“Do you happen to know why she didn’t tell Alex about his child? Or you? Or why she walked out on her family? Why she made arrangements for us to adopt Ana… only to come back and blackmail Gabriel?”
His smile falters. I don’t stop. “And why did she complicate things by leaving her artwork tattooed on Alex’s body? A puzzle, for Christ’s sake. Why is she so goddamn hard to understand?”
The questions pour out of me, one after the other—fast, raw, angry.
Noah blinks. His mouth parts slightly. “That’s… a lot of questions,” he says softly.
I release a breath, run my hands down his arms. “But they need to be answered, Noah. If not by you… then by her.”
He shakes his head, slowly. The childish way he moves it side to side does nothing to deter me. If anything, it makes me push harder.
“From what I understand, she showed up at your apartment the other night?”
He exhales heavily, tipping his head back toward the ceiling. “That wasn’t America.”
When his gaze falls forward again, defeat clouds his blue eyes. “Then who was it?” I press.
He fidgets with his shirt, tugging at the neckline, staring down at his feet. “Mimi. Meera.” He glances back up, lost. “But it definitely wasn’t America.”
I blink and reach for the bourbon, checking the label before pouring. Yup, definitely bourbon. Maybe the burn will help me make sense of this conversation. My chest feels tight, my mind spinning, but I need to hold steady. Noah needs me to.
I toss the shot back, the smooth fire sliding down my throat.
“I’m scared,” Noah whispers, pulling me from my daze. “Not of America. But of… them.”
And there it is again—another riddle wrapped in fear.
Before I can respond, he surprises me—takes my hand away from the glass and brings it to his trembling lips.
“America is my sister.” He exhales, breath shaking against my knuckles. “Or Meera, if that’s what you choose to call her. It’s not her real name—she doesn’t even know her proper name. But she’s the reason I survived the storm, Elijah. She’s a good person. I swear she is. You have to understand… she had to survive too. And she loves me. A lot.”
He presses a soft kiss to my fingers. I freeze, stunned by the boldness of it—but I don’t pull away. I let him hold them there, resting against his lips, because I can feel the truth trembling through them.
“I know this doesn’t make any sense to you,” he goes on, voice breaking. “Or to anyone else because you were never forced to hide in the rain. But America and I… we had no choice. To survive the nightmare, we had to exist outside ofthe darkness. Behind the rain. Our father may have taken our bodies, but he could never reach our souls. Do you understand?”
“I’m trying, Noah. I really am.”
He sighs, the sound small and broken, then pushes on anyway. “He couldn’t take what he wasn’t able to see. You have to believe me when I say that what America did—to Alex, to Ana, Emilee, and Gabriel too—it was out of necessity. Out of love. Her actions were meant to protect them… because she loved them.”
I take a step back, dragging my hand from his lips. A vein throbs at my temple, the room suddenly too close, too tight.
“She blackmailed us, Noah.”
“No!” he shouts.
“She turned her back on her entire fucking family.”
“She didn’t!” he screams, the sudden force of it slicing through the air.
The shot glass tips, shattering across the counter, bourbon splashing over my hand.
“America would never turn her back on her family!” His voice cracks as his body jerks, eyes wide and dazed, shining with something close to panic. His arm twitches, as if it carries the weight of every choice he’s ever made.
“She was protecting them. She tried?—”
He swallows, breath stuttering.
“And when she lost the ability to keep going… I stepped in. I finished it.”
