Page 165 of Matteo
The familiar, identical eyes met my teary gaze as I tried to keep it together. “It started shortly after Gianna’s kidnapping. You and I coped with it differently. You sombered and tried tobe the best version of yourself.” She hesitated for a heartbeat. “I didn’t.”
“Damn it, Hannah,” I croaked. “You should have talked to me. I should have seen the signs. I should have?—”
“Don’t.” Her hand came to my mouth, silencing me gently, and she shook her head.
She lowered her arm, letting it fall onto the bed. So many unspoken emotions swirling around us. “I went to Ireland, thinking you were there. I was so off. You were tortured here and I was fucking vacationing.”
Self-disgust curled in the pit of my stomach.
“Remember what Gianna told us when we blamed ourselves for her kidnapping?” she asked after several heartbeats of silence. I nodded, but she continued just the same. “She said they would have just waited for another chance. They were waiting to strike, following us at every turn.”
“Dad said someone was erasing our digital footprint. It was the reason they couldn’t follow us. Do you think it was the evil cousin?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. He was too busy with me.”
“Then who?”
She shrugged.
“No idea.” Silence stretched for several heartbeats. “I do regret one thing,” she said, closing her eyes for several heartbeats. “I really wish I could give that evil cousin a taste of his own medicine.”
My lips curved into the first smile I’d managed the whole week. “When you get better, you can. Dad’s keeping him alive just for you.”
Surprise flashed in her eyes. “My sweet twin sister is ruthless. I like it.”
“He deserves it, and so do you.” I took a deep breath in, then slowly exhaled before I found the courage to ask the next question. “What have they done to you?”
Her eyes darted to the window, something in them unsettling.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
And right there, I knew my sister had been in a bad place for a long time. She hid behind her wild ways and charming smiles, shoving whatever demons she was battling deep, somewhere they could never be found by anyone but her.
But with the right support, therapy, and a fuckton of love, she’d recover, because Hannah was one of the strongest women I knew.
“Where is everyone?”
“Right outside. I should have gotten them right away.” I went to get up but her hand stopped me. “What’s wrong, Hannah?”
“You and Matteo…” My eyes clashed with my identical ones. “Did you two work it out?”
“We did.” My heart jittered, a puddle of emotions making a mess of it.
“I’ve suspected for a while you had feelings for him.”
“How?”
“I know you, Arianna. I love you.”
I bit my bottom lip, trying to keep my questions in. Except I couldn’t. We had to clear this tension between us and move forward.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and whispered, “And the fire at the planetarium? That note saying you’ll never forgive me…”
“Simón forced me to write it.” Her eyes met mine, muted with pain and vacant for the longest time before they focused on me. “I’d kill for you. Burn the fucking world for you.” I stared at her tight expression as she continued, “But I’d never hurt you.I didn’t set the fire at the planetarium. Yes, I was upset and poured gasoline out, but I didn’t light the match. I could never hurt you like that. It was that fucking lunatic cousin of ours.”
I closed my eyes briefly in relief and soaked in that knowledge. Maybe deep down, I knew it wasn’t her. I certainly hoped it wasn’t.
“It’s in the past now,” I whispered. “All I care about is that you’re here and you get better.”
