Leon stills instantly. “No. No. No, no. She wasn’t there. We made sure she wasn’t there.” He shakes his head as if somehow his denial will make it so.
But my attention is captured by Teo once more.
Now, skirting around the edges of the property, Teo has an arm over his face to defend himself from the thrashing flames. “Cassandra! WHERE ARE YOU!”
No. Don’t you dare. Don’t you…
“Teo!” The name is wrenched from my mouth as I watch, too far away to stop him, as Teo dives into the burning building.
I stagger forward out of my brother's now lax grasp, blindly stumbling through the smoke toward the building. To where I last saw Teo.
It’s so hot. The ash gets caught in my throat, and I cough horribly. But still, I press forward, absolutely terrified by what I might find.
The window Teo jumped through is still open…I could just reach forward…
Something yanks me back by the waist, just as the window I was reaching for blows out, shattering across the ground where I had been standing seconds before.
“Teo!” I scream, even as Leon drags me back to safety.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?” Leon roars in my ear.
“Let me go!” I sob as I claw at his arms.
But Leon doesn’t back off an inch. Not until he’s dragged me far enough for the smoke to have subsided.
“You have to let me go. You have to help him,” I repeat over and over. My eyes frantically dart back through the smoke, hoping for a glimpse of someone emerging from the building.
“Isabella, stop,” Leon takes me by the shoulders again to hold me in place. “There’s nothing we can do now.”
“She wasPREGNANT!”
Leon’s voice breaks. “I didn’t know. She wasn’t supposed to be there. It was an accident.”
“YOU’RE A MONSTER.”
“I KNOW,” he roars back, devastation echoing on every feature of his face. “But you can’t go in there. I won’t let you die for any of them.”
I clasp my hands over my mouth before another sob comes out. “Teo.”
“He’s ourenemy,Issy.”
“No,” I croak. “Leon, he’s not. He’s…she lied to me, Leon. She killed them.”
“Slow down. What do you mean?”
I grab at his arms. “You have to call off the war. You have to save them.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“Mother lied!” I all but scream. “She killed the Vitales. She set fire to their home.”
Leon looks at me like he’s entirely bewildered for a beat before his expression sours. “What did he do to you?”
“Nothing—”
“If he so much as touched you?—”
“Jesus CHRIST, can you just listen to me? Teo’s sister died in that fire, and his parents died trying to save her. Your mother lied. She lied and told us they did it to themselves so that she could carry on pretending she didn’t have the blood of an eight-year-old on her hands.”
