Page 125 of Creeping Beautiful

I looked at Donovan for help. But he was shaking his head at me.

So I looked back to Adam and said, “I don’t care what you tell him, Adam. Just make him stay. Don’t let him walk away. This will not work without him.”

Donovan walked across the foyer and grabbed me by the arm. He jerked it, angrily. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

But I was still looking at Adam.

Still seeing that dark shadow of a girl in his eyes.

And I said the only thing left to say. “It’s the only way to save me from myself.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - DONOVAN

PRESENT DAY

It’s an awkward dinner of spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread, and wine. We’ve had this same meal, minus the wine, in Indie’s case, dozens of times in the past. Maybe even hundreds. McKay used to make it a lot because back when Indie was small, she was a very picky eater. McKay worked hard on expanding her palate because he would eat anything. Food was an adventure in his mind. So he was always trying introduce new vegetables, or some kind of fish, or whatever at dinner time. And dinner, like church, was a constant in Indie’s life. She had to be home every night at seven o’clock to eat with McKay—and sometimes Adam and I, if we were around— or she would be in a lot of trouble.

But Indie was a simple girl when it came to food and didn’t like much. McKay finally gave in and just started making her favorites. And spaghetti and meatballs was one of the few things I did actually learn to make because we ate it so often.

On the surface everything around us almost seems the same. It didn’t take long to make the pavilion go back in time. A few cushions, and pillows, and blankets and it’s almost like we never left.

But then again… all you have to do is look across the lake and see the missing carriage house and that illusion fades quickly.

I do my best with small talk, filling them in on the partnership I’m about to buy into back in LA. Indie asks a few questions about my specialty—assuming, as most people do, that I’m heading for a career in breast implants, puffy lips, and face lifts.

But that was never the plan.

Facial reconstruction is where my skills lie. I have spent a fair amount of time repairing cleft palates in Mexico over the years. I have been on my own ten-year plan since I first saw Indie back on the island. Not that she’d know. Or Adam, or McKay for that matter.

But that’s only because they never asked.

I have never been part of the team in the eyes of Adam and McKay. It has always been the two of them against the world. Indie is the go-between. She’s not really Adam’s little assassin. She’s not really McKay’s little obsession.

She is their reason to stay together.

So why am I here?

I lost track of that answer a while back now, but it started as a long, convoluted maze of rambling—possibly delusional—thoughts about my brother, Carter.

Twins. Identical twins.

Every Untouchable child has an identical twin. Every single one.

We always have doubles. That’s what makes us so untouchable. This secret project was called the Negative Program.

But there is only one reason to keep two copies of the same thing.

One is a backup. It’s just that simple.

Adam had a double once. He just doesn’t remember his brother because he died at birth.

That’s the real reason McKay went to live with Adam when he was a kid. Mr. Boucher wasn’t buying Adam a playmate, he was buying himself a back-up copy.

I know this because my family wasn’t really running a sex slave auction for little girls on the island. That was just an excuse to hide what’s really happening behind the scenes. The Couture Family had been running the Negative Program since its inception.

James Fenici has a twin. His name is Vincent.

Nick Tate had a twin too. But her name is Harper. That got a little messy for obvious reasons.