Liar (Iron Vultures MC #2)

Chapter 1

Adora

My lungs burn, my scalp stings from the brutal grip that yanks me out of the water. Filthy water. Of course. If Dominic is going to kill me, couldn't he at least make sure it's clean? I suck in the deepest breath I can and send a silent prayer skyward.

This is it. The end. And I'm weirdly okay with it.

I knew I was living on borrowed time the moment I told that lie. I knew he'd find me eventually, and when he did, he'd take his pound of flesh.

"Thirteen years," he hisses in my ear, his breath hot against my skin.

"Thirteen years I've dreamed of this moment.

Of watching the light die in your lying eyes.

Adora. My adorable Adora." A dark chuckle rumbles from his chest. "I'm going to make you feel every ounce of pain I felt before I stomp on your soul and bury you alive. "

A shiver rattles through my entire body.

At least Liz is safe, I tell myself. No one will find her. She's old enough now to survive without me. That has to be enough.

His grip tightens in my hair, forcing me to meet his gaze.

These aren't Dominic's eyes anymore. He isn't the boy I loved, he's something else.

I shattered him in ways I never meant to.

But what choice did I have? Let Liz die?

It had been an impossible decision. My eight-year-old sister's life or the man I loved more than my own soul.

What the fuck was I supposed to do?

Tears sting my eyes. I haven't cried since the day I walked out of that police station, sealing Dominic's fate. Now, the weight of it all threatens to crush me.

"I'm going to be sick," I mutter, nausea twisting my gut. Maybe it's the dirty water. Maybe it's the years of guilt clawing their way up my throat.

He’s always known how to make an entrance. Catching me mid-bath, half-asleep in the tub, was a stroke of strategy. Naked, wet and powerless, I had nowhere to run. The most I could do was slip on the tile and crack my skull open.

Honestly? That would have been better. Quick and painless, no drawn-out torment. No more water torture. And most importantly, no more fucking guilt.

Maybe if I tell him everything, he'll understand. He loved Liz just as much as I do...

"Dominic," I rasp, my throat raw.

His grip tightens like a vice.

"Don't," he growls. "Don't you fucking say my name."

His voice is ice, laced with a warning so deadly it could cut through bone. "You're nothing but a dead woman walking. You've been dead for thirteen years. I'm just here to put you in the ground."

A strangled breath catches in my throat. His voice is so cold it freezes me from the inside.

"Ghost," I try again, my voice shaking. "You don't know everything. I didn't want to lie—"

His sneer cuts me off.

"Oh, well, that makes it all better, doesn't it?" His voice softens, but somehow, it's far more dangerous. "You didn't want to lie. You didn't want to send me to hell. You didn't want me getting nearly killed every fucking day for five years. No, you just had to do it. Out of love."

The guilt suffocates me. It feels like he just dropped a mountain onto my chest.

"Who tried to kill you?" I whisper, my voice trembling.

His eyes flash. "Who the fuck do you think?"

I flinch. My heart pounds. No. They promised. They fucking promised.

"You know, if you end up in a prison hospital," he continues, his voice eerily calm, "they don't give you the nice treatments like out here.

You get the bare fucking minimum. I've got bones that healed wrong and scars that look like I was mauled by hellhounds.

Pain that will never go away because they didn't have the equipment or the right meds to bring me back to 100%. "

He leans in, his voice razor-sharp.

"And it's all your fucking fault, adorable."

Then, his hands are on me again. I don’t even have a second to think.

He grips my hair tighter and shoves me under the water again. Panic surges through me. My lungs burn once more.

I thrash around, swallowing mouthfuls of dirty water as my body cries out for air. My limbs grow heavy. The world dims and my mind spirals into darkness.

I wake up coughing, sputtering. Pain radiates through my entire skull. Not dead? Fuck.

The floor beneath me is hard and cold. A damp chill creeps up my spine. I blink against the low light, forcing my sluggish brain to process where I am.

Bars. It’s the first thing I see.

A fucking dungeon? Really?

I shift, a rough blanket slipping from my body. My very naked body. Great. Freezing to death before Dominic kills me. This just keeps getting better and better.

Sadness coils around me like a second skin. I curl into myself, trying to breathe through the sorrow. My Dominic. He would've never done this to me. I broke him and in the process, I broke myself.

The cell door creaks open, jolting me out of my pitiful state.

Dominic steps inside. He looks like a true fortress of muscle and bone-chilling fury.

His once-warm eyes are now black voids, ready to swallow me whole.

A cold fire burns in them, like he’s already imagining me reduced to nothing but ash.

I remember that he used to look at me with so much love.

That he used to smile so easily, so freely.

I stole that from him. I stole it from both of us.

He tosses a loaf of bread and a wedge of hard cheese into my lap.

"Eat." His voice is empty, stripped of anything that could pass for emotion.

I look up at him, searching for something, anything, of the boy I once knew.

"Why didn't you kill me?"

A slow, terrifying grin spreads across his face, making my blood freeze inside my veins.

"I have plans for you, adorable."

He spits the nickname with venom and it shatters another piece of my already broken heart.

"You're a disease," he says, his tone matter-of-fact. "And I'm going to cure my life of you. For good."

I swallow hard. "Ghost... I didn't have a choice. They were going to kill Liz."

His jaw tightens, eyes narrow. "I know about the threat. What I can't forgive is that you had me and my entire club at your disposal. You could've told me. We would've protected you. Instead, you chose to betray me."

I shake my head. "I couldn't risk it. I didn't have enough time. It was all too fast."

"No." His eyes burn into me. "What you couldn't do was trust me. I get it. At first. But for six months, I gave you nothing but honesty. Love. And you still condemned me."

His voice is raw, filled with something I don't dare name. "All while lying about how much you fucking loved me."

"I did love you!" My voice cracks. "I fell for you in a day! I was nineteen, I panicked! I —"

"You're still lying," he spits and shakes his head. "You never loved me. You were a cold, calculated bitch from the start. Truth is, you just wanted to be rid of me."

I suck in a sharp breath.

"I could've understood about Liz," he continues, his voice tight with rage. "Forgiven you. But then — then — not even two months after I got locked up, you married him."

Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.

"You don't know what really happened."

"Oh, I know plenty," he says darkly. "I went to Willow Harbor. I asked around. Plenty of people had things to say. Plenty of photos and articles in the local newspaper. Your daddy dearest nearly pissed himself when he saw me. And Bowie?"

He laughs coldly. "Moved on. Found himself a woman better than you in every way. Classier. Smarter. More beautiful."

He went to see my father? Fuck. Dread chokes me with a steel grip. "Ghost, please. Don't tell my father anything. It'll be dangerous for Liz," I plead, my voice breaking on every word.

He studies me for a long moment. Then, his voice drops into a tone that’s almost gentle. Almost.

"I won't let him get to Liz."

Relief floods me.

"But you?" He tilts his head. "You deserve what's coming."

Then he turns and walks out, leaving me alone in the dark, with nothing but the terror curling in my chest.

The panic attack hits faster than ever before.