Chapter 11: Lies Between the Sheets
624 Words
For a timeless, gasping moment, they were still.
Leya's mouth was still inflated from the kiss—if one could even call it a kiss. It had not been tender. It had been claiming. A collision. A surrender that neither of them would admit to.
Harrison's heat remained on her cheek. His hands remained on her hips, whether he didn't know if he should pull her into him… or push her away from him.
It was he who finally spoke.
"You were never meant to read that letter."
Leya's fists were bunched up. "Then maybe you should have incinerated it yourself."
He released a brusque, guttural laugh, falling back and playing with his hair. His chest labored and collapsed against the unbuttoned collar of his shirt, which still felt ruffled from her hands.
"I couldn't," he growled.
Why? she asked. "What is frightening about the threat of a dead man?"
Harrison held the bar. Filled a glass but didn't drink. Stood there looking at the amber liquid as if it would somehow give him strength.
"You want the truth, Leya?" he finally said, his voice low.
"Fine. I'll give you a piece of it."
He stood looking at her again.
My family's debt my father had not signed for to bring you here. He didn't demand marriage or fealty. He was trying to pay a debt in blood.
Leya's eyes grew large. "What?"
He moved in, his words the truer truth more real than the marble he stood on.
"Your father was killed by Australia. Money. Culture. But not governance—it was erasure."
Her skin grew cold. "What do you mean?
"I'm telling you," he growled, "your father had something on Samuel. Something that would've brought it crashing down. And whatever it was, he didn't die in an accident. He was silenced."
Leya backed away, against the door. Her hands trembled, rage and grief slamming into her like a wave.
Over" she spat, but the quiver in her voice betrayed her.
"I wish I was," Harrison said, his eyes hollow. "I found the accident report a month earlier than that. None of it made any sense. There were just no witnesses. No investigators. And seven days later, Samuel sent 3 million dollars to a Zurich bank. In one memo: 'Debt paid. Silence secured.'"
Silence.
Secured.
Leya's heart turned over in her chest. She couldn't breathe, scream move, or cry. Everything in her life—her father's death, the wedding, the torture—had all been fabricated.
"So what am I?" she gasped. "Collateral?"
Harrison simply didn't respond. And that was worse than anything he could have said.
"You knew," she growled. "You knew and still let them ruin me. Still just stood there and let me beg, humiliate myself, starve. You let your family torment me while you—what? Sat on secrets?"
His eyes were shut as a flash of pain cut through them, "You don't know what I've been keeping you away from."
"I don't need protection," she growled. "I want my life back."
She rolled towards the door, her body shaking with rage. But before she could extend her hand and grasp the handle, his voice stopped her.
"There's more."
She remained where she was.
Harrison did not move. But his voice broke—slightly. "Samuel wasn't keeping me from you, Leya. He was keeping you from someone and something else."
Leya turned. "Who?"
His eyes pinned hers—and she saw for the first time true fear in them.
I don't know," he said. "But whatever it was. It did not stop there."
If Samuel silenced her father to stay silent about a secret on the ground.
What does that secret do when it begins digging its way up?
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