Never Truth

Never Truth is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2019 Jill Ramsower

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

Cover Designed by Hang Le

Cover Model Jordan Steele

Photographer Chris Davis at Specular

Edited by Editing 4 Indies and Personal Touch Editing

Created with Vellum

Contents

Books by Jill

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

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

Chapter 27

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Social Media & Website

Books by Jill Ramsower

The Five Families Series

Forever Lies

Never Truth

Blood Always

Where Loyalties Lie

Impossible Odds

Absolute Silence

Perfect Enemies

The Savage Pride Duet

Savage Pride

Silent Prejudice

The Byrne Brothers Series

Silent Vows

Corrupted Union

The Of Myth & Man Series

Curse & Craving

Venom & Vice

Blood & Breath

Siege & Seduction

Never Truth

Jill Ramsower

“Please, Daddy, can I go with you? I don’t wanna go with Mama. I want to go with you and Marco to the movies. I swear I’m big enough to sit quiet. Pleeeeeease!” I infused my voice with as much earnest pleading as a five-year-old girl could muster and looked up at my father with Oscar-worthy puppy-dog eyes.

My dad had said he was taking Marco to the movies while Mama was at the school play rehearsal with Lessi and Maria. I was supposed to go with the girls, but that wasn’t my choice. Given the opportunity, I was always at my brother’s side. He was eleven, the oldest of us kids, and I idolized everything about him. If he thought it was cool to wear ankle socks, I wanted to wear ankle socks. If he went out to ride his bike, I would run along behind him as long as he would let me. As far as I was concerned, my big brother hung the moon.

“Sweet girl, we’re going to see a spy movie. I’m not sure you’d like it,” explained my dad, trying to let me down gently.

“Yeah!” Marco said as he entered the room. “You’d be pretty scared, Sof. This one’s got guns and lots of action. It’s not really a girl movie.”

My face immediately pinched with annoyance. “I watch lots of movies with you, Marco. I’m not scared!”

Daddy chuckled as he patted my head. “Alright, Sof, you win. Grab your jacket, and we’ll head out. We have one quick stop to make before the movie starts.”

It may have only been early November, but it felt like Christmas morning to me. I bolted up to my room to grab my yellow jacket and put on my red sneakers. As I was headed out of my room, I caught sight of Maria in her room with one of Mama’s candles. Stunned, I watched as she burned a small piece of paper, then lifted one of Lessi’s dolls and held its beautiful golden hair to the flame.

“I’m gonna tell!” I called out from the doorway, knowing Maria would be in big trouble. She might be nine already, but she still wasn’t allowed to play with Mama’s candles, and she certainly wasn’t allowed to burn Alessia’s doll.

She didn’t balk or chase after me. Maria just looked up and curled her finger at me. “Come here, Sofia. I want to tell you something.”

Cautiously curious, I stepped inside her room. She was the oldest of us girls and claimed to be too old to play with Alessia and I. It didn’t bother us too much because she could be a little mean. Maria mostly kept to herself or Marco, so she was a mystery to me. When she called me over to talk to her, I was unable to resist hearing what she had to say.

“Have you ever heard anyone say ‘snitches get stitches’?” she asked coolly.

I shook my head, eyes wide as I gaped at my oldest sister.

“It means when you tell on someone, that person will hurt you for getting them in trouble. What do you think I’m going to do if you tell on me?” She lifted her brows, giving me a chance to imagine all the nasty things she was capable of. “And it’s even worse when you tell on family, then you’re a rat, a traitor. You see something you’re not supposed to, you keep your mouth shut or bad things are gonna happen to you. Understand?” She glared at me, making tears burn at the back of my throat.

Maria could be all kinds of mean when she wanted to be. I didn’t want her angry with me, so I nodded, unable to speak.

“Good, I’d hate for your paints to accidentally get thrown away or your pretty golden hair to get chopped off in the night.” Her cold gray stare gave me no doubt she’d do it. I didn’t know why my older sister didn’t seem to like us—that was just the way she was—and I had no desire to make it worse.

I ran straight for Marco and the safety of his company, my lips sealed about what I’d seen. “I’m ready for the movies!” I said, giving him a big hug and trying to forget what Maria had said.

He chuckled, then ruffled my hair. “Alright, let’s get in the car.”

When Mama drove, she made Marco sit in the back seat with us girls, but Daddy let him sit up front. That meant I sat by myself in the back seat. It didn’t bother me at all, as long as I got to go with them. Daddy drove us to one of his friend’s houses not too far from ours. I couldn’t recall ever visiting the place before, but I wasn’t great at paying attention.

When we stepped out of the car, Daddy’s lips pursed together just like they did when Maria got in trouble at school or when Lessi cried about something silly. I glanced around, wondering what had bothered him, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Walking over to where I stood in the grass, he squatted down until we were eye to eye.

“I have a little business to handle, but it shouldn’t take long. You run around to the backyard and play for a few minutes. I’ll grab you when I’m done.”

“Is Marco coming with me?” I asked with more quiver in my voice than I had wanted. I liked to be brave in front of Marco but going off by myself made me nervous.

“Marco’s going to come with me, but you’re not old enough. I need for you to play in the backyard for a bit while we’re inside.”

I could feel tears building in my eyes at the frustration of being left behind. As the youngest, it felt like I was always being left out. “I don’t want to go in the backyard. I want to stay with you two.”

Marco stepped forward and placed his hands on my shoulders, bending low to look me in the eye. “Hey, Sof, don’t get upset,” he said softly. “It’s only a few minutes, and you’re gonna love the yard. I’ve been back there, and there’s tons of flowerbeds. I bet you can find a whole army of ladybugs.” He gave me a warm smile, and his words were just what I needed to hear. I adored hunting for ladybugs with him. In the blink of an eye, the backyard became a grand adventure rather than a punishment for being too young.

“Okay, Marco! And maybe I can find one of the yellow ones just for you.”

“Sounds good. You can tell me all about it as soon as we’re done.”

“And Sof,” Daddy said, “make sure you stay in the backyard until we come for you, understand?”

“I will!” I tore off around the side of the house, completely absorbed in my new mission to capture as many ladybugs as possible. Daddy had been right—the yard was huge. Our house sat on the edge of the water, so we didn’t have much of a backyard, but this yard was lined around the edges with trees that soared high into the sky, just like an impenetrable barrier protecting a beautiful castle. At the base of the trees were winding flower beds full of all kinds of plants and flowers. I ran directly toward the nearest bed. Ladybugs loved flowers. Dropping to my knees, I started to scour the leaves and dirt for any trace of red or yellow polka-dotted bugs.

“Whatcha lookin’ for?” a voice from behind me said, startling me from my task. A boy about my age peered over my shoulder, shaggy blond hair curling into his narrowed eyes.

I’d never seen the boy before, but I was always happy to make new friends. “Ladybugs. Wanna look with me?”

“I thought girls didn’t like bugs.”

“They’re ladybugs,” I explained in exasperation. Clearly, this boy didn’t know anything about girls. Of course, we liked ladybugs—it was right there in the name. I returned to my search, sensing the boy join me when he dropped to his knees beside me. “You live here?” I asked him without taking my eyes from the miniature jungle of vegetation.

“Nah, this place is way nicer than my house. My dad’s inside talking. He made me come out here.” He grumbled the last part, his displeasure obvious.

“Same here. They said I wasn’t old enough to come inside, but this is way better than listening to grown-ups talk.”

“You’re probably right,” he admitted reluctantly. “How old are you?”

“Five and a half. How old are you?”

“Six, almost seven,” he said proudly, flashing a toothless grin. “Hey! There’s one.” He reached into a large shrub and came away holding his finger out with a tiny red bug walking across his knuckle. “Wanna hold it?”

I gave him a big smile and nodded, too excited to talk.

“Okay, hold out your hand flat, and we’ll let him walk from my hand to yours.”

I followed his instructions, and he pressed his hand firmly against mine on the side where the ladybug was headed. My hand was frigid compared to his, but it didn’t faze me. I was too excited to care about the cold or the rock that was digging into my knee. The moment the microscopic legs touch my skin, I gasped with a giggle. “It tickles.”

“Have you held one before?”

“Yeah, but it still makes me laugh. I wish I got to hold them more. We don’t have a big yard, so I don’t see them very often. My favorite are the yellow ones, but they’re super hard to find. I’ve only ever found one of those before. I like them because yellow is my favorite color. You have a favorite color?” I asked as I watched the bug make its way around to the underside of my hand.

“Probably green. That’s the color of the New York Jets, my dad’s favorite team.”

“You know if you mix yellow and blue, it makes green? I love painting, so I know how to make all the colors,” I explained confidently. “Yellow and red together make orange.”

The boy cocked his head to the side and looked at me curiously. “You think if the red ladybugs and yellow ladybugs have babies together, they’d have orange ladybugs?”

I burst out laughing, making the bug on my hand fly off toward more stable ground. “You’re funny. What’s your name?”

“I’m Nico. What’s yours?”

I didn’t have to answer. My dad’s booming voice called my name from the side of the house. “Gotta go! I’ll see ya around.”

“Bye, ladybug girl.” The words followed me as I ran toward my daddy, but I hardly heard them in my excitement to get back to the car.

Daddy drove us to the movie theater to see the spy movie. I sat between him and Marco so I could sit next to both of them, which meant I got to hold the popcorn. I only had to go to the potty one time during the movie and didn’t get scared at all.

By the time the movie was over, it was dark outside and way past my bedtime. I could hardly keep my eyes open from the excitement of the day, and the car’s gentle motion on the drive home quickly lulled me to sleep. I didn’t wake when the doors to the car opened and closed. It was the stillness and the silence that stirred me from sleep. Blinking my groggy eyes, I quickly realized I was alone in the car. From where I sat in my booster seat, I could see Daddy and Marco outside, walking over to two men dressed in black vests. They didn’t look like any men I’d seen before with their long, scraggly beards and black tattoos on their necks and faces. But my daddy wasn’t scared of them, so I wasn’t. My daddy had all kinds of friends.

The men shook hands under a streetlight, my brother pretending to be one of the adults. Just before my eyelids could drift shut again, the scene suddenly fell into chaos, stirring me wide-awake. Frozen in my seat, I watched my worst nightmare play out before me like a movie with no pause or rewind buttons.

One of the men in vests began to yell. I could hear his angry voice penetrate inside the car. His face contorted, and he grabbed Marco by the hair, pressing a gun to my brother’s head. The man snarled at my daddy like the neighbor’s dog did when we walked by the fence. My daddy stood motionless, hands raised in surrender.

Why wasn’t Daddy helping Marco? Why was the man so angry?

I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I could tell it was bad. My stomach clenched viciously as fear immobilized my body.

The next moment played out in slow motion, like the cartoons where the tomcat accidentally runs into a wall when he chases the little mouse. A loud bang rang out in the night, echoing off the tall buildings and making me clasp my hands over my ears. My eyes jerked shut, but only for a second. They opened in plenty of time to see Marco’s head jerk to the side and a dark liquid spray out around him.

I couldn’t stop what I was seeing.

As if someone was forcing my eyelids open, I watched in horrified silence as my brother’s limp body collapsed to the ground, a dark puddle quickly seeping out from beneath him.

I couldn’t breathe.

All the air in the car had been sucked out, making my head spin and my vision blur.