Pretty Lies & Ugly Truths (Ugly Truths #1)

7. Archer

7

Archer

S he lied. I know she lied. About what, though, I’m not quite sure. I can’t help but ask myself, how much does she remember?

Up until now, I was confident that the events from that night had been wiped clean from her memory—which wouldn’t have been unusual for such a heavy sedative as the one I gave her—but now, I’m not as sure.

Maggie doesn’t strike me as a cold, hard killer. It takes one to know one, and I know firsthand what it takes to perform such an act of violence, as well as the scars they leave on your soul. So, I find it hard to believe she could commit a brutal murder and then go about her life as if nothing happened. That would either make her the most resilient person I have ever met, or a complete sociopath.

I have come in contact with some real fucked up people in my life, especially in my previous line of work, and I can tell she isn’t like them.

Yet…I can’t seem to get a read on her. It was clear by he r reaction there is something she isn’t telling me, and I plan on making it my mission to find out what.

Maggie steps out right as I end my call, Jayce still bitching into the phone when I hang up. She looks dead on her feet, her arms limp and heavy at her sides.

I slip my phone in my pocket and take the overnight bag she’s carrying, slinging it over my shoulder before guiding her towards the car.

After throwing her bag in the back, I close the trunk and lean with my hip against the vehicle, arms and legs crossed, while she remains planted firmly on the sidewalk.

“So…what’s it gonna be? Do you have somewhere you want me to take you or are you coming with me?” I ask, though from the defeated look she’s wearing, I am quite sure I can guess the answer.

I had one of my best friends and expert hacker, Beckham Reid, dig into Maggie’s past, so I know she’s adopted. Her adoptive mother suffers from a debilitating condition, which leaves Maggie to take on the role of caregiver. Based on that information I had a hunch Maggie wouldn’t want to put her in danger.

I should feel bad, using that knowledge to try and manipulate her decision, but there’s a very real threat that someone’s after her, and there is no way I’m just going to walk away and leave her here unprotected.

And after the disturbing news I just received from Jayce, I’m very glad I didn’t.

“No. I’m coming with you,” she murmurs.

I push away from the car, opening the passenger door and helping her inside before getting behind the wheel. As I pull away from the curb, her head whips back toward her apartment.

“Shouldn’t we wait for the police?”

“What?” I ask, perplexed.

“The police. Wasn’t that who you were talking to before I came out?”

Oh, she means when I was on the phone with Jayce. Yeah…I definitely won’t be involving those assholes, certainly not after what I just found out. I have plans for that piece of shit, and it doesn’t involve the cops.

“Don’t worry, I have it all handled.” She eyes me skeptically but must be more exhausted than I realized, because she just shrugs before turning away, resting her head against the glass.

At some point she falls asleep, the sound of her soft snores audible over the low hum of the engine. As I take a right turn onto the long gravel drive that leads to my place, the jostling of the car causes her to stir.

“W-where are we?” she asks, voice groggy as she sits up straight and swipes at her mouth with the back of her hand, her eyes becoming fully alert as she peers out the front window to where my house appears illuminated by the front spotlights.

When I first bought this place—aptly named The Last Resort—it was nothing more than a dilapidated shack, a place for me to live out the rest of my miserable existence, to wallow in my grief and wait for death to catch up to me.

Now, it’s a two-story, craftsman style beach house with slate grey cedar shake siding, light blue shutters and white trim. It has been completely renovated inside and out, outfitted with the best security system on the market—because one can never be too careful.

“This is my beach house. I figured it would be safer out here than in the city.”

“Beach house?”

“Yes. I own close to a hundred acres of secluded land with beach front access. This house has a top-of-the-line security system, so no one will be able to get to you. I promise, you’ll be safe here,” I tell her, hoping to alleviate some of her worries, but if anything, it seems to have the opposite effect.

She leans closer to the door and further away from me, and it’s then I realize she’s not scared of someone else coming after her: she is afraid of me.

Good. She should be afraid, just not in the way she is probably thinking. I will never hurt her. I would sooner peel the flesh from my own bones before I would ever lay a hand on her—but that’s not to say she won’t get hurt because of me.

“Breathe,” I remind her, turning so I face her dead on, “No one is going to hurt you—and that includes me. You hear me?” After a few seconds, she nods, and I open my car door, pausing before I get out to look back at her one more time.

“Oh, and Maggie—don’t even think about running. There is nothing around for miles but the ocean and marsh lands. Although I have no intentions of harming you, the alligators might have other ideas.”

Fear flashes in her eyes, and her loud gulp can be heard over the sounds of the cicadas dancing in the night air outside. “And while I enjoy a good hunt, if I were to chase you down, it wouldn’t be to track you through the swamp. It would be for something much more pleasurable ,” I tell her, my eyes dropping down to where the neckline of her dress dips low enough to give a hint at her delicious cleavage, “for both of us.”

Her mouth falls open, and I watch as a delicate flush creeps up over chest and neck, all the way onto the round apples of her cheeks. My cock twitches, and I suppress a groan, quickly slamming the door on those thoughts, both figuratively and literally.

It’s as I’m grabbing her bag from the back, trying to push any lingering inappropriate thoughts of Maggie to the back of my mind, that I begin to question— what in the hell I was thinking, bringing temptation straight to my fucking doorstep?

After showing Maggie to the guest room, I check in with Jayce to make sure our captive is still behaving himself.

“What?” he grumbles into the phone in leu of a proper greeting.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, sure, if by okay, you mean I now have one of the enforcers for the Irish fucking mob chained up in the marina. Then yeah, everything is just fucking peachy,” he answers, voice dripping with sarcasm .

“What the hell is going on, Archer? I did everything you asked of me. Now, I think you owe me a full explanation. I thought we were done with this shit. What happened to a fresh start and all that?”

“That was all your inspirational bullshit,” I remind him. I didn’t come here for a fresh start. I came here to be alone. There is no starting fresh for me, not with all the blood on my hands. People like me don’t get to just start over and live happily ever after or whatever other bullshit they spout in the movies.

Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t care less about all the men I’ve hunted. Most of them were murderers, rapists, pedophiles…you name it.

No. They were nothing but a bunch of lowlifes and scum. I have no regrets. Those men got exactly what they deserved. But when my baby sister paid the ultimate price for my sins—well, there’s no coming back from that.

After Cecelia died, I was blinded by hatred. I sought my revenge on those responsible for her murder— all but one, my conscience reminds me. Maggie took care of him, though… but at what cost?

In the end, it didn’t matter. Nothing made the pain go away. It didn’t matter how many men I slaughtered, nothing could erase my guilt.

Consumed by grief and determined to outrun it, I took off like a thief in the night, making sure to cover my tracks along the way. I had no plan, no idea where I was going. I just kept driving until I found myself face to face with the turbulent waters of the Atlantic and thought this was as good a place as any to finish out my days .

When I bought this run-down cottage, my plan was to drink myself into oblivion, to numb the pain and wait for my demons to overtake me.

Jayce, he wasn’t having that shit, though. He enlisted Beck’s help, and together they managed to track me down, found me in the middle of the day, passed out in a puddle of my own vomit. Looking back now, I can admit it was not one of my finest moments. At the rate I was going, had they not shown up when they did, I wouldn’t have lasted another month.

I was angry with Jayce when he forced me back into sobriety, not wanting to face the reality of the damage I caused our family, but he never gave up on me, and for some strange reason, he has never once blamed me.

I know that the only reason I’m alive right now is because of his stubborn ass, and I owe him my life. It’s only for him that I keep going.

“You’re right. I do owe you an explanation, and I promise I’ll give you one. Give me twenty minutes, and I’ll meet you at the dock.”

Hanging up, I pull up the surveillance footage for the cameras I have installed in every room, clicking on the one for the guest room. A smile plays across my lips and a low chuckle escapes when I see Maggie has barricaded herself in by pushing the white oak dresser up against the door. It’s cute that she thinks that would actually stop me if I wanted to get to her, but I commend her effort. She is smart and resourceful, and I like that.

She is now laying on her side with her eyes closed. She looks so small and fragile curled up in the center of that king-sized bed, and even though I have seen firsthand that she is perfectly capable of defending herself, the thought of anyone hurting her re-ignites a fire in my blood.

Closing the screen, I lock up the house and drive down a partially obscured road leading to a long dock, where I see Jayce is already waiting on me.

I tell him everything I have learned so far, including the connection between Maggie to the murder he cleaned up for me a few weeks earlier. I hold back on telling him about her currently staying with me. For some reason, I can’t explain, I don’t want him to know.

Once I am finished, he asks me, “So you think this girl is somehow connected to the Irish mob?” I agree, it sounds crazy to me too, but there are too many coincidences not to consider it a real possibility.

“I don’t know. All I’m saying is, an isolated attack I might could overlook, but two in less than a month—both men having known ties…” I say, trailing off with a shrug.

“True—but why?”

I shake my head. “No idea. I had Becks check her out, and she’s squeaky clean. Nothing in her past or present to connect her to the McGregor family or Boston. Hell—the girl hasn’t even so much as left the state.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” he says.

“I know, that’s why I’m hoping to get some information out of that piece of shit in there,” I say, pointing to where a series of grunts can be heard echoing off the walls of the boathouse.

“Good luck with that. I haven’t been able to get anything out of him. Oh, and watch out—he’s a spitter,” he calls out from behind me as I’m walking back up the dock. Fucking great.

The rusted hinges let out a shrill squeak as I open the door. The old wood floors, heavily weathered from the water and salt air, sags with my heavy footsteps. His dark, beady eyes regard me with disdain from across the dimly lit space.

“I’m going to take this off,” I say, reaching for the gag. “Fair warning—if you spit on me, I will carve out your tongue and make you choke on it. Understand?” He continues to glare as I untie the filthy cloth around his mouth.

The moment it’s free, he cocks his head back and hawks a wad of spit on the front of my shirt. Good thing for him, it’s already ruined, or I might really be angry. As it is, I’m just mildly annoyed.

“You’ll regret that,” I tell him.

“I’m not afraid of you, pretty boy,” he sneers, looking me up and down.

A slow grin spreads across my face as I start undoing the buttons of my shirt. He does what they all do: underestimate me. I make a show of sliding it off my shoulders and watch as his eyes narrow when they take in my inked skin.

The tattoos that cover my body tell a violent story to anyone who cares to look closely enough, a tribute in shades of black and grey to the many souls I reaped from this Earth. There isn’t a single blank space, apart from a small patch on my left chest, directly over my heart, intentionally left untouched.

“Well, you should be.” I toss the stained shirt to the floor before giving him my back. I don’t miss the slight intake of breath as he looks upon the large piece that covers my back and shoulders, the one that gave me my name.

“You’re…th-the Reaper,” he stammers.

“Oh good. You do know who I am,” I grab a sharp filleting knife, holding it in my palm as I squat down in front on him. “So that means you know I don’t make empty threats. You tell me what I want to know, and I’ll make this quick. Well…quicker,” I say, remembering my promise to break each of these fucker’s ribs for what he did to Maggie.

Which also reminds me, I need to check on those in the morning. I doubt they are broken since she would have beeen in much more pain, but I make a mental note to examine them all the same.

Fury flashes across his face, replacing any hint of fear, and I can tell by the look in his eyes that he is not going to be an easy one to break. Too much pride.

Normally, I would appreciate the challenge, but it’s late and I’m tired. All I want to do is get back home, check in on Maggie, and catch a few good hours of sleep. Unfortunately, it looks like I’m going to be here a while.