I gave him a look. I hated going the first time we tried that. “Let me think about it.”

  I was still trembling, but watching Matt, I leaned over. “You have them, too?”

  He didn’t answer right away. His shoulders lifted up, held, and he let out the breath as he took another long drag from his drink. His eyes found mine, and they weren’t void anymore. They were stormy.

  I flinched.

  His mouth flattened, and he grimaced. “Let’s talk about why you wanted to come here and not Naveah.”

  It was like he threw a bucket of ice water over me, and swallowing over a knot, I glanced over. Fitz went to the booth’s door. The other two guards were on the edge toward the dance floor, the one remained at the bottom of our pathway.

  We were good to talk.

  I pulled my phone out and showed him Hoda’s text messages.

  He read them, his jaw getting firmer and firmer until he scrolled to the end. He clicked on something, and then hit another button before almost shoving the phone back to me.

  I took it, already looking. “What’d you do?”

  “I sent them to my phone.”

  “What?” I was scrambling. I hadn’t expected that from him. “Why?”

  “Because that shit is bad.” He pointed a jabbing finger at my phone. “That shit can’t stay between us. That’s why you wanted to come here, isn’t it?” His eyes were blazing and fierce.

  I shifted away, letting out a sigh.

  That was messed up.

  He was right. I needed to tell Kash.

  I leaned back, my head resting against the back of the booth, and there, I felt the club swirling around us. Everything was swimming. I felt the waves pushing down on me. I was lost, hearing the techno bass, feeling the heat of the lights, the smell of the dry ice in the club, and he was right. He was totally right. I mean, I knew it, but seeing my brother’s reaction to Hoda’s text messages, I knew I’d been wrong.

  But craaap.

  Crap!

  Crap!

  I tasted salt and opened my eyes, everything blurring.

  I was crying. Again.

  I hated crying.

  A hand circled my neck and I was pulled in to a chest. Matt’s arms wrapped around me again. He hugged me to his side. “Bailey. Man.” His hand began smoothing hair back from my forehead. “Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—Well, I don’t know what I meant, but if this is about Hoda and Quinn…”

  I shook my head, the tears falling even faster.

  It wasn’t. I wished it was.

  He hesitated then, and finally, after maybe a minute of sitting there in silence, he spoke. “I think we should call Kash about this.” The admission came out of him in a rush, almost rueful, like he couldn’t believe he was saying what he was saying. His hand shook as he said those words, then he smoothed it out, letting it fall to rest on my shoulder.

  He was right.

  And why was I crying?

  EIGHTEEN

  Kash

  The inside of the warehouse was completely silent.

  I had a twin. A fucking twin.

  This man, this brother of mine, was tied to a chair and had been kept captive for weeks until it was time to finally deal with him. Didn’t say a word, either. I put my phone down, my wallet. I laid my gun on the table and I picked up tape. I wrapped it around my knuckles, flexing my hand to test how it felt. All the while, he watched me.

  He hadn’t been beaten.

  He’d been fed. He’d been given water. He was put in a room that was deemed comfortable. A bed. An audio cassette recorder, with tapes if he wanted to listen to anything or record his own message. There was a bathroom just off the bedroom. The temperature was always comfortable. He asked for a fan once, and it was given. He gave no indication of escape, or wanting to hurt himself, or even plotting an escape.

  He read. He listened to music. He exercised in his room, and when he asked, he was brought out to do laps around this very warehouse.

  He was also kept away. The closest building was a thirty-minute drive, through woods and rivers and fields. All the time, nothing.

  I watched my grandfather, but there was no report of him being worried.

  “Is that supposed to intimidate me?”

  His first words to me.

  I looked at my taped hands before going and dragging a chair over. “These?” I flexed them. “No, no, no. They’re to cover up a cut.”

  His heavy eyes just watched me, not missing a thing. He didn’t react. There were no emotions flickering over his face—his face that resembled mine exactly. But no. Looking closer—and I had been; I’d been watching him on video this whole fucking time—there were differences, but they were slight.

  His cheekbones were a little wider. His jawline wasn’t as pronounced as mine. He had a slightly wider forehead. But his eyes were mine. His nose was mine. Our mouths were the same. I imagined we would’ve been considered identical twins.

  All the time—since he broke into my apartment, since he was captured—I didn’t know how I felt about his existence.

  I leaned back in my chair. “Do you know why I’ve waited this long to speak with you?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “To figure out if I’m here because our grandfather sent me or if I ran from him.”

  He was intelligent. Good to know.

  I leaned forward, my elbows going to my legs again. “Yes.”

  “And to have your girlfriend look into me.”

  There was no prompt for that one. I raised my eyebrows. “What do you know about my girlfriend?”

  “She’s smart. Gifted with the computer. I know our grandfather finds her a threat.”

  I watched him steadily. I was looking for any cracks, any break, but there was nothing.

  Was he telling the truth?

  “My girlfriend’s been preoccupied.”

  A small flicker. There it was.

  He reacted.

  I continued. “The same day you got on a plane for America, our grandfather ordered a hit on her mother. My girlfriend hasn’t been looking you up. She’s been mourning the murder of her mother that happened right in front of her.”

  His pupils dilated. Enlarging. He looked away, blinking rapidly to cover up his reaction.

  I saw it, though. He was surprised. I wanted to name that other flash, though it was so brief, but it looked like regret. Sorrow? I wasn’t sure. It was gone when he looked back at me. His features completely schooled back so he was in control, but I knew what I detected.

  Fear.

  I narrowed my eyes. Was he scared of Calhoun? Of me?

  He was looking right at me, but while I was tracking every iota of emotion that might be showing on his face, he was thinking. I couldn’t tell about what, but I felt it. He was calculating, and a second later, his eyes took on a distant look. He began to speak, his voice sounding from afar.

  “I can see that I need to change my options here. I’d been prepared for your girlfriend to search me, and that fact and the history she would pull up would vouch for me. Or vouch enough where you might be inclined to trust me.”

  I waited.

  He stopped speaking.

  My turn. “Did you grow up with him?”

  His eyes refocused, centering on me. They cleared, as if a wall fell away. He frowned. “You really haven’t investigated me.”

  “There’s reports he has sent teams to search for something. Am I wrong to assume that ‘something’ is you?”

  His mouth tightened. A vein stuck out from his neck, his pulse beating visibly. “I would assume so.” Another frown from him. “Perhaps. I’m not sure. He’s lost quite a few of his assets, all of those being stripped from him by you. So they could be searching for me, or he might think I’m still where I usually go to get away from him.”

  “And that is?”

  “I have people in Thailand I care about.”

  “People he knows about?”

  Another tic from him. That vein was now sticking out from the side of his jaw. And it was bigger, pulsing harder.

  “No,” he bit out. “I wish that to remain that way.” He hissed those last words, and to the untrained professional, it would seem as if I had something on him. This should give me a sense of power, where I could get comfortable. Then I would relax. I would dangle that threat above his head, issue my threats, and he would needle me. He would get information from me, and I would give it, almost gloating that I had that “thing” over him and I was deemed safe.

  It was all a game.

  I knew it. He knew it.

  This is where I would need to “loosen” my strings. I would start getting arrogant. I would have to choose which information to “slip” to him. And then, when I left, feeling drunk on power, he would pull the string.

  With all the shit that happened in my life recently, I didn’t have the energy to play.

  “I don’t have time.”

  He frowned, his eyebrows jerking forward before smoothing back out.

  Now I knew how he looked when thrown off balance. I cataloged that in the back of my mind, because while he was testing me, stringing me along, I was learning how to read him.

  His eyes flared.

  His head reared backward, with enough force to make his chair scoot backwards, too. “You motherfucker.”

  I gave him the slightest of grins, showing my teeth. “That’s the point, isn’t it? Our mother and the fucker who killed her.” I shoved up from the chair, starting to warm my arms up, then pulling each one across my chest and stretching it. I let them fall back to my side and shook them out, rolling my shoulders. “Were you the price she paid for freedom? Give up one of his kids and he’d have to let her go?”

  He sucked in a hissing breath.

  I began to circle around him, slowly at first, watching him the whole time.

  He watched me as much as he could, his head twisting to find me as I passed behind him. He was cautious now. Wary.

  Good.

  I didn’t know this kid. I had no clue he existed, until my team found him, sent his existence to me, and a month later he’s breaking into my apartment. He was either a secret they unveiled or a weapon Calhoun planted. Either way, he was here and he was currently under my control.

  I stopped and squatted in front of him. My arms were loose, my elbows resting on my knees, and I stared up at him from this position. Maybe it was time to start asking the hard questions.

  “Who raised you?”

  No flicker. No response.

  His face was like granite.

  Okay. Next one.

  “Did you know our mother?”

  He blinked this time, a slight wince, but he caught himself, covering his reaction. A second blink. And back to a face of impassivity.

  One more. “Did you know our father?”

  There was no reaction from that one.

  “Calhoun had our aunt raped. Were you there?”

  His shoulders jerked up, but nothing on his face.

  “Did you hear her screams?” I didn’t wait. I pushed up and stood over him. “Because I did. Those tapes were sent to our mother. She listened to them, and I heard them, sitting outside her door.”

  I walked forward. This was a risk, but I was going to take it.

  I leaned down, getting into his space. My hands went to his armrests and I was right there, almost eye to eye.

  “He tortured them both. Mentally. Physically. Sexually. Emotionally. He did it all, then he killed them both.”

  His eyes were blazing. He tried, he struggled to put up his wall, but it slipped. He couldn’t keep it up, and he was glaring at me. He moved even closer to me, trying to get into my space, trying to make me uncomfortable.

  “If you’re trying to figure out if I hate our grandfather, let me save you the trouble. I hate him. I have hated him all my life. I have dreamed about killing him, putting the knife in him, and I want to twist it, run it through the rest of him. Up his stomach, though his chest, and then turning, pushing it directly into his heart. And I would savor that moment, watching the life drain out of his eyes.” He paused, breathing harshly. His nostrils were flaring. “If I had the power, I’d bring him back from the dead only to do it all over again. You didn’t grow up under his thumb. I did. If you want a tutorial on torture tactics, I’m the one who should be giving it to you.”

  “And yet you’re the one tied up here.”

  His eyes went flat at the reminder. His hands jerked, but they didn’t ball into fists.

  They remained flat, resting.

  I was looking at him all anew, thinking back on everything. How he hadn’t fought. How he hadn’t asked questions or made demands. He’d been perfect … but those hands.

  They never balled into fists. Not once. He jerked his arms, but they still remained flat.

  Understanding dawned, and I stepped back from him.

  Like he was preserving his energy.

  Like he was waiting.

  Like he was looking for his chance.

  He knew how to fight. I bested him in the apartment, but had I?

  That small knife.

  “You knew,” I murmured.

  Yes. He knew he would be taken captive.

  He knew there were body scans.

  He knew he’d have to go in weaponless or he never would’ve gotten in, but he needed to go in.

  “You couldn’t stand going in without anything to defend yourself. That’s why you brought in the small switchblade. You hid it. We found the towel on you. You had it wrapped up, and there was tape. We had someone put it back together. You had the tape to cover the ends of it, to make it look like something else, not a knife at all.” Shit. Shit. I saw the knife taped back up, but I hadn’t thought about it.

  I was thinking on it now.

  I moved back another step.

  He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t reacting. It was like he was just waiting for … what? For me to piece it all together?

  And then I really thought about him, and about where he grew up.

  Another step back, toward my gun. “I turned myself into a human living weapon, and that was just training in preparation for him. But you…” Yeah. I was right. I felt it. It was clicking all the way down to my bones. “You lived with him. You were under his thumb. He tortured our aunt. He killed our mother. Jesus. You were there. You endured that. What does that make you? No way could someone live through that and come out unscathed.”

  He had to be unhinged. Had to be.

  His eyes twitched. Not his eyelids, or his lashes. His eyes themselves. That was the real him. I was getting in there. I was digging all the way in there.

  I just needed him to show his face, his real face.

  I needed to see who I was really dealing with, because what I was seeing was a mask.

  Had to be.

  I kept on, my voice growing soft. “If he knew you were gone, he would be frantic. What was his plan with you? Because he had one.”

  He didn’t talk.

  His eyes flashed, then went dull. His head lowered. His shoulders slumped.

  Fucking hell.

  It was like I pushed a button and he was a robot, turning off.

  Talking was done. I’d gotten the information I needed, and I grabbed my things, but I barked at Josh, “I want a tranq, now!”

  I sensed movement behind me. While I was in the process of grabbing my gun, his head whipped up, and if I’d been questioning myself a second earlier, that was all gone. I was right. His eyes went feral and he simply stood up.

  He simply stood up!

  His restraints were gone.

  My hands closed around the gun. I was swinging around, but then he was there. He caught at my shoulder, his hands going to my wrist, and he stopped me midswing. Then he looked at me and said, “You’re wrong, and I’ll prove it to you.”

  Shouting.

  Shots were fired.

  Guards were streaming into the warehouse, but he let me go. He turned, and before I could incapacitate him, he was gone.

  The door banged shut behind him, and the guards were running after him. But me, I was left with another realization. Despite him running now and despite him not trying to hurt me, I knew it in my bones. He hadn’t gotten free from our grandfather.

  He’d been let free.

  I had no clue why.

  Then Josh was approaching, his phone to his ear. I heard him say, “I’ll tell him.” He put the phone to his chest, looked up at me. “It’s Matt. Something’s happened.”

  NINETEEN

  Bailey

  We were pulling up to Phoenix Tech and not the Chesapeake.

  “What is going on?” I leaned forward, a hand to the back of Fitz’s seat in front.

  “We’re meeting Kash here instead.”

  Matt was frowning, too, so I wasn’t the only one in Lostville, USA.

  We got out, following Fitz. Matt’s guards fell in step right behind us. The front door of Phoenix Tech was opened. More guards were there, and we walked past all of them, all the way to the elevator and up to the top floor, and when we stepped outside, I was having a moment.

  I knew where we were going, and I’d never been to my father’s office in this building.

  I would’ve fangirled so hard going in there before this summer, but then the summer happened. But right then and there, I wasn’t the daughter of Peter Francis walking inside. Okay. Maybe there was still some fangirling happening in me. I was the little nine-year-old that got her first Computer Weekly with Peter Francis on the cover as a birthday gift.

  I think my knees were knocking together.

  Matt frowned at me. “What are you doing?”

  “Noth—” Total nerd squeak there. I coughed, my tone lower and calmer. “Nothing. I’m good.”

  My stomach was still doing loop-de-loops, but okay. We were here, and I saw my father, and the moment was done.

  “Hey.” Matt went inside, dropped to a chair, and threw his leg over the armrest. “Why are we here?”

  Peter’s gaze was lingering on me before he pulled away, looking at his son. “Because—”

  “Because there’s been some new developments everyone needs to know about.”