Page 26 of Betrayed By Sin
She spins around. “You’re one to talk.” I go still. “You stole her, and didn’t mean to fall in love during this war,” she says, voice low. “Don’t pretend I’m the traitor for still loving her after.”
My hands clench into fists at my sides. “You’re not a traitor.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” she mutters, opening the fridge. “Everyone else thinks I am.”
“I don’t care what they think.” My voice softens. “I care about you.”
She pauses. “I know.”
I walk to the other side of the kitchen island and lean on the counter.
“That jacket,” I murmur, nodding at her. “It smells like her. She wore the perfume the night of the masquerade ball.”
Bria leans back against the counter. “Why didn’t you tell me who she was?”
“How could I?” I ask, forcing a breath through my chest. “I wanted to make the Rusco’s suffer, and I know you hate them as much as I do, Bria. I started falling for her even though I didn’t want to. I wanted to tell you so many times, but I was scared of what you’d do.”
She laughs. Sharp, almost painful. “You think I’d kill her?”
“Yes.”
Bria lowers her gaze. “I couldn’t.”
“But when you first met her…” She nods, understanding. Before she knew the person Magnolia was, she very well could have destroyed her without a blink. The Rusco’s have destroyed everything that mattered to us. The mother who held us together like cement.
“Did she…” I run my hand over my face. “Say anything about me?”
She looks up slowly. There’s a flicker of something in her eyes. Guilt, maybe. Or sympathy. “Sin, you know you can’t be with her.”
Something cracks inside of me. “You think I don’t know that? It’s not safe for you to be around her either.”
Her voice falters. “You think I don’t know that?I’m trying to be careful. Besides, the Caputo’s are aware and running interference. Magnolia and I aren’t part of treaty lines.”
I stiffen. My family’s longest ally, Zeik’s family. They’re a buffer for any negotiations between rival families. “What if the Rusco’s go back on their word?” I look at her like she’s still five years old and standing in my doorway with a scraped knee and a trembling lip. “You’re my little sister, Bria,” I say. “I’m allowed to worry.”
She reaches for a glass of water. The silence stretches out like a long thread between us. “She looked tired,” Bria finally says. “Confused.”
I close my eyes. “Is she happy?”
Bria glances at me again. “It seems like she is.”
I breathe out slowly. “Good.”
Her voice softens. “You can’t, Sin. You have to move on.”
“I can’t.”
She doesn’t argue.
I push off the counter and walk toward the back door. “I need air.”
Bria hesitates, then follows me up the narrow staircase to the rooftop, where the city opens up in glittering wounds beneath us.
We stand near the edge. Same place we used to sneak up to as kids when our parents were asleep. When the city was just lights, not weapons. When the war was something the men fought and not something buried in our skin.
Bria folds her arms across her chest. “I loved her too, you know. Still do.”
I look at her sideways.
