Page 58 of Twins for the Enemy

I should stop. I should dig in my heels and run for the hills before the police get here. I should claw at his eyes for letting me be so blind to his true intentions.

It’s my fault. If I learned anything from my father and my brother, it’s that people will convince you that they’re doing what’s best for you while hiding their true motives.

As we step into the foyer, I’m relieved to see nobody is inside. Kieran locks the doors behind us. He puts his hand on the small of my back, leading me into the den.

I stop in front of an armchair, but I don’t sit down. He stays near the bookshelves.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

“You’re going to demand answers out of me?” I snap, but I don’t look at him. “You hid the fact that you’re the brother of the woman—that you’re Helena Porter’s brother.”

“I’ll explain why I hid that from you when you explain how such a good, empathetic woman could start a fire in a building with people inside it,” he says. “Don’t tell me it’s only because you were fired from your job.”

I dig my nails into the armrest of the chair. “It was nearly midnight. The store should have been empty.”

In his silence, his rage is palpable. Like the rising heat when a fire is right outside the door.

“You’re not even going to take responsibility?” he hisses. “You’re going to blame my sister that she was at a store at midnight? She’d been working during their usual hours. She and Bettiol agreed to meet later to get her late mother’s ring resized.”

My throat clenches. The news reports had mentioned that Helena and Bettiol were there that late overa special customization, but they hadn’t mentioned it was for her deceased mother’s ring.

“It’s not like that,” I say. “That’s not what I mean at all.”

“Explain it.”

I rub my forehead. “I already told you that I didn’t do it, and you didn’t believe me.”

“When did you ever allow my perceptions to affect your feelings?” he asks. “It doesn’t sound like the woman who broke through my door and didn’t take the chance to run away. But you ran away from that fire that you claim you didn’t start.”

“I only showed up because—I’m not innocent,” I restart. “But the person who started the fire called me. He didn’t tell me what he did, but I was worried, so I went there. I had no idea people were inside.”

“You’re not close enough to anyone for that to be true,” he says. “You forget that I did an intense amount of research into you when I was looking foryou. You don’t have any friends. You don’t talk to your parents. Your only roommate has been—”

He stops. My heart pounds in my chest.

“Kieran—” I start.

“Your only roommate has been your brother,” he finishes. “Are you fucking kidding me? That piece of shit?”

I turn to look at him. He’s gripping onto a bronze globe on the bookshelf. I’m wary of him throwing it. I know he won’t throw it at me, but I’m prepared for the chaos of a man’s rage.

“It’s not his fault. He—”

“If you excuse it over his drug use, I swear to God—”

“I called him. I called Neal,” I cut in. “I told him about how I was fired. Mr. Bettiol was regularly asking me to work off the clock. I confronted him about it. He fired me and told me that if I tried to report him for violating labor laws, he’d tell everyone that I’d been stealing from him the whole time I’d been working there. I was upset. I left a voicemail for Neal,venting to him about it. A couple of hours later, I got a voicemail back from him about how he was going to confront Mr. Bettiol. I tried to call him back to stop him from doing anything—”

I stop, my eyes burning and a thickness in my throat. I take several breaths. He watches me. His hand relaxes on the globe, and his expression softens, but he doesn’t move toward me. I don’t know why I want him to.

I take one more deep breath before forcing myself to continue.

“Neal is temperamental. I don’t know if it’s the drug use, mental illness, or brain damage from the abuse, but he is. Maybe on some level, I called him because I knew the old Neal—the big brother who’d do anything to protect me—would come out and do whatever it took to make me feel better. But when I heard his voicemail and how angry he was, I knew I’d made a mistake. I got over to the store as quickly as I could, but it was already in flames. I ran in to get Neal out. That was when Mr. Bettiol saw me, and I knew I’d bea suspect. Neal told me that we needed to go separate ways. That’s when we—when I crashed into you.”

Kieran appraises me. His arms cross over his chest. The hand on top switches back and forth between a fist and open.

“So, Neal left you in another bad position,” he says.

“It’s not Neal’s fault.”

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