Page 150 of Anton

“Yeah.” He nods, clearly pleased. “I’m your brother. See? Smart.”

It didn’t exactly take a rocket scientist to figure that out, but if calling me smart keeps him talking, I’ll take it.

“You used to giggle whenever I told you something funny. You were only a baby when our parents died, but I never forgot you.” He leans against the wall and crosses his arms. “Mom and Dad loved you.”

His gaze lowers to the ground, and unease prickles across my skin. June said she never saw any other children, so is he lying to me?

He could be. He’s certainly unstable enough.

“Tell me more about them.”

“Well…” He scoffs. “They were great to you.”

A low buzzing fills my ears as dread spreads through me.

“Did…did they hurt you?”

His eyes close. “You were the perfect little girl who lived upstairs.” When they open again, the hatred in his stare chills me. “And I was the thing they kept hidden in the basement.”

“Oh my God.” A shudder tears through me, my lips trembling.

This can’t be true. He has to be lying.

His chuckle carries no humor. “You don’t remember because you were too young, but I remember everything. The beatings. Being starved. They would bring you downstairs just to show me what I could never have.”

He advances toward me, and every instinct screams to back away.

“I never blamed you. You were innocent. All I wanted was to take you away from them so we could be our own family, just you and me. You were the only good thing in that house.”

The walls seem to press closer, leaving my lungs aching with every shallow breath.

“When they died, I was happy. I hid under the bed while your father shot them, and I smiled the entire time.”

My breathing breaks into uneven gasps as I fight to keep myself together.

“But then they took you away from me. It wasn’t fair.” His hand knots in my hair and wrenches my head back. “Were you happy with them? Living in your perfect castle while I spent my entire life trying to survive?”

Tears gather in my eyes and spill past my lower lashes. “I’m sorry, Charlie. I’m so sorry.”

“They would have killed me too if they’d found me.”

“No, they wouldn’t have. They⁠—”

“Of course they would have.” His tone climbs, each word cutting sharper than the last. “I was ten, not a baby like you. Men like your father don’t care if a child gets in their way. They would have put a bullet in me.”

Maybe it’s true, but right now isn’t the time to disagree with him.

“I’m sorry. You’re right.”

He releases my hair and gives a careless shrug. “It’s not your fault.”

But the rage burning in his eyes tells me he doesn’t believe that, and my fear burrows deeper.

“Someone called CPS after I’d been living on my own for a year.” His focus drifts past me, trapped in memories that have been eating him alive ever since. “They put me in the system when I was eleven, and those people were awful. So awful, Penny. You have no idea what they did to me.”

“I’m…” A sob tears through me. “I’m so sorry. None of what happened to you was right. Had I known, I would have helped you without question.”

I force myself to meet his stare, even with every instinct warning me not to.