Chapter 15 Lies That Live Here
lies that live here
Kayden Capshaw thought he knew heartbreak.
He'd lived with the gaping wound of his brother's death, a constant, dull ache beneath his ribs.
But nothing, absolutely nothing, had prepared him for the icy, suffocating blow that slammed into his chest the moment he walked into the silence of the house and found Lana gone.
His gaze, sweeping the familiar space, snagged on the polished granite countertop in the kitchen.
There, glinting under the recessed lights, was the ring.
The one they had picked out, a simple band with a singular diamond that had promised forever.
Now, it lay abandoned, a cold, mocking testament to a future that had vanished.
She left no note, no text message, nothing.
The profound silence of the house pressed in around him, heavy and absolute, as if she had been erased, never even truly there.
He pivoted, his movement jerky, to his mother, Maureen, who stood rigid by his side.
Her face was a mask of carefully constructed distress, her eyes fixed on him with a troubling mixture of feigned concern and something he couldn't quite decipher.
“I don’t understand,” he growled, the words raw, tearing from his throat. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
He waited, a desperate plea in his voice, for his mother to offer an explanation, a lifeline.
“She wouldn’t just up and leave me!” The last words were a roar, echoing off the high ceilings, shattering the fragile quiet.
Maureen visibly trembled, a subtle tremor that ran down her slight frame at the sudden eruption of his booming voice.
Her eyes, wide and glassy, welled with tears, but behind them, a frantic thought wrestled with her composure.
Had she made a grave mistake? Witnessing the agony on her son’s face, the violent range of emotions that contorted his features, pure, unadulterated devastation, was like watching a person flail in the depths of a dark, unforgiving sea, about to drown.
This was not the carefully managed grief he usually displayed; this was primal, untamed.
“I… I don’t know what to say, dear,” she mumbled, her voice surprisingly small, almost a whimper. “Women are… rare creatures.”
Kayden’s head snapped up, his own grief momentarily eclipsed by a flicker of suspicion. He stood now, towering over his mother, whose petite frame seemed to shrink under his sudden, accusing shadow.
“Did you do something?”
Her eyes, already wide, grew impossibly larger, darting away from his penetrating stare.
“Of course not, Kayden,” she protested, her voice rising, suddenly sharp with feigned indignation. “Why would you say something like that to me? How could you even think—?”
“Because you’ve done worse in the past, mother,” he cut her off, his voice thick with unshed tears, but laced with an edge of cold fury.
The memories of Kim and other manipulations flashed through his mind, hot and bitter. His head was spinning, the world tilting on its axis. This was all wrong. Lana wouldn’t. Could she?
“I swear to you, Kayden. On everything,” Maureen insisted, her hand rising to her chest, her words a desperate scramble to reassure. “I don’t know what happened. She was here when we left, and she didn’t give any indication that she was going to leave you.”
Kayden ran both hands through his hair, tugging at the roots, a silent scream of frustration.
He grabbed his cell phone, his thumb slamming down on the screen.
He hit “Lana,” the contact shining like a beacon of false hope, but the phone just rang.
Each trill was a spike of agony, a confirmation of her absence.
“Please pick up the phone, baby. Pick up!” His voice was a ragged whisper of a prayer.
He pressed the call button again, his desperation mounting, but only got the generic, tinny voicemail message. This person is unavailable.
“Damn it!” he screamed, a primal roar that tore through the air.
With a wild, desperate cry, he brought the phone down, smashing it to the imported hardwood floor, where it erupted into a hundred glittering pieces.
The sharp, violent crack startled Maureen, making her jump, and a small cry escaped her lips.
She had never seen him react that way before about anything, not even the news of his brother’s accident, only a quiet, simmering rage then. This was different.
This was an utter breakdown. What have I done? she asked herself, the cold dread finally gripping her heart as her son sank to his knees in the expansive living room, his broad shoulders shaking, a ragged, heartbroken wail tearing from his soul.
It was in that harrowing moment, as Kayden's cries filled the house, that Kim walked through the front door.
Her usually impeccable facade was undisturbed, no evidence of her earlier brawl with Lana apparent on her face.
Her eyes, sharp and calculating, immediately took in the scene: Kayden on the floor, broken glass near his hand, Maureen standing rigid, eyes the size of saucers.
A triumphant gleam, quickly masked, flickered in Kim’s gaze. She subtly motioned her eyes towards Kayden, a silent instruction for Kim to approach him. Slowly, deliberately, Kim walked over to him, her movements graceful and unhurried. She knelt beside him, a picture of false compassion.
“What happened, Kay?” she asked, her voice a soft, honeyed whisper, laced with an almost sickening sweetness.
This plan was working better than anticipated, she thought to herself, a thrill of power coiling in her gut.
Much, much better. Kayden looked up at her, his eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot, clouded with an overwhelming mix of grief and confusion.
He wanted to scream, to lash out, to tell her to go away, to leave him to his misery.
But the words were caught in his throat, a tight, burning knot of agony.
He couldn't get anything out. He began to slow his breathing, a desperate attempt to regain some semblance of control, and wiped his tear-streaked face with the back of his hand.
With a monumental effort, he pushed himself up from the hardwood floor, his muscles protesting, and composed himself, his shoulders stiff, his jaw tight.
“She’s gone,” he replied, the words flat, devoid of emotion, like a dead leaf falling.
Without another glance at either woman, he walked outside into the winter garden, the glass doors clicking shut behind him with an ominous finality.
Once outside, the crisp, cold air hit him, a shocking slap to the face.
Kayden took slow, deep, shuddering breaths, trying to clear the fog of despair from his mind, to make sense of what had gone wrong.
Maybe he really didn’t know her, a cruel voice whispered in his head.
Perhaps he scared her off somehow. He shook the thought, violent and desperate, from his mind; he couldn’t accept that, not after everything. They had shared too much, revealed too many raw, vulnerable pieces of themselves to each other for it all to have been a lie.
Why would she lead me on, only to disappear?
Why make plans for a future she never intended on having?
The questions circled like vultures. Maybe she couldn’t handle the type of life he wanted, the endless demands of his world, or she couldn’t spend the rest of her life with an eternal fuck-up like him.
Whatever the reason, his chest ached with a profound, terrifying numbness.
A vital part of him died in that silent, frozen garden, just like the vibrant flowers now withered away by the unforgiving snow.
A DARK WEEK had crawled by since Lana had left Hamby, each day a brutal, indistinguishable replica of the last. Sometimes, he woke in the suffocating silence of the night, his hand instinctively reaching across the vast, empty expanse of his king-sized bed, only to find nothing but cold sheets.
In those moments, a terrifying doubt would creep in: had she ever truly been real?
Was she just a figment of his fevered imagination, a beautiful, impossible dream conjured by his desperate need for light?
The phantom scent of her, the echo of her laugh, taunted him from the corners of the room.
His mother, Maureen, had been a constant, and unsettling, presence.
She moved through the house with a quiet efficiency, always there with a fresh cup of coffee or a clipped update on the contracts and legalities of KDN and Capshaw Realty.
She was a distraction, a necessary anchor, but her presence was a constant, sharp-edged reminder of what had happened, and his suspicion of her motives never really diminished.
The paperwork, the endless phone calls, the dizzying figures; they kept his mind busy, numb, preventing him from spiraling completely into the abyss that bubbled beneath his carefully constructed composure.
But even the busiest days couldn't prevent the frantic search. Lana’s voicemail had long since been too full to accept any more of his increasingly desperate messages, each one a raw plea, a whispered memory, a demand for answers.
He got no responses from the barrage of Instagram direct messages he’d sent, his thumb hovering over her ghost-like profile picture.
He had contacted three private investigators—expensive, renowned, discreet—pouring money into a bottomless well of hope.
Yet, none had come up with anything beyond dead ends.
He’d called the hospital where she worked, his voice a tight knot of controlled panic, only to be met with professional politeness and the infuriating mantra that she “wasn’t available.
” When he explained, through gritted teeth, that she might be missing, they told him she hadn’t yet returned to work and, citing privacy, couldn’t provide any further information.
The cold, sterile efficiency of their replies fueled his growing dread.