Fighting With Light (The Coldwell Brothers #2)

8. Liam

8

Liam

A few hours pass and she snores softly. I pace and make myself some coffee, trying to stay awake. I sit in the chair scrolling through my phone and her body shifts and begins to wake up, moving her hands and arms. Ready to cover her mouth to keep her from screaming, she looks at me with cold indifference instead of fear, and she sighs, dropping her head back onto the pillow.

“I’m all for the kink, but you’re usually the one in handcuffs.”

I rub my chin, pushing my smile away. Any other person would have panicked or screamed, maybe started crying. But Aelia? She cracks jokes. We are more alike than I thought.

“Did you drug me?”

I wince. “Yeah,” I rasp.

She purses her lips and glances at the knives laid out, likely calling my bluff. I won’t hurt her, but she doesn’t know that. I just need answers.

“Based on that look on your face, you didn’t take any pleasure in drugging me, which means that you’re probably not going to kill me.”

Reaching for my knife I flip it around in my hands. Only she stares blankly back. Interrogation 101–the illegal side of things states that showing your hand too soon gives the detained leverage. It’s important to show that you don’t have a line you’re afraid to cross. But if the kidnapped already has the interrogator pegged, it’s pretty simple: they just have to wait for someone to find them or they have to bide their time to escape.

“Okay, well let’s make this quick because I have to pee,” she says .

I have a list of questions in my head I wanted to ask, but her attitude throws me off. “Why are you so calm? Most people don’t react like this when they wake up tied to a bed.”

She shrugs as much as she can with her arms tied above her head. She wiggles her fingers and toes before relaxing again. “I’m assuming you know who I am then.”

I dip my head.

“Right, then you know the answer to your question is yes. Can I ask you a question?” she asks.

I nod again even though I didn’t know the answer to her question. That’s… interesting .

“What’s your last name and is Liam honestly your first?”

“Yes, Liam is actually my name, and my last name is Coldwell.” I watch her, waiting for some form of anger, smugness, anything. Instead she sits there for a moment, eyebrows scrunched together as if she’s trying to recall who I am then her eyes widen.

“You’re a Coldwell. ”

I tap my fingers on the handle of the knife.

“Your father is a bastard,” she snaps.

“Tell me something I don’t know, princess.”

She grits her teeth and wiggles in her handcuffs. “These are very uncomfortable, you couldn’t have used…I don’t know, silk or something?”

I shrug, not sure how to answer that.

“Is anyone going to wonder where you are or if you need to check in with them?” I ask her. I checked her texts and calls. There have been a few outbound calls to a Violet, but that’s it. There are also texts from this Violet and one to a Ben. The text between her and Ben made me angry for a minute until I realized he was her security. She texts him in the morning and it’s about one in the morning, so we have time before she sends her check in text.

“Yeah, I text Ben in the morning, but it looks like it’s still dark out so he wouldn’t be concerned at the moment.”

The pull in my chest eases a little. At least she isn’t screaming and fighting me, and for some reason, that makes me sad. I don’t like to compare what I’ve been through to what others have, but something tells me she could understand a lot based on her unique reaction to being tied up and unafraid. Maybe the fear was beaten out of her, too.

“Why are you here, Aelia?”

She stops wiggling and looks me in the eye.

“Is it so hard to believe that a mobster’s daughter needs a vacation?”

I shoot her a look and she sighs, collapsing back into the pillows.

“I’m sure you could see how this—” I gesture between us, “—looks. Me, you, the same off-the-beaten-path resort on a tiny island in Indonesia, the rock climbing. I’m all for coincidences, but this is too good to be true.”

“Yeah,” she mutters. “That’s fair. I don’t know how I’m going to get you to believe me, but I’m here because I want to be.”

“There has to be more than that,” I prod her.

Her heavy gaze rests on me as if she’s trying to make a choice. “You know how I said I don’t like to be home a lot?”

“Yeah?”

“I would rather move from place to place all over this planet than live under the same roof as Marco Costa ever again. I’d rather disappear, change my name, get facial reconstructive surgery than live under him. Does that answer your question?”

My eyes widen and I cough, hiding my surprise. “Yeah, it does. So, you didn’t even know I was here?”

She rolls her eyes and stares up at the ceiling before meeting mine.

“No, I didn’t know Liam Coldwell, youngest of three, son of Esmarie Coldwell, would be here.”

When people lie, they tend to make unnatural eye contact. Their eyes widen too much as if they are trying to force the lie, but their body inevitably gives something away. Some people, after they lie, will be so happy they got you to believe it the corner of their mouth will tip up. Others will respond with apprehension, hoping you took the lie. So either Aelia is a practiced liar, which I wouldn’t put past her, or she’s telling me the truth.

“So you do know about me.”

She rolls her pretty green eyes again. “Yes, Liam, I know about you. I just didn’t know what you looked like because I simply didn’t care. What my father does has nothing to do with me.”

I chuckle. “You’re kidding, right? You know how absolutely ridiculous that sounds,” I say, surprised at her…odd sense of responsibility to her family.

“Oh, the irony is not missed on me. I could say the same thing about you, Liam.”

“Okay, fair, but you still need to answer my question.”

She lays there for a moment and it’s like a pop up storm rolls in on the ocean. It was a sunny day, now all the sudden the waves are thrashing, and nasty. The sun is blotted out by the storm clouds and your boat might be flipped by the massive swell coming your way.

She looks at me and her green eyes have gone emerald. “I have no business telling you this, but screw it. I hate my father more than anyone else on this planet. Marco Costa is an evil man. He has caused so many deaths, addictions, and sent people into a life of utter degradation that they wish they were dead. My father makes me sick. I’d love to destroy him and leave him with nothing, then shoot him in the head so he can meet his maker faster because his kind of evil deserves a faster track to the ultimate judge and jury,” she spits.

My mouth drops open with her vitriol.

“Close your mouth. You look like a fish,” she says and lays her head back on the pillow. Her chest moves up and down while she lies there, trying to catch her breath, glaring at the ceiling.

There’s no doubt in my mind that every single word she said was God’s honest truth. She hates her father just as much as I hate mine. Unease, worry, and confusion run through me. This is no typical interrogation, mainly because she’s given me the truth every time she’s opened her mouth. But the real question is, can I trust her? She might be telling the truth, but that doesn’t mean she won’t run and tell her father what happened, sending him after my family again . Blood is thicker than water, right?

“And you’re probably asking yourself why I have done nothing about it.”

I chuckle darkly and run my hand through my hair. “Sorry, but yeah, there are a lot of things you could have done.”

She glares at me and takes a deep breath. Aelia hides her emotions well, but the one thing that betrays her is those eyes. “First of all, you don’t know me. Second, he has my mother, she won’t leave him. I don’t think she could even if she tried. You’re smart enough to know when you are married in the mob, there is no such thing as divorce. Although I’m sure you understand that just as much as me.”

It’s two sides of the same coin. My father may appear to be on the right side of the law, but he’s just as bad as Marco Costa. I understand why she hasn’t done anything. My mom is in the same boat, she can’t divorce my father. I would probably feel the same when it comes down to it, only it’s the opposite. I’ve had to do things that none of us have wanted. But not doing anything like Aelia, would kill me, and I think it’s killing her.

“I understand more than you know, princess,” I mutter.

She laughs. “Here I thought you called me that because you treated me like a princess, not because I’m a mob princess ,“ she says.

“Would it matter?” I ask her because it slipped out but…the nickname fits her and I can’t lie, she is becoming more of a queen in my eyes.

“Look, I realize I’m collateral damage when it comes to my father. You don’t want me, you want him. Fair enough, I won’t stand in your way. But if you are planning something, please don’t hurt my mom or at least give me enough time to get her away from the evil bastard. She doesn’t deserve to be hurt for his actions, and…” Her voice breaks and she takes a deep breath. “My mom has done the best she could for me and she deserves so much more.”

“I’m sure she does,” I grunt out.

Aelia pins her lips together and takes a few deep breaths from her nose. She clearly can’t help me, so I cut the ties at her feet with my knife and unlock her hands. She lays there and rubs her wrists. I expected her to run off, but she sits up and crosses her legs.

“Didn’t you say you had to pee?”

She shrugs. “I lied.”

“So should I trust a thing you say?” I ask, ready to tie her up again, despite knowing deep down in my bones she means every word she has said to me.

“I’m not dumb, Liam. I know you won’t trust me until I prove it to you.”

She’s right. Actions speak louder than words. They always have for me. “Why do you care if I trust you?”

Her tongue runs across her teeth and she pushes her hair out of her face. “Because I want to prove you wrong.”

Not sure what to make of that, I challenge her. “Fine, then prove it right now. Are you aware of the human trafficking issue here and is your father looking to exploit it?” I have no idea what I’m going to do about it, but I can’t just sit here and do nothing if I know it will happen.

“I don’t know, and I wish I did. But I know about almost everything else.”

I jerk back. That could…what she could tell us could change everything. It could help us put Dad away for good, if she’s willing to tell me.

“Explain,” I grunt out.

“I know where his guns come from and I know where his drugs are sourced. I know he uses your father to gain more territory and I know that he’s perpetuating the gang wars in Boston, Massachusetts. I know that your father somehow gets port authorities and other law enforcement to look the other way when it comes to transporting drugs and guns. Is it any surprise that my father would want to expand his empire into trafficking on an international level? He already does it through strip joints and preying on the people that have nothing so they feel they have no option.”