Black Listed(65)

When the front door of their hotel suite closed and only they remained, she propped herself up on her elbow, ready to trust him with the truth. She had nothing to fear.





Chapter Twenty-One

LISA’S VOICE PIERCED the darkness. “I’m ready to tell you everything. Asa wasn’t thrilled with my decision, but I can’t hold it inside me anymore, and you deserve to know the whole truth.”

Sawyer rolled over and turned on the lamp. He sat up and settled against the headboard. “Whatever you say, I promise not to judge you.”

She believed him.

She trusted him.

Shifting to rest her head on his chest, she exhaled a shaky breath as she recalled the terror of her childhood. “My first memory is from when I was three years old. I was with my family, and we were at some county fair. Everything was so exciting. The rides that whirled around and around. Laughing families. Scents of the fried foods coming from the stands. I was barefoot, wearing a pretty blue dress and a matching ribbon in my hair. My parents had me sit at a picnic table and told me they’d be back in a few minutes. They took Asa and Mitch with them. I sat there all day in the hot sun. Thirsty. Hungry. My skin burning. I watched as kids ate hot dogs and drank lemonade and went on the rides. Everyone was happy. I didn’t leave that table, even when I had to pee so badly that I ended up soiling my underwear. I worried if I left, they’d never find me again. When they finally came back at dusk, my brothers were all sticky with ice cream stains on their shirts and my parents’ pockets were stuffed with cash they’d managed to pickpocket. That was the first time I realized we weren’t like other families. Most of the time, we lived in the back of a truck, because we could park it in different lots and no one thought too much about it.”

Fat tears rolled down her cheeks, the pain in her heart excruciating. For years, she’d refused to think about those early memories of abuse and neglect. She’d filed them in a locked drawer somewhere in her mind. Now that she had unlocked that drawer, the memories crashed into her consciousness, making her body tremble and her heart race as if she was watching a slasher film. But unlike watching a scary movie, she couldn’t escape the images when she closed her eyes.

Sawyer brushed his hand up and down her arm. “It’s okay, baby. You can keep going. I’m here.”

She tilted her head up to look into his eyes. “My family perfected the art of grifting. According to my Dad, I come from a long line of con artists on both sides. He made it seem like a privilege.” She frowned, realizing how silly that was. “It was a long time before I understood that what we did was wrong. It was my normal. By the time I was six, I got to help them with their cons, and by junior high, I had my own swindles going.”

Nothing that would get her into too much trouble. She mostly sold candy bars at a premium under the guise of the money going to charity—only she was the charity.

Continuing, she sat up and reclined next to him, putting her head on his shoulder. “Obviously, we had to move around a lot to evade the authorities. You’d think we’d have lived well, but turns out, my parents had a bit of a gambling problem. The money we earned from our cons was usually in the bookies’ hands by the end of the football games on Sunday night.”

So much money gone in the blink of an eye because of their greed and selfishness. The high they got from gambling was more important than feeding their children. Most Sundays would end with her hiding under the trailer to escape the beating that would follow the games.

There were hundreds of stories to tell, and someday, she’d share them all with him. But right now, she needed him to know the worst of it. “After my mom died, my dad told me it was time to perform the same sort of cons she did. I was only fifteen at the time, so Asa convinced him to let me wait until I turned eighteen.” She swallowed, her throat growing thick and tight. “That’s when I started using sex as a weapon.”

She hadn’t been a virgin by then, but all the same, the first time she’d slept with a mark, she’d gotten physically ill afterward. That’s when she learned to dissociate her mind from her body. When she was with her marks, she was no longer Annaliese Hunt. She was whoever they wanted her to be. Somehow that had made it easier.

“I didn’t become attached,” she explained on a whisper. “It was a job. Nothing more.” She captured his gaze, holding it hostage. “Not until you. When my father gave me your file and I saw your picture for the first time, I became obsessed. I read everything I could about you. I dreamed of you. I stalked you for weeks. I went above and beyond my normal preparation. Something about you called out to me, and it wasn’t your money.” She reached out and cupped his cheek. “It was the pain in your eyes. I wanted to ease it in any way I could. As your lover. As your slave. As your wife.”