Ten Thousand Lies Read Online Free PDF Page B

wouldn’t go to the dance with me because she didn’t dance with losers. Poor thing ended up with two broken legs the day before the dance.
     
    I knew now my father had had a hand in that.
     
    The last time I kissed a woman. Rachel Jenkins at a school formal four years ago. She wore a red dress. I could’ve fallen desperately in love with her if she hadn’t moved away two days later.
     
    I’d never know if it was my father or her parents who had had their hand in that.
     
    The evening my father took all my drawings and paintings and had them burned, and then he beat my mother because she’d told me I could be an artist if that was what I wanted. Charles Godwin’s sons weren’t going to be bloody faggots and artists.
     
    Behind his desk, my father turned his back on us. A strange sound came from him, a sort of choking .
    Is the man crying? Unbelievable.
    “Kill the fucking pikey first,” he said, unable to face what was going on in his own office. “Make him watch his friend die. Then, take him out. Make it clean though, Max.”
    “Whatever you say,” replied my brother, his hard black eyes flashing.
    Silencer attached, Max walked up to us, gun resting like a cherished lover in his hand.
    It’s fitting then. I betrayed our family, only to be betrayed by Max. I thought we had a common goal. For years, we worked together to figure out how to sabotage the slave trade from the inside, and instead…
    “Close your eyes, Jamey,” whispered Ronen. “Don’t give them anything more.”
    “Fuck you, pikey piece of shit,” snarled Max. He raised his arm.
    My good eye closed.
    Pop! Pop!
    Pop!
    With a shocked gasp, I opened my eye. Behind us, the muffled crunch of bodies hit the floor. Before me…
    Charles Maximillian James Godwin wasn’t anywhere I could see.
    “Max,” I whispered.
    My brother unsheathed his knife from his ankle and severed the ties that bound my hands. Then, he took my face and kissed my brow before hauling me into his arms. “Fuck, Jamey…how stupid can you be?”
    “You just…”
    “Both of you!” he raged. “Everything— everything —we’ve dedicated ourselves to could have been blown to hell! Why didn’t either of you run this by me first?”
    Ronen sighed.
    Max’s arms tightened around me. “You just went with him, didn’t you?” he asked Ronen.
    “Shit, can you bloody untie me already?”
    Max gently pushed me back and made his way over to Ronen. Cutting Ronen’s ties, Max sat down and raked his hands through his black hair.
    “You killed Charles,” I croaked.
    “It was going to be either you or me, Jamey.”
    Stunned, I stared at our father’s desk, wondering about the sight behind it. “Headshot?”
    “He probably never even felt it. No doubt, his ghost is screaming for our heads as we speak.”
    Shuddering, I sincerely hoped our father would reap some sort of judgment. He’d ruined so many lives, destroyed the souls of too many people, for him to simply be put down and that be the end of it.
    “Jamey, you have to leave. Deo should be here any minute—”
    “He’s not in Oxford? What about his mum? Did Dad—”
    Max shook his head. “Dad might’ve suspected Deo was involved, but he made no calls to go after Deo or his mum. You left Wallace alive at the warehouse. He called Dad and said only you and Ronen were there with the kid, nothing about Deo.”
    “Then, how—” Ronen said.
    “I called Deo, and he told me what went down, what you asked him to do. No one is going after the kid or that family. No one who is left knows. I took care of Wallace. Then, I called…I can’t even tell you. You’ll find out soon enough. Deo is on his way, and you are to stay out of sight until you leave. You have to leave England. Everything is being sorted out by some people. I can’t say whom. But I’ve been in touch with them since you two came back from Amsterdam last year. They’re going to contact you when it’s clear.”
    “What the fuck—”
    Max gave me a