I stepped under the spray, my eyes finding and holding hers. “I’m in trouble.”

  She drew in a breath, but she didn’t waver. She didn’t look away. She knew the risks we’d both taken the night before.

  “What can I do?” she asked.

  Relax.

  Sleep.

  Rest.

  Smile.

  Laugh.

  Comfort her father.

  Be herself.

  “Nothing. Stay here, and wait for my call.”

  She nodded.

  My chest was tight. I didn’t know what was in store for me, if anything would even happen, and I needed one more touch. One more taste.

  As she turned to go and change, I caught her hand. I pulled her in, my hand sliding behind her neck, and tugged her into my chest. My arms went around her. Her hands slid around my back, raising up, and she held me right back.

  We both savored this time.

  I loved this woman, but I didn’t have time to say the words.

  We didn’t talk.

  Moving to the bed, I held Bailey, and fifty-three minutes, twelve seconds later, the call came through.

  Feds were at the gate.

  FORTY-SIX

  Kash

  Bright was pissed.

  Her eyes were flat, her mouth just as flat, and if she could grind up acorns and spit them out like chew, she would’ve. I wasn’t being brought into their questioning station with handcuffs or zip ties around my wrists. I was being brought in with two federal agents as my “guides,” two agents not Bright or Wilson, and as a “courtesy.”

  Their words, not mine.

  Which meant they didn’t have what they claimed they had, or they wanted to use me still. I was willing to bet money they’d be circling the conversation of me helping them bring my grandfather in.

  We rode into an underground parking lot.

  Once we parked and got out, Bright and Wilson flanked me. They led me through a door, showing their credentials, and I had to give up a fingerprint. A pass was printed right in front of me. It was taken by a staff member, stuffed into a lanyard, and Wilson put that over my head.

  Then we were walking down a hallway.

  There were doors on either side. I heard murmuring from inside each room.

  “You have my brother here?”

  Bright’s head snapped to mine. She scowled. “We are not happy with you.”

  Interesting.

  She was pissed and showing she was pissed.

  I had to smile. “What happened, Bright? I had to imagine you tried to keep your affiliation with me hidden. Yet here you are and here I am. Are they holding your activities over your head?”

  Her mouth got tighter the more I talked. Her shoulders grew more rigid.

  “Shut it and just follow. You’re here to watch your brother.”

  Even more interesting.

  I wanted that opportunity, but not here. Not with them. Not this way.

  They led me to the basement, and to a back corner. A staff member came through a door, and I saw the stairs there, but they weren’t showing any EXIT signs. This building was not following basic code.

  This was a black site, one they used to do interrogations they didn’t want the public to know about.

  That wasn’t good.

  “What if I were to tell you that I have a tracker on me?”

  Bright braked and whirled to me. Her eyes were searching, but so were mine. I saw the quick panic there. She was alarmed, but then she concealed it. Her mouth went back to that scowl. “You don’t.”

  She started to go ahead.

  I didn’t. I remained, and she had to stop and look my way again.

  I raised an eyebrow. “How do you know?”

  Her hand flexed over my arm, gripping me hard, but it was a reaction she hadn’t been able to hold back. “Because you wouldn’t tell us if you did.” Her head went forward again. “Let’s go.”

  She jerked me after her.

  They took me into a room, but it wasn’t a questioning room. It was a watching room, and inside the next room, which I could see through a two-way mirror, was my brother.

  He was at the table, head bent, arms handcuffed flat to the table. He was wearing a T-shirt that’d been ripped at some point, and dried blood had seeped through it, mostly over his right shoulder.

  I remembered how easily he got away from me. “Did he fight when you took the house?”

  I was watching my twin. My gaze never wavered, but I noted two movements. One was Bright looking at me, seen from the corner of my eye, and the other was my twin lifting his head. Just slight. Just enough. And then he lowered it back down.

  He knew I was here.

  How I knew it, I didn’t know. But I knew it.

  “He didn’t have time. We took them both by surprise. He was in the kitchen.”

  “I doubt he had blood on him when you took him, all peaceful-like.” I should ask about Chrissy, but I didn’t. “What was he doing in there?”

  “What?”

  “What was he doing in there?”

  The answer came from Wilson, who sounded as if he was leaning against the wall behind us. “He was cooking eggs.”

  Eggs.

  He was making food.

  “Who else was in the house?”

  Bright made a growling sound.

  Wilson answered, almost sounding bored. “Him. The driver, who we’re still identifying. And Chrissy Hayes.”

  This told me three more things. One: Wilson was not alarmed. He would’ve been, if their heads were on the chopping block. Two: that meant they were safe, but Bright was frustrated. She didn’t want me to ask these questions, and she didn’t want to give me the answers. And finally, Wilson was answering, so that meant either Wilson was doing a damn good job at playing the good cop or they were ordered to give me information.

  They needed me.

  That’s the only scenario that could be at play here.

  That gave me cards to play. That gave me some power.

  Now I asked, because I needed to, “Where’s Chrissy?”

  Bright answered this one, her features softening. “She’s in medical. Once she’s cleared, and we get her statement, she can be reunited with her daughter.”

  My teeth ground together.

  Her pity told me she felt bad for Chrissy, which meant Chrissy hadn’t been in good shape when they found her.

  “I’m assuming she’s been questioned.” I peered more directly at Bright. “What was her state?”

  Bright hesitated. “She doesn’t remember a lot, and the psych doctor advised against pushing her. As for physical, she’d lost weight. She’d been traumatized, but she was coherent when we found her. She could walk and talk.” Another hesitation. Her eyebrows pinched. She flattened her lips together before she nodded at my twin. “She wasn’t scared of him.”

  I looked toward him, and his head had raised. It wasn’t all the way up, but it was halfway up. He was listening.

  He shouldn’t be able to hear us.

  My eyes narrowed back at Bright. “How do you know?”

  “There was an incident. We were taking him out and had to pause because a van was going down the street. We held him back. Word did not get communicated to her team and they brought her down the stairs from where they were keeping her. They looked at each other, and her handlers said she didn’t react.”

  “Was she in shock? She didn’t know what she was seeing.”

  “No. She said his name.”

  His name?

  I wanted to ask, but I didn’t.

  “There was no fear. Her body didn’t lock up. One agent had been holding her pulse, it was just habit, and he said there was no spike. How she said his name, it was as if she was worried about him.”

  I turned to inspect my twin once more.

  His head was back down.

  They wouldn’t get anything from him. He was good. Too good. And there were things happening I didn’t know, and I needed to know. So, weighing the pros and cons, I decided to pull my card.

  “I want time with him.”

  Both agents reacted. Bright’s head snapped around to me, her eyes wide and unbelieving. And I heard Wilson’s swift intake of breath.

  “No.” Bright shook her head.

  “Yes.” I leaned toward her. Before she could make more protests, I laid out my argument. “You will get nothing from him.” They didn’t know he could hear us, but I did, and so this message was twofold. I wanted him to know what I knew, and then I would go from there. “I had him before.”

  Neither knew.

  I felt the tension fill the air.

  They were not happy to hear that.

  I kept on. “I did not know about him until he showed up at my apartment. He broke in. We caught him, but he let us take him. He was testing us. He was testing me. We waited to question him. I wanted to see Calhoun’s reaction to his disappearance because all three of us know that he came from Calhoun. There is no other explanation for his sudden appearance and his identity not being known before now. Once I ascertained what I needed to know, I went in. The questioning lasted five minutes, and he was gone. He’s remained hidden until his move on Bailey. He had Chrissy Hayes in his possession. He’s good, and you all know it. You won’t get anything from him.” Now was my card. “But I will. Let me talk to him.”

  “No!”

  I looked at Wilson. His gaze was wide and alarmed. He was skirting from Bright to myself, and back again.

  “Wilson?”

  He hesitated.

  Bright turned to him, her arms folded over her chest. “No, Wilson. No. No way.”

  His phone buzzed.

  Wilson pulled it out.

  Bright stepped toward him, her hand outstretched. “Don’t answer that. We can’t let them near each other. Not any more than this.”

  I studied Bright, hearing her wording: “Them.” “Near each other.” She spoke as if … I frowned. She was talking as if we were together? A team? Or was it the twin thing? Did she believe in twins?

  Was she a twin?

  But he answered. “Wilson.” He waited, listening. It wasn’t a long call. He sighed, hanging up, and looked at me.

  I saw the capitulation at the same time Bright started sputtering, “No!”

  I smiled.

  Wilson nodded behind me. “Go ahead.”

  I hesitated for just a second.

  Chrissy Hayes wasn’t scared of him. I knew Bailey’s mother enough to know this was not enough time for her to be brainwashed, so if Chrissy wasn’t scared, that gave me hope.

  The second was up.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Kash

  Each time I’d been in the presence of my twin, something new was revealed. The first was just that he existed. The second was the first inkling of a connection. It shouldn’t be there. We didn’t grow up together. He was a stranger to me. And yet it’d been there.

  He knew I was coming.

  I knew he knew I was coming, and when I opened that door, his head was up.

  I came in, and this time he was wary of me.

  Roles were reversed somehow. Maybe he had heard me earlier, on the other side of the wall, and he knew that I knew more than he wanted me to know? Or maybe it was because he was caught in a way that he couldn’t get out of here?

  Was that it?

  Still, as I stepped inside and shut the door, neither of us looked away.

  “Was he going to have you undergo plastic surgery?”

  I bypassed the chair, content to lean against the mirror behind me. My head was down, and I watched him steadily.

  There was no reaction, but I knew, I knew in my gut, he knew what I was referring to.

  “Yes.”

  My nostrils flared. “What were you doing with Chrissy Hayes?”

  Why wasn’t Chrissy scared of you?

  He darted a look to the mirror, then shrugged, his head lowering. “I was getting to know my future mother-in-law.”

  He looked up, a small grin at that, and he saw my eye-roll.

  He snickered, then sobered. “I’m kidding.”

  “Ass.”

  Another grin from him. “I know.” He swallowed, looking at the door. “We can’t, you know.” Those eyes—my eyes—came back to me.

  Yeah.

  I nodded. I knew what he was talking about.

  “But I would. If…” His eyes darted behind me again. “You know.”

  Well, this was anticlimactic.

  He was telling he would talk, but not here. And that was putting me in a position I didn’t want to be in.

  I pulled out the chair and sat. Rubbing my jaw, I dipped my head and raked my hand through my hair before I leaned back. “What’s your main goal? You have to tell me that.”

  If I was going to risk everything, I had to know it was worth it.

  He sobered and dipped his head down before lifting those eyes again. “Not hurting others. That’s my main goal.”

  That told me nothing.

  I had to remember.

  He was not my twin.

  He was a guy. A stranger.

  I shook my head. “I already have a brother, you know.”

  He saw it, and his Adam’s apple moved up and down. A light that started to shine in his eyes diminished, and even though his hands were still cuffed to the table, he was able to lean back. He put distance between us with that motion.

  “I know. Matt Francis. Chrissy told me about him.” He paused, his gaze darting to the mirror behind me. “She told me about Bailey, too.”

  Everything went flat in me. “Don’t say her name.”

  He shut that down real quick. A nod. His eyelids clasped closed a second. “Yeah. Okay.”

  I knew I should keep the real questions to a minimum, and this next one was as real as they were going to come. But did it really matter? The authorities knew about him. They knew about Calhoun. They knew about me. Not much was still secret, so I had to ask, because it’d been bothering me since he first broke into Bailey’s sanctuary.

  “Were you the payment?”

  He drew in a ragged breath, his own nostrils flaring.

  I leaned forward. “Did he allow our mother her freedom because she gave you up? Or did he kill her because he found that she’d hidden one of us from him?”

  Fury lit up his entire face.

  He jerked forward. His throat contorted.

  His features twisted, sharpening.

  One brief second before he caught himself. He forced himself to relax. Then he lounged back. He swallowed. His shoulders loosened.

  He rolled his neck, back in control.

  And he smirked. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

  I waited.

  Nothing.

  I frowned. That was it? That was his comeback?

  My frown deepened, and feeling some of my monster railing inside of me, I leaned farther over the table and showed him my teeth. “That’s all you have? No smart retort? No jab? No insult?” Were his social skills less developed? “I don’t know what your life was like, but I have to ask: Do you know what mine is like?”

  He blinked, and I got him.

  There was a sense of wonder there.

  I leaned back again. Victoria said he was supposed to study me. She said that’s what he had been doing, what Calhoun thought he had been doing.

  If he had, he would come back with something. Anything. Even an old insult that Matt might’ve used. A little quip. But I was getting nada from him.

  He hadn’t been studying me.

  “What were you doing?”

  His eyebrows flew back up.

  He saw it. He knew I had him, but he didn’t cover it up. He didn’t slam a wall down. Instead, he let me see him, and then he said, “I won’t.” His head lowered closer to the table, closer to me. “Not here.”

  Oh yeah.

  We were doing the twin thing, already.

  I got his message loud and clear.

  I nodded, standing up from the table.

  I left that room knowing one thing: I needed to break him out of FBI custody.

  Bright and Wilson were waiting for me in the hallway. Both were not happy.

  “What the fuck were you two talking about?”

  Wilson was glowering. “I’ve seen videos of twin babies talking to each other. They make no sense to anyone. A bunch of gibberish, babbling, but each of them knows exactly what the other is saying. I swear, I saw the adult version in there.”

  Yeah. Maybe. Thinking back on our conversation, I’d think the same thing.

  “He doesn’t know anything.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Yeah. Bullshit on me. I was lying through my teeth.

  I exhaled. “It’s true.”

  Bright raised an eyebrow. “And how do you know that?”

  I glanced at Wilson. “Guess it’s a twin thing.”

  Bright cursed, reeling backward and walking a few feet away. Her hands were in her hair. She grabbed a handful, bent over, and let out a yell. Letting go, she strode back to me. “I swear, if you are lying to us, if you are lying to the government, we will swoop in. We will hurt you and you’ll never recover.”

  My chest tightened up.

  She read my face. Her tone grew quieter, more lethal. “You don’t get it, Colello. We won’t come after you. We’ll come after her. She’s the one who hacked everything. She’s the one who found them. We can prove it, and that’s what we’ll do. We’ll take away your little girlfriend, and we’ll never let her near you again.”

  Wilson grunted. “You know what kind of place this is. We have these places as prisons, too. Public doesn’t know about them. Public doesn’t have the right to know about them.”

  “That’s where we’ll stick your girlfriend. So once again, what does he know?”

  I stared at each of them, knowing I had to make a choice.

  Fuck.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Bailey

  I was curled in a ball, sitting in the chair in the entryway, and I knew they were coming back.

  Kash called. He had her.

  He had her!

  And he was bringing her here.

  To me.

  Heaven had answered my call. Hell rescinded its try. I got my wish.

  So soon.

  Since Kash’s call, I had not moved.