on this planet. Marco Costa is an evil man. He has caused so many deaths, addictions, and sent people into a life of utter degradation that they wish they were dead. My father makes me sick. I’d love to destroy him and leave him with nothing, then shoot him in the head so he can meet his maker faster because his kind of evil deserves a faster track to the ultimate judge and jury,” she spits.

My mouth drops open with her vitriol.

“Close your mouth. You look like a fish,” she says and lays her head back on the pillow. Her chest moves up and down while she lies there, trying to catch her breath, glaring at the ceiling.

There’s no doubt in my mind that every single word she said was God’s honest truth. She hates her father just as much as I hate mine. Unease, worry, and confusion run through me. This is no typical interrogation, mainly because she’s given me the truth every time she’s opened her mouth. But the real question is, can I trust her? She might be telling the truth, but that doesn’t meanshe won’t run and tell her father what happened, sending him after my familyagain. Blood is thicker than water, right?

“And you’re probably asking yourself why I have done nothing about it.”

I chuckle darkly and run my hand through my hair. “Sorry, but yeah, there are a lot of things you could have done.”

She glares at me and takes a deep breath. Aelia hides her emotions well, but the one thing that betrays her is those eyes. “First of all, you don’t know me. Second, he has my mother, she won’t leave him. I don’t think she could even if she tried. You’re smart enough to know when you are married in the mob, there is no such thing as divorce. Although I’m sure you understand that just as much as me.”