“She is your mate,” he says.
The beast inside me goes silent.That’s worse than rage.
I slowly turn my head.“Lower your voice.”
“There’s no one here.”
“There are always ears in this place.”
“It’s The Gin Room, not the damn Council chambers.”
“That makes it worse.”
Cruz studies me, and for once, he doesn’t fill the silence with some smart-ass comment.That alone tells me I look as close to the edge as I feel.
“How long?”he asks.
I should lie.I am good at silence.Better at avoidance.Best at violence.
But Cruz is my twin.We came into this world bloody and furious together.We learned how to shift in the same abandoned slaughterhouse outside Queens because our father was gone and our mother was too tired from keeping us alive to teach us gently.We fought each other until we learned to control ourselves.We protected each other before we understood the word.
He’ll know if I lie.“Since the night they brought her in,” I say.
Cruz’s expression tightens.“Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t tell me.”A fleeting look of hurt crosses his face before it vanishes.
“No.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“No.”
“Does she know?”
My laugh comes out sharp and ugly.“She just learned how to breathe without waiting for teeth.I’m not throwing a mate bond at her like another chain.”
Cruz’s jaw works.He looks toward the door again.Something like respect moves across his face this time, but it’s buried beneath concern.
“She deserves to know eventually.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”He tilts his head as he studies me.
I bare my teeth.“Careful.”
He doesn’t back down.He never has.“Keeping truth from a wounded woman is still taking her choice.”
The words hit harder than his fist ever could.
My beast snarls, but not at him.At me.
I turn away and move behind the bar.Briana’s water bottle still sits where she left it, half full, the plastic dented from her grip.I stare at it like it might tell me how to do this right.
There’s no right.There’s only less damage.
