“Rapid-fire questions. I like this game.” He put up a hand. “Two for one: Easy. I was the person who ordered the hit.” He clucked his tongue and motioned to the side of his head. “Hope it didn’t mess up all that fabulous hair.” He sent a fucking wink my way. “And two, what kind of a man would I be if I let you die not knowing who the fuck you really are?” I raised my gun at him again. “It’s inevitable.”
Leni moved between us, partially blocking him from view. “Open this goddamn door, and I’ll show you what’s inevitable.”
His focus was back on her. “Oh, I know you will, you fucking psychopath, you.” He leveled her with a glare. “I heard about poor Rupert. His wife was a mess. Good thing it was nothing a good fuck in the ass wouldn’t fix.”
Leni shot forward, banging at the glass with the handle of her gun. “Motherfucker! What are you talking about? Tell me! Did you do it? Did you kill him?”
“Leni.” I put my hand on her shoulder, and she swiped it off.
“Tell me! Tell me!” She slammed the gun twice more.
Ronan neared the glass, Cheshire grin in place. “Your father squealed like a goddamn pig at slaughter as I took him apart, piece by piece.”
The shrill cry that came out of Leni rang in my ears. She dropped the gun and began clawing and punching desperately at the glass until it was smeared in her blood.
“Well, it’s been fun catching up. But my ride is here just in time,” he said in an eerily calm voice despite Leni’s frantic shrieks. “You have about five minutes before you become barbecue. Use them wisely.”
He said nothing more and exited the vehicle.
“Leni!” I held her shoulder, shaking her until she came back to me. “Baby, I need you to pull it together for me, okay? I think there’s an explosive. We have to find a way out. I won’t let you die like this, you hear me?”
Her watery eyes found mine. “I’m not leaving without you.”
“Then we do this together. He said five minutes, but that could be a lie. We could be down to seconds for all we know. Let’s make them count.”
“He killed him,” she whispered, black streaks running down her face. “If there were ever a reason to claw my way out of here, it would be for the chance to cause him the same pain.”
“Good. Let’s make that a goal and get the hell out of here.”
Leni tried the door closest to her again, and I did the same. She pushed on the sunroof with the palms of her hands, then her fists. Her adrenaline was probably spiked so high she was numb to the damage she was causing to her knuckles.
“Silas, nothing is budging.” She crumbled to the cabin’s floor, hands in her hair as she shook her head back and forth in disbelief at our situation. “We’re going to die here, aren’t we?”
I motioned for her to approach me and pulled her into my lap. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t. This isn’t your fault.” She framed my face, brows knitting together curiously as tears flowed down her cheeks. “Eva—your eyes. Now I see it. You…you really are Frankie. This is incredible.”
“Who is she?”
“Evangelina is your little sister. But she thinks you’re dead.” A sister. She lovingly pushed back hair from my forehead, a faint smile on her face. “She still loves you so much.”
“My parents?” I felt jittery. My body was in a panic, waiting to die. Maybe talking like this would ease my nerves.
“It’s just your father Franco and Eva.”
The universe had one hell of a sense of humor. By some outrageous stroke of luck, mysisterand Leni were friends.
I was speechless. Confusion and foreign emotions were wreaking havoc. And the most fucked-up part was that I’d never meet her. She wouldn’t even know I was still alive. Calling her now would be cruel and pointless.
“Do you want me to—” As if reading my thoughts, Leni held out her phone for me.
“No, it would be like making her relive my death.”
She lay her head on my shoulder. “You have a niece on the way.”
The pangs of loss and grief for people I’d never met, or at least remembered meeting, swept through me, burning behind my eyes. But nothing cut more profoundly than when I looked at Leni, knowing our fate.
I lifted her chin. “Leni, love…”
