Chapter One
Ronan
“What the fuck,” I snarl, my voice low and jagged, “is on that video?” The words slice through the thick air, raw and violent, and I don’t realize until the echo fades that I’ve never asked a question I’d regret more. Little did I know that when I asked that question, it would be the worst of my life.
The silence that follows is unbearable. Neither Emerson nor Rowan speaks, both of them looking pale and wrecked, as if their stomachs have turned inside out. Rowan is still on his knees, frozen in place, his hands dangling uselessly at his sides. They don’t answer. Not a fucking word.
My blood boils, fury tearing through me so violently I can hardly contain it. I’ve been angry before—plenty of times—but this is different. This is deeper. This is a rage that claws through my chest, molten and feral, until it feels like my skin won’t hold it in. I tower over Rowan, the one person who’s supposed to know me better than anyone, my twin. My brother. And all I see is a coward who can’t meet my eyes.
“I won’t ask again,” I spit, my tone final, heavy enough to crack the floor beneath us.
Still nothing.
My fist crashes into his face, the impact rattling through my arm and reverberating up into my bones. It’s not the first time we’ve fought—far from it—but this is different. There’s no brotherly sparring here, no heat-of-the-moment shove. This is serious. He knows it; I know it, and it hangs in the air between us like a guillotine blade ready to fall.
I hit him again, harder, the weight behind it laced with every ounce of betrayal and fury I’ve buried for years. He doesn’t block me. Doesn’t fight back. His arms just hang at his sides, limp, like he’s already surrendered before I’ve finished taking my swing. That only enrages me more.
Adrenaline, every nerve in my body humming with it, drowns the lethargy and pain from the gunshot out.
My fists twist into his shirt, fabric bunching between my knuckles as I haul him forward and shake him, demanding life, demanding answers. His head snaps with the force, but still—nothing. His silence is worse than a lie.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I roar, my voice cracking with the violence of it, with the grief I won’t admit, because if I do, I’ll shatter.
Finally, Emerson clears his throat, sounding ragged and uncertain, like he’s been choking on glass the whole time. His lips part once, twice, but nothing comes out. It takes him a few painful tries before words finally scrape free. His voice is low, hollow, the kind of tone a man uses when he’s admitting something too vile to exist. “It’s worse than anything we could have ever imagined.” His eyes flick toward me, then away again, as if speaking the truth outloud might set the entire room on fire. “Bryce and Dean…” He falters, swallowing hard. “They… they hurt the girls.”
The words are like a blade shoved between my ribs. My chest locks, every muscle going taut as the meaning tries to settle in. My jaw clenches so hard it aches. “What do you mean,hurtthe girls?” The question rips out of me, sharp and violent, more demand than inquiry.
Silence answers first. Heavy, suffocating silence. Then Rowan finally drags his gaze up to meet mine.
And for the first time in my life, I see him undone. His eyes—usually hard, guarded, unflinching—are glassy with a torment that nearly knocks me back. It’s anguish so raw, so bone-deep, I can feel it bleeding into me just by looking at him. My breath stutters, a gasp tearing free without permission, because I’ve never seen him like this. Not once.
“You were right,” he says, barely above a whisper. His voice is shredded, threaded with regret so sharp it cuts me open. “I should have believed you.” His throat bobs as he swallows, and then, quieter still, “You’re never going to be prepared to see this.”
My stomach twists as he extends my phone toward me, the screen already lit, a single video queued and waiting like a loaded gun. I glance between his face and the device, my hands trembling as I reach for it. A cold certainty inside me already knows that whatever waits for me here is going to destroy me.
Still, I take the phone.
Still, I hit play.
And the moment the video flickers to life, the moment the truth unspools in front of me in a way that can’t be denied or buried. My soul fractures into pieces too jagged to fit back together again.
When the last sound cracks through the phone’s speaker, my vision snaps to red. It’s not just anger—it’s something far darker, a violence I can’t cage even if I wanted to. My hands shake, my chest heaves, and the vibration under my skin builds until it feels like my entire body is humming with fury. The roar that tears from my throat doesn’t sound human. It’s guttural, primal, ripped straight from the marrow of my bones, echoing off the walls until the air itself trembles.
I lose control. My body moves before my mind can catch up, fueled by a rage too big to contain. I hurl the phone across the room, the screen cracking against the wall with a sickening snap. My hands find the nearest thing—Reign’s nightstand—and I flip it hard enough that it splinters, the drawer spilling out onto the floor in a rain of forgotten trinkets. I grab handfuls of her bedding and rip it apart, shredding the fabric until the seams burst and stuffing explodes like feathers from a wounded bird. The posters and frames lining her walls are next. I claw them down, tearing the paper, shattering the glass.
Books scatter from the shelves when I sweep my arm across them, spines snapping, pages tearing free to swirl around me like ash. Curtains rip from their rods when I yank them down, fabric twisting in my fists before I shred them too. I slam my fist into the drywall, again and again, until my knuckles split and blood smears across the cracked surface. Every strike is a scream I can’t force pastmy throat, every tear in the room a desperate attempt to purge the lie we’ve lived under for years.
“They had to have planned it!” I bellow, my voice raw and ragged with certainty. “Lured us away with that trip—sent us to that cabin, smiling like good fathers—just so they could have our girls to themselves!”
The words taste like acid in my mouth, but I can’t stop spitting them out. My chest heaves as I claw at the wreckage, flipping over her mattress, ripping it open with bare hands, foam exposed like entrails. My breath tears in and out of me, breaking under the weight of what I finally understand.
“They killed her…” My voice cracks, softer now, but no less brutal. “They killed Reign—our triplet—our sister. She didn’t kill herself. She never—” My throat closes, strangling me, but the truth is already out, already etched into the ruined walls around us.
We fell for it. All of us. Fell so easily into their perfect little lies. And now the evidence of it burns inside me, a wildfire I’ll never put out.
I force myself to rein it in, just enough to stop swinging on instinct, though my fists still twitch, craving impact. The air hangs heavy, overheated by what we’ve seen and what we refused to see for far too long. The three of us stand in the wreckage of the room, breathing hard, and for the first time in years we actually talk about her—about Reign. About how we failed her. Failed in every way that mattered. Reign—our sister, our other half—was gone because of them. The words burn my throat as they come out, and even as I speak, I can’t stop myself from driving a fist into Rowan’s shoulder,or into Emerson’s chest when he tries to step in. I’m still too fucking pissed to let go completely.
Rowan flinches but doesn’t lift a hand to defend himself, and that pisses me off more. I glare at him; fury laced with guilt and grief. “You and Berk,” I growl, my voice low and rough. “I know you hooked up.” His eyes widen, a flash of guilt or maybe shame flickering there, but I don’t give him time to deny it. “Before all this, I was pissed you didn’t tell me. Thought you were just being a selfish prick.” My jaw tightens, teeth grinding. “But now? Now I can’t be anything but thankful. Because at least it was you. At least she lost it to someone who gave a damn about her, instead of…” My throat closes, the images of what we just saw pressing in on me like a vice. “At least it wasn’t them.”