My brow shoots up to my hairline. “Saoirse, no one has ever suspected you.”
“I know that but…” She leans up from the bar and places one hand below her collarbone. “Ever since Liam was born, I have these huge bouts of anxiety like the world is about to end.”
“Because you were captive while you were pregnant. You had a traumatic birth and then spent months clinging to the side of Liam’s incubator, hoping he’d make it. Of course you’re going to feel anxious. I feel it too. I mean, even now…” I take her hand. “I can’t go in my closet anymore because any small, confined space makes me want to kill myself. There’s not enough therapy in the world to fix us.”
“So, what do we do?”
I wish I had the answer. Seeing my twin in pain is a unique sensation that feels like a ball of barbed wire is tightening around my heart. I want to help her. I want to take her pain away so she can spend her days enjoying her life with her partner and her son. But I don’t have the answer.
If I did, I wouldn’t be waking up screaming or drenching the bed in cold sweat. I’d be able to run the track around the manor without fearing my leg muscles are about to pop. I’d be able to cross the road without flinching at every car.
“We stick together,” I say softly, fighting to maintain a level voice. “We’re family and we care for one another. And look.” I jerk my head toward the happy, laughing party guests. “Our family has expanded more than we ever could have dreamed. We’re sharing drinks with old enemies, nursing old pains. You married an Italian, Italians have married Russians—andcops,of all things. I think we have to focus on that.”
Saoirse blinks and her eyes shine. “Brenden would be so proud of you,” she whispers.
Fuck. She’s going to make me cry.
“What?”
Something about the way Cormac’s tone drifts through the crowd toward me with the sharpness of that single word makes all the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I glance through the crowd, following the sound to seek out my brother, and when I spot him near the outer wall with his ear pressed to a phone, my heart begins to pound.
“Saoirse—”
“I see it,” she says as she pulls her hand out of my grip and starts toward Cormac.
She makes it three steps. Cormac’s head snaps upward, his eyes wide and wild, and his mouth hangs open. “Evelyn!”
His single scream is the last sound before a gigantic explosion rips straight through the middle of the party and Cormac is instantly swallowed in a cloud of dust and smoke. The explosion rips up through the floor and throws Saoirse back against me with a scream. We crash into the bar, my skull cracking against the pine wood, and then we slump to the floor.
Explosion after explosion bursts through the estate like kernels popping at just the right temperature. The noise is deafening and a sharp ringing takes over in my ears. I can’t breathe through the searing heat from the fire that blazes in front of me, can’t move under Saoirse coughing desperately on top of me. People are running and screaming in all directions and suddenly, Saoirse is pulled from me by Erik.
“No!” She yells, twisting in Erik’s arms.
His face is streaked with blood and ash and one of his arms hangs awkwardly at his side. “Come on!”
“But Liam!” she screams. “Where’s Liam?”
Shit. The children. Every couple brought their child to this party because it was supposed to be all about family and togetherness. I blink through a haze, watching the grand chandelier above snap on its supports and plummet down to the ground. It smashes instantly, showering us in glass and crystal shards.
“Come on!” Saoirse’s hand on my shoulder drags me from my stunned, frozen form, and I stumble to my feet just as anotherexplosion rips through the bar and throws me forward into the mess of the chandelier. Glass slices into my palms as I struggle to get up. Glancing behind, Saoirse and Erik have been swallowed by smoke.
I can barely see. Can’t hear anything over the crackle of the raging fire, distant streams, and the constant pop of whatever explosions are still occurring. “Saoirse!” My throat closes around my yell and I drop into a coughing fit. “Saoirse!”
I can’t see her.
Fuck! What the shit!
Liam. I have to get to Liam.
Stumbling over unrecognizable bodies on the ground, my leg aches with each step as I sprint from the room and take the stairs two at a time. On the second floor, the heat isn’t as overwhelming, but everywhere I go is filled with thick, black smoke. My eyes water and burn as hot as my throat with every breath.
I run toward the children’s wing just as warmth rises beneath my feet. The floorboards surge upward as another explosion rips through the home just underneath where I’m running, and for a moment, I’m thrust upward so abruptly that it feels like I’m flying.
Then I topple forward with a cry and smash right through the window. Glass shimmers around me like glitter, matching the stars I glimpse above that are being swallowed by the inferno consuming the Gifford home.
Then I plunge down into an unforgiving black abyss.
2
