Page 23 of The Rook’s Obsession

He sees me, and he stops. A breath bursts out of him. Only one, but it sounds like it contains all the air in his lungs. He sways slightly on his feet before catching himself.

I’ve been studied by some of the most dangerous men in Europe. I’ve held eye contact with targets seconds before they died. I’ve stared down Vincenzo Russo himself without flinching. But the way this man looks at me—the raw, undisguised emotion on his face, the way his jaw works like he’s physically holding something back—it’s unlike anything I’ve prepared for.

He’s looking at me like I’m a miracle. Like he’s afraid that if he blinks, I’ll disappear.

He doesn’t come closer. He stands in the middle of the living room, hands at his sides, and takes a slow breath. When he speaks, his voice is rougher than I expected. Lower. Controlled in a way that tells me control doesn’t come naturally to him, but he’s practiced at forcing it. His discipline goes beyond his workout routine.

“It’s you. I knew Nick found you. I knew you were on your way. I trust him. But… I’m still having a hard time.” His hands clench, loosen, then clench again at his sides. Like he’s holding himself back, but only by the skin of his teeth.

I don’t look away, even when his searching gaze makes my skin crawl a little. I refuse to be the one who breaks eye contact first.

“I know you don’t remember me,” he says, sitting in the nearest chair like he needs to if he doesn’t want to hit the floor. As he speaks, his gaze crawls over my face, like he’s memorizing me. “I’m not going to pretend that doesn’t hurt, because it does. But I’m not here to push you. I’m not going to force memories on you or make you feel something you don’t feel. I had to see you, is all.”

No. There’s more to it than that, and the clue lies in the way Nick keeps looking back and forth between us. Like he’s waiting for something to click. They were hoping I’d see my supposed brother and the veil would lift and I’d fall into his open arms. Like this is a movie instead of the reality of a brutal life.

Something passes across Liam’s face—something painful, something he tucks away with visible effort. “All I want you to know is that everything we’re doing, we’re doing because we want what’s best for you. That’s it. Nick brought you here because this is where our family spent time together, and we’re hoping it’ll help. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. But we had to try.”

He holds my gaze. Steady, like Nick, but different. Where Nick is patient, this man is intense. Where Nick’s composure comes from practice, Liam’s comes from sheer force of will. I can see the effort it’s taking him not to cross the room. Not to reach for me the way Nick reached for me that first night in Prague.

“I’m asking for your trust,” he says. “I know I haven’t earned it. I know you don’t know me. But I’m asking anyway, because you’re my sister, and I’ve spent twelve years believing I’d never see you again.”

The silence that follows is heavy enough to crush bone.

I look at this man. This stranger with my eyes. I look at the photos on the wall behind him, at the girl I used to be, at the family I can’t remember.

Then there’s Nick, still standing by the door. Watching me with that impossible patience, I still can’t figure out how to break.

I can’t help but think about Vincenzo in the middle of all of this. The story he told me and the cracks in it, which I spent years refusing to examine. The scars on my body, the blanks in my mind, and the feeling I had the first time I breathed the air outside this cabin. It felt like remembering without actually remembering anything at all.

I think about Nick’s question, the one that kept me awake last night. Why do you think?

And I make a decision. Not because I trust them. I don’t.

Not because I believe them. I’m not there yet, and I may never be.

But because I’ve spent years accepting a version of my life that was handed to me by people who had every reason to lie, and I never once demanded proof.

It’s time to find out the truth. Whatever that truth turns out to be.

“I don’t trust you,” I tell Liam. My voice is flat, even, giving nothing away. “I don’t know you, and I don’t trust you. But I want to know what happened to me. The real version, not the one I was told. If you can give me that, if you can prove any of this, then I’ll stay. For now.”

Something shifts in his face. Not a smile—it’s too raw for that, too close to breaking—but something that looks like the first breath after holding it for a long time. “That’s all I’m asking,” he responds.

I nod once. Short, final. Then I turn away from both of them and walk down the hallway toward the bedrooms, because I need to be alone before the pressure behind my eyes turns into something I refuse to let either of them see.

The door closes behind me. I lean against it, press my palms flat against the wood, and breathe.

On the wall across from the bed, there’s one more photo. Two kids sitting on the dock, their feet dangling over the water, the sun setting behind them, turning their skin golden. The boy has his arm around the girl’s shoulders. She’s leaning into him, laughing.

I stare at it until my vision blurs. Then I close my eyes and wrap my arms around myself like I did on the jet, when I had to hold myself or else fall to pieces. It’s not the first time I’ve had to hold myself when there was nobody else to do it.

NICK

Liam makes it to the porch before he breaks.

I’ve seen this man take a knife to the ribs without flinching. I’ve watched him walk into rooms full of armed men with nothing but his presence and his reputation, and walk out with exactly what he came for. He built an empire from the ashes of his family’s destruction, and he did it with the kind of cold, relentless focus that made people afraid to even say his name out loud.

I would know, since I had a front seat to most of it. Especially when it came to taking down Donavan Blackwell, the man who orchestrated the explosion. It was personal. I wanted to see the bastard taken down as much as Liam did. Years of careful planning, running through every possible scenario, spending countless dollars on the best equipment and the most skilled team Liam could assemble. He’s a patient, calculating man.