Page 52 of Lie to Me

I scoff.

This guy.

“He clearly isn’t watching you closely, since he doesn’t know that we helped you out with the guy who was in your apartment. He probably thinks you’re too scared to come near us again and he’s using that as a way to keep you in line. My guess is that whoever is doing this isn’t even in the city yet.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t wait to get my fucking hands on whoever it is,” she grunts and Enzo laughs.

“Sorry,” she mutters, seemingly realizing she’s still on speaker with my dad and brothers.

“Just keep your guard close, little warrior, and call me if you need me.”

“Uh huh, I will,” she says before ending the call.

Luca is the one to break the silence. “Little warrior?” he asks with a raised brow.

“Mia regina?” I counter and he flips me off with a shake of his head.

“What are you thinking?” I ask my dad when I notice him still staring at my phone sitting on the table.

“I’m thinking we need to make a statement.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Sloane

Present

Banging on my front door wakes me from my already restless sleep, filled with images of the past and those words from the notes I’ve been left whispering from my consciousness. I dart up in my bed, frazzled and confused as fuck as to who’s trying to break my door down at—I check the time on the nightstand—2:08 a.m.

“What the fuck,” I mutter to myself and throw the covers off before heading to the door of my apartment. The closer I get, the more wary I am about who’s on the other side of that door. My steps slow, and I hold my breath as I quietly peek up through the peephole. I huff as I see my brother looking disheveled on the other side.

I swing the door open and glare at my twin, who gives me a sheepish smile in return.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

He grunts and looks past me into the apartment. “Are you alone?”

I open the door wider for him to come in and he takes the hint, strolling inside with his hands shoved into the pockets of his slacks.

I close the door and head to the kitchen, grabbing a beer from the fridge for him and a bottle of water for me. I slide the beer across the counter to him and he takes it, fiddling with the label before peering at me with unsure eyes.

This is the first time I’ve seen him since I stormed out of his house, pissed that he’d kept something so big from me for so long. This is also the first time I’ve ever seen so much emotion in Finn’s eyes. This has clearly been eating at him.

“I’m sorry, Sloane,” he murmurs. “I’ve been away on a business trip, but came here as soon as I got back to the city.” He glances a look at the time on the stove and cringes. “Which I probably shouldn’t have done, but I’ve been going out of my fucking mind knowing that you’re pissed at me. I needed to see you and tell you how fucking sorry I am for not telling you.”

“All those times, Finn,” I mutter. “All those times I cried silent tears on the phone to you. All those times I told myself that I was unlovable because of what happened between me and Marco. And yet even when I came back to the city, you sat and told me to hear him out when you knew the truth. You let me blow him off every single time he tried to talk to me. You let me think that everything between us was a lie for years. You knew that Dad knew all this time, you knew he had threatened Marco, and you never told me. You just carried on playing his little bitch boy until he went and got himself killed.”

Finn’s eyes glaze over with an emotion I’ve never seen on his face before. It’s a mixture of denial, regret, and something that looks like… shame? I’m honestly not sure.

We’re silent for a moment as I stare at him, until he finally snaps out of it, shaking his head and returning his attention to me.

“You’re right,” he agrees. “I should have told you the moment I found out. I should have done more to stop him when we were younger. I should have done so many fucking things differently, Sloane. I wish I could go back and change it, but I can’t. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when you came back home, but I honestly thought it was better if you heard it from him rather than me. I’ll regret everything I did, ordidn’tdo, until the day I die. What can I do to make things better? What can I do to make you forgive me?”

I eye him, and I know in my bones that he’s telling the truth. We’re not those types of twins that can tell what each other is thinking or feeling—if that really is even a thing—but I do know when my brother is being honest, just like he is right now. This shit is tearing him apart, and even though I’m pissed as hell at him about what he did, I know I won’t be able to hold onto that anger.

He’s my brother. My twin. My family. And I’ll be damned if I lose him, too.

I round the kitchen counter and approach him, keeping my expression neutral as he stares at me in alarm, probably thinking I’m about to slap him. But once I reach him, I wrap my arms around him and bury my head in his chest. He responds immediately, wrapping his arms around my body and squeezing me tightly.

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