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He couldn’t quite figure out what it was. But there was ... something.
Travis angled his head to the side, a movement that echoed Trey’s, his lids dipping over his eyes. Those eyes were almost the exact shade of blue-green Trey saw reflecting back at him in the mirror.
The eyes.
Trey took a slow breath as he realized that was the difference.
There was a weight gone from those eyes and shadows no longer lay so heavy under them.
Not saying a word, he stepped forward and grabbed his twin in a hard, tight hug while his own eyes started to burn. “You bastard.”
Travis’s arms came around him just as tight and for long moments, they stood like that.
Trey was so caught up in whatever unseen seismic shift had taken place in his twin that he never noticed the two individuals standing behind his brother.
Not even five minutesinto the highly edited version of his life over the past few years, Travis wasn’t surprised when Trey lurched up off the couch to pace over to the window.
Ressa stayed where she was, watching her husband.
Travis quit talking when Trey shoved his hands through his hair, recognizing when his twin needed a break.
Trey spun around to glare at him. “Why? Can you tell me that?”
Travis had spent the better part of the flight here trying to find the explanation and the only answer was the modified version of the truth.
Blowing out a careful breath, he said, “You remember her, don’t you?”
Trey cocked his head, looking puzzled, then abruptly, he narrowed his eyes. “No. No way.”
“Her father was ... bad news.” Travis shot a look at Ressa before meeting his twin’s eyes once more. “I can’t go into any more details right now. I don’t know if it’s ever going to be possible, either. It’s all classified. But she helped put him in prison. I’d already fucked things up between us because the one time she needed me, I didn’t believe in her. It cost her.” Travis looked away, thinking of Isabel’s tears as she told him about the emergency surgery, what had been done to save her life ... the results. “It cost her a lot. I didn’t even know how much until recently. By the time I realized how bad I’d fucked up, though, it was already too late. She was in witness protection and I ... hell, man, I was lost. I couldn’t live with myself, couldn’t stand to see my reflection in the mirror. The only thing I could think about at night was finding some way to fix it, some sort of ... absolution.”
“So you risked yourlife?” Trey half-shouted. “You erased who you are? What did that do? What did you accomplish?”
“It made me into somebody who could get into places a lot of others couldn’t, Trey.” Shoving off the couch, he went to his twin. “Her dad was involved in human trafficking, brother. Kids, women, people hoping to immigrate—they tricked these desperate folks into coming here and working their lives away. Sex trafficking—some of the girls in the rings I’ve helped break up weren’t much older than your kids, Trey.That’swhat I accomplished.”
Trey spun around and slammed his fist into the wall.
“Hey, hey ... ” Ressa was there, catching Trey’s arm and pulling him around to face her. “Okay, we’re not doing that. You can be mad and frustrated and scared all you want. But we are not doing that.”
Trey dropped his head onto her shoulder, shuddering as the frustrated fury and fear ate at him.
Over his body, Ressa met Travis’s gaze.
He was surprised at what he saw there. Compassion ... and understanding.
Trey hugged her, then lifted his head and Travis turned away to give them the illusion of privacy.
“Why don’t you seem surprised by this?” Trey said.
“Because I always figured he was something more than an accountant,” Ressa replied.
Travis bit back a smile as he recalled the awkward interactions between him and his twin’s wife, back when Trey and Ressa had first gotten together. She’d seen through him quicker than his own family. But not as quick as Isabel.
“I can’t believe I never figured any of this out.” Disgust in his voice, Trey said, “Damn it, Travis, turn around. I don’t want to stare at the back of your head.”
Some of the anger had leeched out of his twin’s voice although there was still a hard look in Trey’s gaze when their eyes locked.
“You saw what you needed to see,” Travis told him quietly. “You saw what I let you see.”
