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“You don’t want to say the words?” I walk to the first wall and start taping the photos to the surface. “That’s fine. You can just look at what you left behind that night. You can stare at it every day. Memorize every detail until you can admit the fucking truth.”
When she doesn’t reply, I turn to look at her. But it isn’t the Bianca I know sitting on the sofa with that vacant look in her eyes. Physically, everything about her is the same. Her hair, her scent, her skin. But moments like these make me question myself all over again. Like a switch has been flipped, she’s morphed into a complete stranger. And no matter how many times I tell myself it’s an act, I can’t shake this uncertainty rattling my soul.
I gave Ace my word that this was her. This is the woman who destroyed my life. But what if it isn’t? What if she really is just a conception of my fucked-up mind that I created from the image of someone else?
“I know you want to believe I’m her,” she says, shaking me out of my thoughts, “but I’m not. I don’t know you. I don’t even know who I am. What I do know is I’m from New Orleans, and I’ve never met you. So if you think you’re going to trigger some sort of memory with this, I have to tell you it won’t work. It doesn’t matter what you do. They’ve already tried everything.”
“Who tried everything?” I narrow my eyes at her.
“Doctors.” She stares blankly. “A lot of different doctors. They tried to get inside my head and pull out the memories, but nobody could. You won’t be able to, either.”
The emptiness of her voice unsettles me, and for a second, I can almost buy it. But then I remember what a good actress she was. How she was always able to put on a show, no matter the circumstances. She’s playing me now, just like she played me then. So I focus on what I came here to do. It’s the only thing I can focus on. When I finish, I’ve plastered images on every wall in the room. Hundreds of them. But if I was trying to make a point, it goes unacknowledged by the woman on the couch.
She’s still lifeless. Now silent, her hands have fallen limp at her sides. She has nothing else to say, and it irritates the fuck out of me. I was looking for a reaction, but she won’t even glance at the images. And as I stand here, watching her refuse to acknowledge my dead brother, my rage simmers to a boiling point.
“Look at him,” I command.
She doesn’t blink. Doesn’t move. I toss the tape aside and stalk toward her, but she doesn’t even seem to care. I could grab her by the throat, and I doubt she’d even utter a single cry.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I shake her shoulders, trying to jolt some life back into her. When that doesn’t work, I drag her from the couch and force her across the room, clutching her face as I make her look at the bloody image of Adam. She squeezes her eyes shut, and finally, a tremor moves through her.
“Look at what you left behind,” I snarl. “He was killed with the pistol you took from me. Are you still going to deny it?”
“I can’t look at that.” She tries to shake her head, her body sagging back into mine. “Please.”
“I’ll grant you the same courtesy you showed him when you left him lying there in a pool of blood—”
Without warning, she retches, vomiting her breakfast all over the floor.
“Fucking Christ,” I mutter.
It’s the last thing I say before she passes out in my arms.
Chapter 26
Madden
—PAST—
After punching a hole in the wall and pacing the floor for a solid thirty minutes, I still feel like I can’t fucking breathe. I have so many questions, and part of me is tempted to walk down there right now and call her out in front of everyone.
Did she know the entire time? Did she know her boyfriend was my own fucking brother?
I replay every conversation, unscrambling them in my mind, and I realize it’s not possible. There’s no way she could have known. I never spoke about my family by name, and it’s unlikely they ever brought me up in my absence. She said goodbye to me, convinced she would never see me again. A clean break. A hollow point bullet to my chest. And now this.
“What the fuck?” I drag my hands through my hair and sag onto the couch.
Everything inside me screams at me to leave. But that tether between us continues to hold me here, captive to her, even as my hatred boils me alive. I have to see her. I have to know how she reacts to this. Is she going to lie in front of them? Is she going to pretend the ranch never happened?
