Page 32 of Indebted

“And you could have told the truth at any point and gotten out of it. But you didn’t.”

“No. I couldn’t. It would have broken her to know he did that, after everything else he’s done.” She looks at me again, and I have to consciously avoid flinching away from her cold stare. “Everything I told you about that was true. He stole all of her money and gambled it away. Her whole future, everything she saved for. All those guys she had to—I mean, there’s no way she would have held it together if she ended up in your study that day instead of me.”

Now it’s starting to make sense. I asked myself, didn’t I, how a girl like her could end up with a loser like Greg. Now I know. She wasn’t the girl. I got the other twin, the one willing to sacrifice everything. “Have you ever… you know, done that kind of work?”

“I worked at a bookstore. I guess I don’t anymore. I didn’t exactly give my two weeks’ notice.”

And look where she is now. Look what happened. Look where Fate placed us all.

“It was all for nothing. Look at her.” She presses her lips to the back of her sister’s hand, and fuck me, I want to reach for her. I want to hold her. I would give anything if it would mean taking this pain away.

“Do they know what happened?” I ask in a quiet voice.

She shakes her head, sniffling before pulling herself together enough to speak. “The only reason anyone found her was the apartment door was ajar. A severe beating, the doctor said, but he didn’t go into deeper details. He had to go take care of another patient. I’m hoping he comes back soon, because I would like to know.”

That makes two of us.

Meanwhile, I have a decision to make. What to do about this? What to do about her?

“What if it was him?” she whispers, her chin trembling again when our eyes meet. “What if he found her? He saw me and thought I was her. He was one of her clients back in the day. What if he saw her somewhere and—”

“And followed her.” Her head bobs up and down. “I’ll order a guard for her room. Twenty-four-seven, no exceptions.”

Proud, stubborn thing. She lifts her chin. “You don’t owe us anything.”

“This isn’t about owing.” For the first time since Delilah’s attack, I’m getting a handle on this. Taking action has a way of doing that. “But you have to promise me something in return.”

“I should have known,” she mutters, clicking her tongue.

“How about you let me finish? My condition is, you stay at the house with me. I can’t have you risking getting spotted on the street, if that’s what happened to your sister. The only way I’m going to know you’re safe is if you’re under my roof.”

She snickers, her mouth twisting in a smirk. “Wow, that’s a real about-face.”

“What does that mean?”

“Just this morning, you were in a big hurry to get rid of me. Right? Jock told me. You couldn’t even be at the house when he did it.”

I force myself to take a deep breath, then to let it out slowly before I respond. “Because your sister is lying here in this bed and I know how upset you are, I’m going to control myself. But I would ask that in the future, you don’t assign motives to my actions. You have no idea what you’re talking about. Yes, I discussed moving you out of the house yesterday and told Jock to get it done, but things have changed. I had business to attend to at the Giordano house, hence my absence. I didn’t have time to tell him to stand down before I left this morning.”

It’s clear she doesn’t believe me thanks to her deepening smirk. “For what it’s worth,” I add, “that was meant to be for your protection, too. I wanted to get you out of this before things get any worse with Bernardi. I told myself it was for your own good. Now, I’m only glad I didn’t go through with it yesterday.”

“Is that the truth? The actual truth?”

“I’ll make a deal with you. From now on, we tell each other the full truth. What I just told you is the truth. I wanted to protect you, since all our association has done so far is hurt you. I thought I owed you that much, at least.”

“If you think I’m going to thank you for being decent, I’m not.”

“I wouldn’t expect it.”

We both stand when a man in scrubs enters the room. “Miss Jones, and…?” He looks my way, expectant.

“This is a friend of the family,” Delilah explains. She’s a smooth liar, but then I already figured that out. “So tell me. What kind of damage are we looking at here?”

He puts on a pair of latex gloves from a box on the wall before approaching Deanna and checking the condition of the ports along her arm connected to an array of bags hanging from metal stands positioned at the head of the bed. “Your sister took a pretty severe beating, Miss Jones. She was bleeding internally when she arrived in the emergency room, but we were able to stop that easily enough. It would seem she was kicked multiple times, but it isn’t the blows to her body that concern me.”

I don’t care whether it’s the right thing to do. I don’t care if it’s smart. I go to her and put an arm around her waist. She needs to know she isn’t alone. “You’re concerned about the blows she took to her head,” I murmur. Delilah whimpers softly and leans against me.

“That’s right. She sustained skull fractures and there was some slight bleeding from her brain. We’re doing everything we can to monitor her injuries in hopes of staying ahead of any new developments.”

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