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But his scowl and the look of disapproval in his eyes are exactly the same. The glare so familiar it’s as if he’s looking right at Maya the same way he did when she flirted with him in our kitchen that first time.
Hollis turns to face me, a look of betrayal in his eyes. Seconds ago, he was willing to take whatever may have come his way to protect me and now he looks as if I’ve somehow double-crossed him. There’s also a hint of confusion in his eyes. I don’t know which person to respond to first.
I swallow a bubble of emotion, my eyes drawn back to the ghost of my brother. Blinking doesn’t make him disappear, and suddenly I feel unsteady on my feet.
The man doesn’t look happy to see me, and that doesn’t make sense. After so long, he should open his arms up to me, tell me everything will be alright.
Am I dead?
Is Nash really one of Alessio’s men and I was killed in that tiny house with Hollis.
I raise my hands, gripping the sides of my head. Nothing makes sense. I feel feverish in my confusion, like I should scream, but screaming never helped me in the past.
My eyes dart around the room. Familiar faces, unfamiliar faces. I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.
Hell, it could all be real. It could all be fake. I could have a head injury. There’s a slew of explanations because my brother being alive isn’t possible.
“Why the fuck is she here, Angel?” my brother’s ghost demands, his voice a growl, unfamiliar.
“Someone needs to explain what the fuck is going on,” the man Elio called Angel snaps. “Care to fucking explain, Donavan?”
Donavan?
My eyes snap between the two of them. I want to look at Hollis. He’d be able to help me understand but the last look of betrayal in his eyes keeps me from glancing in his direction.
“How are you here?” I ask Elio. “Donavan? Who is that? Did you fake your own death? Have I lost my fucking mind?”
“Watch your mouth,” Elio snaps, sounding more like the man I knew.
He hates it when cuss words would slip out. He, like my mother, expected me to be a lady at all times.
I hate the glare in his eyes, but mostly I hate that he’s not even looking in my direction. He’s asking his questions of Angel and Hollis, not me.
It feels treacherous, disloyal, what’s going on. We were as close as siblings could be without having shared a womb. Being born only ten months apart made it easy for our bond to form. There’s no way the boy I grew up with would do such a thing to me. Our mother died thinking he was gone, his death drawing her into an early grave.
I swallow down my anger, but it threatens to bubble right back up.
Anger makes my hands ache to hit something. My shaking transitions from fear to hatred.
Animosity carries me across the room, and this time, Hollis doesn’t try and stop me. It stabs at me in a way I can’t explain, and that just pisses me off even more.
I stand directly in front of Elio, simmering with a bitterness so strong it threatens to taint everything around me.
Without hesitation, I reach up and slap the man across the face. He’ll never understand the pain and heartache he caused. His selfishness has ruined countless lives.
His only response is the flex of his jaw muscle, and that makes me want to claw his fucking eyes out. I reach up to hit him again, but he grabs my wrist, his dark eyes turning down to look at me.
“Your fiancé may tolerate you treating him like that, but I fucking won’t.”
It doesn’t matter how he looks, or our parents’ blood flowing through our veins, this man is no longer my brother. He’s different from the man we buried years ago.
“You know better than to think Alessio would tolerate that from me,” I say, my voice cracking with barely restrained grief. “You left me to the fucking wolves.”
His eyes twitch, but I know better than to think he’s affected by my words. If he knows Alessio is now my fiancé, then he should be well aware of the fucking hell I’ve been through at the hands of the Severino family since he left.
He drops my hand, a look of disgust in his eyes, as if he’s now tainted just by touching my skin.
His memory has made me angry in the past. It isn’t the first time I’ve thought of betrayal when thinking of him, but it’s all just too much right now.
I pound at his chest, scream my questions like a lunatic, but he just stands there and takes it. I’m not even worthy of his eyes as he stares over my head at the other people in the room.
