3
Liesel
What did the note say?
I was dying to know as I watched it flutter into the ocean. Langston won’t tell me, though. He can’t tell me, just as I couldn’t tell him that my mission was to betray him.
What pain is Langston going to have to inflict on me?
It won’t be anything compared to the agony I’m feeling knowing all three of my children’s lives are in danger.
Outside, rain starts as I stand in the living room hopelessly staring out a window, waiting for news. News that the teams have arrived at the locations, news that they’ve succeeded in getting through, news that my kids are safe.
I hate standing in Enzo and Kai’s house doing nothing, but I know we need to wait. We need to be ready to go if one of them fails.
I hear Langston walking up behind me, but I don’t turn around to face him. All I want is news that my kids are safe. Or news of which direction we should head—anything but doing nothing.
I count the raindrops as they run down the window. I grip the neck of my oversized white T-shirt, just needing something to grip onto.
I feel Langston’s hand on my wrist, and he gently gets me to let go of my shirt before he laces his fingers with mine.
I go to pull away, not wanting to be with anyone right now, but he tugs me back. I finally glance at him. His pupils are dilated, his cheeks flushed, the vein in his neck is bulging, and his breathing is erratic.
“I’m just as scared to lose them as you are. We are in this together,” he tugs me to him as his other hand strokes my back.
“I don’t want to be comforted right now. I want to feel all the stress and anxiety. I failed them. I deserve to feel this way.”
He shakes his head, obviously disagreeing, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t let me go either.
“Let’s eat.”
I look at him like he’s crazy. There is no way I can eat at a time like this.
“We need to have our strength if we have to go help. We are eating,” he commands.
“No.” There is no possible way I could eat right now.
He frowns. “Huntress, do you want to get your kids back?”
“Of course.”
“Then eat.”
“No, I’ll just throw it up. I’m too nervous.”
He narrows his eyes at me suspiciously, like he thinks I’m lying.
Finally, I yank my hand free of his grasp.
“Huntress,” he says my name like he’s begging me. “Trust me, if you want to do something to help the kids, then you need to spend time with me. Preferably eating, but we can also come up with something else to do if you don’t want to eat.”
I study him, trying to determine what he’s not saying. My eyebrows jump up as I realize what he’s not saying—this has to do with the note.
The note is the key to getting the treasure, which might be the only way we can get the kids back if our teams fail. But what did the note say? What does he have to do?
“Trust me, huntress. I won’t hurt you,” Langston says, brushing my hair off my shoulder as he leans in and tenderly kisses my neck. Shivers tingle down my body at the soft touch. It feels wrong to feel anything remotely near pleasant when my kids are in danger.
“It’s not wrong to feel connected to me right now. It’s not wrong to feel good when the world has turned bad. Don’t ever feel guilty for feeling something for me, no matter what is going on, no matter who is in danger.”
“All I feel for you is hate,” I say softly as my thumb plays with the ring on my finger. The ring has started to disintegrate since it’s made of stems and thorns.
Langston wraps his arms around me from behind and pulls me into a hug. “Have dinner with me.”
I close my eyes as I lean against his hard chest, feeling calmer with his arms around me. I nod against him even though my stomach churns at the thought of food.
Langston leads me out onto the deck, and I gasp at the sight. The small circular table has a white table cloth, a bouquet of fresh flowers, two lit candles, two plates filled with food, and two wine glasses filled with red wine.
“Is someone else here with us? I thought Kai sent all the staff away so we could be alone?”
“She did. I did this; you were in such a trance you didn’t notice.”
He leads me over to the chair that has a better view of the ocean, pulls the chair out, and then waits until I sit. He’s being such a gentleman. It’s strange.
I smile weakly at him as he takes his seat across from me.
He flashes me a much more sincere smile in return. His actually reaches his eyes. It’s meant to soothe my nerves, but it just makes me more anxious as I try to guess what it is he’s going to have to do to me. Betray me? Hurt me? Ruin me?
He’s the only man who has the power to do any of those things—the only person in the world outside of my kids who can hurt me.
His smile drops when he reads my mood, or maybe he can actually read my thoughts.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says.
“You don’t always get a say in whom you hurt.”
Our eyes lock for a second in the pain that is our world before the smell of the food finally hits my nose, and I glance down at my plate. It makes me laugh.
“I made your favorite foods,” he says, his voice full of pride.
I bite my lip to hide a smile. It’s boxed macaroni and cheese with cut-up hot dogs. A giggle escapes despite how hard I tried to hide it.
“Don’t laugh. Is macaroni and cheese not still your favorite food?” He says it so seriously that I laugh even harder.
“No, nowadays I prefer my pasta with some actual nutrients in it. Nothing with more chemicals in it than actual food.”
He laughs finally. “I know, but Kai and Enzo’s fridge didn’t have much to make anything except what the kids like. So it was this or frozen pizza, and since I’ve already made you frozen pizza, I thought this would work best.”
I shake my head with a smile as I pick up my fork and stab a piece of the macaroni before taking a bite. The smell overwhelms my senses and flips my stomach. I don’t want to eat, but I need to try—Langston’s right about that. I start chewing, but something is off.
“Um…it’s crunchy,” I say.
Langston’s nose is curled up as he chews his own bite. He spits his food out into his napkin, which gives me permission to do the same without insulting him or insinuating that I’m pregnant or something.
“What did you do to it?” I ask, now inspecting the pasta to see that half of it looks completely undercooked, while the other half looks overcooked.
“I followed the directions on the box.” He frowns before testing a bite of the hot dog.
I roll mine around on the plate and sink my fork in it, realizing that it takes too much effort to sink the tongs of the fork into the flesh of the hot dog. I put my fork down and watch Langston try a bite.
His face turns green, and he barely gets his napkin to his mouth before he spits it out.
“So I shouldn’t be expecting my new husband to cook for me every night then?” I joke.
He runs his hand through his hair, and I notice some sweat coming through his T-shirt.