Page 39 of Never the Same

“Yes, I have one. No, you can’t sleep in it.” A hotel, maybe? Safe house, more than likely, if I were ever to agree. But my place? Absolutely not.

She had the audacity to close the space between us and touch me again, and my body had the audacity not to stop her this time.

Her fingers curled into my biceps, and she lightly squeezed her plea straight into my muscles.

“Hollis.” Her name cracked from my lips like a broken sound yet again, regret buried tight into the two syllables, because I could see the future, and I was going to give in to her. And if she stayed with me—I knew myself, I’d screw up. I could barely be alone with her here, and we had her family and their arsenal down the hall. What would happen if she wandered into my bedroom at night and asked me to hold her hand again, and it turned into more?

“I need answers, and I’m worried my family won’t just lie to your team, but to me, too. Looks like they already are. My mother, for sure. Now my brothers.” She visibly shivered. “Who needs a physical vault when they seem to be one.” She licked her lips, immediately drawing my eyes to her mouth. “My gut says that the book is the key to everything. How could it not be? From the sounds of it, someone beat me to finding it and they used the drug on me.”

“Your brother say why you were looking for the drug in the first place?” If we could believe anything he said.

“While the drug is only supposed to work on our bloodline, I was hoping to use it on someone else. Well, to reverse engineer the formula so someone could get back their memories, not lose them.”

My body went cold, and I set my hands on her wrists, ready to back away, because no . . . No, it’s not possible.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered as I released her, my stomach free-falling.

I didn’t have a chance to answer because both doors flew open, and Catalina blew in like a storm, announcing, “You’re not leaving.” She pointed at me. “But your team is. President Bennett should be calling with marching orders any minute.”

Hollis stood in front of me like a shield, not that I needed one. “If Jason leaves, I leave.” She glanced back at me, hitting me with an apologetic look, then quietly added, “I mean Reed. If he leaves, so do I.”

“You’re choosing him over us?” The rage from her mother may have been concealed, but I could see a crack in her armor. A small one, but it was there.

But also, did I actually agree to her leaving with me?

“Yes, I’m sorry. While I don’t think I did this to myself, it’s clear that—”

“Of course someone betrayed you, and no, you didn’t do this to yourself. And this has nothing to do with that bloody book, so just drop that nonsense,” she cut in.

I couldn’t help but align myself alongside Hollis, offering her my support even if I was still confused over how I wound up in this position. Was I going to let her stay with me in Charleston? Shit.

“You don’t even want me here, do you? You want your daughter back, and at the moment, I’m not her.” Her voice broke. “And if what happened to me is because of that book—”

“You have got to be kidding me.” Catalina scoffed and looked up at the ceiling as if yelling at someone in her head. “So help me . . . my father and his love for telling stories.” She lowered her gaze to Hollis. “Everything was destroyed in that fire. Nothing survived.”

“But he may have—”

“No, he didn’t.” She wouldn’t even hear her daughter out. “Just. Let. It. Go.”

All I could hear and see were red flags whipping in the wind at her remark.

Hollis stepped forward, not backing down. “You really think someone else created a drug just like the one in that book and used it on me? It’s some big coincidence?”

“I do,” her mother quickly responded, her tone tight. “Now, drop it.”

No chance would Hollis let anything go. I knew that part of her was still there, even if she didn’t remember herself.

“Just tell me one thing.” Hollis eased her volume down slightly. “Did Tristan know about the library? The book?” There was no question who was facing off with her mother right now. The woman with a steel spine who could kill a guy with a broken champagne flute. “He knows about our trackers. He was at Julian’s place last month and could’ve stolen the source code. So . . . what about the formulas in that particular book?”

“Yes,” Catalina said through barely parted lips. “Because your grandfather is the one who raised Tristan in secret as his adopted son until he was eighteen, since I couldn’t.”

Chapter Thirteen

Hollis

“Who’s Tristan’s father? Why couldn’t you raise him? Is my grandfather still alive?” Something told me I was pushing my luck in asking my mother those questions, but I had to try.

“My father died years ago.” My mother’s hazel eyes flicked to Reed standing quietly off to my side. She’d likely clam up in front of him; she’d probably already said more than intended as it was. “Once you were all eighteen, I told you the truth—that Tristan was your brother, not your grandfather’s adopted son. And I didn’t tell you who his father was before, so why in the world would I tell you now?”