Page 3 of Twisted Truth

I never expected this.

“You’re hurting me, Kyle.” My voice is shaky, trembling.

I try to pull out of his grip and push past him, but his handtightens around my arm. “I said you’re not leaving!” My breath whooshes out of my chest from shock as he spins me around and hurls me against the wall next to the door. Stars burst behind my eyes and pain sears through the back of my head as it slams into the wall. My ears pop and ring, and for a moment I can’t catch my breath.

I blink for a moment and Kyle’s face comes back into view. His eyes are wide with disbelief, and he’s shouting again, but it takes a moment for me to hear what he’s saying.

“Ella! I’m so sorry!” He reaches out to help steady me. I teeter for a second before finding my balance and scoot away from him, leaning against the wall. “I can’t believe I did that. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I just lost my temper for a minute. Please forgive me. I didn’t mean it. I would never hurt you. I didn’t mean to, I swear.”

Disbelief courses through me.Did that just really happen?Pain stings at the back of my head and my shoulder where I hit the wall, and I know I didn’t imagine it. Tears of fear and pain pool in my eyes as the reality of the situation sinks in.

After a moment, I find my voice, though it’s barely louder than a whisper. “Let me go.”

“No. I can’t do that.”

“Let me go or I’ll call the police.”

He groans. “You can’t leave me, Ella.I love you.We’re supposed to be together. Please, babe. Please.”

He’s wilting before my eyes, and I know that my window of getting past him is a narrow one, and that I have to act while I can. I take my chance at his sudden change of behavior to yank my arm out of his grasp. I rush past him and snatch the handle of one of my suitcases, then hurry out the door before he can grab me again.

My heart pounds in my chest as I race toward the elevator. Kyle’s heavy footfalls and desperate apologies sound from behind me as he chases me down the hallway. When I reachthe elevator, my hand shakes violently as I hit the call button. I turn my head over my shoulder, blinking through tears and hopping frantically from foot to foot while I wait the agonizing seconds it takes for the elevator to arrive.

Kyle stops two feet away from me, holding his hands up in apology.

“Please,” he begs. “Don’t go, Ella. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”

“Leave me alone, Kyle.”

“Don’t fucking do this!” His anger is reemerging at a rapid pace, but luckily a man and woman appear at the end of the hallway and turn to look at us with cautious, concerned expressions at the spectacle we’re making. Kyle shifts nervously under their stares and takes a step back, away from me.

The doors to the elevator finally open, and I scramble inside. He tries to follow, but I shriek for him to get away.

He smacks his palm against the elevator’s door frame. “Don’t do this!”

I flinch at the sound, and the anger rolling off him, and hit the close door button frantically.

“Goodbye, Kyle.”

“Don’t do this!” he pleads.

The doors close, and I let out a sob.

I pull my phone out of my pocket and dial Zahra’s number.

“How did it go?” she asks.

“Not good,” I say through another sob. “Not good at all.”

1

ASHER

ONE MONTH LATER

My desk phone buzzes. “Your father would like to see you,” Matthew, my personal assistant, says through the intercom on my desk phone.

“Did he say what he wanted?”