I shut down my chat, open a webpage, and type:Gael Monta. I proceed to study every picture of the man who made me, trying to spot a resemblance. I decide the frame of our faces, our olive skin tone, and the blueness of our eyes—or eye, in my case—are rather similar.
I look up my brother next. My likeness to him is even more striking as he sports the same haircut as I do. It makes me want to grow my hair down to my waist or trim it even shorter.
I wonder if I’m seeing all these similarities because I’m looking for them or if they’re truly there.
A message notification appears at the top of my phone.
BOOGIE BOO:Where are we doing breakfast?
ME:Come over to mine.
I graze the send button just as Malachi enters my building’s underground lot, severing my internet connection. I call my private elevator and scan my fingerprint to unlock the buttonmarked “PH”. The glowing button blurs as we shoot past the lobby and up to the top of my tower.
Ines and Dorian are still upstairs when we arrive. Still tense. Almost tenser than Mom. While she and Malachi disappear inside the living room with Ines, I stay back with Dorian.
“Were you ever going to tell me?” I ask him.
Dorian’s cheeks hollow and puff, pinkened by his frantic pacing. Or perhaps it’s his panic that’s at the root of his flush. “Monta’s a lowli?—”
“He’s my father.”
“No, Dad is your father. Monta is?—”
“My.” I punch out the word. “Biological,” I spit out. “Father.”
“He’s not. He’s a pompous piece of…”—instead of the wordshit, my curse-adverse brother grunts—“that couldn’t keep it in his pants.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s the reason I exist.” I haul in air. “I wish you’d told me, Dee.”
“So you could’ve sought him out?” Dorian’s giant body shakes with uncontrolled fury. I haven’t seen him this panicked since Tarian was taken. “So he could’ve stolen you from us?”
That tears a hole in the sails of my frustration. “I wouldn’t have gone with him.”
“Back then, the Council was full of people who would’ve ruled against our family out of spite.” The fight has roughened my brother’s timbre and mottled his complexion.
“Tarian would’ve interceded.”
“He would’ve needed a reason, and ‘irresponsible dirtbag’ isn’t an actionable offense.”
“Ines was married to him. So he couldn’t have beenthatbad, right? I mean, I’m not a fan of her, but you are.”
“She was eighteen and naïve. Fell head over heels for Monta. It wasn’t until he commissioned an oil portrait of himself holding the severed head of Caruso’s first lieutenant that shefinally grasped just how disturbed he was. Sorry—a sporting portrait.” Dorian’s nose wrinkles. “I heard he had Dominic Caruso’s head, as well as the man’s late wife’s, added to the painting after he killed them.”
I wrinkle my nose. How vile. The Holy Hunters may vie for our destruction, but posing with their severed limbs is next-level. I don’t even care that he single-handedly managed to knock three Holy Hunters off the top of the pyramid.
Dorian links his strong arms around me and pulls me in for a bone-crushing hug. “I’m sorry, Elle.” He kisses the top of my head. “We should’ve sat you down when you were eighteen and told you everything.”
I wish they had, but there’s no point regretting since the past can’t be changed, not even with magic.
“I don’t want Ines or Mal to be there tomorrow.” I pull away and look up into my brother’s emotion-ravaged face. “Only you and Mom.”
He nods.
“Dorian, can you stop worrying? It’s going to be fine. I’m a big girl.”
His mouth purses, and I realize that in his eyes—like in Malachi’s—I will always be the ten-year-old with track marks they rescued from a ramshackle apartment.
“Anything else I should know about the man who made me?”
