Page 1 of The Tempo of Truth (The Monsters Duet #3)

Ky

The beer in my hand had long gone warm and flat, but that didn’t stop me from chugging the unpleasant liquid down with an audible gulp as soon as I caught sight of a familiar face in the last place I expected.

I was seven or eight beers in and had chased half of them with a shot of cheap whiskey.

I figured my eyes might have been seeing what I wanted to see rather than what was really in front of me.

I excelled at convincing myself that my reality was much better than it actually was.

It was a skill left over from growing up in poverty and having a hard childhood.

I was a world-class liar and a top-tier con artist. Or at least I was until my true nature was brutally revealed for all to see.

Hardly anyone questioned the bullshit that came out of my mouth on any given day, me included.

I wanted to believe in the falsehoods that spilled from my lips more than anyone could imagine.

I told myself it made perfect sense that the person I wanted with me most on the worst day of my life was suddenly standing in front of me with a distinctly disappointed look on her cherubic face.

I flicked my fingers in the air to signal to the bartender that I wanted another round.

My Portuguese was awful, even though I’d been in Portugal for over a year.

Fortunately, there was a universal language that everyone looking to drown their sorrows and disappear into a bottle spoke.

The drunken and sloppy gestures made getting shitfaced in a foreign country relatively easy.

Another pint of beer arrived in front of me at the same time the chair opposite mine was pulled out and occupied by an absolutely ethereal young woman.

When I last saw Winnie Halliday, we were teenagers from two very different walks of life.

I was an underfunded public-school troublemaker, while she was a privileged, private-school princess.

We had zero in common, and our paths were never meant to cross under normal circumstances.

When they did, both of our lives erupted into chaos.

There were wounds left on us to varying degrees; we parted bloody and broken.

They were the type of injuries that still bled all these years later when poked and prodded.

I was sloppy drunk. Inebriated to the point that the face in front of me and the concerned eyes that I remembered being laced with gold were blurry and different from the ones in my memory.

The Winnie in my fuzzy recollections was a skinny, frail, and shy young woman.

It was obvious to anyone who looked at her that she’d been raised with exceptional privilege and had outstanding opportunities.

Everything about her screamed fragility and breakability.

She was so well insulated by her billionaire family that no one could get close enough to her to cause any lasting damage.

It made people want to harm her just to say they were the only ones who could.

In a family like the Hallidays, one had to be on guard against those closest to them because they were the ones with the most to lose.

Winnie lost her parents to family infighting and nearly lost her life when another branch decided she was better perceived as leverage than as a beloved grandchild.

It made sense that she was no longer someone with wide-eyed innocence and a sheltered demeanor after all she’d survived.

The woman across from me, be she real or a figment of my drunken imagination, no longer seemed so brittle that she would crumble and blow away with a strong breeze.

Her elegant features looked softer on a face that had filled out and become rounded and slightly plump.

Her hair was redder than I remembered. It was bright and vibrant in the dingy pub.

Her hands were clutching a black bag that I was certain was something designer and priced at an amount that would make the average person want to throw up.

I wasn’t exactly destitute anymore, but growing up dirt poor meant I developed a sixth sense for the things in life that were far out of my price range and seemed wasteful.

Even though I’d made a small fortune over the years playing professional football, it would never come close to what Winnie Halliday was worth.

“I thought I saw you in Barcelona last year.” I lifted the pint glass and took a healthy swig.

My words slurred together, but she didn’t seem to notice, or maybe she was beyond caring about my sorry state.

“And I’m sure I caught sight of you in Rome the year before that.

” I squinted and tried to bring her into focus, but I still saw three pretty, frowning faces.

“Call me crazy, but you were also there in Brazil and in Paris the last time I went home to see my mom once she relocated to France. I know the rich have ample leisure time but following me around the world like a lost dog,” I picked the beer up and smirked at the heiress across from me, “is not a good look, Winnie. Unless you’ve been keeping track of me so you can enact your revenge from that night, or you’ve suddenly become an avid football fan, there’s no reason for you to keep tabs on me. ”

“That night,” Winnie leaned on the table.

Her expression was intense, but all I could focus on was the way the neck of her lacy top gaped open and revealed the delicate curve of her collarbone.

She always had a snowy white complexion, but now her creamy skin was dotted with freckles like she’d been spending a lot of time in the sun.

It was probably easier for her to move unnoticed in Europe.

She didn’t have to stay confined to secure buildings and locations while abroad.

“Did you help my grandfather kidnap me, Ky? Did you tell him about the drydock and help him escape on the ferry?”

That was the question.

Was I capable of helping her grandfather, who was an unrepentant schemer and philanderer, organize and arrange a kidnapping that defied multiple levels of law enforcement, and one of the wealthiest families in the world?

Afterall, there was no way Winnie would’ve trusted the old conman unless I encouraged her to give him a chance, despite everyone else in her life warning her to steer clear.

The one that lingered between us. The one thing Winnie’s very rich uncle didn’t bother to ask and instead, paid my mother more money than either of us could imagine to leave the city.

And Winnie. I was never supposed to look back.

Those were questions I never wanted to answer for anyone because it meant whoever was asking believed I had it in me to leverage my budding relationship with the na?ve Winnie into a nearly deadly trap that involved kidnapping and extortion.

I was poor and stubborn, but I’d never thought I gave the impression I was heartless and cruel.

I cared about Winnie, the best I was able at the time.

Clearly my best wasn’t enough, because she still wanted answers to those questions from so long ago.

I’d rather she ask me why I’d been kicked off my current team and banned from playing professionally from this point forward. That felt like it might be an easier conversation to have.

“Do you think I helped that old man kidnap you, Winnie?” I tossed the question back at her, almost instantly forgetting that she blatantly ignored my accusation that she was stalking me around the globe and following my every move.

I’d been playing football at the professional level since I was a teenager.

It was my dream to play for one of the premier football leagues.

With Winnie’s uncle willing to do anything to keep me away from her, it was only a matter of a handshake to get me on the pitch and ensconced on a team that offered me the opportunity to play my way up.

I busted my ass and never complained when I was benched or traded.

I jumped from league to league, traveling from country to country.

I practiced my ass off and tried to make myself unbeatable and unstoppable.

I made a bit of a name for myself, finally started to see results, and just recently got the call that I was getting pulled up to one of the teams in Portugal’s professional league, the Primeira Liga.

I thought that all my dreams were coming true, and all my hustle and heartache were finally worth it.

I should’ve known that guys like me never got what they wished for in the end.

Winnie’s death grip on her bag relaxed, and her expression smoothed out.

“You are excellent at ruining a good thing when you’ve got it, Ky.

I may never know what part you played that night, but I’ve been watching you systematically destroy your biggest love to cover for your mother, so I do believe you could’ve helped him if you thought it was your only option. ”

I couldn’t argue with any of what she said.

I was capable of almost anything if the ends justified the means. Which is what led me to being on the cusp of getting everything I’d ever wanted and royally fucking it up beyond repair.