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“No, yes, I mean,” she stumbles, her lip trembling. “I don’t know, okay? This is happening so fast, both with my family and with you guys.”
But my brother and I are demanding men.
“Make a decision,” orders Bruce, making her jump, “Now.” I glance at him, communicating with him that he’s being too fierce. Annabel’s not used to this kind of treatment from us, and she doesn’t deserve it either. Before we can react, she flees to her en suite, locking herself in the bathroom. Soft sobs come through the door.
“You’re scaring her,” I growl at my brother.
“She could do with a little scaring,” he spits back. “What the fuck is this, anyway? I thought she would go for this. I thought she hated it here. Why is she protecting him?”
“Look, we need to let her calm down for second, and then—”
“No,” Bruce interrupts, “we need to get the fuck out of here. Now.”
“What?” I reply, genuinely confused. “Don’t you want to sort this out? Our little princess is in that bathroom, crying her eyes out because of you,” I growl at him.
“I know, but she could be calling the cops for all we know. We’ve revealed too much. We only did it because it was a surefire plan, because we thought she’d say yes,” he hisses at me. “Clearly, we miscalculated.”
I know he’s right. I sigh, closing my eyes.
“You’re right. We need to leave. Now.”
My brother nods and with practiced ease, peels the panel back off the wall before stepping into the safe room. I throw a look back at the en suite where Annabel’s sobs are still audible. My heart fills with regret. I wish we could stay here and comfort her. Make it up to her. Apologize for putting her in this position. Tell her it doesn’t matter, that we can rob another billionaire art dealer because there are plenty in this city after all. But I know Bruce is right. With everything that’s happened, staying is too risky. As a result, I swing my legs into the safe room before softly shutting the panel with a click.
As we stalk through the dark back streets of Manhattan, shaken from what happened, my mind reels. Our footsteps take us automatically back to our safehouse, and my thoughts are churning. I grab Bruce by his muscled arm and pull him back to face me before we enter.
“We fucked up,” I say, and I can see in his face that he agrees with me. “We went about that all wrong.”
But Bruce can be stubborn.
“What did you want to do, Burke? Hm?” he says, pulling his arm away from me. “Do you think we should have stayed?”
“No,” I grunt, “but I don’t know. To leave her crying like that? She’ll come back out of the bathroom and find us gone with no explanation. That’s no way to leave a girl you love.”
There’s silence for a moment as the words sink in, but it’s true. We’re falling in love with Annabel, and yet we left her without warning like she meant nothing to us.
Chastised, Bruce speaks.
“She’ll be okay,” he says quietly. “She’ll piece it together.”
“Maybe she does, but we need to go back and apologize regardless,” I say in a steady voice. “As soon as possible. The sooner the better.”
My twin looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.
“Are you insane?” he demands. “You know we can never go back, right? With everything we’ve told her, it’s over. We’re done. We need to disappear, got it, bro?”
My temperature starts to rise too.
“You’re the one who’s fucking insane, my brother. I’m not leaving any girl I love in that state.”
Bruce interrupts.
“Look,” he says, trying to keep the peace, “you don’t think I know that? I get it. But we’ve totally blown our cover, Burke. She knows stuff we’ve never told anyone. We asked her to be a part of it, and she said no. Do you get that? We miscalculated okay? We thought she’d be up for joining us, but evidently our princess has morals. She’s not going to rob her dad blind. She’s not going to become a criminal. That’s on us.”
“So we cut ties,” I say emotionlessly, the words choking me.
“All ties,” repeats Bruce. “No more visits, ever. No communication. No spying on her because she knows too much. We’re going to have to change the location of this hideout, in fact, just in case the cops are able to track us there now that she knows how we’ve been getting into the building.” I nod, as if in a trance. Of course my brother’s right, but it’s killing me.
“Not just that, but we need to explain to the crew what happened so that everyone can be on guard. And then we need to move out. Tonight. Come on, buddy. Get with the program.”
