Page 57 of Beautiful Sinners

Andie texts someone on her phone. “Done. Z will get it. Okay, truth or dare.”

“Truth,” Alana replies.

The music coming over the inset ceiling speakers changes from country to an upbeat Top 40 pop song, but I can barely hear it over the din of overlapping conversations taking place around us. The acoustics in the bar are horrible and echo off the walls like a loudspeaker. I’m getting an earful of someone telling his buddy about a coworker he banged during lunch in one of the men’s restroom stalls at work. Classy.

“Why did you fake your death?” Andie asks, and her question rams into me like a wrecking ball. Is she really going there just like that?

I eyeball daggers at my cousin, killing her a million times in the most gruesome ways my mind can imagine.

“What is wrong with you?”

She has the nerve to actually fucking shush me.

“My father was going to give me to a man who I despised. A marriage contract had been signed without my knowledge or my consent. I only found out about it right before I… did what I did,” Alana says, looking down at her hands to pick at a cuticle. “I was sold like a cheap whore. I didn’t know any other way out.”

“You too?” Andie says, and I think my jaw hits the table.

I pound my palms on the tabletop. “Wait, wait, wait. Back the hell up. How can you be married to someone without knowing about it?”

I get double incredulous, raised eyebrows.

“You, of all people, know how things work in our world. Women don’t get a voice,” Alana replies.

That’s not true. My mother was an integral, high member of the Society. My father never treated her like secondhand chattel. Not to mention, I was next in line to lead the Council.

Andie points at herself. “And I wasn’t officially married to the sadistic asshole. Only promised to him, but same difference. Alright, your turn,” Andie says to me.

The abrupt switch takes me by surprise.

“Not a chance in hell.”

She picks up a drink and pushes it at me. “You know the rules.”

I could argue. Yell that this game is absurd. Get up and leave. But damn my curiosity. If this is how I get some answers, then I’ll play along.

“Whatever.” I tip the drink back and get the same fireball sensation scorching a trail of lava down my throat.

After I flip over and place the empty shot glass on the table, I ask Andie, “Truth or dare?”

“Seeing as I just said a truth, it’s Alana’s turn again.”

“That’s cheating.”

“Truth,” Alana quickly says.

Andie sticks her tongue out at me in victory like a five-year-old. The eye roll I give her in return is just as childish.

Turning in my seat in Alana’s direction, I consider the woman who I love so much but who I’m also so angry with.

I already know what I want to ask. There must have been some shady stuff done in order to get me a new social security number, a new name, and I’m sure a fake birth certificate. Like witness protection kind of stuff that only the federal government can do. Without those types of identification, I wouldn’t have been able to enroll in public school or college.

“Why did you pretend not to know who I was?”

I pick up a drink and offer it to her, expecting her not to answer, so I’m completely floored when she does.

“Caroline was the only person I trusted. I went to her for help. She told your father, and that’s how I met Cillian. I was with him that night.” Her glossy eyes bore into me with a deep sadness. “I couldn’t let you die. Cillian gave us both a new life. Somewhere safe where no one knew who we were.”

My heart gives one gigantic thud.

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