The secrets we keep, p.1
The Secrets We Keep, page 1
THE SECRETS WE KEEP
THE SECRETS WE KEEP #1
LILY WILDHART
The Secrets We Keep
The Secrets We Keep #1
Copyright © 2023 Lily Wildhart
Lily Wildhart has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, record, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referred to in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorised, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Cover Designer: The Pretty Little Design Co.
Editor: Encompass Press & ACourtofSpicyBooks
Proofreader: Puddleduck Proofing & Sassi’s Editing Services
Interior Formatting: Wild Elegance Formatting
The Secrets We Keep/Lily Wildhart – 1st ed.
ISBN-13 - 978-1-915473-40-0
To everyone who feels lost.
Like they’re in a deep, dark, endless pit that they can’t climb out of.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Every day is a win, even the bad ones.
‘One day’ will come soon.
You’ll see.
Just hold on a little longer.
CONTENTS
CONTENT WARNING
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Eight Months Ago
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Five Months Later
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Three Months Later
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
About the Author
Also by Lily Wildhart
CONTENT WARNING
This book is a dark, 18+, mafia, why choose romance.
It contains scenes and references of abuse/sexual assault, assault and suicide that some readers may find triggering, along with graphic sex scenes, cursing and violence.
CHAPTER ONE
QUINN
This song is my jam! I haven’t felt this free in well… ever. Raising my hands above my head, I shake my hips to the beat, tipping my head back and letting my hair cascade behind me as my body sways.
This is what I’ve been searching for.
This, right here, makes the years of fear, the years of being made to feel small, the long months of running, almost worth it.
My life should have been like this from the beginning, but I am finally free and I am going to live exactly how I want to.
Hands clasp my waist and I jolt back to reality, the warm glow of tequila in my system fading enough for me to pull out of whoever’s grasp it is. I turn and see an obviously wasted guy, who I give a tight smile to before pointing off the dance floor.
I probably should head to the bathroom. I might be free but that doesn’t mean that I can relax. Being a woman in a city, with zero people I know, still makes my entire existence a risk, but it’s totally worth it to be free from him.
Making my way through the throng of bodies, my buzz continues to recede as I push past the people, but I lost count of the shots I’ve taken so my head is definitely still fuzzy. I push open the first door I come to and the thud of the bass from the club slips away as the door closes, my footsteps clumsy as I walk into the wall before I realize I’m not in the bathroom.
Way to go, Quinn.
Voices draw my attention as I step further into the weird little hall that seems to open to some sort of storage room and, despite knowing this is a stupid idea, the tequila in my system fuels my bad decisions tonight. This definitely isn’t the first one I’ve made in the last hour and I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?
Stumbling down the little hall thing, I clasp a hand over my mouth as I try to stay quiet. When I reach the end of the hall I pause and think twice. The voices don’t exactly sound welcoming.
Maybe tequila really isn’t making the best decisions tonight.
For a moment, I consider turning back and finding the bathroom as my bladder screams at me, but my interest is piqued. Like that damn cat, my curiosity is going to get me in trouble. I can just feel it.
Deciding to not get dead, having escaped that particular fate one too many times already in my life, I move to turn back toward the club when I stumble and fall to the ground.
Shit.
There’s no way that was quiet. Is there?
I’m trying not to groan as I shift onto my knees before climbing back to my feet, holding my breath and waiting to hear the voices again. They’re still talking in low tones, but by some sort of saving grace, I don’t think they heard me.
Now fully standing, I realize I kinda fell out of the hall and I can see them.
Three men, all in black suits, standing in front of another guy who is crying on his knees before them.
Somehow, no one has noticed I’m here and I scramble to my feet. I need to get out of here. The voice of the man in the middle calls my attention and I take a step back when I see the gun in his hand.
Holy shit. What is this?
Stupid Quinn. You came here to escape violence, of course your stupid ass literally fell into this shit.
I blink and it’s like time stands still.
My ears ring and I flinch as the bang blasts through the room, then I freeze. I shouldn’t be here.
I absolutely shouldn’t be here.
The man on his knees in the middle of the room slumps forward as blood drips onto the concrete floor from the hole in his skull.
Why is there so much blood?
My stomach churns as all the tequila in my system starts to rebel. A whimper escapes my lips and every atom of my body screams at me to run.
“Who are you?” the man holding the gun asks as he turns to face me, gun raised in my direction. His voice shouldn’t sound smooth as honey. His dark eyes shouldn’t feel like they’re boring into my soul.
I will my mouth to speak as the three of them walk closer to me, but all I can focus on is the gun in my face.
After being on the run for so long, I thought I’d finally found a corner of the world where I could be safe.
I guess I was wrong.
CHAPTER TWO
QUINN
EIGHT MONTHS AGO
The knock at the door has me pausing the show I’m not really watching, putting down my half-eaten bowl of cereal, and looking at the time on my crappy burner phone. Who in the hell is knocking at my door this late?
I mean, it’s not late late, but my nearing-thirty ass is definitely considering this to be past the time that it’s okay to be knocking at my door. I’m in my pjs for God’s sake, this is not a social hour on a Wednesday.
The knocking sounds again and I sigh as I pull my tired ass up off the couch and glance through the peephole.
I see the flowers before anything else.
My heart sinks and the lump in my throat is making it difficult to swallow, but I open the door anyway.
“Good evening, miss. Delivery for you.”
I try not to grimace as he hands me the flowers before sauntering off down the grungy hall like he didn’t just ruin my life.
Not that it’s his fault, he is just the messenger after all.
Once I’ve closed the door, I check the four locks and the deadbolt on the door to my shitty apartment for the millionth time and berate myself for my paranoia. And yet, I’m not paranoid. The blood red roses in my hands prove it.
He found me.
Again.
My shoulders slump as I try to breathe like my world isn’t crumbling around me yet again, and lean against the locked door. I’ve been running for nearly two years, and each time I think I’ve managed to escape the clutches of my psychopathic, gaslighting, abusive asshole of an ex—who refuses to believe he’s my ex—he shows me that I’m not outside of his reach.
I once thought dating a cop would mean I was safe. Especially a detective. Trent Boseman wasn’t some rookie who didn’t know the world, he was a man of experience, a man who saw the darkness and protected us all from it.
Little did I know that that shiny façade was just that. A façade. Trent lived in the darkness, wore those shadows like a second skin, and reveled in them.
The map of broken bones and bruises from the five years we were together are proof of that. Even if he did manage to make everyone believe I was just clumsy. That I was crazy. That he was the perfect guy for putting up with my constant failures in life and loving me anyway.
An icy shiver runs down my spine at the thought of how many people I tried to reach out to for help in that last year of trying to escape who just thought I was ‘having an episode’. That was one of his favorite lines.
I grind my teeth together and clench my fists as I try to push down the anger and disgust at my own weakness. I should’ve left a long time ago, but just like the cliché goes, I thought it was a mistake. That first time, I’d pushed him too far.
It was my fault.
My entire life, it’s always been my fault, so it wasn’t surprising to me that this was my fault too. I deserved what happened to me. Actions have consequences, and that was mine. We’re all only human after all, and I’d been conditioned to this point by my parents. Perfection was something I would never achieve. I was worthless, useless, and stupid more often than not. It made sense that it was my fault.
He was a detective. An upstanding citizen in our small town. It couldn’t possibly be his fault that he broke my wrist and bruised my neck, choking me in a fit of rage.
Obviously, I should have let it go. I should have just accepted the excessive drinking and the fucking around because he worked hard and he was getting out his frustrations.
Until he realized I wouldn’t leave… then he worked them out on me.
A tear slips down my face as my anger wins.
Of course he found me. It doesn’t matter that I changed my name, stopped speaking to every person from my past that reached out when the news hit that I’d left him, changed my appearance.
None of it mattered.
He had power.
And I am desperate to take it back.
Glancing around the apartment at my meager belongings, I let out a sigh. At least it won’t take me long to pack up. The apartment was furnished and I only keep the absolute bare minimum.
At least I managed to be here for three months before the roses turned up this time. I’m getting better at hiding.
Or he isn’t looking as hard.
Either way, it feels like a small win and I’m going to cling to it with every fiber of my being.
With shaking hands, I place the roses on the counter and pull the card from the holder thing.
Tawny is written on the envelope, the name I’m using at the moment, and I swear I can see the smug smile on his stupid-ass face as I read the name. I pull the card from the envelope, taking a deep breath and willing my hands to stop shaking.
My beloved darling,
Hide and seek is getting old, don’t you think?
You can’t run forever, just come home and we can work it out.
12.03
Always yours,
T
I retch when I finish reading as my entire body rebels at the thought of going back. It took too long and too much willpower to leave. Even if life is hard now, nothing is harder than the way I was living before.
Running to the bathroom, I almost don’t make it before my cereal shows itself again as I clutch the porcelain bowl, my stomach twisting as my eyes stream. When the sickness turns to dry heaving and I finally manage to catch my breath, I drop onto my ass and sit against the wall, the cold from the tile seeping into my skin.
I guess it’s time to run again and just hope that he doesn’t find me, because I know if he does… this time he’ll kill me.
After two buses and three trains, all in different directions, I finally pull into the station at Belleview. I can catch a cab from here into the city, but I knew that the town this stop was in is tiny so it more than likely has no surveillance. Even if Trent found my ticket, despite me paying in cash, he wouldn’t know where I got off.
Two years of running has taught me plenty, including to not trust people who are supposed to be in authority, like the police—if Trent wasn’t enough of a lesson in this, I’ve seen way too much stuff be let go in small towns when people should have ended up in jail. It’s also taught me to carry pepper spray at all times, to sleep so lightly that a fly buzzing will wake me, and to be in a constant state of hypervigilance. On top of that, it’s taught me surveillance, introduced me to people who make passable fake IDs, and how to make money without leaving a trace.
At first I struggled. A lot. I got by for the first few months on savings I’d slowly withdrawn over six months while making my plan for my great escape. I had no idea what I was doing, staying in a flea-infested motel that didn’t require ID for me to check in. Except the walls were paper thin and the bed… I shudder at the memory.
But after Trent found me the first time, I realized that I needed to get smarter if I was going to really disappear. If I wanted to actually be free. It’s amazing what information you can find online and, thankfully, the library in sleepyville, Andolt, where I was that first time, allowed computer use for free.
A lot has changed since then. The only person I’m in contact with semi-regularly is Tommy—the guy who creates my new IDs. Which is the other reason I picked this station. My new ID should be waiting for me in a locker as per his instruction.
I already ditched my last burner but I know he’ll have put one in my packet. To be fair, if it wasn’t for Tommy, I’d probably be dead already. He taught me everything the internet didn’t. He also has contacts freaking everywhere.
I jump off the train, backpack slung over my shoulder, and pull the hood of my sweatshirt up over my head and zip up my leather jacket. This might be the west coast, but it’s still cold at the ass crack of dawn, even in the Golden State.
My boots are silent as I make my way off the platform and over to the lockers. I have no idea how Tommy’s network operates, or how he always has a place for me to go, but I learned early on to not ask too many questions when it comes to him.
Wish You’d Stayed by The Haunt plays quietly through the one headphone I have in my ear from the old school iPod shuffle I have tucked into my pocket. I slide the padlock code dials to the digits Tommy gave me before I ditched my last phone and let out a huff when it doesn’t pop open. Tugging at it again, I try my hardest not to stomp my foot like a toddler. The lock is stiff, but after a few grunts and internal tantrums, it pops open and I find the brown envelope inside, waiting for me like always.
Resisting the urge to open it straight away—because impatience has been my downfall more than once and Tommy loves to tease me about it—I tuck it in my bag, which I sling back over my shoulder and start walking.
It doesn’t take long to flag down a cab, which is surprising, considering where I am.
“Where to, miss?” the driver asks as I slide into the back of the car.
“Nearest diner on the outskirts of the city,” I respond, trying my best to give him a smile, but I’m tired and it’s been too long since I had caffeine.
Running like this is exhausting, but it’s better than the alternative. I’ve spent my entire life living on everyone else’s terms, being a punching bag for the men in my life—both mentally and physically—and I refuse to ever live that way again.
The taxi weaves through the dark, quiet night, the only light from the occasional street lamp, the sound of the driver’s music softly filtering through the speakers. Just once I’d like to sit back and relax, but I’ve learned the hard way that relaxing in the first two months of a new place isn’t possible.
Thirty minutes pass and I start to see the high-rise buildings all lit up in the distance, and the nervous energy that’s had my chest in a firm grip starts to abate a little. Just a few minutes later, I see the neon glow of an open sign as my driver pulls into the lot of a diner that looks to have all of three people in it… and I’m fairly certain two of them work there. “This okay, miss?”
