“Everett doesn’t realize you love me. He thinks you’re here to hurt me.”
“I don’t care if he thinks there are aliens on Mars. He needs to put that knife down, and you need to step back, woman.”
Mom completely ignores Dad and takes another step closer to Everett.
“Wife. Brother,” he repeats, staring at her. “You have a family. People who love and protect you.”
“Yes, I do. Talon would die for me without hesitation. My son would try, but I won’t let him.”
She’d try to stop me, but I’d fight right along my father’s side if it ever came to it.
“You’re safe.” Everett shifts his gaze to me, asking me, not her, “You’re protected?”
“Always. I’m always protected.”
He waits, ignoring her words.
I nod.
In the blink of an eye, his demeanor shifts, and the knife slips from his fingers. “I’m sorry. I must have been mistaken. You aren’t my mother. Of course you aren’t.”
Everett’s lying. I don’t know how I’m so sure of that fact, but I am with every fiber of my being. I’d bet my entire company on that fact.
“I’m so sorry.” He dashes out the door and out of the house while we stand silently.
“Does someone want to explain to me what just happened?” Dad walks over to Mom, engulfs her in his arms, and scoops her up, carrying her over to the chair.
Mom doesn’t respond. She cuddles into his arms.
There weren’t nearly enough moments like those with Ivy, and yet there were too many. The times I placed my hand over her delicate fingers to feel our baby growing, knowing that the cancer was growing just as fast inside of her, were always bittersweet. What would it be like to hold a woman I loved without that worry weighing my heart down?
But that’s something to ponder another day. One when Dad isn’t glaring at me over Mom’s shoulder. “That was Everett Jaymes.”
“The kid Maddox sent over for you to mentor?” Dad’s eyes widen a little bit. “He vets those kids.”
I know, right? This kid is all kinds of odd. “The kid knows his stuff when it comes to computers.” Frankly, with enough training, he’ll probably be better than I am soon. “And he has a photographic memory. Which makes it even odder that he thought Mom was also his mother.”
Talon pulls Mom away from him slightly and stares so deeply into her eyes that I’m tempted to turn away. “You protected us once before. Did something happen to you while you were gone? Something that you didn’t tell me about? Because if someone hurt you—”
Mom reaches out and cups Dad’s cheek. “I’ve never lied to you, and I won’t start now. No one hurt me. That boy isn’t mine.”
Dad lets out a deep breath. “The kid must be lying.”
“He’s not.” Why did I say that? Dad’s going to want an explanation, and I don’t have one.
“It’s not like your mother has a twin. She’s an only child.”
Twin? With all that’s going on with Vex and the DNA service, twins should have been the first thing I thought of. But it isn’t because we know Mom’s history. She is an only child born to two only children. Her birth certificate is in Dad’s safe, along with all of ours.
But Everett seemed to be afraid to even say her name. Maybe I’m overthinking it. What’s a twin but not a twin? That’s it. “Everyone has a doppelgänger.”
Mom’s head spins around. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Someone clue me in.” Dad pulls Mom back in closer.
“Doppelgänger. A person who looks exactly like them. Mom has one, and we all know that she was pregnant around sixteen years ago.”
“Miranda! You think Everett is Don Lucian’s kid?”
