Page 114 of When Hearts Ignite

Grace

Please answer my calls. Please talk to me. I saw the light on in your apartment. You’re there. Please, just tell me what’s going on.

Grace

I love you so much, Steven. Something happened, didn’t it? Please don’t scare me. I’m terrified. Call me.

Grace

Steven Kingsley, don’t make me come over to The Orchid and find you. You’re there, right?

Grace

Whatever is going on, I’ll always be by your side. I’m worried sick about you. Please let me in. Whatever it is, we’ll get through this. I love you.

There are dozens more messages just like this one, each one angrier, more desperate, and terrified.

I want to reply so many times, want to pick up her call to hear her voice, want to go to her apartment and pull her into my arms.

And then what?

Sorry, darling, we can’t be together because my father had an affair with your mother and we are half-siblings?

The world is one perverted joke and we are the punchline.

Tears blur my vision again as I laugh into the ruckus of the night, my shoulders trembling from gallows humor or from pain. I can’t tell the difference anymore.

More footsteps pound nearby, and several fresh voices join the fray.

“Shit. He’s been like this since you found him?” Rex sounds concerned, his jovial, teasing tones nowhere on display. “Look at him. He’s a fucking mess. Hair all crazy, haven’t shaved, cufflinks missing, shirt hanging out of his pants. What the fuck.”

“Oh Steven, tell us what’s going on.” A whiff of feminine floral perfume hits my nostrils and the pain slices me once again. The scent is not jasmine, not my favorite smell in the world. The warmth next to me is not her. I don’t need to look up to know.

Lana wraps her arms around my shoulders, her hand making smoothing motions on my back, but I barely notice.

“Come on, man. You’re almost like a brother to us. You’re an honorary Anderson. There’s nothing you can’t share with family. Tell us so we can help you,” Ethan’s quiet voice speaks from in front of me.

Slowly, I lift my head up, a pounding headache cleaving me in half. I get all the pain from the alcohol, but none of the benefits. No blackouts, no drunkenness, no forgetfulness.

Only the pain.

So much pain.

Ryland squats in front of me and places his hand on my shoulders, his slate eyes piercing. He squeezes. Maxwell sits silently next to me—he’s a man of few words, but I can feel his support radiating from his body heat.

Charles paces, his lips thinning as he rakes his hand through his hair. Ethan and Rex stare at me from their standing positions a few feet away, blocking my vision of the road where the cars are flying by, speeding along the streets in an underground race for the rich and elite that The Orchid hosts once a quarter.

Lana sighs and wraps me around my shoulders to the best of her ability. “You can tell us. We won’t judge. We’re your family.”

I heave out a breath and tilt my head up toward the heavens. The skies are a dark abyss—a stark, starless sky. The gods don’t want to peer down between the frissons of worlds to see us. I want to stand up, scream on top of my lungs, and yell, “Look what you made happen. What sick, twisted minds you have to do this to us!”

“Grace and I are siblings,” I whisper, but the five words pierce the intimate circle of the group. It might as well be the sound of a gunshot.

Maxwell sucks in a deep breath.

“What the fuck,” Ryland mutters.

“What!” Rex exclaims, disbelief lacing his voice, as Lana, Ethan, and Charles echo the same sentiments.

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