Gigi had always thought Brady had gentle eyes, but right now, in the light of the moon, his velvety brown irises were like roiling waves, like churning lava barely contained by earth.
She had his attention. His full attention.
“In my mind,” Gigi said, forcing her voice to come out steady, “I called her the Woman in Red—capitalW, capitalR. Her entire body was covered—gloves, boots, cloak, hood, a scarf over her face, all red. But I saw her eyes. Sheshowed meher eyes. One blue eye. One brown.”
“That doesn’t mean that it was Calla,” Brady said. “Heterochromia might be rare, but anyone with colored contacts could fake it.”
To Gigi’s ears, he sounded like a skeptic desperate to believe. Calla had been missing for six years. Her disappearance had broken Brady. It had broken Knox. It had broken Brady-and-Knox.
And now Calla was back—only she wasn’tCallaanymore.
Gigi pushed down the urge to shiver. “The Woman in Red, she knew things, Brady. About Calla’s life. About her family.”
“What sort of things?” Brady asked quietly.
Gigi didn’t particularly trust Brady, but she didn’t have to trust a person to feel for them. “She told me that Calla was the first Thorp daughter born in three generations and that having the first girl was more important to Calla’s father than the fact that Calla wasn’t really his.”
“Helena Thorp made Orion the family heirbecausehe had the first daughter.” Brady studied Gigi like she had hieroglyphics on her face, like he was the only one who could possibly decipher them. “But Calla never said anything about her father not being her father.”
“To you,” Knox interjected. “She never said anything about it toyou.”
Brady swiveled his head toward Knox. Three or four seconds passed in utter silence. “You’re telling the truth,” Brady said. His next breath hitched as he looked back to Gigi. “He’s telling the truth. And that means…”
Gigi could practically see Brady’s heart and lungs andsoulseize up, all at once.
“One blue eye, one brown,” Brady whispered. “Your Woman in Red,Calla—what else did she say?”
She said that you love a memory. That you love a dream.Even after everything, Gigi couldn’t bring herself to tell Brady that. “She told me that there was no Calla Thorp anymore. She also said that hers was a higher law.”
“Brady.” Knox’s voice went dangerously low. “Whatever you’re thinking,don’t.”
“This doesn’t sound off to you?” Brady demanded, his voice strained. “It sounds likeCallato you? Calla, who always knew exactly who she was. Calla, who never gave up on herself—or you. Damn it, Knox, we’re talking about the girl who taught you to read through sheer force of will when you were fourteen and nothing but a ball of rage. The one whosawyou. Saw us.”
“I don’t need you to tell me about Calla.”
“Who’s had her all this time, huh?” Brady shoved Knox, trying desperately to get a response. “What have they been doing to her? Because disavowing her own name and citing ahigher lawsure as hell sounds brainwashed to me.”
Gigi could see the logic in that argument, but she couldn’t help thinking that the Woman in Red hadn’t seemed like a victim of any kind. Zella had referred to Calla asambitious.
“Gigi.” Brady reached out and touched Gigi’s face, angling it up toward his, his hand gentle and warm. “There must be something else you can tell me. You’re the kind of person who notices things that other people miss.” His thumb stroked her cheekbone. “You—”
Brady went flying backward.
“Keep your damn hands off her,” Knox growled.
Gigi shot Knox an offended look. “Even I’m not naive enough to fall for it twice,” she told him, and then she gave herself a mental pep talk:I’m not a wounded dove. I am an angry koala. And you do not want to make a koala angry.
“Touch me again,” Gigi told Brady, steeling her voice, “try to manipulate me again, and see what happens.”
Behind his thick-rimmed glasses, Brady looked down. “I owe you an apology.”
Gigi wasn’t sure she wanted one. “All you had to do was ask,” she told him quietly.
“This is me,” Brady replied, “asking.”
Gigi swallowed.We need him, she reminded herself, but deep down, she knew she would have told Brady everything regardless, becauseshewasn’t cruel. “The Woman in Red called herselfthe Watcherandthe Lily.” Memories washed over Gigi the moment she said the words. “I got the sense that those were titles, ones she was proud of. She and Zella obviously knew each other. Zella said they were sisters, once upon a time. She kidnapped me to lure Calla out, I guess because Calla had left me a cryptic lily, which was supposedly some kind of warning that I was beingwatched, whatever that means.”
“Who’s Zella?” Brady asked intently.
