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This couldn’t be happening.
“Martini?” she asked, completely unfazed.
“You fucking bitch,” Ry roared, lunging for her. I watched the scene unfolding in slow motion as if I was outside my own body. Tristan and Flynn launched forward and grabbed Ry around the waist, holding him back.
He struggled, elbowing Flynn and throwing his head back against Tristan’s.
But they didn’t let go.
Tristan dodged a moment too late. Ry’s head glanced off his cheek, and a bloom of red bruising appeared immediately.
“What the fuck?” I asked, utterly bewildered.
Mum moved, but Ezra clicked off the safety on his gun. “Freeze.”
“Oh please,” she laughed, a cold sound that chilled my bones. It was so unlike the woman who’d raised me. I was still struggling to comprehend what I was seeing. She was so familiar, yet incredibly different too. I’d gotten used to seeing her face in the mirror—the only obvious differences between us were her brown eyes and light brown hair to my blue and blonde.
“When Kavi said he’d seen a woman who looked like me, I didn’t believe him at first. But when I overheard the gossip that the Holt staff agreed, I realized I’d underestimated you. I’m impressed.”
I tilted my head, my brows furrowing in disbelief. “Is that all you have to say? You underestimated me? You’re impressed?” I asked, my confusion turning to betrayal. “What the fuck, Mum? You died? Asher died?” A sudden bloom of hope exploded in me. If she was alive, maybe he was too. “Where is Asher?” I asked, looking around the room, waiting for him.
Was he here with her?
Was he safe and sound too?
“Clearly, I survived. So did Asher, but not for as long as I did.”
My heart shattered, hitting the ground like a skydiver whose parachute had failed to open.
Grief swamped me. We’d grieved him. We’d cried endless tears. But he’d lived, at least for a little while. What had his life been like? Had he missed us like we’d missed him?
She smirked then, as if she was proud of herself for outliving her only son, and it hit me. She’d seen him alive and well after that day, yet we’d thought he’d died. Why had she gotten to have him but we didn’t?
Anger surged through me. Dad and I deserved his time too. We should have been here with them.
But no, that wasn’t right either. If Benedict wasn’t here and she was, that meant….
Fuck me, that meant she was the one who’d embezzled the money. Her identity hadn’t been stolen. They were her accounts—accounts she’d set up in an unhackable bank that prioritized their clients’ privacy above all else. The bank had been charged numerous times, paying larger and larger fines for refusing to hand over information ordered by the courts at various national and international levels.
She’d choreographed this whole thing, planning every detail. She’d taken the money and left the country, never to return. She’d faked her death and never looked back at the carnage she’d left behind.
Why did she take Asher when she ran?
Why did she leave us behind?
The unfairness of everything that had happened hit me head-on, the combined force of Dad’s and my grief stealing my breath. My hands shook, and that cold smirk she wore grew more self-satisfied.
I saw through her disguise to the evil lurking below the beautiful veneer, and I knew.
I just knew.
Ash’s death hadn’t been an accident.
Blind fury washed over me. It drove me forward, my hands shaking as the desire to rip her apart limb from limb pumped through my veins.
A shout. Agonized and primal.
Curses and a scuffle next to me.
