My birth father didn’t want me. I wasn’t a person to him, just a commodity.
The pain of it slices through my chest, as raw as the first day I found out about it. I didn’t think I could feel pain after the guys left and my sister pumped me full of animal tranquilizer, but the human body is amazing, right?
Mackenzie continues, “One princess was left behind – the unlucky one. While her sister went off to live a magical life in a far-off land, the princess endured years of torture at the cruel king’s hands. She thought there was no way out of her fate, until one night when she helped the drunken queen into bed. As the queen tossed and turned and ranted and raved, she admitted everything. That she’d given birth to twins. That the king had drugged her and taken her baby and she only knew about it because she kept a secret diary. That the princess had a sister she’d never ever met, who lived across town with the handsome crime lord.
“So the princess went to find her sister. She just wanted to meet her twin. She’d been so lonely, you see, trapped in the castle with only the evil king and queen for company. She wasn’t allowed friends, not even the Golden Boy who wanted to save her and make her good, even though she knew she could never be good. But then the princess saw her sister’s life.”
Mackenzie isn’t stroking me like a cat now. She scratches her nails along my arm, drawing deep rivulets of blood. Claw marks.
“I spent months following you,” she hisses, dropping the sing-song voice. “Your father thought he was oh so clever hiding you away, but you weren’t hard to find. I rented a shitty apartment opposite your house. I even got a job as a waitress to work some of the August parties. And do you know what I saw? I saw a girl who didn’t appreciate how fucking good she had it. A mopey, sulky little shit whining that she couldn’t go outside or go to school like normal kids because she was justtoo special. Because the handsome crime lord kept her in a gilded cage. Well, fuck you very much, Claudia. You got the life that I deserved, and you squandered it being sad and bitter. They weren’t even your real parents, but theylovedyou. Why should you have that and not me? So I took them away from you.”
She… wait, what?
But I can’t interrupt Mackenzie. I can barely even see her now – thick, grey fog is closing in around my eyes again. It takes all my will to keep my focus on Mackenzie and not give in to the bone-deep weariness in my limbs that calls me back to oblivion.
“But first, I needed a way to get close to you,” she says. “I needed to know what I was dealing with. So I went down to Colosseum one night and introduced myself to the man of my dreams.”
Mackenzie throws her arms around Antony. Pain stabs at my chest. How ironic that the only part of my body with feeling can feel the sharp twist of Antony’s treachery.
Never forget that only the ones you love can betray you.
“She gave me a hell of a fright,” Antony says, holding Mackenzie close. “I thought you’d somehow figured out a way to sneak out of Uncle Julian’s house. But Mackenzie explained everything. She showed me the evidence she’d found – the doctored birth certificate, the mysterious disappearance of a midwife and two doctors at the exclusive facility where both mothers gave birth. And there was the evidence of my eyes – she looks exactly like the cousin I’d grown to hate.”
No, Antony. It’s not true. You were my friend. You looked out for me when I had no one else. You don’t hate me. It can’t be true.
It can’t…
“That’s right.” Antony leans over the coffin and spits on my face. I don’t feel his saliva roll down my cheek. I’m too numb now to even feel the knife of his betrayal twisting in my chest. “Idespiseyou. I have ever since the day Julian told me you would be his successor, and that my job was to watch over you always. All the time he’d been training me, giving me tests, showing me how the empire worked, I thought he was molding me in his image, ready to adopt me as his heir the way his precious Roman emperors did with their successors. But instead, he takes me aside and tells me that he’s training me to be your tribune, your advisor, your protector.” Antony wrinkles his face. “Yourbabysitter.”
No.
Nonononono.
All my life you’ve been by my side, you’ve watched out for me. You pulled me out of the grave that night. How can you hate me? How can you…
He continues, “But I’m much smarter than you. I know not to wear my hate on my sleeve. It’s far better to bide your time, to let the world believe you’re the dutiful soldier, the loyal cousin, the one who will clean up Julian August’s mess. So I raged in silence, and I waited for my chance to strike. And then Mackenzie Malloy burst into my life like a cheerleader out of hell and dropped that chance right in my lap.”
“We bonded over our mutual hatred of her, didn’t we, babe?” Mackenzie squeezes Antony possessively, her lips pursed.
“We did.” He kisses her, long and slow, until each stroke of his tongue lashes against my oblivion, whipping me back to the present, holding me in this moment so he can torture me further. “At first, when Mackenzie came to me with this revelation, I went along with her plan simply because I wanted revenge. Julian loved me like a son. I should’ve been his heir. I thought for sure one day he’d see I was born to rule, that he had made me into exactly the leader he is. But he kept on with his foolish charade that this weak child he’d hidden away from the world would one day be fit to rule it. I wanted Julian to know what it felt like to be buried under the weight of obligation. I wanted him to know true fear, to reach for me to save him and see on my face the moment he realized that I was the one who’d condemned him. I wanted him topay.Mackenzie and I formed a plan to get exactly what we both wanted, and over the months we worked on the plan, we fell in love.”
We fell in love.
How many years have I wished my cousin would find someone who’d appreciate his loyalty, his strength, his cunning? What a laugh. Alanis Morissette should write a song about me.
“First, we had to deal with the Malloys,” Mackenzie says, happily snuggling into Antony’s shoulder. “They deserved to pay for what they did to me, tous. And we needed Daddy to give up the location of the treasure. We knew we’d need money to start over, and Daddy’s money would be tied up in the company and all his creditors would come knocking, so we couldn’t count on that if we wanted to disappear. So I knocked them out with drugs I brought from Cleo St. James, and I dragged them down into this very tunnel. Our mother died on her knees, begging for her life like the weakling she is. I took my time with dear old Dad. I even had a bucket of water down here to throw over his head when he lost consciousness. I had to make sure he learned his lesson. You would have been proud of me. I punished him for both of us, sister.”
In some deep, dark recesses of my fog-addled mind, I feel a tug of solidarity with my twin. Women like us get our justice on the business end of a blade. Our father deserved everything she did to him.
“Daddy was so stubborn. He kept saying that he lost the treasure. It had been stolen from him. What a silly lie to tell. Such a drag! That was not what I wanted to hear.” She pouts and stomps her foot for emphasis. “Poor Daddy thought I would spare his life if he gave me some other secret, so he kept on talking. He told me all sorts of useful things about his deal with Lucian August, about how the Triumvirate worked, about the deal he had with Senator Marlowe and how that was falling apart, and aboutexactlywhat Walter Hart was doing over in Tartarus Oaks. I got him to record the message that I played on the maid’s voicemail. Then I stomped on his head until he popped like a balloon. I emptied the safe of cash, drove their car out, and made that phone call. We had time before people would notice the king and queen were missing. Antony wanted us to take Howard’s money I stole from the safe and go off somewhere, but I couldn’t leave Emerald Beach without doing what I set out to do. I want the treasure my father hid from me. I want my inheritance.” She beams up at Antony. “This is fun, babe. I love reliving these old memories. I wish I’d taken more pictures for a scrapbook. I think I’ll start one now.”
She’s insane, which I guess is how I know she shares my DNA.
Mackenzie pulls something from her pocket and holds it up. Through the encroaching haze I can just make out the sparkling pink heart on my phone case.Mackenzie took my phone… all the guys’ numbers are on there…
What if she tries to contact them? What if she lures them somewhere and hurts them?
Mackenzie holds the phone over the coffin, but Antony knocks it out of her hand.
