Deceiving Lies

“Uh, okay?” That so hadn’t been where I thought that was about to go. I pulled my legs up on the couch to rest my chin on my knees, and waited until he got comfortable next to me.

“If you don’t want to see this, let me know, and I’ll make sure you don’t see it again. But, uh, well, they recovered this from your room at the house.” He held out the journal Trent had bought me, and my throat constricted as I reached out for it. “Before I give it back to you, I need you to know that I read it. I read the entire thing. Are you okay with that?”

“Yes, yeah of course I am. A lot of it was to you anyway, that’s fine.” I grabbed for it again, and he grabbed my hand instead, holding the journal away from me. I looked up at him, my face scrunched in confusion. “Why—”

“There’s something else. Something I’m positive you didn’t know about, and something I almost didn’t see myself. I read it also, and if you want to read it alone, I understand. Just know that I’m here for you, and you can talk to me about whatever you need to after reading it . . . okay?”

“I don’t . . . I don’t understand. Okay? I guess?” Why does he look so unsure of himself all of a sudden?

“Trent wrote you something in the back, Rachel. Do you want to read it?”

Trent wrote to me. He wrote to me! Not a day had gone by that I hadn’t thought about him, and what may be happening to him. And not a day had gone by that I hadn’t thanked God for him . . . for keeping me safe. Despite our last day together, and my confusion about my feelings for him, I still knew without a doubt that I wasn’t, and never had been, in love with him. He was my friend, and I owed him my life. I was still dealing with the guilt that he’d done all he’d promised, and I couldn’t keep my promises to him, but I knew that would take time to get past.

Looking up at Kash, I finally nodded my head and grabbed for the journal again. “I want to, but don’t leave me alone.”

“I won’t, sweetheart.”

My chest ached when the blood-smeared pages came into view as Kash flipped to the last page in the journal while it sat in my hands. This had to have been done that last night . . . why hadn’t he told me? Looking up at Kash, I saw his eyes were on me and were full of nothing but understanding as he waited patiently for me. No jealousy. No insecurity. Just compassion as I gripped his hand like a lifeline and looked back down onto the page.

Rachel—

Is it twisted that I want to thank you for the time I’ve had with you? You’ve been nothing short of amazing throughout all of this, and I’m thankful for every moment. I know I’ve avoided answering you before, but I want to tell you why I stole you away in the first place.

It had nothing to do with you, but everything to do with the men you’re associated with. They’re good men, never doubt that; but by doing their job, and putting assholes like the leaders of my crew in prison, they put their lives on the line. And when you came into the picture, it put you in my hands.

We were going to use you as bait to get the leaders out, and it was my job to watch you . . . and eventually take you. Watching over you once you were here in this house had never been part of the plan, but after the four months of watching you day in and day out, I couldn’t leave you to fend for yourself here. As you’ve come to find out, I would do anything to keep you safe, and I won’t stop until I get you out of here.

What will happen after tonight, I’m already prepared for and know I deserve. But I want . . . no, need you to know, I never wanted this life. I would have done anything to stay away from it, and even more to get out of it. Sometimes we just don’t have a choice.

Because of who I am, and what I’ve done, I never thought I was meant to find love. Thank you for unintentionally showing me how wrong I was. Even though your heart belongs to him, loving you—even in secret—has changed my life. And if I die tomorrow, I’ll consider myself lucky to be able to die loving you.

Trent Cruz

I read his words three times before I finally shut the journal and fell into Kash’s arms. No tears came, but there was a soul-deep ache for my friend.

I hated the way he viewed himself, and his self-worth. As I had so many times over the last couple weeks, I wished he’d had another chance at life, one far away from all he had ever known. But to continue wishing he’d been given that chance wouldn’t change a thing. Everything in me wanted to visit him, and slap him across the face with the journal before throwing my arms around him, and hugging him tight. But with all that Kash and I were working toward right now, visiting Trent would just set us back. Maybe one day Kash and I would be in a place where I could visit Trent, but that time wasn’t now. I needed to keep moving on with my life with Kash, and, for now, I just needed to be thankful for everything Trent had done for me.

“You okay?”

I breathed in the ci

Kissing the top of my head, he leaned back so he was lying against the arm of the couch and I was on top of him, as he had so many times before, and waited a few minutes before asking, “Did you want to talk about it?”

“There’s not a lot to say. I feel bad for him, but know there’s nothing I can do. If anyone in that house was tortured, it was him. He hated who he was, and what he had become; he honestly didn’t see a way to get out of it, though. He has very dark eyes, but they’re really descriptive. It wasn’t hard to see how the years in the gang tormented him every day. All I’ve wanted for him was for that torture to go away.”

“Like he said in the letter, sometimes they don’t have a choice, Rachel. I don’t know why he was in it in the first place, but sometimes you’re recruited whether you want to be or not. Sometimes it’s about your blood family, and sometimes it’s because of a crime you’ve done. But to get out, Rach, it’s practically impossible to get out.”

I stilled against his chest, and he hurried to continue.

“I’m not telling you to upset you more. I’m just letting you know he was probably living the way he was in order to stay alive. From what you’ve told me, and from his letter, I’m sure you’re right, sweetheart. I’m sure he’s not a bad person deep down.”

“He really isn’t,” I u

Kash’s lips pressed down against my head, and he kept them there as he said, “I know. How could he be? He kept you safe and was trying to bring you back to me.”

I looked up into his gray eyes and searched them before asking, “So you believe me now? You don’t hate him anymore?”

“Well, he did admit in that letter that he was in love with you. You can’t expect me to really be okay with any man loving you.” His mouth curled up on one side in a smirk before his expression went back to serious. “But I do respect him, and I am thankful for him. It’s hard, knowing that he took you and he was the cause of that month from hell. Knowing that he was most likely forced into gang life, and that he was forced into doing what he did, I understand that all too well. Mason and I had to do a lot we aren’t proud of. There are some things that you still don’t know, and if you ever want to, I’ll tell you. But you have to be prepared for what you might find out . . . We had to live with them, and live like them. So because of that time in my life, I understand him in a sense, but only to an extent.

“What Mason and I did was for the betterment of the city, and while we had to do bad things, we were doing it with the knowledge that those men were all about to go away for a very long time and wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone else again. With Trent, he didn’t have the satisfaction in the end that he was still helping people, until he met you. So I guess to answer your question, no, I don’t hate him. I can’t hate him because I understand him too well. There are some things that I wish hadn’t happened, but they did, and we’re moving on from them.”