Deceiving Lies

  The depth of his apology had my mind traveling down a path I hadn’t once considered since being taken, and I gasped loudly before I could cover my mouth. “Is he okay? Kash, is he okay? You didn’t hurt him, did you?”

  “We aren’t touching him. He’s . . . safe.” The confusion on my face must have prompted him to continue. “I doubt he’s fine because you’re gone, but as long as you’re here, he’s safe. We aren’t going to physically do anything to him.”

  “And—and me?”

  He’d started to bend down to the food again, but his dark eyes flashed back to mine at my question. “I’ll never hurt you.”

  I hadn’t spoken in well over a week, but now that I was talking to Taylor, it was like I couldn’t stop. Even though my throat screamed in protest from lack of use, I straightened out my legs and sat the journal down next to me as I leaned forward on the mattress. “If you don’t want to be a part of this, why are you? Why would you do something like this?”

  Taylor continued to grab the food and one of the drinks before walking over to me.

  “Do you need money? Do I know you? Do you know Kash? Are you involved in drugs, or a gang, or something?”

  “I’m not going to tell you anything, so stop asking questions.”

  I wanted answers. But when he sat down in front of the door and popped a straw in his own drink, I knew he was done answering; but I was thankful for the little he had told me. Minutes passed before he prompted me to eat, and I finally looked through the bags full of enough food to feed Kash and Mase. I’d spent enough time crying over being taken from them, but something about staring at all that food had tears welling up again; and I suddenly had the ridiculous cravings for pancakes, my fiancé, and that big bear of a guy.

  “I can’t eat all this,” I whispered, and looked helplessly up at Taylor.

  “Whatever you don’t eat is mine, I haven’t eaten yet.”

  Taking two burritos out of one of the bags, I set the bags down in front of the mattress and curled back up against the wall with my soda and food.

  Taylor watched me eat in silence, and it wasn’t until I was done and minutes had passed without me grabbing for the bags, that he leaned forward and snatched them up and inhaled the rest of the food. We didn’t speak again for hours, but I wasted my time painting my nails and toenails, and writing in my journal.

  Only this time I wasn’t just writing to my parents, I was writing to Kash too. He wasn’t gone, but I was. And despite the honesty in Taylor’s words about not hurting me, that didn’t mean one of the others wouldn’t. So the question was the same as it had been in those first unnumbered days, I didn’t know when I would see him again . . . or if I would.

  Sometime after I’d stopped writing, he stood and grabbed all the trash from lunch earlier, and headed to the door to get what had to be dinner.

  “Don’t go to sleep.”

  I spoke quickly when he grabbed the handle of the door, and like he did earlier, his eyes looked shocked when he turned to look at me. “Why do you only leave me alone when I’m awake? Shouldn’t you leave when I’m asleep? It just doesn’t make sense that you’re here all the time, and when you do leave, you tell me not to go to sleep. Aren’t you worried I’m going to try to escape again?”

  Those dark eyes of his filled with something that had fear sliding through my body, and there was no need for him to say the words out loud. The warning of what would happen if I did escape was clear. “I don’t leave this room when you’re sleeping because you’re vulnerable. If I leave you when you’re awake, then you can scream if something happens, and I’ll hear you.”

  “If something happens?” I swallowed hard and blinked rapidly as I tried to understand this new look on Taylor. “Like what?”

  He chewed on his bottom lip for a second before answering. “Let’s just say, if someone other than me walks through that door, scream immediately. Don’t wait for something to happen. It’s not a matter of if something will happen to you, it’s just a matter of how long they’ll wait until they start trying to get in here.” At my audible inhale, he nodded once and repeated, “Don’t go to sleep.”

  I didn’t.

  Not long after, he was back with two plates of spaghetti, and for the second time since I’d been there, he ate with me. Taylor was always watching me, I guess probably because it gave him something to do in this room, so I was used to his eyes on me. But the way his eyes kept drifting over to me while we ate was freaking me out. When we were finished, he picked up the plates and stood, waiting for me to follow.

  “Grab the bags for your shower.”

  I took the bags that held everything I would need, including new clothes, and followed behind him as he opened the door. I held onto the back of his shirt when he prompted me to, and stuck closer to him than I normally did as we walked down the halls to the kitchen, and then the bathroom; and I cringed even more into him when we would pass the other men who were in the building with us. After his warning earlier, I would have rather not left my room again, but it didn’t have a bathroom.

  Once I was done relieving myself, I didn’t even stop to think about Taylor being in the same room. I never did anymore. I stripped out of my clothes and folded them into a pile on the floor before stepping into the large shower with my new shampoo, conditioner, razor, and soap. It felt so good to shave that I wanted to stand in the shower and continue letting the water pour over me once I was done. But something about knowing there were clean clothes to put on, and a toothbrush to use, had me shutting the water off and hurrying to grab the towel to dry myself.

  My eyes shot over toward the counter, and lying on top was one of the shirts, boxer-briefs, the deodorant, both brushes, and toothpaste. I sent a glare to Taylor’s back, and he must have felt the tension fill the bathroom because he shifted his weight and looked down.

  “I didn’t look toward the shower. I was just making it easier for when you got out, you never opened the packs of clothes and they still had stickers on them.”

  Oh, well . . . “Thanks.”

  I put the deodorant on before slipping into the clothes that swallowed me whole. Someone needed to give Taylor a lesson in buying women’s clothes. At least the boxer-briefs had the elastic band, but I still needed to roll them a few times so it wouldn’t feel like they were about to fall down. The hem of the shirt touched midthigh and covered the briefs, but I had to stop looking at myself in the mirror because it just reminded me of when I wore Kash’s clothes to bed.

  A deep ache filled my chest and I forced tears back as I reached for the hairbrush and spent minutes getting all the tangles out from however long I’d been here. After searching the bags and finding the hair rubber bands, I braided my hair low and off to the side, and finally, finally, grabbed the toothbrush and toothpaste.

  I had thoroughly brushed my teeth three times and was reaching for the paste for the fourth time when Taylor’s hand caught my wrist to stop me. His expression was somewhat amused, but there was a hint of the apologetic look I’d seen this afternoon.

  “It will still be here tomorrow. Three is enough.”

  The hand that was holding the toothbrush fell dejectedly to the counter, but I knew he was right. I went about rinsing off the brush and my mouth before turning to look at him.

  “What do I do with the soap and everything in the shower?”

  “Leave it in there.”

  “But, won’t someone take it? Or touch it, or something?”

  He shook his head and put the rest of the new clothes in one bag before grabbing my old clothes and shoving them in another and tying it off. “This is my bathroom. If you’re not in it, they don’t have a reason to come in here.”

  “Oh. Wait, this is your bathroom? So there are others? This is a house?”

  “Somewhat.”

  I waited for him to expand on his response, but when he didn’t, I followed him out of the bathroom and through a door to a bedroom filled with various workout machines and a bed that made my body yea
rn for it. I followed him inside and watched as he put the towel and bag with my old clothes down a chute, and when he saw me standing behind him, he gestured toward the rest of the room.

  “This is my room.”

  “Why don’t you sleep in here?” Better yet, why can’t I sleep in here? The mattress I’m on is thin and old as dirt. And at least in here there’s carpet instead of a concrete slab for him to sit on.

  He looked at me but never responded. His dark eyes moved quickly back and forth as they searched my face. Ever since he’d come back with dinner, he’d been looking at me like he was making sure I was still there, or still okay. I didn’t understand it, and just as I was about to ask about the change in the last half hour, he breathed out deeply and turned to go back to my room.

  When I was back on my mattress, he turned off the light and I waited for the minutes to pass by until I could make out his form on the floor in front of the door.

  “You never answered my question.”

  “Which one?” he asked, his tone teasing.

  I rolled my eyes though I doubted he could see the action in the dark. “When I brought up your room. You know you don’t have to stay in here with me; I really won’t try to leave again. You should be able to sleep in your own bed.”

  After a minute he finally answered. His tone was dark again, and the way his eyes had looked earlier flashed through my mind. “I do need to stay in here with you. It’s not you I don’t trust; it’s them. At least I can lock you in here well enough that it would be extremely difficult for them to get to you when I’m gone.”

  A chill shot down my spine at the thought of someone else coming in here; and confusion set in as I realized that, once again, I was thankful for Taylor. I didn’t want to feel thankful to him for anything, and I didn’t like that I felt indebted to him for what he’d done for me. Because despite his protection, he was still the one who had taken me from my house and was keeping me from getting out of here. I needed to remember that.

  Instead of trying to continue the conversation, I pulled my knees up to my chest and shut my eyes. But even as I waited for sleep to come, I couldn’t help but acknowledge that for now, at least, I was safe—and as long as Taylor was in this room, nothing bad would happen to me.

  Taylor

  MY HEAD HIT THE WALL BEHIND ME when I heard her breathing even out. Scrubbing my hands over my face, I bit back a groan and tried to get the images from earlier out of my mind.

  I could see her¸ so I knew she was okay. But, Jesus Christ, the way Marco had used Photoshop to make those images always looked so fucking real. Going so far as to take pictures of her hands when we’d had her knocked out and making it seem like we’d severed her fingers. Taking the recordings of her screams from when we’d taken her and those first couple days she was awake here, and playing them out masterfully so it sounded like she was being tortured when they called into the police department. And I didn’t even want to think about how they got all that hair that looked the exact shade of hers for the package they were sending tomorrow. Jaime had taken some of her personal things before we began trashing the room, and along with the hair matted in unknown blood, the earrings that had been on her nightstand were also spotted with blood and would be in the same box. If another two days went by without any progress, the detectives were getting the video.

  In the twelve days since I’d brought her here, I’d spent practically every moment watching her like a hawk. I could pick her out in a crowd of thousands of people, if I were an artist, I could sketch her features from memory. Even so, I was having an impossible time making myself understand that whoever that girl was in the video, wasn’t the girl in front of me now. Again, where had they found the video? I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to. It was fucking sick.

  She’s safe, I kept repeating to myself. But for how long? If she tried to escape again and one of them got ahold of her, I didn’t know if they would listen to Romero’s orders about not touching her.

  Well . . . what I’d told them Romero’s orders were. “Take the girl and do whatever it takes to make the department release us,” he’d said to me. By that time, harming her was out of the question. It wasn’t just because she was female; it was because it was her. I couldn’t stand the thought of any of my brothers laying a finger on her, let alone torturing her.

  When Romero gave an order, he only gave it to the person who was supposed to carry it out. With him in prison, none of us had an option other than trusting each other that we had relayed them correctly. Besides, if you changed an order, or didn’t follow through . . . Romero would have you put out. There’d never been a thought to go against him like this . . . until she came into my life.

  We wouldn’t hurt her fiancé—that hadn’t been a lie—even though he and his partner were the reason all this was happening in the first place. But Romero was sure this would work, and the brothers would do anything to get the core of our family back together. So until the department gave in to the demands, they were going to continue to get very authentic-looking pictures, videos, phone calls, and packages that suggested the girl asleep on that mattress was going through hell on earth.

  Not that I would say anything to Marco or Jaime, but I knew eventually they were going to test the hair and blood and find out neither belonged to her. Just like eventually one of the brothers was going to slip up somehow and the detectives would realize everything had been faked. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who realized that, but I’m positive everyone was banking on the fact that Romero and the main brothers would be released before then.

  Despite who and what I was, I felt bad for her fiancé. We may not be causing him physical harm, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t being tortured far worse than she could imagine. I couldn’t even imagine what he was going through as he looked for her and got the “evidence of torture” the guys had been sending.

  If I’d lost someone like her, I’d fucking lose my mind. And he didn’t just lose her—she’d been taken from him.

  If people were torturing my girl, I’d hunt them down and kill them. And I had no doubt that was exactly what he planned to do.

  She rolled over on the mattress, and even through the dark of the room, I could make out her bare legs curled up to her stomach. Images of how she looked when she got out of the shower tonight hit me hard, and I welcomed each and every one of them.

  I wasn’t a fucking idiot. I knew she was going to drown in the shirts I’d gotten her. But I’d spent four months watching her every move as we waited for the right time to put our plan into action. Seeing her walk around in nothing but an overly large shirt had become one of my favorite things. So when given the opportunity of choosing what she wore, it had been simple . . . and worth the torture it would put me through.

  I held my breath when I heard a harsh huff come from her. Every night she did this, and every night I felt like even more of an asshole.

  “Stop . . . please,” she pled. Her voice was barely above a whisper, and after repeating those two words a few more times, she was silent.

  I wanted to take whatever nightmares she was having away, but I had no doubt I was the source of them. Who wouldn’t have nightmares of being kidnapped? Especially after being kidnapped and kept in a tiny fucking room with the man who had taken you. Raking my hands over my face again, I wanted to die in that moment. Just like I had every night I’d heard her beg someone to stop. I didn’t want to be a part of kidnapping her. I didn’t want to be in this life.

  But I didn’t have a fucking choice.

  Like I said, when given direct orders from the head of your crew, the rest of the brothers don’t question them. They carry them out. When you’re the one who let the only blood relative of the head of your crew get murdered, you’re the one that’s chosen to carry out the bad orders. Every. Time.

  I’d had a nightmare of a childhood. My mom skipped out when I was young, my pop had been in prison most my life, and the uncle who raised me had always been strung out. When I turne
d fourteen, he’d celebrated my birthday by bringing in one of his gang’s whore’s daughters so I could become a man. He’d rewarded me with bags of smack he wanted me to sell at school for him.

  My best friend, Dre Juarez, had been my only way to escape my uncle at the time. His brother headed up a neighborhood gang, and they’d always provided a sense of loyalty for me. But I hadn’t wanted to be in a gang . . . even back then. I’d seen what it had done to my old man, and I’d had to live through the shit with my uncle. No matter how normal Romero Juarez’s house seemed, I wanted a different kind of normal.

  That all went to shit when I turned sixteen. Uncle was demanding I join, or get out, and I didn’t have anywhere to go but to Dre’s brother. Dre was already fully in, had been for years, and the rest of the brothers were ready to welcome me. That weekend my uncle was arrested, and it was all over the streets that his boys blamed me.

  One night they came looking for me, and in looking for me, ended up murdering Dre instead. It’d been a drive-by that I hadn’t even been present for; I’d been hooking up with some chick from school. But after that, I hadn’t had a choice, Romero made me join as a payment for getting Dre killed. The other half of the payment was retribution on the men involved in the drive-by.

  Those were the first three men I killed. But they hadn’t been the last in the eight years since I’d gotten in. Most of the brothers could do as they pleased, as long as they followed the rules. Me? If I didn’t do what Romero asked, Romero swore he would make me join Dre six feet under. I hated this life, and I hated who I’d become. But I swore to myself that one day I would get out and start over far away from this shithole. Now, more than ever, I was craving that life because of the girl not ten feet away from me. I would get out . . . someday. Until then, this fucked-up family was all I had.

  About four years ago, the core of our family—the “originals”—started cooking up and dealing meth out of a house in the ghetto. Part of initiation into the gang was spending a year there; after that, you were introduced to the rest of the family. From there you could choose to come and help keep the family running, or stay in the meth house. Or, as Romero liked to put it: “work or play.” Close to a year and a half ago, Romero started up saying two of the new brothers were cops. He was so sure they were and was waiting for things to play out. But that waiting had cost him, and the rest of the cores, their freedom. Every member in the meth house was in prison now, including all of the originals.