Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 160578 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 803(@200wpm)___ 642(@250wpm)___ 535(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160578 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 803(@200wpm)___ 642(@250wpm)___ 535(@300wpm)
I knew it was going to be bad, but Jesus.
“Oh, that’s going to be good ass, baby.”
My brows drop inward, and I instantly fix it when I feel myself slip. Before I can ask, someone comes in from behind him as the clapping around us continues, congratulating the girl as if she’d done something great.
“We have a problem.”
When I tune in to listen, Corbin shuffles him away and I’m left alone on a throne I don’t want to be seated on.
The glass in my hand has long since turned warm, and the chatter around me dies. The hairs on the back of my neck stand when I feel eyes moving over me.
Corbin falls to the chair, his hand back on my thigh. “Seems we have an issue coming from the New York tunnels.”
I don’t blink, rolling my eyes and staring back at him with a depth only she could pull. How could I have shared a womb with someone who was so detached from her emotions she didn’t know how to survive. To exist. To be a decent human being. Regardless, shouldn’t I feel something for her loss? For the fact that Priest took her life?
I didn’t and I won’t. That much I knew.
“And?” I turn back to the show in front of me, watching as they drag the deceased man off the stage with a round of applause. The girl stares back at me with a blank look, the kind that makes me pause. The room closes in around me.
As if she can see right through my lies. The lies that keep me seated on this throne.
Bending down, she collects the discarded piece of clothing and doesn’t pull from me until she reaches the door.
“What do you think?” Corbin asks.
I turn back to him, the smile on my face wide. Manic. “I think we should go.”
His blue eyes search mine. Hungry and needy, much like I remembered them that day in Aspen. I’d let go of that day a long time ago. He held nothing on me now.
“When we get there…” Corbin leans forward, licking his lip and smirking. “Will you dance for me?”
“Always.” I bat my lashes at him as he takes my hand and presses a gentle kiss to the base.
“Very good. Very good.”
I should have asked what the problem in New York is, but what if I was to know what is happening. That’ll blow everything. The stupid fuck had figured out that we were twins, yet still believed she lived within me.
The smell of the underground tunnels was the constant reminder of everything that shouldn’t exist in this world. I didn’t know much about how they came about, not until that one night when the Fathers asked me into the office for that favor…
Past
Bishop pushes up from his chair, making his way to the flickering fireplace tucked in the darkest corner of the room. He shoves his hand in his pocket, watching the flames lick the walls closely while taking a long sip of his whiskey.
“We need a favor. But this one is going to be tricky, Luna.”
“I’m prepared,” I say, nodding. “You’ve all done so much for me over the years, especially after Priest.” I cross one leg over the other, staring at the burning ember of my cigarette as time slowly ticks in the background. I know that whatever it is that they’re about to ask me, that it doesn’t matter, because I’ll do it. I’ll do anything that they want me to do.
“You have a twin sister.”
I keep the whiskey beneath my tongue to stop it from coming out. “What?” I swipe the residue from my bottom lip.
“Do you remember much of what happened in Aspen? Before Priest found you?”
No one liked to revisit demons they burned. The memories of that night ran over my spine like ice, as cold as the night he found me.
“Yes. I remember being found, I remember what Corbin did to me at the order of the man in charge who they call the Minister, and I remember being lost. So lost.” I blink when my eyes burn. “I guess I thought that my memories must have suppressed the time that I knew you all. When he found me, I—” The words stop for a moment, and I push up from the couch I’m sitting on, making my way toward the bookshelf behind his desk. The photo is a printed reminder of that day when I swipe to pick it up. I run my thumb over the glass as if it just happened yesterday.
“Priest didn’t tell us about what happened to you when he found you. For whatever reason, he decided to keep that secret.”
It’s no wonder.
I place the photo back onto the shelf, pressing my dress down over my thighs and feeling the bump over the holster of my thigh. I turn back to them all staring back at me. “This twin…” I say the words out loud, though I don’t like them much. “Is she, was she, like me? What happened?”