The kiss was like nothing she’d ever experienced. Simultaneously a cool rain after a forest fire, and somehow like adding fresh kindling to it at the same time. She felt soothed and burned in the same breath. But then he pulled away, ending it as quickly as it began, leaving her heart stumbling over itself. And as if she weren’t stunned enough, on the table in front of her was a driver’s license.

His driver’s license. Terrible photo and all.

David Gethen.

His name was printed in perfectly standard ink on the little plastic card and she could barely believe it. David Gethen had taken her, hurt her, tortured her, shattered her entire life by telling her the truth, and now he was giving her his name, his information, and letting her go?

“David?” she breathed his name in disbelief.

“Yes?”

“You kissed me.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I just wanted to know what it felt like to kiss a princess. ”

“For the last time, I am not a princess.” She touched her lips as he settled into the chair across from her, his ribs expanding and settling back in a deep breath.

“You’re the modern equivalent, whether you want to admit it or not. Mercier is the king of his little kingdom, and you are his heir.” He took a drink, and smiled. “Although, I guess if the empire does fall, you’ll be a pauper like the rest of us. Like your mother was.”

“My mother…” She flinched, her mind still full of gaps and holes. His knowledge about her life, her unknown family, was overwhelming, and as she looked around at the filing cabinets, aware of the millions of pages that were lurking inside them — all she had were questions. “What else do you know? Have you really read everything in here?”

“You can ask me anything, I don’t care anymore.” His lips twitched. “I did tell you I’d ruin your life, didn’t I?”

Lianna sighed, looking for answers in the vodka. “How can you ruin something that wasn’t real?”

“I guess that’s true. Go on, ask away. I promise I’ll tell you anything I know.”

“I don’t even know where to start.” She reached for one of the papers on the table, but didn’t bother trying to read it. “How many family members do I have?”

“A lot. Your uncles had kids too, some of them have kids now. Most of them live in England, France, some in the rest of Europe, but from what I know they’re all familiar with the family business.”

Remembering the faces in the photos, the men standing around the guns, standing beside those women, she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to know them. Ignorance really was bliss, but she didn’t have that luxury anymore. “Are you going to kill my father?”

“I think I’ve done worse than kill him, don’t you?”

“How?” She caught his eyes as he glanced up at her.

“I’ve taken you from him, haven’t I?” David gave that strange, lopsided smile, and then it disappeared as a long beep emanated from his computer. Jumping out of his seat he rushed over to the desk, shaking the mouse as he pulled out the office chair. His screens came to life and he cursed under his breath.

“What is it?”

“I made a mistake somewhere. Fuck, what did I do?” His hands flew over the keyboard, and she watched as windows opened and closed on the screen. For a few minutes he muttered under his breath, the clatter of the keys the only noise besides the hum of the computer. “DAMMIT!”

The shout made her jump, and then he started to laugh quietly. A quality of madness to it that made her nervous. “What happened?”

“You. You happened. I let you distract me, I let you inside my head, and I sent the last email to your father unencrypted.” He grabbed one of the monitors and turned it so she could see the framework of surveillance cameras, and in the bottom left square were two figures. “And now he’s here.”

Part of her was relieved. Rescue, escape, freedom. No more locked room, no more violence, but a smaller part, the part that hummed at the base of her spine when she thought of his hands on her, felt regret. A twisted sense of losing something. “Where are they?”

“At the double doors — which are locked by the way.” David sighed and turned around in the chair, rubbing his face before he pushed his hands into his dark hair. He was so beautiful, so damaged, so corrupted by everything her father had done. He had let it destroy him, had let it eat him alive until he was barely human anymore, and she couldn’t suppress the pity as he raised those tawny brown eyes to her. “I feel like I should apologize, but I told you I wouldn’t lie to you.”

She ignored his comment, a sense of urgency rising in her. “I have more questions.”

“You better ask them fast, or you’re going to need to make an appointment at the penitentiary.” He was too calm now, too accepting, and it made her angry.

“But I don’t even know what to ask, I don’t even know what pieces are missing!” The metallic bang of a door swinging into the concrete wall made her turn towards the doorway, panic rising inside her. David stood and moved to lean against the filing cabinets on the back wall. His chest bare, all that carved muscle on display as he crossed his arms and waited. Like a defiant criminal waiting for the hangman.

“Just don’t let him lie to you again, Lianna. Don’t let him empty you out and turn you into the little doll he wants. You deserve the truth, don’t let him strip it away.” She turned to meet his eyes, his blank, solemn expression, and then she heard a familiar voice.

“LIANNA!” It was a shout of relief from the man she’d called Uncle Mike, and he had a gun in his hands as he stopped just inside the doorway. “We’re here, we’ve got you. Over here, quick, come to me.”

Her father appeared next to him, slightly wide-eyed, but relief passed over his face as soon as he saw her. “You’re okay. You’re alive,” his voice was warm and soft, the confident tones of a CEO reassuring reporters, but when he took a step towards her, she pulled back in her seat.

“Lianna, come on, sweetheart. We’ll handle this, and you don’t want to be here for it.” Mike nodded at her, his eyes intensely focused on David, but when she saw him adjusting his grip on the gun she shook her head.

“Go ahead, Lianna.” David took a step forward, and she closed her eyes tight as he spoke. “Time for you to go home.”

“No, I’m not leaving yet.” She stared at Michael, ignoring David’s words. “You can’t kill him, I still have questions.”

“This is ridiculous,” her father muttered. Lianna had been avoiding his gaze, unable to face him, but he suddenly grabbed Mike’s gun, immediately re-aiming it at David, and before she could think about it she’d jumped to her feet to stand between them. Stumbling back several steps, her arms wide as she tried her best to block his chest.

“DON’T! You can’t do this, he needs to be alive. I have—”

“You are clearly upset, Lianna, but I will fix this, and then everything can get back to normal. Now, come over here.” Her father was speaking to her like she was still a child, but he wasn’t lowering the gun and that meant she couldn’t risk moving.

He wants to erase this like it never happened.

Just like he erased my mother, and David’s, and all of the people who had owned those companies.

The papers under her feet caught her eye, and she found herself shaking her head. “Normal? You want things to be normal?” A bitter laugh passed her lips. “No. There is no normal anymore. Do you know what this room is? What’s in all of these filing cabinets?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Her father sighed. “You’re safe now. Michael and I have found you, and we can put this behind us.”

“Are you insane? I can’t put this behind me! There’s no normal after reading that!” She kicked some of the papers towards him, and he lowered the gun to lean down and scoop them up. After a moment his jaw went tight, and his eyes flicked to the stacks of folders and papers across the table.

“What is this?”

“This? This is your family. My family. This is what you apparently did to all those other families just to get their fucking companies! Tell me, tell me if you really did this. Tell me if you’re really Alain Faure! Tell me the truth!” There were tears in her eyes, her voice breaking as she tried to hold onto her composure, to bring back the anger so she wouldn’t break down.

Robert Mercier wadded up the papers in his hand and tossed them onto the table. “You’re upset, but while I’m not sure what he’s told you, I can assure you it is all easily explained. I can help you understand, but now it is time to move so Michael and I can finish cleaning up the mess you’ve made.”

“Me?” Another laugh burst from her lips, her eyes flipping to Michael, who avoided her gaze so she had to look back at her father. Baby blue eyes, pale blonde hair, immaculately put together — a monster. “You’re calling this my mess? I was taken because of you! So, what about the mess YOU created, Dad? What about all of this shit you’ve done, I mean, who the fuck are you? What did you do to these people? To my MOTHER?” Her voice rose until she was screaming, but the only reaction she got was an exasperated sigh.

“I am done coddling you, Lianna. You’re old enough to understand the requirements of building a business. Success is never handed to you, you have to reach out and take it, and sometimes that requires sacrifices. Now, if you’re done with your temper tantrum, it is time to go.”

“And what happened to my mother? Was she just another sacrifice?”

“That woman is not your concern, Lianna. You should be grateful for everything I’ve done for you, every advantage I’ve provided you.” He gestured at her, his voice growing colder. “I gave you the best tutors, put you through the best colleges, I have given you every opportunity. You are poised to inherit Mercier Systems, to be someone worth so much more than she would have made you, and for that you should be incredibly grateful.”

“Grateful?” She scoffed, anger surging inside her, and she saw the flicker of rage on her father’s face underneath the perfectly composed shell. “I should be grateful that I’ve benefited from every terrible thing you’ve done? Grateful that you destroyed others to turn me into some kind of puppet to carry your name forward? Well… guess what, Dad, I don’t want to be your fucking heir!”

This was her father. The monster, the real villain. The same one who had tucked her in at night and read her stories with happy endings, all while he killed innocent people — such a load of bullshit. Her entire life was bullshit. A lie.

Lianna laughed. “In fact, I’m going to tell everyone what you’ve done. I’m going to be on every news station, in prime time, telling all your dirty secrets. Telling all of them about you, about the fucking Faure family!” She was seething with righteous anger, burning brightly, when she felt David’s fingers slowly wrap around her arm.

“Lianna, stop.” His whisper came from close behind, a touch of warning in his voice, but she shook him off.

“I’m going to destroy your fucking legacy. Whatever piece of Mercier Systems is still standing, I’ll personally make sure it gets burned to the ground. For Vanessa, for Elizabeth, for everyone you tore apart.”

“All right, Lianna.” Her father nodded. “If that’s how you feel, if you don’t want my legacy, then you won’t have it.” He lifted the gun, and for the first time she truly saw the emptiness in his eyes. The soulless darkness underneath the charming façade — and then the world spun. The gunshot rang out too loud in the small room, someone shouted, and she found herself crushed against a warm chest, muscular arms tight around her.

Looking up, she realized she was staring into David’s tawny brown eyes, too wide for a moment, and then he wavered on his feet, pain twisting his features as he released her. She let out a scream and tried to catch him as he collapsed to the floor, but he was too heavy, and she ended up on the floor with him. “Oh no. No, no, no, what the fuck did you do?”

Her head spun. He’d protected her, taken the bullet her father had meant for her. In a panic, she reached over his broad shoulders to search for the wound, and when her fingers found it he hissed air through his teeth.

“Why did you do that? WHY?”

A rough laugh slipped from him as he turned his neck to look up at her. “I have no idea. Being a fucking fool must run in the family.”

His words made her chest ache and she looked back at her father. “You were going to kill me?” Everything in her world shuddered, the last shreds of hope crumbling as she saw no hint of remorse in the man who had been Dad until a few minutes before, and then she turned her gaze to Michael. “You have to get help, you have to—”

“Oh, no, we don’t have to do anything, Lianna, and we will definitely not be bringing any police into this.” Lifting the gun to point it at her again, her father shrugged. “It’s such a pity to lose you, you were coming along so well, and you did look so nice during the photo ops.”

She flinched, and just as she prepared for the gun to fire again, Michael touched her father’s arm. “Sir, I can handle this. There’s no need for you to be the one.”

Robert Mercier was gone, but Alain Faure sighed, his tone frigid when he spoke. “Well, you took care of the mother, might as well handle this as well.”

The words stole the last of the air from her lungs on a sob, and she looked up at Michael to see if he would argue it, to see if it was a lie — but she could tell it wasn’t. He wouldn’t even meet her eyes.

Monsters. She’d been surrounded by killers and lies her entire life.

Tears streaked her cheeks, and she felt David squeeze her arm as she looked down at him. His voice was weak, but she could still hear him. “I should have left you with the lie. I never—” A fit of coughs cut him off, blurs of red on his lips when he stopped.

She shook her head. “Uncle Mike, please, you can’t do this.”

“Handle it, Michael. I’ll be in the hall.” Her father passed the gun off like a dirty object, and turned to leave as she stared after him in disbelief.

“Close your eyes, Lianna,” Michael commanded, but he wasn’t looking at her. He moved the gun into his other hand, raised it to her father’s head — and fired.

The spray of blood and other matter made her scream. It was unreal, a nightmare. She covered her eyes as the dull sound of her father’s body collapsing to the floor filled her ears, and then there was a strange, buzzing silence.

“Lianna, sweetheart, are you all right? I—” Mike’s voice was like a knife twisting between her ribs.

“Don’t.” With a steadying breath, she looked at the man she had viewed as family her whole life, and felt a wave of disgust. “You killed my mother?”

“I’ve always regretted—”

“You’ve worked for the Faure family all this time. You knew about them, about everything he did, all the people he killed.”

“It was my job, Lianna. I’ve just done my job for your father, but you… I couldn’t let him hurt you. He didn’t even want to respond to the videos. He said he wasn’t going to negotiate, I had to beg him to help you, and — shit, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“You think sorry is enough for this? For everything you’ve done?”

“No.” Michael looked down, wiping the gun off on his shirt before he placed it back into her father’s hand, wrapping his hand around it a few times. He stayed in a crouch beside the shape that had been her father. The monster. The man who had wanted to keep her like an empty doll, to have her carry on his bloody legacy. Michael sighed and stood. “What can I do?”

“Save him.” She looked down at David who opened his eyes to look at her, his brows pulled together in pain.

Mike scoffed. “Absolutely not, he—”

“I said to save him. He’s the only bastard in this room who hasn’t lied to me. He’s the only one who will tell me the truth. I don’t care what else happens, but he lives. Understand?”

Michael paused for a moment longer than she wanted, but eventually he nodded and dragged over the cot, lifting David face down onto it with her help. Snagging a towel and the bottle of vodka, he poured the alcohol over his back, which made David jerk and groan, and then he splashed some on the towel before pushing it into her hand. “If you want him to live, apply pressure, push as hard as you can. I have some calls to make.”

Moving to her knees beside the cot, she overlapped her hands and pressed. A deep groan escaped him, and she could hear Michael in the hallway on the phone, but her mind was still a chaotic blur. “Listen to me, David. You don’t get to die. You’re not getting off that easily. You promised you’d answer any of my questions, and you don’t break promises, remember? You don’t lie. You don’t fucking lie, and so you can’t die now.”

“Now, you’re really starting to sound like a bossy princess.” His voice slurred, and then he coughed again.

She rolled her eyes. “Shut up and focus on not fucking bleeding to death.”

“You should be nicer, I saved your life. I—” David’s voice trailed off and she leaned forward to see his eyes closed. A rush of panic surged inside her.

“Uncle Mike! Tell them to hurry, he’s not conscious anymore!”

“Apply pressure!” he yelled back into the room and she did, putting as much of her weight as she could onto the spot. Shaking her head, she stared at his profile. Those angelic features combining with the memory of every twisted thing he’d done, and she hated him for putting her in this situation. The place where she had to admit he had saved her life in more ways than one. Saved her from a bullet, from her father’s lies, from a life of forced ignorance. Nothing in her life had been real.

Except this.

He’d been her villain, and her savior — and she had no idea which version of him was stronger, all she knew was that she needed him to live.