Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 110273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 551(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 551(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Jesus.
I had to stand. I couldn’t do this while I was sitting.
Kash caught me, but he only brought my back to his chest and wrapped an arm around my front. I leaned back on him.
“I saw what you saw and I was horrified. Bailey.” Her voice broke, a hand going to her chest. Seraphina scooted closer, wrapping both her arms around Chrissy’s free one. Peter closed his eyes, his head hanging down. He had an arm resting on the couch behind Chrissy.
“When I think about what you must’ve thought, what you went through…” Her voice trembled before she paused and came back clearer. The emotion was tucked back. “Never again, Bailey. Never again. I won’t let it.”
“And when Chase got you?” The question came from the side, from where Matt was leaning back against one of the bookshelves.
“Who’s Chase?” Cyclone asked, perched on Payton’s lap on one of the other chairs. Peter had told him and Seraphina about the final family secret that was revealed in court yesterday. It wasn’t done in a family meeting setting, but more privately. I wasn’t there, but I heard about it. Seraphina had gasped, then started crying. Cyclone hadn’t reacted.
Chrissy had been in the hallway, and she’s the one who told me about it. “He didn’t say anything. What do you think that means?”
“I think he just needs to process it. A quick reaction wouldn’t be normal. I think this is normal.” And seeing him firmly huddling on his real mother’s lap, it seemed maybe I was right.
Payton had stress lines all over her face. Her eyes were panicky, like if she made the wrong move, Cyclone would leap from her lap and declare her a horrible mother or something. She had the whole deer-in-headlights look, and it wasn’t going away. I was half expecting to see her sweating buckets within an hour.
Peter turned to Kash, who tensed behind me, a slight curse under his breath.
Peter grinned. “You said no more secrets.”
“He’s not a part of this.”
Matt gestured to the couch. “Thinking he is, since he’s the one who saved my next stepmother.”
Peter’s head whipped over. “Matthew.”
Matt shrugged. “What?” He grinned. “No more secrets, Dad.”
Seraphina sat even further upright. Her arms dropped from around Chrissy’s arm, but they were still linked around her hands. “Wait. What?” She looked between Chrissy and Peter. “You two?”
Cyclone snorted. “Even I knew that much, and I’m ten and three-quarters.” He looked at Kash. “Who’s Chase?”
I drew in a deep breath.
Kash said, “He’s my brother.”
Marie sucked in another breath.
Theresa, who was also in our meeting but had been quiet and in the background, muttered.
“You have a brother?”
All eyes went to Seraphina, who was no longer holding on to Chrissy at all. Her hands were resting on her own legs. She had scooted to the edge of the couch. Her gaze was firmly latched onto Kash. “Like a real brother?”
“What’s that mean for me and Matt?”
Kash’s eyes swung to Cyclone, then back to Seraphina. “I have a brother. A twin, actually.”
Seraphina’s mouth fell open.
“You do?”
“Madre de Dios.” That was Marie.
Chrissy coughed, clearing her voice. “Kash’s brother is the one who rescued me from the men that had taken me. He, uh, he helped me remember things.” She looked at me again, her eyes piercing. “He showed me a video of you.”
My heart skipped a beat. I’d been holding on to Kash’s arm in front of me, but now my fingers sank tight into him. “What videos?”
“You at my funeral.”
Another skip.
“You at some ceremony at your school. You had a dress on that I knew you hated wearing.” She smiled, but her eyes were so sad.
Skip.
“You at a bar with a couple of people.”
I was clinging to Kash’s arm, and my knees were starting to knock against each other.
“At your school. In your library. At other times you were with Kash, with your guards. There were more pictures. With Matt. None here. I don’t think he could get close enough for a long-distance lens.” Her head folded down.
That’s when I saw she was clinging to Peter’s other hand in her lap.
“I saw in the pictures as you were coming back to life. I was glad, Bailey. I was thankful.” Unshed tears lined the bottom of her eyelids. She swallowed. “You didn’t let him win. I was proud of you. Damn proud.”
I couldn’t stand.
My knees gave away.
Kash caught me, an arm sliding around my waist, and no one could see, but he was holding me up.
“Those videos and those pictures helped me, too. He didn’t win with me, either.”
But it was costing her to say these words.
For a moment, no one said a word.
“So you’re saying there’s two of you?” Cyclone was back on the Chase thing. He had scooted further up on Payton’s lap so he was standing, and more leaning back against where she was sitting. “Are you him right now? Are you guys that identical?”