Page 159 of Unspoken Lies

“Jared?” she whispers, her eyes fluttering over her skin.

“It’s me. Your step-father went to get you something for your pain. We need to stop meeting like this, wife,” I say half heartedly, enjoying the way she smiles.

“Being a punching bag sucks,” she groans. “It hurts.”

“I’m sorry,” I murmur. “I’m going to stay with you tonight, make sure everything bad stays away.”

Rachelle looks super out of it, and I grab her hand to try to get her to focus on me.

“Where else would you be?” she asks weakly. Her voice is a breathy whisper, as if she still has one foot back in a dream land.

“Nowhere else,” I promise, though I know I’m going to need to go back to Portland as soon as the Council grants me a meeting.

This all needs to end. The bet that led us here needs to become obsolete and deemed paid. Rachelle is a girl with her entire life ahead of her, and having this hanging over her head isn’t fair.

I’ll pay the debt with blackmail, deceit, and lies. Anything to keep her for ourselves.

RACHELLE

There are tears on my lashes when I fully wake up. I’ve been in and out of sleep, the pain medication putting me under as well as a sleeping pill would. Somehow, I must have been dreaming fucked up things that caused me to cry.

Due to having a possible concussion, someone wakes me up at odd hours, keeping me as alert as possible before I drift off again. My sleep hasn’t been the most restful.

“You’re up,” Liliana’s relief-filled voice says.

Smiling weakly, I nod. Theo, Nacio, and Elijah are sitting around her, but my eyes look for Jared. It’s greedy to want them all, I know it is.

I can’t help it. My heart flip flops as I allow myself to understand that I care about them all. I love them, and I need them. Somehow, they found their way underneath and around my walls.

“Where’s Jared?” I ask, my voice wispy and weak. I hate feeling like this, rung out and beaten up. At least the fucker is dead. Liliana, Ignacio, and Mr. Cruz dropped him in a barrel of acid and nailed the top shut.

Christian Rodriguez will never hurt anyone, ever again. They’ve fed me tidbits of information whenever they had to wake me up, keeping me in the loop.

“He had to go,” Liliana says gently as I shake my head in confusion.

I don’t understand. He said there was nowhere else he’d want to be.

“Where?” I ask, coughing from emotion and lack of water. My voice sometimes will stop working when I’m really upset, and it’ll just crack and sound really hoarse. I hate the way it exposes me..

Elijah grabs a large cup with a straw and walks it over to me. Moving it so I can drink while laying prone, he watches me carefully. Taking a sip, I glare at him.

“I dislike being managed,” I growl.

“Fuck,” Nacio mutters. “That’s not what we’re doing,querida. I swear, I would never. He went to Portland with my dad. He’s on his way to a meeting with the Kings Society.”

“What meeting?” I ask, my eyes darting around the room as Elijah steps away with the cup. The water was cool and soothed my throat, but I can’t get distracted. Even if it makes me seem ungrateful.

I want to know what’s going on.

Getting my arm underneath me to prop myself up, I forget for a moment that it’s all cut up. Cursing as my muscles collapseunderneath me, I begin to cry. I feel like complete shit and he left me.

“He didn’t leave you, Kitten,” Theo says, rushing over to kneel by me.

Shit, now I’m talking to myself.

“Stop frowning,” he adds. “Now let me help you sit up before you hurt yourself.”

Pulling my body up until I’m sitting upright, he fixes my pillows. The IV is no longer in my vein, taken out after the second bag of fluids. Sighing, I look down at my arms that are covered with bandages.