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“You’re a coward, Cash. Even if I die, I’m going to haunt you until you’re begging for death.” With no affinity for brujería, I wasn’t sure how to make it happen, but I hoped intention would do the trick. Maybe my ancestors would put the work in motion for me. Amara always said I had a little magic in my family line. I had to hope she was right. If not, the world was a cruel place.
Lifting my head to spear Cash with a wish so fierce his grandchildren would feel my wrath, I expected the last face I saw to be an asshole. Instead, I looked up and saw an angel.
“Antoni.”
The word was barely more than a breath on my lips, but it felt good to say out loud. The meaning of seeing him hit me, and I sucked in a breath. Amara always said angels carried the righteous to heaven themselves. I was neither righteous nor a true believer, so maybe he was really a fallen angel. Truthfully, I didn’t mind either way, as long as I got my brother back.
Seeing him was bittersweet and beautiful. Even if I grieved what could have been true happiness for me, I was happy to see him. So damn happy. I’d missed him more than words.
He dropped to his knees at my side and mumbled low enough that I couldn’t make out the words themselves. The tone told me he was swearing, though. Callused fingers brushed my hair from my face then worked on the manacles at my wrists. The soft whir of a Dremel, accompanied by pinpricks of what felt like burning, was the soundtrack just before the chains linking the cuffs together broke. My shoulders screamed at the unexpected release, but having my hands free tamped down some of the panic I’d refused to voice that lingered at the back of my throat.
“Thank you,” I croaked, tipping my head back. I wanted to see Antoni, to refamiliarize myself with the face that had been at my side my whole life, but the lights were too bright and my vision too hazy. I cursed, annoyed that blood loss was getting to me.
“Time to go, tesorita.”
In the back of my mind, I wondered why he called me that instead of the snarky princessa he’d always preferred, but as he lifted me into his arms, I found I didn’t care. My twin was with me at the end. That was all that mattered.
Though he tried to be gentle, Antoni’s movements sent agony rippling through my stomach, and I winced. “I thought dying was supposed to be less painful,” I panted. “This shit hurts.”
“I know,” Antoni soothed, bundling me closer. “Breathe through it just a little longer.”
Right. Because I was dying. It would all be over soon.
I let him carry me out of the warehouse until the cold brush of night air graced my skin. Every step, I felt myself slip closer and closer to the place where we would be united again for good. I welcomed it. I was so tired of being alone.
But was I alone?
No. I’d had Grey, always. The thought of him—of Dominic and Nate, too—sent more pangs through me, though they were of the emotional variety. I debated keeping my questions in, but I didn’t want to. If I was going out, I wanted to go with nothing left to be answered. “Are they alive?”
Thankfully, I didn’t have to explain. Antoni knew whom I meant. “Yes.”
Relief bowled me over, and grateful tears ran from behind closed eyes, though I had no clue when I’d shut them. Barely there mist caressed my cheeks as the faintest sprinkle of rain fell. It felt cleansing. Like if I stayed in the mist for long enough, all the blood would wash away, and I would be clean again.
A beautiful lie.
“I miss them already,” I admitted. It felt like a dirty secret, but Antoni was my vault. My home. He would hold my secrets for me until I was strong enough to carry them again.
Warm air coasted over my forehead, followed by the press of dry lips and an unshaved cheek. “It will all be okay. I promise.”
And I believed him.
I tried thinking of all the things I wished I’d done, but regrets didn’t matter. What mattered was what I had. I’d cleaned up the city, rebuilt it strong enough that I had faith it would withstand Cash. I couldn’t say I’d fallen in love, but I’d finally let myself take the love that had been offered to me time and time again. I’d had Greyson—and even Dominic—for a time. I’d had Nate close, and in those moments when it was just us, he’d seen me. I knew he had. I had family like Cameron and Rey, friends like Shara and Aislynn. They’d guided me, kept me on the path I wanted to stay on, helped me become the person I was.
For all the blood and death of my life, they made everything worth it.
With nothing more to do, no last words to say, I curled against the chest of my brother and waited for him to take me home.
Chapter Two
Nate
Thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four…
Once again, I paced the foyer, waiting for Mari and the others to get home. At first, I let the sound of my footsteps on the tile soothe my worries. But the longer they were gone, the less it worked. So, I counted. Forty steps to one end of the room, forty steps to the other. Over and over, and over again.
No matter how many times I did it, the tightness in my gut wouldn’t ease.
It’d started about the time Mari had called to tell me they were planning to infiltrate Cash’s den. This unrelenting twist of my stomach screamed at me: something’s wrong, something’s wrong, something’s wrong.
