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I didn’t call out to see who it was, because I knew it shouldn’t have been Dare. But whoever it was wasn’t leaving. Something scratched at the knob a second before it gave a little wiggle.
Images of the last time I was in a bathroom with a member of the Borello family flashed through my mind, making it feel like my blood had turned to ice.
I rushed to put on my glasses just as the lock on the door clicked, my heart rate so fast that it felt like my heart would tear from my chest at any moment.
By the time it opened, I had Kieran’s knife in hand and open.
A strained huff burst from me when Einstein peeked her head in.
“God, Einstein.” Closing the knife, I tossed it into my bag. “What’s so important that you couldn’t wait until I was done? Or couldn’t ask me to open the door?” When she didn’t respond, I glanced up to find her staring at me with a look of frustration. “Einstein?”
She jerked her head for me to follow her out of the bathroom, not bothering to see if I did.
Typical.
I made sure my stuff was in my bag, then shrugged into Dare’s shirt again before following her into his bedroom where she was pacing. Once she saw me standing there, she shoved a small stack of papers at me without a word.
“What is this?” I asked, somehow already knowing she wouldn’t respond.
I stilled when I saw a picture of me on the first page. Except it wasn’t me, it was Elle. And it was her driver’s license.
“Einstein, what . . . why’d you do this?”
Elle Landry from Springfield, Missouri.
She’d even changed the way I’d been styling my hair in the picture. Given me different glasses and made me look younger.
The next page was a copy of a Social Security card. Then a birth certificate.
The next page was a—
“Oh my God.”
I rushed through the rest of the pages. High school records. College records—before she’d dropped out. Police and missing person reports.
“Einstein, what is this? Did you do this?” I demanded. “You made me into a person. A person who is married to an abusive man and a runaway. What the hell were you thinking?”
She stared at me a few seconds longer before gritting out, “Dare’s worried about you. He thinks you’re in real danger, and he knows you won’t tell him. The day I drove you back to that place and he woke up to find you were gone, he nearly lost it trying to figure out what could have that kind of pull on you—could put that kind of fear in you. He told me to find out who you were. I’ve never not found someone before.”
I watched her, the normally wild-eyed, hyped-up girl who was now seething, and asked, “Why did you bother?”
One of her brows ticked up. “Do you want to die?”
“Of course not. But have you ever lied to him before?” When she didn’t respond, I said, “And you’re already keeping what you know about me from him. If it makes you this mad, I don’t know why you bothered. You d
on’t owe me anything, you don’t even know me. And if you’ve forgotten . . . he’s going to find out eventually.”
“I’m doing this because I want him happy. We all want him happy as long as possible. And for some fucked-up reason, the Holloway Princess makes him happy. I like you, but I hate you for being the reason I’m lying to my family for the first time in my life. Do you know what it’s like lying to Johnny? Or trying to lie to Dare?”
“You think I don’t want him happy?” I asked, my throat tightening as I fought back tears. “You think it doesn’t shatter me knowing I am who he hates? I am what has caused him so much pain, and will cause him more in the future? I want him as long as possible, but I’ve been trying to prepare him for what’s coming because it’s inevitable. I’ve been giving him as many truths as I can and letting him make of it what he will. But tricking him like this? It’s going to cause unnecessary hurt.”
Gripping the pages in my hands, I tore them in half, ignoring the horror in Einstein’s eyes.
“I already wiped the files so Johnny wouldn’t find them,” she whispered.
“Good. Destroy these too. Burn them . . . I don’t care. Just don’t tell Dare I’m someone I’m not. He may not realize who I am yet, but I haven’t told him I’m someone else entirely, and I don’t plan to.”
“Yeah. Okay, Elle,” she said my name with a scoff as she took the torn pages from my hands.
