Beneath the Lies: Bonus Collection

Cole POV

The car disappears through the gates. I keep looking at the empty road long after there is nothing left to see.

Luna is gone. Ethan took her. Her arm is broken. And I did that.

I spent nineteen years making sure I would never become my father. Apparently, it only took me a few seconds to fail.

The thought has been circling my head since the moment Luna hit the ground. I’ve tried telling myself it isn’t the same. That I didn’t plan it. That I never intended to hurt her. That I was going for Luca and she moved between us before I could stop myself. None of it changes what happened.

My father probably had explanations too. Everyone does, once the damage is already done.

I drag both hands over my face and turn away from the gates. The pack house is quieter than it should be. Or maybe I just hear everything too clearly now. A door closing somewhere upstairs. Footsteps at the end of the corridor. Someone speaking quietly enough that I can’t make out the words.

Nobody comes near me. I don’t blame them.

My father was Beta when he helped take Benji and Viënna from this pack. Not some nameless wolf following orders. Not someone standing at the edge of what happened, too afraid to stop it. The Beta. The man Darian trusted to stand beside him. The man who was supposed to protect this family. The man who helped destroy it instead.

I was six when everything happened. Too young to understand why adults suddenly stopped talking when Luca and I entered a room. Too young to understand why our father’s name could change someone’s face. Too young to understand what it meant to be his son.

I learned. Fuck, did I learn.

By the time I was old enough to understand exactly what he had done, I had already made myself a promise. I would never be him. It became embarrassingly simple after that. Every decision had a question attached to it. What would he do? Then I did better. Train harder. Work harder. Tell the truth when lying would be easier. Stand beside my Alpha instead of betraying him. Protect his family instead of destroying it. Becoming Beta should have been enough.

For one day, I even let myself think it was. I remember standing there with the title my father had poisoned attached to my name, feeling something I hadn’t allowed myself to feel in years. Proud. Darian trusted me. After everything my father had done, Darian trusted me.

Darian made that choice himself. I know that. I would never insult him by pretending otherwise. But I have never believed every choice exists only because we can explain it.

My father had been his Beta. An Ashford had already stood beside an Alpha of Eldernoor once and betrayed everything that title was supposed to mean.

Then Darian chose us. Luca and me.

Maybe some people could call that forgiveness. Trust. A second chance. I have always believed the Moon Goddess had something to do with it too. Not because She made Darian choose us. Because sometimes I think She puts a road in front of you and waits to see what kind of man you become as you walk it.

I should have known I would find a way to make that harder than it needed to be. Because then there was Luna.

Sacred Moon Goddess.

Luna. Of all the women in the world, I had to look at her and forget how to breathe. The first time should have been the last time. One look. One stupid reaction. Then common sense. Darian’s daughter. Benji’s sister. The child my father had helped steal.

Absolutely fucking not.

It should have been easy. Instead, I became very good at pretending. Other women helped. Avoiding Luna helped more. Snapping at her whenever she got too close was particularly effective, although I suspect she mostly concluded I was an asshole.

I preferred that. An asshole was safe. An asshole didn’t look at his Alpha’s daughter and imagine things he had no right to want. Then Benji became my best friend, because apparently the Moon has a vicious sense of humour. That should have killed whatever stupidity I had left. It didn’t. It just gave me another reason never to act on it.

Benji trusted me too. Luca trusted me. Darian trusted me. My family trusted me. So I did what I always do. I chose them. I chose what was right. Or at least what I could convince myself was right. And somewhere along the way, I started treating Luna and Viënna like they were two different people.

Viënna was Darian’s daughter. Benji’s sister. The little girl whose disappearance had shaped almost every decision I made after I was old enough to understand why.

Luna was... I close my eyes. No. That particular lie isn’t going to help me anymore. They were always the same woman. I just needed them not to be. Because wanting Luna was impossible. Wanting Viënna was unforgivable.

And when Luca found himself close to her in a way I had spent years telling myself I could never be, I handled it exactly like the better man I had worked so hard to become. I put my fist through my twin brother’s face. Then I broke her arm.

My stomach turns. I open my eyes. There it is. The part I can’t reason my way around.

Luca lied to her. Luca marked her without meaning to. Luca made decisions for her that were never his to make.

I can be furious about every fucking one of those things. It still doesn’t excuse what I did. I wasn’t protecting Luna when I lost control.

I was angry. At Luca. At myself. At nineteen years of swallowing things I had decided I wasn’t allowed to want.

Luna just happened to be the one who paid for it. Just like people always pay when men like my father decide their reasons matter more than the damage they cause.

I turn toward the pack house. I know what happens next. There are apologies I owe. To Darian. To Aveline. To Benji. To Luca. And eventually, if she’ll let me anywhere near her again, to Luna.

None of them need to know everything. They don’t need nineteen years of explanations. They definitely don’t need the truth about why seeing Luca with her finally snapped something I had spent years keeping under control. That part is mine. The rest isn’t.

I hurt her. So I’m going to own it. No excuses. No hiding behind my father. No pretending losing control makes the consequences smaller. A better man doesn’t prove himself when doing the right thing is easy. He proves it after he fucks up.

I’ve spent most of my life trying to become one. Time to find out if I actually did.

I find Darian in his office. Where else would he be?

His daughter left less than an hour ago with a broken arm, his son is finally home after nineteen years, his mate has spent the better part of the week trying to hold their family together, and he is sitting behind his desk with three open files in front of him. Being Alpha apparently doesn’t come with permission to fall apart.

I stop in the doorway.

Darian looks up. His eyes settle on me, and whatever he sees makes him put the pen down. “Cole.”

I step inside and close the door behind me. I have rehearsed this conversation at least six times since Luna left. None of those versions survives the first five seconds.

“You should remove me as Beta.”

Darian doesn’t move. “No.”

I stare at him. “That wasn’t a request.”

“And that wasn’t permission.”

“You haven’t even heard what I have to say.”

“I know what you’re going to say.”

My jaw tightens. “With respect, you don’t.”

“You lost control. You attacked your brother. Viënna tried to stop you and was injured because of it. Now you’ve decided that makes you unworthy of the position I gave you.”

Silence.

Darian leans back slightly. “Was I close?”

Too fucking close. “I broke your daughter’s arm.”

Something changes in his face. Not anger. That might have been easier. “Yes,” he says.

The word sits between us.

“And I am sorry.”

“I know.”

“You shouldn’t.”

His eyebrows draw together. “Shouldn’t what?”

“Know that. Assume that. Trust that I’m sorry just because it’s me.”

Darian goes very still.

I force myself to continue. “My father had reasons too.”

His expression hardens instantly. “Don’t.”

I stop.

“Do not stand in my office and compare what happened today to what your father did.”

“Someone got hurt because I lost control.”

“Yes.”

“Your daughter.”

“Yes.”

“The same daughter my father—”

“Cole.”

My mouth closes.

Darian rises from behind the desk. “Your father made choices. Repeatedly. Deliberately. He betrayed this pack, this family and the position he held because it served what he wanted.” He comes around the desk. “You lost control for a few seconds. You attacked Luca, and Viënna was hurt because of it.”

“That doesn’t make her arm less broken.”

“No. It doesn’t.” There’s no softness in the answer.

“So I take responsibility for it.”

“You should.”

“Starting with the title.”

“No.”

Sacred Moon Goddess. “Why?”

Darian looks at me for a long moment. “Because handing it back the first time you fail would be the easiest thing you could do.”

I stare at him. “Easy?”

“Yes.”

Something hot flashes through me. “You think this is easy?”

“I think walking away is.”

My jaw locks.

Darian doesn’t look away. “You want to punish yourself, Cole. I understand that. What I don’t understand is why you’ve decided punishment and responsibility are the same thing.”

“I failed you.”

“Yes.” The answer comes without hesitation.

It cuts deeper than if he had shouted.

Darian continues before I can say anything. “You failed Luca. You failed Viënna. You failed yourself.”

I swallow.

“And you will deal with every part of that.”

“As Beta?”

“Especially as Beta.”

I shake my head. “You can’t seriously think I deserve to keep the title after what happened.”

“I didn’t give you the title because I thought you were incapable of making a mistake.”

“This wasn’t a mistake.”

“No.” His voice stays level. “It was a loss of control with consequences. Serious ones.”

I look away.

“Look at me.”

Every part of me wants not to. I do anyway.

Darian folds his arms across his chest. “Do you know what your father did after he betrayed me?”

My stomach tightens.

“He lied.”

I say nothing.

“He hid what he had done. He protected himself. He let other people carry the consequences while he continued standing beside me as though he had earned the right.” His eyes hold mine. “You have spent less than an hour trying to hand me your title because you believe you no longer deserve it.”

“That doesn’t make me better.”

“No.” The answer catches me off guard. “It means you understand that what you did matters.” Darian steps closer. “Being better than your father was never supposed to mean never failing.”

I don’t move.

“It means what you do when you have.”

Something in my chest pulls tight. “I hurt her.”

“I know.”

“Because I couldn’t control myself.”

“I know that too.”

“And you still want me standing beside you?”

His expression shifts. “Cole, do you honestly believe I chose you and Luca as my Betas because I forgot who your father was?”

I don’t answer.

“I knew exactly whose sons you were.”

Sacred Moon Goddess. “Then why?”

Darian’s eyebrows draw together slightly. “You really don’t know?”

Apparently not.

He watches me for another moment. “Because neither of you were him.”

I look at him. He says it like it should be obvious. Like nineteen years of carrying my father’s name should disappear because Darian decided it didn’t belong to me.

“Maybe you were wrong.”

Darian’s expression doesn’t change.

“About me.”

“I know what you meant.”

“Today proves—”

“Today proves you can lose control.”

“And hurt someone.”

“Yes.”

“Someone I was supposed to protect.”

“Yes.” Every answer is calm. Unflinching. He won’t soften what happened just to make this easier for me.

I hate how much I need that.

“So what exactly am I supposed to do with that?”

“Learn from it.”

I almost laugh. “That’s it?”

“No.” Darian’s eyes harden. “You apologise to the people you hurt. You find out why you lost control badly enough to attack your own brother in the middle of this house. You make damn sure it never happens again.”

My jaw tightens.

“And then,” he continues, “you get up tomorrow and do your job.”

“As if nothing happened?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Sounds like it.”

“Then you aren’t listening.”

That shuts me up.

Darian walks back toward his desk, but he doesn’t sit down. “You think keeping the title means there are no consequences.”

“Aren’t there?”

“Of course there are.” He rests one hand against the edge of the desk. “Trust can be damaged without disappearing. Respect can survive disappointment. And a man can fail without becoming every bad thing he has ever been afraid of.”

My throat feels too tight. I look away before he can see it. “My father failed once too.”

“No.” The word comes sharply enough that I look back. “Your father made a choice, Cole. Then another. And another. He had opportunities to stop. To tell the truth. To undo some of the damage before it became what it did.” Darian’s voice lowers. “He kept choosing himself.” Silence stretches between us. “You walked into my office less than an hour after Viënna left and tried to give up something you worked years to earn because you believe you no longer deserve it.”

“You already said that doesn’t make me better.”

“It doesn’t.” He holds my gaze. “What you do next might.”

I don’t have an answer for that. For once, Darian doesn’t seem to expect one.

My eyes drop to the floor. “I always thought there had to be a reason.”

“For what?”

“You choosing us.”

His brow furrows.

“After him.” I swallow. “Another Ashford standing beside you. Two of them, actually.”

Something in his expression changes.

“I knew it was your decision. I never thought otherwise.” I hesitate. “But I always thought the Moon Goddess had some hand in putting us there.”

Darian is quiet for a moment. I almost regret saying it aloud.

“Maybe She did,” he says eventually.

My eyes lift to his.

“Or maybe She gave you the chance and left the rest to you.” That sounds uncomfortably close to something I’ve believed most of my life. Darian knows it too.

“Either way,” he continues, “I doubt She went through all that trouble so you could quit the first time being the man you want to be became difficult.”

A breath escapes me that might have been a laugh in another life. “You’re using the Moon Goddess against me now?”

“Is it working?”

“Unfortunately.”

The corner of his mouth moves. Barely. Then it’s gone. “I’m not removing you as Beta.”

I close my eyes for a second.

“And I’m not accepting your resignation.”

“I didn’t resign.”

“You told me to remove you.”

“Different thing.”

“Not from where I’m standing.”

I open my eyes. “I am sorry, Darian.” This time there’s no argument attached to it. No title. No father. No explanation. Just the apology.

He studies me for a moment. “I know.”

I almost tell him not to say that again. Instead, I let him.

“And for what it’s worth,” he adds, “I’m angry with you.”

Somehow that helps. “You should be.”

“I am.”

“Right.”

“And Viënna gets to decide what she does with your apology when you give it to her.”

My stomach tightens. “I know.”

“You don’t get to decide she should forgive you because you feel guilty.”

“I know.”

His gaze stays on mine. “Good.”

I nod once. It isn’t forgiveness. It isn’t absolution. It definitely isn’t proof that I deserve the title I walked in here ready to lose. But maybe that was never the point. I turn toward the door.

“Cole.”

I stop.

“Your father’s name is part of your history.”

My hand closes around the handle.

“It is not your instruction manual.”

I stand there for a second longer. Then I nod. “Yes, Alpha.” And leave.

I don’t have far to go. Aveline’s office is on the same side of the main level, with mine sitting between hers and Darian’s.

I pass my own door without slowing. Somehow, going inside and hiding behind work feels a little too much like exactly what Darian just told me not to do.

Aveline’s door is partly open. I’m almost there when I hear Benji’s voice from inside. Of course. Because apparently the Moon Goddess has decided one difficult conversation at a time would be too generous.

I stop just outside the doorway. Aveline is behind her desk, though there isn’t much work happening. Benji sits in one of the chairs opposite her, turned slightly sideways, his attention on whatever she was saying before I appeared.

He notices me first. Whatever expression he had disappears. Aveline follows his gaze. Silence. Good start.

I knock once against the open door anyway. “Can I come in?”

Aveline studies me for a moment. “Of course.”

Benji doesn’t move.

I step inside. This should be easier than Darian. It isn’t.

Darian is my Alpha. Aveline is Luna’s mother. Benji is my best friend. I managed to fail all three of them in the same afternoon. Efficient.

“I owe you both an apology.”

Benji’s expression hardens. “You owe my sister one.”

“I know.”

“Then apologise to her.”

“I will.”

“She left.”

“I noticed.”

His jaw tightens. That was probably more sarcasm than this conversation needed.

“I can’t apologise to her while she’s gone,” I say. “That doesn’t mean I don’t owe one to you too.”

Aveline sets her cup down. “Why?”

The question catches me off guard. “Why?”

“What exactly are you apologising to me for?”

I stare at her. “I broke your daughter’s arm.”

“Yes.” Apparently, she and Darian have agreed on a strategy.

“I lost control in your home. I attacked Luca. Viënna got between us, and I—” My throat closes around the rest.

Aveline waits.

I force it out. “I hurt her.”

Her face changes. Not enough to make this easier. “Yes,” she says quietly. “You did.”

I nod once. “And I am sorry. For hurting her. For making you watch it happen. For—”

“Cole.”

I stop.

She leans back slightly, her eyes never leaving mine. “I am angry that my daughter was hurt.”

“You should be.”

“I am.” There it is again. No forgiveness I didn’t ask for. No attempt to make me feel better. “But do not stand there and turn yourself into the reason she left.”

I frown. “I didn’t—”

“You are.”

My mouth closes.

Aveline glances briefly at Benji before looking back at me. “Viënna didn’t leave Eldernoor because you broke her arm.”

“It probably didn’t help.”

“No. It didn’t.” Fair. “But she left because she discovered that almost everyone around her knew something about her life that she didn’t. Darian and I kept the truth from her. Luca lied to her. She found out the brother she mourned was alive.”

Benji looks down. Aveline’s voice softens, but only slightly. “There is enough blame in this house already, Cole.”

I say nothing.

“You don’t need to collect all of it simply because you know how to carry it.”

My chest tightens. Sacred Moon Goddess. Darian had just finished telling me my father wasn’t an instruction manual. Apparently, his mate intends to finish the job. “I’m not trying to take anyone else’s blame.”

Aveline gives me a look that says she doesn’t believe me.

“I’m taking mine.”

“Good.” She picks up her cup again. “Then keep yours.”

I stare at her.

“Leave the rest where it belongs.”

I don’t know what to say to that. Luckily, Benji does. “I’m still pissed at you.”

My attention shifts to him. “I assumed.”

“No.” He sits forward, forearms resting on his knees. “I don’t think you did.”

I wait.

“You hurt my sister.”

“I know.”

“You attacked Luca.”

“I know.”

“You lost your fucking mind in the middle of the pack house because you were angry.” Every word lands exactly where it should.

“I know.”

Benji studies me. “Good.”

Silence settles between us. I don’t try to fill it. Eventually, I say, “I’m sorry.”

His jaw shifts.

“For hurting her,” I continue. “And for putting you in this position.”

“What position?”

“Having your best friend be the person who broke your sister’s arm seems like a fairly shitty one.”

Something flickers across his face. “You’re an asshole.”

“Also fair.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

He pushes himself to his feet. I don’t move. There’s a very real chance he’s about to hit me. I wouldn’t stop him. Benji comes to a stop a few feet away. “You’re my best friend.”

I look at him.

“That doesn’t disappear because I’m angry with you.”

Something inside me goes painfully still. “Benji—”

“And me being your best friend doesn’t mean I have to tell you what you did was okay.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“Good. Because it wasn’t.”

“I know.”

His eyes stay on mine. “But I know you too, Cole.” That might be worse.

I look away.

“Don’t.”

My gaze returns to his. “Don’t what?”

“Decide for me that this changes everything.”

I stare at him.

Benji shakes his head. “You’re really fucking good at that.”

“At what?”

“Deciding what everyone else should think about you before they get the chance.”

I have absolutely no response to that.

Aveline’s mouth moves behind her cup. Traitor. Benji notices. “See? Even she agrees.”

“I said nothing,” Aveline replies.

“You didn’t have to.”

I drag a hand over my face. “Are the two of you finished?”

“Not remotely,” Benji says. Then his expression turns serious again. “You need to apologise to Luca.” There it is.

“I know.”

“Properly.”

“I know.”

“Not whatever Ashford twin bullshit the two of you usually call communication.”

I narrow my eyes. “You say that like being an Eldernoor makes you easier.”

Benji’s mouth twitches. “It does.”

“Delusional.”

Aveline laughs quietly. It’s the first sound in this room that doesn’t feel heavy.

Benji looks back at me. “And after Luca?”

I know what he’s asking. “Viënna.”

“Luna,” he corrects.

I go still.

Benji’s expression doesn’t change. “If that’s what she wants to be called.”

Aveline says nothing. She doesn’t need to.

“Luna,” I repeat. The name feels different now. Not separate from Viënna. Not safer. Just hers. “When she’s ready to hear me.”

Benji nods once. “Good.”

Apparently everyone in this family has inherited that word.

I glance toward Aveline. “I really am sorry.”

Her expression softens. “I know.”

I almost groan.

She smiles faintly. “Darian?”

“Twice.”

That earns me another flicker of amusement. “Then perhaps you should start believing us.”

I’m not ready for that. But for the first time today, I don’t tell her she’s wrong.

I leave Aveline’s office with exactly one apology left that I can actually give today. Luca.

I already know he won’t be in his office. I stop near the lift and think about where he could have gone. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere no one has any reason to look for him. Then I know. I enter 2384 into the keypad and wait for the doors to open.

The guest level is quiet when I step out. I don’t bother checking the lounge. I walk straight toward the room Luna stayed in. She slept here from Saturday until Thursday morning. Long enough for the room to stop smelling like a guest room and start smelling like her.

Aveline sent one of the Omegas to collect Luna’s things after everything happened. So there shouldn’t be much left.

The door is closed. I knock once. Nothing. “Luca.” Still nothing. I try the handle. Unlocked.

The room looks almost empty when I step inside. Her bag is gone. Her clothes are gone. Whatever she left in the bathroom has been cleared away.

Her scent hasn’t. It still hangs in the room. In the bedding. The mattress. The pillows. And Luca is sitting on the edge of the bed. Luna’s bed.

His elbows rest against his thighs, head bowed, one hand hanging between his knees.

The other is holding something. Black fabric. At first, I think it’s part of the bedding.

Then he shifts his hand. A tank top. Hers. Fuck. Someone must have missed it, yet Luca found it.

He doesn’t look up. “Go away.” His voice is rough.

“No.”

“Cole.”

“Luca.”

His head finally lifts. He looks like shit. Bruising darkens one side of his face from where I hit him, and dried blood still marks the corner of his mouth. But it’s his eyes that stop me. Empty. I’ve seen Luca angry. Injured. Exhausted. I’ve watched him take hits hard enough to put other men on the floor and get back up like it offended him personally.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look like this.

But my attention keeps dropping to the fabric in his hand. Luca notices. His fingers close around it. “Don’t.”

I look back at him. I could make a joke. Normally, I probably would. Not today.

I can smell her from where I’m standing. The room still carries her, but the shirt is stronger. Much stronger.

I understand why he’s holding it. I wish I didn’t. “You came here because she slept here,” I say.

His expression hardens. “Don’t.”

I almost tell him I wasn’t judging him. Then I realise I don’t have the right. Not today. I lean back against the closed door instead. “Is it still there?”

Luca looks at me for several seconds. He knows exactly what I mean. Eventually, his gaze drops. “Barely.” One word. Somehow it says more than anything else could have.

Her scent has faded since yesterday, but it hasn’t disappeared from the bedding. Not completely. Not to me. And certainly not to him. Not when hers is the scent his body learned to recognise before either of them understood what it meant.

“They’ll clean the room properly soon,” Luca says.

I frown.

He looks toward the pillow beside him. “Then it’ll be gone.”

I look away. For the first time since Luna left, I’m not thinking about what I did. I’m thinking about what Luca lost. Or maybe what he destroyed. Probably both.

“I’m sorry.”

He laughs once. There’s nothing amusing about it. “For which part?”

Fair question. “Pick one.”

His eyes lift to mine. “That’s not an apology.”

“I know.” I push away from the door. “I shouldn’t have hit you.”

Luca looks away.

“I shouldn’t have lost control.”

Nothing.

“And Luna shouldn’t have ended up hurt because I did.”

His jaw tightens. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Make her arm part of your apology to me.”

I stop.

“She’s the one you hurt.”

“I know.”

“Then apologise to her.”

“I will.”

“When?” That one word has enough bitterness to answer the question for both of us. When she wants to see any of us again. “When she lets me.”

Luca’s mouth pulls tight. “Good.”

I should probably leave it there. Benji would murder me if I did. Properly. I move toward the chair near the window and sit instead.

Luca looks at me. “What are you doing?”

“Apparently apologising properly.”

“Who told you that?”

“Benji.”

Something almost human passes through his expression. “Of course he did.”

“He also used the phrase ‘Ashford twin bullshit.’”

That almost gets a reaction. Then Luca looks down again. His attention drifts toward the bed beneath him. Toward whatever trace of Luna is still left in this room.

And suddenly I understand why finding him was so easy. If I had lost the one thing I’d spent years convincing myself I didn’t want, maybe I’d be sitting here too.

Luca doesn’t look up.

I should start with the easy part. Unfortunately, there isn’t one. “You want to know why I hit you?”

His fingers go still around the fabric in his hand. “I assumed you were pissed.”

“I was.”

“Helpful.”

“You lied to her.”

His expression closes. “I know.”

“You let her believe Benji was dead.”

“Cole—”

“You made decisions about her life because you thought you knew what was best for her.”

His eyes flash. “You think I don’t know what I did?”

“I think I need you to understand what I saw.”

That stops him.

I lean forward, forearms resting against my thighs. “Our father helped steal her from this family.”

Luca’s face changes. “Don’t.”

“No. Let me finish.”

He goes quiet.

“We grew up knowing what he did. Knowing exactly what our name meant in this house because of him. We spent years proving we weren’t going to be the same men.”

Luca looks away.

“I spent most of mine believing there was one rule that should have been fucking obvious.”

His gaze comes back to me.

“Viënna had already had enough taken from her.” Silence. “Her family. Her name. Her entire life.” I glance toward the tank top in his hand before forcing my attention back to him. “So whatever happened when she came back here, we were supposed to be the people who gave her choices. Not the people who took more of them away.”

Luca’s throat moves. “I know.”

“Do you?”

His expression hardens. “Yes.”

“Because from where I was standing, you knew who she was while she didn’t. You knew who Benji was. You knew who Darian and Aveline were. And every day you let her keep walking around this place without knowing any of it.”

“I was following orders.”

“Until you weren’t.”

He flinches. Small. Enough. “The mark wasn’t planned.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t decide to do that to her.”

“I know that too.”

His fingers tighten around the shirt. “Then stop talking like I stood there and chose it.”

“I’m not.”

“Sounds like you are.”

I exhale through my nose. “The mark wasn’t what made me lose my mind.”

Luca goes still. Fuck. There it is. Too close already. “Then what did?”

I look at him. He waits. “Everything.”

His eyebrows draw together. “That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the one you’re getting.”

“Cole.”

“I spent years watching you make stupid decisions and cleaning up half of them.”

“Fuck you.”

“No thanks.”

For half a second, something almost familiar crosses his face. Then it disappears.

“This wasn’t one of your stupid decisions,” I continue. “This was her.”

Luca says nothing.

“Darian’s daughter. Benji’s sister. The girl our father helped take from them. And somehow you were the one standing there with a claim on her after keeping the truth from her.”

His face hardens at the word. “She isn’t something I claimed.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

I look at the tank top clenched in his hand. “Better than you think.”

His eyes narrow. Shit. I keep going before he can catch hold of that. “I thought you understood the line.”

“What line?”

“The one I thought both of us had.”

He stares at me.

“That whatever happened with Viënna, we didn’t get to become another reason she lost control over her own life.”

Luca’s anger drains by degrees. Not gone. Different. “And when you saw the mark?”

I laugh without humour. “I saw our father.”

Luca recoils.

Regret comes immediately. “That isn’t fair.”

“No.”

“Cole—”

“I know it isn’t fair.” I rub both hands over my face. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I wasn’t standing there calmly separating what you meant to do from what you actually did. I saw her hurt. I saw a mark she hadn’t asked for. I saw you standing there knowing things she didn’t.” I drop my hands. “And for a few seconds, all I could think was that we were doing it again.”

Luca barely moves. “Doing what?”

“Taking her choices away and calling our reasons good enough.”

The room goes quiet. Luca looks down at the black fabric in his hand. When he speaks, his voice is lower. “So you hit me.”

“Yes.”

“Instead of asking me what happened.”

“Yes.”

“Instead of trusting me.”

That one takes longer. “Yes.”

He nods once.

I deserve that more than I deserve him shouting. “And somewhere in all of that,” I say, “I forgot you weren’t him either.”

Luca looks up.

“Our father.”

His face changes.

“I spent nineteen years demanding everyone see the difference between him and me.” I swallow. “Then I looked at my own brother and didn’t give him the same fucking courtesy.”

Luca says nothing for a long time. Then, quietly, “There’s more.”

Every muscle in my body stills. “No.”

His eyes stay on mine. “That was too fast.”

“Fuck off.”

“Cole.”

“I explained why I attacked you.”

“You explained most of it.” Of course he knows. He’s my twin. I should have apologised by text.