The Lies That Shatter by A.V. Asher

Chapter Seven

Aweek and a half had gone by in a blur. Alec hadn’t been able to think straight since Charlotte’s call. Every normal part of life was a challenge. He didn’t want to leave his bed, even though sleep was impossible. Food lodged in his throat and more than once, he’d thrown up. He hadn’t shaved since the morning his life ended.

Declan had taken to sleeping in Alec’s guest room. Alec was pretty sure his cousin thought he was going to eat a bullet. Not that Alec hadn’t thought of it. It would be so much easier to live without this constant haunting pain.

It wasn’t just the torment of knowing he would have to live without her.

It was the guilt.

Alec had convinced her to go into the program. Mercedes had resisted, wanting to stay by his side as he recovered. She was adamant about it.

It didn’t matter that Alec hadn’t been in any shape to protect her. He had the training, the knowledge to take her underground where they would never find her. But he’d been weak. Unable to do more than kiss her goodbye. If he’d have been stronger, she’d be alive today.

He’d never be able to forgive himself for that.

Alec walked to the curtains and drew them back. He winced at the light, the sun teetering on the edge of the horizon past the Golden Gate Bridge. It wasn’t his first visit here, but it was the one that was going to haunt him his entire life.

This was her city. Her home.

Everything around him was her.

A soft knock pulled him out of his thoughts and Cressida peeked in from the door adjoining their rooms. “You okay?”

Alec didn’t respond. She’d been mother-henning him since she helped pick him up off the floor. They were all hovering, sometimes quite literally. If it wasn’t Cressida or Declan, then it was Mason who popped by or Shake who wanted to say hello. Alec let them fuss. The few times they had left him alone had been a nightmare.

“It’s a beautiful hotel, isn’t it?” Cressida asked, coming to stand beside him at the window.

“Aye, it’s nice.”

Cressida looked up at him, her rich brown eyes filled with concern. “Have you taken your suit out?”

Alec shook his head. He didn’t give a shit about his suit. He should. But he just didn’t.

Cressida’s frown deepened, and she went to his suitcase. She rummaged through and found his garment bag. Alec turned back to the city, unable to stomach looking at the black suit he’d packed for this week.

“You need to shower and trim up that beard,” Cressida said from behind him. “We need to be at your cousin’s house in an hour and we don’t know how the traffic will be.”

His cousin.

It wasn’t just his cousin who lived there. It was Mercedes’s sister. And it wasn’t just any house. It was Mercedes’s house. Alec had never stepped foot in it, but he knew it well enough. It had been the backdrop of his long-distance relationship with her.

He’d lost three years with her.

Three fucking years.

Instead, they’d only had a few days. A few days of truly knowing what they meant to each other before those fuckers ripped it away again. Sometimes rage welled in him and he had to force it back before he unloaded it on anything that came near him.

“Alec.” Cressida broke through his thoughts again.

“I’m going.”

* * *

Alecand the others waited on the pavement while Declan rang the bell of the narrow Victorian-style home. That it had once been hers made Alec’s pulse thunder. Not the good sort of sped up heart rate that came from love or longing. But the kind that tore through the only defenses he had left.

Charlotte must hate him.

He’d promised her he’d help Mercedes escape the hell she was living in. Instead, he’d turned her over to others. Others who obviously couldn’t be trusted.

It was all his fault.

He wouldn’t blame Charlotte if she spat on him and slammed the door in his face. He looked around, feeling like he might be sick in the hedges that framed the wrought iron staircase to the house.

The door opened and the bright blue eyes of their younger cousin greeted them.

“Ach, look at you, wee man,” Declan said as he tugged Luke into a bear hug. Both of them pounding the others on the back as they greeted each other. Declan introduced Cressida, Shake, and Mason, but Alec barely heard any of it.

She was watching him. While the others talked, Alec’s gaze held Charlotte’s.

Mercedes and Charlotte shared very few common features. Where Mercedes had been fair with wavy chestnut hair, Charlotte had warm, tawny skin and dark, corkscrew curls that framed her face.

But their eyes. Their eyes were just the same.

When they cried, the vivid green overtook the whisky gold. Charlotte’s eyes brimmed with unshed tears, and Alec thought his already devastated heart would fall apart to see her.

She took a tentative step toward him, as if she was unsure of how he would receive her. Alec opened his arms, and she moved to him. He gathered the last thread of Mercedes to him and held her while she sobbed into his chest.

“I’m so sorry, Charlotte. I failed you both,” he murmured in her ear, letting his own tears fall.

She drew back and tilted her head. “What? You didn’t fail us.”

Alec sniffed. “If I’d been stronger . . .”

“Stop it,” Charlotte said. “You nearly died for her. There was nothing more you could have done.”

There was no one in the world that understood this pain better than Charlotte. Alec nodded and followed her as she welcomed him into her home.

Mercedes’s presence was everywhere. She hadn’t lived there for nearly a year, having turned it over to Charlotte and Luke when she moved to London.

“It’s beautiful. Did you design this?” Cressida asked, her gaze moving around the cozy living room.

“I did, but this is one hundred percent my sister’s taste.” Charlotte smiled sadly. “She was one of my first interior design jobs. She let me go crazy.”

Alec and Charlotte browsed the photo wall she and Mercedes had created together. Some pictures were artistic shots Luke had likely done. Luke was a professional photographer but enjoyed taking shots of nature for fun. But it was the candids that caught Alec’s eye. Mercedes’s stunning smile glowed from the frames. Pictures of college friends and childhood memories filled the space.

Shake and Mason came to take in the wall as well. “Is that . . .” Mason said, peering in closer to one photo. “Is that Ezra Coulter, the lead singer from Slighted Razor?”

“It is, although he’s on his own now,” Charlotte said, her lips curled into a smile. She pointed to another photograph. “There’s one of us when we were kids.”

The photo was taken in the summer. Mercedes and Ezra couldn’t have been more than fourteen. The smile on her lips didn’t meet her eyes and Ezra carried a similar haunted look. Charlotte, around eight or nine years old, sat between Ezra’s knees on the step below. His hand lay protectively on Charlotte’s tiny shoulder.

“We grew up with him. He was like a big brother to me.”

“No bloody way!” Shake said. “You grew up with Ezra Coulter?”

Charlotte let out a laugh. “Yeah, he was our neighbor. His mom was as messed up as ours. I was too little at the time, but he would help Sadie take care of me when our moms were wrecked. Sadie taught him to play the guitar.”

“No shit? That’s wild!” Shake said.

“Do you still keep in touch?” Mason was studying the picture.

“I’ve kept in touch, but he and Sadie had a falling out years ago, and she stopped talking to him.”

“Why did they fall out?”

Charlotte’s gaze darted to Alec’s. “Well . . .”

Alec spoke up. “He and Sadie dated for a while. It didn’t end well.”

Charlotte looked relieved that she didn’t have to be the one to tell Alec that Mercedes had once dated someone as famous as Ezra Coulter, but Alec knew all about him. During the months he and Mercedes carried on a long-distance relationship, she had shared many painful things about her past. Ezra had been a huge part of her life until she let him in, and he destroyed it all.

“Oh, Alec, we were going through some of Luke’s photos and found one he snapped at our wedding. I was going to give it to you as a housewarming gift once Sadie could move in with you, but . . .” Charlotte’s voice halted, and she walked to the nearby cabinet. “I hope it’s not too much for you.”

She handed him a frame, and the image made his stomach clench. It had been a stolen moment at the wedding he didn’t know anyone had seen.

Mercedes’s arms were wrapped around him. One hand gripped the lapel of his Argyll jacket. Alec was dipping his head to kiss her. She had lifted her chin, her lips parted to take the kiss.

Memories flooded his mind.

The garden-scented breeze. The sweet little giggle she gave when she realized why he’d snuck her away from the reception.

She had leaned back against his chest to take in the view. “I think you’re trying to ruin me.”

Alec laughed and tightened his hold on her. “Ruin you?”

“How can anyone else compare to this?” Her hand came up, and she gestured to the perfect sunset in front of them. Then she’d turned in his arms, her slender body pressing up against him. “I mean, you kiss me by waterfalls and take me out for Scottish sunsets in castle gardens. Not to mention, you look like this in a kilt.” Her heated gaze roved up his body. “You’re ruining me for all other men.”

“Aye, good.”

Alec kissed her, her lips soft on his. She opened to him, slow and sensual. His tongue stroked hers, languidly. She moaned into his mouth and Alec wanted nothing more than to take her home and love her the way he’d needed to.

They never got that chance.

So many fucking regrets.

Charlie was watching him. Her brow furrowed with worry. He cleared his throat. “Thank you, Charlie,” Alec choked out. “It’s perfect.”