Page 4 of Liars and Liaisons

Perhaps there are bigger aspirations afoot, and I simply haven’t been looped in. I wouldn’t blame him for not trusting an outsider.

As I pass buffet tables, covered in white linens, my gaze falls to the cast iron urns at their centers. Beautiful Flemish-style arrangements with helecho ferns that drape over the sides and pull toward the faux pomegranates, roses, and red orchids in the middle.

My mother would love them, weeping over their simple, rustic elegance while acknowledging the complexity of the pairings. My father would huff about not seeing the point of decorations, and my brothers, Jace and Alec, would ignore the arrangements entirely.

I’m too busy fawning over my handiwork—the only thing Cora let me contribute—to notice the floor shifts from hardwood to marble, and I’m falling before I have a chance to reach out and catch myself.

When I brace for impact though, ready to taste my teeth, I hit something soft instead.

Softish.

Large hands grip my biceps, steadying, even as they create a massive distance between us.

Or maybe it only feels massive because it’s existed here for so long.

My stomach drops as the hands fall away from me—quickly, as though he’d been burned. I glance at my elbows to see if anything charred remains, but the skin is smooth and pale, as normal.

Deep, dark, disturbed eyes pierce mine as I lift my chin.

Familiar eyes.

They’re set, hard and angry, in an even harder and angrier face, partially hidden beneath a matte-black masquerade mask. If rage were sculpted into stone, I believe Kal Anderson would be the mold.

“You should really watch your step, Violet. Imagine what could’ve happened if I hadn’t been here to catch you.” My brother—half, illegitimate, estranged, whatever he is—pins me with a disapproving look. One I shouldn’t recognize, given that I’ve spent most of my life avoiding him.

Music and idle chatter twirl in the air as other elegantly dressed, masked patrons flitter in pairs around us. Dancing without a care, as if the man before me isn’t rumored to be a deranged murderer.

I square my shoulders. “That almost sounds like a threat,brother.”

Something flashes quickly in his eyes—my eyes, our father’s eyes—but it’s gone before I have a chance to dissect it. “I wouldn’t waste that energy on someone who is of such little consequence to me.”

Ouch. I deserve that, but still. “Why waste any time talking to me at all then?”

“Despite our estrangement and your denial, you’re my flesh and blood. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to check up on you when you’re in the area.”

“Did Cora tell you I’d be here?”

“Not me.”

His wife then. Damn Elena and my cousin’s friendship.

Shrugging, Kal slips his hands into the pockets of his black suit jacket. “I’d have found out anyway, Violet. Nothing happens on this island without my knowing.”

“Pretty sure all those cease and desists I sent exclude me from being a part of that knowledge.”

He smirks, and his eyes crinkle slightly at the corners.

The miniscule gesture feels somewhat disarming. It slices through the edge of danger threaded into the fiber of his suit, his soul—if he even has one.

If rumors on the island and his hometown of Boston are to be believed, he sold his years ago. Opted for a life of blood and violence, of twisting medical expertise and using it to get whatever he wanted from people.

Yet here he is, still trying to forge a connection with the sister who’s been avoiding him for the past twelve years. Ever since he appeared and explained how he’d come once before and left empty-handed.

How he’d waited years to return, hoping that the father who’d rejected him as a child might be more receptive to his existence as an adult.

I had no recollection of the previous interaction since I’d practically been an infant, but the memory of him had seared into my brain. As if it had a fundamental right to be there.

When he showed up on our porch in a dark suit, with hope in his eyes, I turned him away. Told him my father—ourfather—was out of the country, visiting a sick aunt in Kalamata.

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