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I tremble, blood pounding in my ears so fiercely, I can hardly catch a breath.
Leah’s bracelet lies in the center of the hidden felt drawer beside a picture that’s been folded into quarters. If her bracelet is here with Marcus, then who the hell was wearing it in the limo?
With shaking hands, I reach for the timeworn image.
“Oh my god.” I gasp at the three children smiling back at me.
There’s a young girl standing between a set of identical twin boys, who hug her sides.
Twins. No, it can’t be possible. The tip of my thumb brushes one of their faces, then the girl’s in the middle. They don’t appear to be older than seven, maybe eight, but their identities are unmistakable.
“Care to explain what you’re doing in here?”
I bolt up from the bed in a rush. “Marcus! I-I thought you were in town.”
He immediately notices my injured hand, and the flare in his eyes to see me hurt is nearly missed by the unfiltered shock at the photo I’m holding in the other.
I raise it slowly, attempting to steady my breaths. “What is this?”
Crossing the room one agonizingly slow step at a time, he stares with clouded disbelief and grave acceptance over what I’ve discovered.
My arm shakes with the force of adrenaline pumping through my body.
“Don’t come any closer,” I whisper, leaning against the table to keep me upright.
He stops, pointing at the image, before offering an explanation. “That’s me, Leah, and my identical brother, Morton. We’re—”
“Triplets,” I finish breathily, and he confirms with a solitary nod.
“I was going to tell you,” he starts, “but I wanted to speak with Penelope first.”
In the stables…She must have been trying to keep me from getting too close. From discovering their secret. But was her advice for me to forget about Marcus his idea, or hers?
“Who are you?” I ask as though he’s a stranger. “Is Marcus even your real name?”
“Yes.” Resigned, he slides his hands into his front pockets, lips thinning bleakly. “When my brother auditioned forFang for Hire, he used my name as a pseudonym. He was overlooked for numerous auditions before that one and had convinced himself he would never have a serious acting career with a name like Morton. So, I gave him permission to use mine.”
I gape, dumbfounded as he adds, “I live alone in Seattle, far away from the Hollywood lifestyle, where virtually no one knows I exist outside of a few trusted family friends. As far as I was concerned, it’s just a name.”
I filter through everything I know about his family to find that he’s right. For as long as I’ve followed the Matthews, I’ve never heard of him and Leah having another sibling. But then again, I wasn’t looking for someone who didn’t want to be found.
“All this time, you’ve been pretending to be him.” A sense of paralysis takes over and dread fuels every beat of my heart.
“Slayer,” he pleads.
“No.” I hardly recognize my ragged, raw voice. “You don’t get to call me that anymore.”
Marcus stares with a glazed look of despair, as if he’s memorizing me. As if part of him has already made peace with the consequences of confessing.
“Mortie relapsed shortly after the wreck, and I came to the island to fill in for him until he was stable enough to come on his own. Penelope pulled some strings and brought me here to lie low, but you’d already rented the house without my knowledge, and by the time I met you, you were inescapable, compelling me at every turn.”
Against my wishes, he steps closer, pausing a foot away from where I stand. “I never intended to deceive you.”
Anguish throbs through my middle, coated in the irony that I’ve been deceiving him, too, but my lack of faith in others won’t allow it to hurt any less.
“But I didn’t have much of a choice. Mortie’s job is at stake, and my family cannot afford for him to lose his career.”
My thoughts swirl so fast I can hardly grasp them. “The Matthews are one of the wealthiest families in LA. Why would you rely on his income for anything?”
