Page 47

“Information is fickle,” Nox says, pulling me back to the conversation. I shake off the bad feeling settling into my bones and incline my head. “It’s not bad or good, until you assign it a role. You know that.”

“I do, but I rarely follow logic, bro.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” he mutters, his fingers already typing. “There’s a new facial recognition app that’s in beta testing. I can use any photo and it’ll age up the person I want to find. I don’t even have to hack into anything to use it, which means I’m not violating my parole.”

Nox gives me an innocent, shit eating grin while I roll my eyes. These apps aren’t new, and I haven’t been desperate enough to look for a dead woman this way. I saw her fall, she’s dead. “You’re not fooling anyone,” I remind him.

“Well, you would be a terrible brother if you couldn’t see through my bullshit,” he chuckles.

I’ve missed having him around while he’s been in prison, and I’m glad I cut my parents out of my life in exchange for his presence.

Figuring out how we fit together again as brothers has been a challenge. He’s finally decided to tell shit to me straight instead of pussy footing around it. I prefer things that way, even when I hate what he has to say.

“What are you trying to prove?” I ask, tucking my leg underneath me as my fingers begin to tap out a beat only I can hear. It’s incessant and feels as if I can never stop moving.

“That you need to move on. You can’t love a dead girl,” Nox says. “Maybe then you can find a way to forgive yourself. Therapy will probably get you thrown in prison.”

I roll my eyes because there’s no way I’m going to pull myself apart in front of a stranger. I don’t trust others enough for that. Nox is also right: if people knew what I did to Noor, it would ruin my life.

“Okay, so you’re going to run her face into this to try to find her. Good luck with that. Her parents buried her.”

I flop back onto the couch and fiddle with my phone, thinking it’ll take forever. If I can’t love a dead girl, then he can’t find her alive either.

The room is silent until I hear Nox clearing his throat. It’s a stress induced tick he gets when he doesn’t like what he sees.

“Nox,” I groan. “What is it?”

“I need you to see something. Right. Now.”

There’s concern riding him hard, along with a healthy slice of fear. The only thing I’ve ever seen scare my brother was when he thought he’d lose me when he dragged me out of that godforsaken closet and made me throw up the pills I’d swallowed.

I also had my stomach pumped at the hospital and spent three days in their psych ward. It seems I swallowed more pills than I thought. That was a really bad fucking time. The only good thing was that I was already twenty-one and no one had to call my parents.

“Nox.” I move over to the ottoman where he’s sitting and shove him with my hip to give me some space. He’s a hulk of a man now, but he still scoots over for me. He hit the gym hard while he was in prison to stay safe and runs in the mornings with me. My schedule is brutal, and this keeps us connected. “What the fuck?”

“Is this her?” Nox points at a gorgeous woman in a colorful dress on a man’s shoulder. She looks free and happy, her eyes glittering as she sings.

“Where is this taken from?”

“I’m not telling you yet. Answer the question. It’s a camera across from a park. I managed to zoom in, but⁠—”

There are a ton of people around her, and I wouldn’t be able to see her this well if she wasn’t so high up. I can’t see the guy’s face because her dress is in the way, but it definitely looks like an older version of Noor.

“Maybe it’s a dopplegänger,” I breathe. I don’t want to hunt a woman down only to find she’s not mine.

“You really think so?” Nox asks, his eyes on the screen. His tan skin is pale, his eyes pinched as he gazes at the woman who could potentially ruin or save me. “I don’t think we’re going to be that lucky.”

“She hates crowded spaces,” I say, trying to convince myself to close Pandora’s box. Not to be dramatic, but Noor and I are like oil and water.

I want to know if she had the baby though.

“Is it possible to find any other images of her?” I ask, biting my lip.

Nox nods, trying to go back further, but most of the other businesses have already deleted their security feeds.

“Here.” The woman who may be Noor pops up on another segment of Nox’s screen, and I sigh as I see she’s not only holding a little boy’s hand, but that Liliana is next to her.

“That’s one of her very scary adopted parents,” I whisper.