Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 66334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
“She was a plant,” he said slowly, looking at each of us. “I realized that at the warehouse. I thought you knew already.”
We hadn’t.
As that information settled, I wondered what else we weren’t aware of. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.
“What was it like when you remembered?” Brody asked curiously.
Dion shrugged. “Hard to explain. All those feelings I thought were mine went away. I’m not even sure if that was her real name.”
It was, but that mattered even less now. “It was better for Jess not to know too many details about what we’re doing. She can’t be trusted. It wasn’t earned,” I answered his question as my sole way to make amends for degloving his not girlfriend, just in case.
“But she’s not necessarily bad though right?”
“Even if she is, we aren’t exactly the good guys, D,” Ciaran responded with a laugh, adopting my brother’s nickname for him.
Dion’s eyes darted around the room. “We aren’t?”
“Bro, I almost feel bad for you,” Brody replied, running a hand through his curls.
“Oh, well.” Dion rubbed the back of his neck. “How did Mel feel about her? I didn’t want to ask because she’s never mentioned her once. Is it the same kinda scenario as Lana and her siblings or did they forget about one another?”
We shared a look amongst us. How did he come to that conclusion?
“How is that related?” I questioned.
“Because Lana’s brother is part of the show and so was her sister?”
“Explain it to me like I’m five,” Maverick prodded.
He straightened, his eyes darting around behind his glasses and looking at each of us. Ah. He knew something else we didn’t. I took a quiet breath and counted back, rolling my shoulders. I could not crack open his skull.
His death would be one Sunshine wouldn’t forgive. I was fine with her hating me. I could still keep her, but I refused to let her do anything but need and love me. I would hate myself if I broke any more of her heart by killing our first dog. That’s what he was—a Golden Retriever with high intelligence. I never needed to worry about her giving him affection.
Maverick and Charon looked at me questioningly. I shook my head and crossed my arms, staring Dion down. “We’re waiting.”
“I wasn’t sure I should say it out loud,” he replied defensively. “There’s more than one set of sisters getting fucked over,” he stated as cryptically as he could.
It was enough for us—and probably anyone watching to decode. We hadn’t known. Melantha having a sister? No one knew that.
“You know,” Maverick began, “that explains why her mom doesn’t give a shit about her.”
“Because her pops is a cheater? Isn’t that half the board?”
Carol snorted, the first sound she’d made since she last spoke. “That’s certainly a common theme, but certainly isn’t something everyone does.”
“All of our parents are solid,” my brother said. “And if Dante—our dad--cheated our mom would simply watch as we buried him in the garden.”
“I get it,” Dion stated, keeping the conclusion he came to unspoken and off-camera.
That was an expectedly smart decision. It may have been news to all of us, but Melantha’s mother being some unknown woman didn’t change anything nor did her father having multiple affairs.
We had a history with these women that went beyond the quiet moments we’d shared inside this game of wit and bloodshed. It no longer mattered who they did or didn’t hail from. No one on their side wanted me with Sunshine. They couldn’t fathom a Vetis mixing with her unblemished bloodline. Or another Serpine spitting out half of a Belair. Decades of history would change if we created an army of them.
I wasn’t sure that would come to be.
We would make it out of here and do what we had set out to. That was not a question. What our family would resemble after wasn’t so clear. Things between us were no longer like they used to be. For me, it was a foreign kind of torment. Sunshine may have remembered me, but she didn’t remember us.
Not fully.
I blamed myself for that in the same way Ciaran did for his own supposed failures.
Charon. Maverick. Brody.
We all had some degree of guilt we’d never sat down to face or acknowledge. Now it was too late. It was hanging over our heads like a fucking guillotine. Everyone who knew the truth understood the havoc that would come once it was brought from the dark. No one understood that better than Ciaran. Lana was a ticking time bomb and when she detonated, it wouldn’t just destroy him, she’d implode and destroy herself.
One by one we’d follow.
There was nothing we could do but wait for the inevitable.
CHAPTER NINE
It had been a while since I’d seen them look so exhausted, a type of tiredness that couldn’t be cured from any amount of sleep. If my heart ever stopped breaking for the people I loved, I wouldn’t have anything left.