Page 12 of Devious Delusions

He takes a controlled breath as his fingers tighten around mine. It doesn’t help his mood and the hold pushes my fingers together so the tips of them are tingling from restricted blood flow. The medication has altered any pain I feel, and I don’t feel it despite them turning numb.

I gently lay my free hand over his and speak softly. “Are your parents okay?”

His fingers loosen, and he looks over my shoulder as his jaw hardens. I’ve fucked up. So far he hasn’t shown any signs of his teenage outbursts, but it’s coming. My spine straightens and every sense goes on alert waiting for what he’s going to do.

Another controlled breath.

It flares his nostrils.

And he mechanically turns his head to look at me head-on.

But he doesn’t lash out and sadness clings to him as he rests his arm on the table. “They had a difficult time after the fire.” His voice lowers with a sigh. “It probably doesn’t help when I look exactly like him.”

I can’t imagine what I’ve put his family through. The fire was an accident by Asher’s admission, and I can’t trust the memories of what led to that moment. His mom was always a cold-hearted bitch when it came to Kane, and she would ignore him at every opportunity. But that guilt manifests in grief and I try to stop mine doing the same as I focus on Asher.

“Parents are shitty people. I hope mine are out of our life.”

“You’ve got your wish. They thought you were talking to Ruby, and you had a huge argument about it. Changing our names so that we could be our own people probably didn’t help matters.”

The mention of my older sister plays with my emotions. I haven’t seen her since I was seven years old, and she was running out of our house to prevent our parents forcing her to get married to someone she’d never even met. Instead, I focus on the new name—our new name—and laugh at how much it must enrage our families that we didn’t keep either of their toxic names.

“Newman?” I ask and he nods. But the thoughts of my sisters are still there and I lightly trace a shape through the condensation on my glass. “Did I? Talk to her, I mean. Or see her?”

He gives me a tight-lipped smile and threads his fingers through mine. I already know the answer is no, but he fills more gaps I didn’t know I had.

“No. You wanted me to look for her and she’s living with Scarlet. But you didn’t want to speak to them.”

Both of my sisters are together. The last thing I remember about Scar is her visiting our grandparents while she was home from college. I was never close to either of them as per our controlling parents’ design, but it hurts that they’ve found each other to leave me out.

Asher’s phone rings again. The screen flashes “Niko” as it vibrates on the table face up. He sighs before answering and there’s a softness to his features. I don’t take in a word of his conversation because the softness messes with my already broken mind. It’s familiar but I can’t place it.

He ends the call and I decide to restart my interrogation. “What do you do for work?”

A smirk lifts one side of his lips and he tries not to laugh at the absurdity of our current situation as he answers. “I own a security firm. Is this going to be like a first date?” When I don’t answer he adds, lower, “You’ve asked about my relationship with my parents, my job. What’s next, my star sign?”

Filling with confidence, I sit back and love that I know something. “I already know that. You’re a Libra.”

He hums and just smiles at me. So, I continue listing the things I know about him to get everything to feel normal.

6

ASHER

“You were born at exactly 11:47 pm, making you the older twin because Kane was fifteen minutes later, and you never let him forget it. Even though they put the same dates on your birth certificate you’d always say it was only your day,” she says smugly.

It’s always him. Kane. Kane. Fucking Kane.

The smile on her face isn’t helping my mood. It’s always dreamy when she talks abouthim,when she forgets that it’s her fault he lost his life and she’s sitting laughing over memories.

“Do you remember how he’d always say he’s going to get tattoos all over his neck and arms so no one would ever be able to mistake you for each other?”

I nod. It’s stiff and uncomfortable because there are no happy memories anymore. They all went up in smoke the moment she set fire to our house, to our lives.

But she’s still just as beautiful as the first day I saw her and, as always, Delilah’s beauty distracts me. The first thing that drew me to her was her confidence. It’s the same now. She lights up and I’m a moth seeking out that spark despite the way it burns upon impact.

She smiles politely as the waitress sets our food and drinks down, thanking her, without that light dimming even slightly. There’s no guilt over her actions or any feelings other than when she mentions his name. It’s always there wrapped up in her memories and safely protected.

How can she bear to keep someone alive after everything she’s done? Doesn’t it haunt her?

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