Sins & Secrets 3 Page 3

She and Layton both give me a perplexed look.

  “We just explained this to you,” Layton says, stepping toward me.

  I disregard him, my eyes fixed on her tattoo. “Do you know Nyjah?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Your boss at the whorehouse? Yeah, I saw him when I was scoping the place out.”

  “You have his family crest tattooed on your neck,” I say then realize that it might not be a family crest. It could mean something else. “He has that exact tattoo on his neck.”

  “Well, it’s not his family crest.” Her fingers wander to the tattoo. “But it explains some things.”

  “What things?” I huff out a frustrated breath when no one answers. “Tell me what the fuck it means.”

  Still, neither of them speak. Both just look at each other as if waiting for the other one to explain.

  Finally, I can’t take it anymore. I don’t want to be around for whatever they’re waiting for.

  One …

  Two …

  Three …

  I fucking run because I’m better at that. I don’t go for the obvious choice—the front door—since both of them are blocking my path. I sprint for the bathroom, slamming the door behind me and locking it right as someone rams against the other side.

  “Lola, open the door!” Layton yells. “It’s not what you think!”

  I back away from the door until I bump into the sink. “You don’t even know what I’m thinking, so how can you possibly know that?” I glance around at the bathtub/shower, the sink, and then at the window, which is way too small for me to fit through. There’s nowhere to go.

  As Layton continues to bang on the door and yell at me, I sink to the floor and rest my head back. I’m not even sure if I’m tripping on the tattoo so much as the pile of lies and secrets the two of them have dumped on me.

  All these years, my entire life has been nothing but a lie. I’ve known this for a while, yet I didn’t realize the vastness of the secrets hidden in the Anelli family. It makes me wonder just how many more there are.

  I think the real thing that gets to me the thing that’s clawing at my skin, is that I’m here right now, in this place. The crappy person I am, the person who kills and fucks men for a living because I had to settle a debt my father got into with Frankie, because he what? Wanted to hide Solana? Because my mother cheated on him with his brother who he doesn’t like? That’s why all this shit happened? Because of that? It’s bullshit.

  As I’m stewing in my anger, the door bursts open and Layton stumbles inside, shaking his head.

  “How long have you known about all of this?” I ask. “About Solana and my father—her father. How long?”

  His mouth sinks into a frown. “I … For a few years … Pretty much since I started working for Frankie. Well, at least about Solana. I didn’t know the whole story. Not until … until the day I technically died.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I rise to my feet, loathing how hurt I am that he kept so much from me. It reminds me of why I shut down so much. “We were best friends; why didn’t you just say something? I wouldn’t have told anyone.”

  He steps all the way into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. “It was more complicated than that. Otherwise, I would have.” He takes a step toward me, and then another.

  I have nowhere to go since I’m already pressed up against the wall.

  “That day I started working for Frankie was because I had to, Lolita. My father made me. They’d made a bargain a long time ago about it … Out of all people, it had to be Frankie Catherlson.” He dares another step toward me, and then another until he’s right in front of me. “The day your mother died, I learned that it would happen eventually, that I’d work for Frankie. That the Everetts and Catherlsons would join each other and unite their bloodlines. It’s part of the reason I decided to fake my own death. The things Frankie was making me do … What he was going to make me do … I couldn’t do it anymore …” He trails off as his hands come down on the wall beside my head.

  “That night … The night we killed … Frankie set you up. And I knew about it.” He lets out another exasperated breath, his eyes filling with self-hatred. “God, I fucking knew you were going to walk into a trap. I was told to let them kill you as punishment for your father getting in debt with Frankie. But I couldn’t do it … I couldn’t lose you … Never can.” He grazes his finger across my cheekbone. “I could never let the girl I love get killed.” He swallows hard, his breath faltering. “So, I stepped in and … Well, you know the rest. They put a hit out on me when they found out, but thankfully, I found my way out, thanks to Solana.”

  My brows knit. “What does Solana have to do with this?”

  “A lot,” he says as he spreads his hand across my cheek. “I think it’s better for her to tell you. It’s her story … The things she went through … What your father did to her to keep her hidden … Lola, she’s had a rough life. And that tattoo … It has something to do with it, so just let it go for now. Please.” He gives an elongated pause, his eyes searching mine. “Tell me you forgive me. I need you to forgive me.”

  I’m not sure if I should be angry with him or not. He knew that night I was walking into a trap and didn’t warn me, but he also saved me, just like he did tonight.

  “I feel like my head’s going to explode. This is so much to take in. And you know me well enough to know I don’t do well with the whole emotional stuff.”

  “I know.” His gaze never wavers from mine. “I have to be honest; there’s more to it than what I’m telling you. More that I’m not even sure of. But right now, we have to get you out of here and someplace safe before Frankie’s men find you. Solana says there’s a safe house nearby we can go to until we figure out where to go next.”

  Safe houses were created by a group of ex-mafia men who needed to hide out from being hunted. That’s the thing with the world we live in: once you’re on the bad list, you stay on it until you’re dead. Unfortunately, the odds of us walking out of this alive look grim, unless we keep running.

  “Solana says, huh?” I question with a hint a jealousy.

  His brow cocks. “Are you jealous? Because that doesn’t sound like the Lolita I know.”

  “It must be the trauma,” I mutter. “Or maybe the bump on my head from the other night is making me crazy.”

  “I already told you, Solana helped me out.” He moves his hand away from my face and rubs at his chest. “She helped me fake my own death, and I think she’s here to help you, if the deal between us still stands, which it seems like it does since she hasn’t killed you yet.”

  My brows dip as I reach for Layton’s shirt and lift it up until I can see his chest. He lowers his hand and lets me examine his skin. There’s a small, circular scar on his lean chest, right near the tattoo of his family crest—a circle enclosing Greek symbols. In the heat of the moment, I hadn’t even noticed the scar.

  “You were shot?” I gape at him. “When you said ‘faked your death,’ I thought … Well, I’m not sure what I thought, but I didn’t think it meant you were actually shot.”

  He shrugs. “It was the only way we could pull it off. It’s okay. I’m okay. It missed all major organs and arteries. Solana has good aim, and now all I have is a scar.”

  “She’s the one who shot you? Good God.”

  He sighs, placing his hand over mine. I can feel his heart beating under my palm, steady and calm.

  “I know you want to hear all the answers, but we really need to get to the safe house. You have two very powerful mafia families after you. You’re not safe here so close to a town and the public.”

  “Wow, two hits.” I force a hollow laugh as I absentmindedly trace the scar on his chest. “I guess I should feel honored or something.”

  “Lolita …” His voice drifts off as he leans in toward me. “It’s going to be okay. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. You know that, right?” His eyelids drift shut as he moves to kiss me. I want to let him, too, but I’m afraid I�
��ll start crying again. My mind is still on emotional overload.

  I feel just as cold inside as the day I first ran. I wonder when I’ll be warm again. If I’ll ever be warm again.

  I turn my head, and he ends up kissing my cheek, his lips brushing against my flesh and warming up the cold in my body for a flickering instant.

  “I can’t kiss you right now,” I tell him. “I’m already fighting an emotional breakdown, and your kisses seem to bring it out more … Make me feel too much.”

  “Is that a good thing?” he asks, slanting back to look me in the eyes.

  “Good and bad,” I admit. “I’m glad you’re alive, glad you’re here, but it makes me feel … sort of guilty about what I’ve been doing over the last couple of years. And I’m not used to guilt. It’s never been my thing, you know?”

  “I do know that.” His voice is soft. “What you did … I’m sure you had to do it, right? To survive.”

  I shrug, guilty knots winding in my stomach. “Yes and no. It wasn’t just that.” I can hardly look at him. “Honestly, I did it because I liked it. I liked how it made me feel on the inside.”

  He presses his lips together with so much force the skin around his mouth turns white. “How did it make you feel?”

  I glance at him with wariness. “You seriously want to know?”

  He nods without looking quite so certain. “I want to understand what it was like for you these last years. I need to understand. All I have is that picture of what I walked in on when I went into the hotel room and saw you like that.” He squeezes his eyes shut, looking as though he’s in pain. “God, when I heard you scream, I thought I was going to find you dead.”

  “It wasn’t always that way. Most of the time, it was fine.” I don’t want to tell him the real reason I did it, too ashamed. But when I open my mouth, it sort of spills out. “I did it because it made me numb. I didn’t have to feel death on my hands. You know as well as I do that messing around was always sort of a weird euphoric thing for me. Well, it started to be a self-numbing thing after everything happened, like taking drugs without the drugs.”

  “Lolita …” He says my full name again, the sound rolling off his tongue like honey. “I’m sorry. I wish I could have found a way to tell you all this sooner, but I wasn’t even supposed to see you now … I’m supposed to be dead, but I had to see you. That night in the motel … and later at the house when you were looking at my car.” He drifts toward me again. “Tonight … I couldn’t let anything happen to you.”

  I stare into his eyes, remembering all the things we used to be, remembering how it felt when I thought I’d never look at him, touch him, or kiss him again.

  “Oh, my God, fuck it.” I drop the gun and smash my lips against his, kissing him with so much passion. And he kisses me back with zero hesitation, scooping me up in his arms.

  I wrap my legs around him and hold on to him with one hand while my other travels downward.

  “Lola …” Layton whispers between kisses as I undo the button on his jeans. “I need to tell you something else … Something really important.”

  “Then tell me.” I know I should stop and listen, but I can’t bring myself to do so. I’m not ready to break the connection.

  I nip at his bottom lip as I grind my hips against his, eliciting a groan from him. His hands wander to my breasts then down to my hips as he nips and bites at my lips, my jawline, my neck.

  “I want you inside me again,” I practically beg, unsure if I’m seeking sex for all the right reasons, but I can’t stop myself from wanting it. Wanting him. “Please.”

  I feel him smile against my lips. “I’ve never heard you beg, but that’s two times in one night. I must be good.”

  “And you’ve never returned from the dead before.” I roll my hips against his again, growing impatient. “You’re such a cocky bastard.”

  “Hmmm …” His fingers tangle through my hair as he presses a kiss to my jawline. “Maybe I should drag this out more … See what I can get out of it.”

  A smile touches my lips. I realize how long it’s been since I’ve genuinely smiled. This is the Layton I know. The one I grew up with before everything was tainted, before our friendship was torn apart, before I killed, before I ran. He could always get me to smile before all that.

  “I’d like to see you try.” I decide to act like the old Lola for a moment, though I’m not sure who that is anymore.

  He lets out a deep, throaty groan, and then he is slipping his fingers inside my panties … inside me.

  “Oh … My … God …” I moan, throwing my head back.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  “Hate to break up the porn show in there,” Solana says through the door, “but we have a huge problem.”

  Layton grunts in frustrations as he pulls his fingers out of me.

  “I’m going to kill her,” I gripe as I lower my feet to the floor.

  He sighs heavily. “Maybe you should try to get to know her. She is your sister.”

  He might be right, but at the same time, I’m not sure if I want to, considering everything.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  “We have company,” she says, banging on the door again. “Unless you want to die while fucking, get out here now.”

  Shaking my head, I pick up the gun from off the floor. “God, I don’t want to kill again.” My breath falters, knowing I just might have to if we’re walking into an ambush.

  “Don’t worry; you won’t have to.” There’s something in Layton’s voice that has me puzzled and a bit worried. Before I can say anything about it, though, he draws something out of his back pocket.

  A syringe.

  I start to jump back, but he grabs my arm and pierces the needle into my skin.

  “You fucking bastard!” A spout of dizziness overtakes me, and I fall helplessly into his arms.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s for your own good, Lolita,” he whispers.

  The last thing I see is the remorse in his eyes. Then I pass out, unsure of what I’ll wake up to, or if I’ll even wake up.

  Chapter 4

  Layton

  My life has been full of choices not made by me. It started when I was young, when my father sat me down in his office on my sixth birthday and told me I was going to befriend Lolita Anders.

  “But I don’t want to,” I replied, being the typical six-year-old boy who hated girls because he thought they had cooties.

  “You have to,” he said, sitting on the desk with his legs dangling over the edge as he looked down at me, making me feel incredibly small. “It’s for our family, for protection. Right now, the Anelli’s don’t like us very much, and we need them to like us. They’re too powerful for us to be on their bad side.”

  It seemed like a silly reason, but I didn’t argue. I saw how arguing with my dad ended up. My mother argued with him all the time, and instead of yelling back, my father hit her. He also liked to hit the people who worked for him, and sometimes he even killed them. I wasn’t supposed to know it at the time, but I’d accidentally seen him shoot someone in cold-blooded murder when I’d been hiding in his office during a game of hide-and-seek with my brother.

  I agreed and made a major effort to get to know Lolita Anders at school. As it turned out, I actually liked her, and the friendship grew on its own.

  When I was fourteen, I realized I might like her as more than a friend, which confused the shit out of me, so I didn’t act on it. Then, when I was about sixteen, I realized I wanted to date her. I knew her well enough to know she’d never go for it. When I was seventeen, I kissed her for the first time. It was one of the best and worst days of my life because I realized I was falling in love with her, a foreign emotion to me growing up in a home so cold.

  Like a dumbass, I ended up telling her, and to this day, I’m still waiting to hear those three words back.

  I’m not surprised. Her mother stuffed her head with all this weird crap about relationships. My father said the woman was seriously messed
up; that she was still in love with Everson, the brother, but stayed with Larenze Anelli, Lola’s father, because it gave her stability and wealth, and that made her bitter.

  When Lola’s mother died, Lola seemed to get worse. Tough as nails on the outside, she was a confused mess on the inside, and completely shut down. Then, when I went to work with Frankie … Well, I think she actually hated me.

  I’m worried she’ll hate me again if I tell her everything. There’s so much I haven’t told her about our pasts and things going on now. I know if she was aware of everything about my family, she’d never forgive me.

  “I still can’t believe you tranquilized her. I was betting that you’d back out,” Solana remarks as we drive down the desolate highway, heading away from the motel where I’m hoping Frankie’s men are still looking for Lola. We managed to slip out unnoticed, but I’m not sure how long it’ll be until they figure out we’ve taken off.

  I’m worried. I’m supposed to be dead, and it took a lot to get to this place. Lots and lots of pain that I’d prefer never to experience again.

  “I told you, if anything bad happened, I’d do it,” I tell Solana. “We talked about this.”

  She props her boots on the dashboard. “Yeah, but I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  I glance in the rearview mirror, my worry about being discovered by Frankie’s men briefly alleviating when I see no headlights behind us. “I didn’t want her to end up in any more situations where she had to kill anyone. Once was more than enough.”

  “You and I have killed many, many more times,” she casually states, as if we’re chatting about the weather.

  I’ve known Solana for a couple of years now, and this is the only mode she has—calm and indifferent. It was how she was raised to be in that god-awful place I still can’t believe my family is a part of.

  “And we’re perfectly fine doing it again.”

  “No, you’re perfectly fine doing it again.” I clutch the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white. “I hate doing it.”

  “Yet you still do it if you have to.” She peers over her shoulder at Lola, who is passed out in the backseat. “She can’t even do it if her life depends on it.”