Chapter Three #2
My leg shoots out under the table, and I kick him in the shin. Grunting, he peers down at me over his shoulder and lifts a brow at my glare.
Don’t taunt the trigger-happy police, fool.
Hearing my silent plea, he nods and schools his expression.
While all the men posture and dick measure, my mind starts turning over solutions. I hate myself the moment I think of my uncle. Marston George may be a piece of shit, but he’s always been remarkably good at manipulating everyone around him—including me.
How would he spin and twist the truth into his favor?
How would he leverage the emotions, weaknesses, and temperaments of everyone in the room to get what he wanted?
The sheriff doesn’t want to believe that his precious boys betrayed his trust. He wants to be absolved of letting his personal relationship with them get in the way of his duty. He wants to redeem himself by saving me—whether I want it or not.
My mountain men don’t want to let me go. They want to protect and love me—to find a way for the four of us to live in seclusion and harmony until the end of our days, and I…
I just want to survive the day unscathed.
What I don’t want is another person’s blood on my hands.
Suddenly, the answer seems so obvious as I soak in all the testosterone and rage.
Thankfully, my guys remain silent once the sheriff unleashes his tirade of disappointment, anger, and betrayal on them. They stand like statues while he demands an explanation for their deception before launching into yet another chiding before my mountain men can even think to respond.
“Ugghhhhhh,” I unintentionally groan out loud once I’ve had enough of listening to the sheriff rant like a wounded lover who caught his boys in bed with another sheriff.
I mean any other cop would have arrested them already, right? So why is he acting like their biggest crime was hurting his feelings?
My drawn-out groan causes the sheriff to sputter to a stop midsentence. Now that all eyes are on me once again, I rip off the Band-Aid and stand, nudging Khalil to the side with a dirty look when he tries to sidestep and keep me out of view.
Fucking really? We’re way past that now.
When I get too close to the sheriff and his deputy for Khalil’s liking, he grips the back of my shirt and yanks me back until I’m close enough to feel the heat emanating from his chest. He keeps me in front of him though, leaving me to face the sheriff.
“I think you might have amnesia, Gramps. I said I didn’t need your help.”
“Aurelia,” Thorin warns.
The sheriff levels a look at me that makes it clear he’s not amused by me like he was earlier. And here I thought he found me charming if not trying. “And as I told you, Ms. George. I cannot ignore the law.”
“Even if it means killing me?”
Everyone’s shock ripples across the room.
My mountain men, of course, take it the wrong way, but there’s no time to reassure them.
The nervous deputy returns his hand to his gun, and the sheriff doesn’t rebuke him for it this time.
I just barely resist the urge to roll my eyes since this new web of lies will take delicate role-playing.
“There’s no need to be afraid, Ms. George.” He pauses to level a glare on Thorin, Khalil, and Zeke. “If you come with me now, I’ll make sure you’re safe.” He holds out his hand, and I swear I hear a growl behind me that doesn’t come from Khalil.
I almost ruin everything by peeking at Zeke to make sure it’s still him.
“Well, see that’s the thing. If I go back, I’m dead. I’m sorry, Sheriff, but you’ve got this whole thing all wrong.”
The weathered lines around his mouth purse. “What the hell do you mean I’ve got it wrong?”
“Khalil, Thorin, and Se—Zeke,” I say with the barest wince, “they didn’t steal me, they saved me.
” I keep my gaze on the sheriff instead of letting my curiosity get the better of me and searching out each of my mountain men’s gazes.
I can feel their reaction to my words—wondering if I meant them or if it’s just another part of the web I’m slowly trapping us inside.
“Save you? I don’t understand. How so?”
I shrug as if learning that the man who raised me wanted me dead was no big deal.
“My uncle has been planning to have me killed for some time,” I lie through my teeth. He probably has, but I sure as hell didn’t know about it until this morning when he almost succeeded.
Focus.
Remembering what Finnegan confessed on that cliff, I spin and spin and spin my web of lies.
“Before I fled the States, I had more than suspicions. I had proof.” It’s a fucking bluff since I have jack shit but Finnegan’s word to go on, and he’s deader than dead.
I pray the sheriff won’t call me on it, but why should he? He wants to believe that Thorin, Khalil, and Zeke are innocent, so I hold on to that lapse in his judgment and spin some more.
“My uncle hired those men to kill me months ago. He was just waiting for the right time to strike. I knew that if I didn’t get away from him, he’d succeed, so I got as far away from him as I could.
Obviously, I didn’t count on my plane crashing and nearly doing his dirty work for him, but I survived and fought my way here.
When Thorin, Khalil, and Zeke found me, they wanted to turn me in,” I say, my tone inundated with desperation as if I was a fugitive on the lam and they were the good ole Boy Scouts the sheriff believes them to be.
“You gotta remember, Aurelia,” my uncle schools. “There’s the truth and then there’s your version and theirs. Everyone enters the room with their own notions and what they are willing to believe. The trick isn’t changing their minds. It’s using it against them to get what you want.”
So I turn the tables and I make the sheriff believe that I corrupted them instead of the other way around. Men have been blaming women for their troubles for centuries. It wasn’t Khalil, Thorin, and Zeke’s lust and frustration and loneliness that made them kidnap me and lie to the sheriff.
It was me.
After all, it was Eve who tempted Adam into eating the apple, right?
The sheriff isn’t just searching for a truth he can believe. He’s searching for a villain to blame, so I give him one. It’s a role I know well.
“I told them what my uncle planned and begged them to help me hide until I could figure out how to stop him. I knew my uncle would send men to make sure I was gone, so they agreed to shelter and keep me safe until the coast was clear and they could get me home without alerting my uncle.”
Once I’m done spinning my not-that-intricate web of lies that could unravel with a soft breeze, I exhale and wait for the verdict that will determine my mountain men’s fate.
And mine.
The sheriff wants to believe.
“Miss George…” Sheriff Kelly removes his uniform hat and runs his fingers through his thinning gray hair with a sigh and shake of his head.
My heart drops. “Forgive me if I have a hard time believing your story.” He drops his hand and gives me a pointed look.
“Especially since this is not what you told me earlier.”
To their credit and mine, my mountain men nor I react, but I know it’s coming later when we’re in the clear and blissfully alone.
“Earlier, I didn’t know if I could trust you.” I make a point to narrow my eyes as if I still find him suspicious. “For all I knew, you were on my uncle’s payroll since you’re the one who led the assassins he hired right to me.”
The sheriff reacts like a man with a guilty conscience, the fight leaving his body in an instant with his weathered cheeks reddening with shame.
I…feel like shit.
But I’d feel twice as bad if he died because I couldn’t convince him to back off, so I shrug away my own guilt and search for the old Aurelia. The me who wouldn’t give a shit about hurting anyone’s feelings. I may not like her, but I can’t deny she’s useful.
“And if you still need proof, there are eight corpses buried under an avalanche that might clear some things up,” I blurt.
Behind me, Khalil softly swears.
Telling the sheriff and his deputies where the bodies are buried is a risky move, but it’s the only play we have left. They just have to trust me like I trusted them when I decided to stay.
“Is this true?” The sheriff’s hopeful eyes bounce from Khalil to Zeke and then Thorin, waiting for one of them to confirm.
I stop breathing when the crucial seconds that the sheriff’s gullibility will last stretch and thin until his bushy brows are furrowing once more and I see doubt start to creep back in.
What the fuck?
I can’t stop myself from searching them out this time, uncaring if it unravels my carefully fabricated lie. Why aren’t they answering? The goal post is right there.
Thorin’s shoulders are bowed, his gaze pinned to the floor so I can’t see what he’s thinking, but he must feel my attention because he suddenly looks up and…I stumble back a step, colliding with Khalil’s chest at the sheer amount of regret swimming in his pale blue eyes.
It hasn’t escaped my notice that they’ve been silent this entire time, but I just assumed they were following my lead for once.
But now…
Following a hunch, I glance behind me to see a tight jaw and brown eyes staring at nothing.
Khalil feels me watching, his gaze dropping to mine, and he sucks in a sharp breath that expands his chest. The sorrow and apology in his eyes make my heart pound, and I know immediately that it isn’t for the mistakes he made in the past but for the one he’s about to make right now.
Khalil is breaking.
He’s going to tell the sheriff what really happened.
He’s going to tell him everything.
And all because he chooses now to wish he’d played the hero.
I’m not sure if it’s desperation or instinct that makes me turn to my most unlikely ally for help.
Zeke.
He’s leaning now against the wall between the kitchen and stairs with his foot propped up and his arms crossed.
He seems perfectly content to let this life we’ve only begun to build crumble around us, and while it’s no secret he wants me gone, I have to believe he doesn’t feel the same about Thorin and Khalil.
Our eyes barely meet because he’s already speaking, turning his head to address the sheriff before I can even figure out what to say to him.
“It’s true,” he says before Khalil can damn us all. Even though I’d hoped he would, it still shocks the fuck out of me that he’s going along with my story.
“I see.” The sheriff nods once, seemingly satisfied, and plops his hat back on his head before giving us all a hard look. “But until I can investigate the site and verify your claims, I’m going to need the four of you to come with me.”
Fuck!