Not yesterday.
My jaw tightens. “When, Sophie?”
“Ages ago.”
The silence after that is worse than gunfire.
“Ages?”
“Months.”
Months of her looking at wedding ribbons, tasting cakes, letting me touch her, letting me think the only ghosts at our wedding would be mine.
Months of her carrying this.
Away from me.
My chest gets tight in a way I don’t let show.
“You knew your father might be tied to the missing girls,” I say.
“I suspected.”
“You suspected.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You knew enough to hide it.”
Her face pales.
I regret the words the second they leave my mouth.
Not because they are false.
Because they land exactly where I aimed them, and I’m not proud of wanting them to hurt.
Sophie takes the hit standing.
“I was trying to get proof.”
“No.” My voice hardens. “Whiskey gets proof. Royal gets proof. I get proof. You come to me when your father’s name touches missing girls and Pearly Gates.”
Her eyes flash then.
Good.
I would rather have her angry than wounded.
“You think I don’t know that now?”
“I think you knew it then.”
“Legend.”
“How many girls?” Cider whispers.
The question cuts through us clean.