Home > Dangerous Lies (Lies #5)

Dangerous Lies (Lies #5)
Author: Ella Miles


Prologue

 

 

Liesel

 

 

I always knew that falling in love was dangerous.

I could fall in love with the wrong person.

A monster.

Criminal.

Devil.

A man who could hurt me.

Rape me.

Ruin me.

That was always my biggest fear—that I would fall in love with a man who would hurt me, a man I couldn’t escape. That I would love him even when I shouldn’t. That my love for him would kill me.

It turns out, I didn’t fall for the devil.

I fell for a good, compassionate man. A man with the biggest heart. A man who loves me as his equal. A man who loves my kids as his own.

I found a man who completes my heart—a man I want to spend the rest of my life with and beyond.

But falling in love with him was still dangerous.

And I don’t know if we can survive our love.

 

 

1

 

 

Liesel

 

 

Beep, beep, beep.

An annoyingly high-pitched sound infiltrates the fog in my brain. I try to open my eyes, but my eyelids are too heavy. My legs feel numb, and my teeth chatter from the chill surging through my body.

Beep, beep, beep.

The sound continues, trying to pull me back to reality. I don’t know what happened, but I do know that I don’t want to return to reality. Whatever happened was bad. I may not have much of a heart left, but I have to protect it.

Stay asleep; life will be easier if you just sleep.

“Miss Dunn, can you open your eyes for me?” I hear a sweet voice say.

No!

It’s a trap. I won’t open my eyes.

I feel a hand running through my hair, brushing it out of my face before it lands on my cheek.

“You should open your eyes now. It’s time,” her voice is still sweet, yet firmer now.

I shake my head gently back and forth. “I’m scared.”

Her hand moves down my body until she’s gripping my hand. “I know. I’m going to be right here holding your hand the whole time, though. You won’t have to face the truth alone.”

The truth—that means something terrible did happen. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I wasn’t supposed to be asleep when I gave birth. What happened?

“Open your eyes, sweetheart. Then we can talk. You still have time to decide.”

Decide?

I’ve already made my decision. Nothing is going to change that.

“On the count of three,” she says.

“One.”

“Two.”

I open my eyes before she gets to three. I don’t like doing what I’m told.

“There you are.” She smiles, still gripping my hand. “How are you feeling? Do you need more pain medicine?”

“I just need you to cut the crap and tell me what happened.”

Her lips thin, and her smile drops, but she nods.

“You gave birth to a beautiful, healthy boy.”

My eyes scan hers, waiting for her to say more. She said boy—singular.

“And the others?”

She shakes her head as a tear rolls down her cheek. “I’m so sorry. We lost them.”

We.

There is no we.

She didn’t have triplets. I did.

I failed.

I didn’t provide a good enough home for them. I didn’t eat healthily enough. Exercise enough. Take my vitamins. Reduce my anxiety. I didn’t do enough.

I failed.

And now they are gone.

I want to scream, break things, explode into a million pieces.

My grief doesn’t allow it. My grief streams down my face in burning silent tears. Tears that pour down each cheek for each of the children I’ve lost.

My tears are the only external sign of my pain. Everything else I keep inside. The pain rages through my veins like branding fire until my heart can’t pump the agony through any longer. It flees from my body to go with my children. I no longer have a heart. A soul. A purpose.

I’m nothing.

I know the woman is hugging me, trying to comfort me, but I don’t feel her arms. I’m numb. I feel nothing anymore. I doubt I will ever feel anything ever again.

“The couple is here to adopt the boy,” she says. Those words get through the pain.

She waits; I don’t say anything.

“There is still time. You can still keep him. You’d make a great mother.”

“No, I’d make a terrible mother.” Even if I wouldn’t, I won’t bring a child into my world. He’d end up dead just like my other two children.

“Do you want to hold him before…?” she trails off.

I shake my head.

“Dear, I really think you’ll regret not meeting him before you give him up.”

My tears stop, and I push back out of her arms as the pain settles into my body. I might as well get used to it. This is my life now—an all-consuming amount of loss. Everywhere I go, I’ll feel it. Nothing will take the pain away. Nothing.

“No! I don’t want to hold him. I killed them! It’s my fault they are dead. If I hold him, I’ll just end up killing him too!”

I notice someone at the door, but then he’s gone as soon as I get a glance. A lock of blonde hair is all I see as he walks away from me.

Good riddance.

He’s the only one who could ease my pain right now. The only boy who would know the exact words to say. The only boy who could love me. And he can’t do that—loving me is dangerous.

Plus, I want to feel all the pain. I don’t want him to take it away. Not now, not ever.

 

That whole story was a lie.

The nurse lied to me!

All three of my children survived, not just one. They are all alive. I didn’t fail. Langston overhearing that my children died was a lie. All of it.

The pain I’ve carried with me since that day was a lie.

I have three kids.

None of them are mine.

I didn’t fail them that day, but I have now.

Atlas was taken by Maxwell.

Rose was taken by Phoenix.

Declan was taken by Corbin.

Three kids—all taken.

All because I didn’t do something sooner. After seeing Atlas myself, I was sure that Corbin and Waylon claiming they had my child was a lie. They had to be bluffing. I knew the second I saw Atlas that he was mine.

Even though I saw the similarities between Rose and me when I saw her, I convinced myself that she was Langston’s.

If I hadn’t been so afraid, then maybe I could have prevented this. I could have done more to stop it.

I stare at Langston, who is still processing everything. He’s basically been frozen in place, his eyes wide, his lips parted, his hair wild since he found out the truth. Rose isn’t his child. I have three kids all gone.

I can’t imagine how he’s processing this.

For a moment, I thought he could have been the one telling me my children died the day they were born. I thought he hated me that much and wanted to punish me.

But despite all the lies we’ve told each other over the years, he wouldn’t tell me that. When he realized Rose wasn’t biologically his—it shocked him, hurt him. There is no hiding or faking the kind of pain that comes with losing a child.

If it wasn’t Langston who was behind pretending my children died and hiding them from me, then who was it?

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