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I hear her behind me, hear her gasps and choked attempts at breath, hear her terror. I force myself to focus, force myself to look at my brother who’s gripping me hard around the collar.
He won’t let go.
This is his revenge.
Because even if I don’t know who he is, he knows who I am. And he knows my weakness. He wasn’t fucking with me when he taunted me about Cristina.
All these years, I’ve felt sorry for him. He was my father’s pawn. Manipulated. Used. The sensitive one. The one I needed to protect even as he pummeled me with his fists. How has he become this person? This monster?
He’s got me by the collar. Even though I’ve thrown enough punches to see blood on his lip and the beginnings of swelling on his eye, he hasn’t hit me. Not once.
“Watch,” he says when I stop.
I hear her. She’s choking. Dying.
I look up to see her, see her struggle, watch her kick.
I promised to protect her. To keep her safe.
Lucas doesn’t let go and I realize that broken sound, it’s not her. It’s me.
I can’t save them both. I have to choose. Tobias was right. It was a mistake letting Lucas live. And my mistake, my weakness, will cost Cristina her life.
Rage hotter than the fire that’s swallowing this house burns inside me. I turn, breaking free from Lucas’s grip.
Everything happens for a reason, I think.
Nothing is left to chance. Everything comes full circle.
He’s fighting me now. He’ll do anything to keep me from her. His eyes are locked on mine. As the fire burns nearer, my hand and torso throb, remembering the pain of the last time.
Does Lucas remember?
God. I can still hear his screams that night. I’d forgotten that part. Fire and smoke and burning flesh and a man’s screams.
He fights hard—we’re well matched—all while my Cristina swings.
But I have something he’s not expecting.
I reach into my pocket and take out the switchblade I confiscated from her earlier this evening. The one Lucas made and Michela gave to my wife to protect herself from me.
Ironic what I will use it to do.
I open it.
I don’t wait or think or consider. With the hilt in my hand, I do what I should have done at the strip club. I do what my brother asked me to do. Was he too weak to do it himself? Or is this a part of his vengeance? Will he take a part of me to the grave with him?
Flesh gives easily against the sharp blade. It’s a feeling I’ll never forget. But it’s not done. And I keep pushing.
Only when I’ve buried the length of it in his stomach do I stop.
Only then does everything stop.
He rounds his back, looks down between us, looks at the dagger in my grip, the blade buried inside him. It’s like he just realizes what’s happened. What I’ve done.
He looks at the circle of blood on his shirt, on mine, on my hands.
Blood. Warm blood.
Always blood with me.
Annabel’s blood.
Michela’s blood.
Cristina’s.
My dying brother’s.
It’s all on my hands.
Lucas looks up, meets my eyes, and I see pain. Old pain. New pain.
I don’t see fear, though. That’s gone. Maybe he was ready all along. Maybe I was wrong about having seen fear last night.
His hands go from my shoulders to my face, then down to close over my hands. I think he wants to pull it out, but he doesn’t.
Keeping his eyes on mine and with a choked grunt, he tugs it sharply upward.
He watches me, eyes dimming, and I think he wants to say something. I think…fuck…his knees buckle and blood leaks from the corner of his mouth. Still, his hands grip mine, grip that knife.
He’s slipping away. And I have to let him go.
I pull the dagger out. Release him. Let him drop. Knife in my hand, I let my brother go.
And I know the moment his soul leaves his body. I feel it. I feel my twin die because something inside me lets go, too.
But then from the corner of my eye I see her stop moving. Stop fighting.
No.
Not again. I can’t walk away again when they all die around me.
I won’t.
As if in some time warp, I turn to look up at her. Her eyes meet mine for an instant. A fading, dimmed violet haze as her body twists, dangling from the rope. Arms dropping to her sides. Her right leg twitching once more just before her eyes close.
The fire sends hot smoke in my direction, making me choke as I leap onto the desk and gather Cristina’s limp body to mine. I hold her, give her some slack as I use the bloodied knife to cut her down.
Fire licks up my back.
My god, the pain.
How can there be so much pain?
I keep the knife in my hand and hold her to me, cradling her head against me. Her arms and legs hang loose, her body boneless. I don’t look back. I don’t think. I step over my dead brother, then turn my back into the window and throw myself through it. It’s the only way to protect her as shards rip my back. I land hard, the impact knocking the wind from me.
