I grunt. “Thanks for that. As if I didn’t already know it.”
“I’m serious, Rowan.”
“I have no intention of trying. She’s to be the new Emily. She just has something about her. A spark. An energy. I felt itwith Ella too. I’m telling you, there’s something about her. It worries me. It makes me not trust her.”
“Ah. Now it’s making sense. It’s not about your nerves or trust. It’s that you’re attracted to her, and you don’t like it because the last time you were attracted to someone, it ended badly.”
“No. It’s more than that. She’s familiar to me.”
He sighs and clasps my shoulder. “They’re not the same woman, Rowan. You know this. If they were, facial recognition would have caught that and flagged it. Marcella was scanned as part of her background check. Everyone is.”
He’s right. I know this. It’s not the same woman. I wish I could say my odd fixation with Ella has dissipated over the months, but it hasn’t. It’s the curiosity of her. Yes, she was beautiful, and yes, she seemed different from all the other women. Yes, she gave me her virginity, which felt like a piece of her that only I got to possess. But it’s my unanswered questions that keep her on my mind. The lack of closure from that entire encounter.
Or, perhaps, I simply have been alone these last six months, watching my brother with the woman he loves above nearly anything else, even hearing them fuck on occasion. Maybe I simply need to find someone real and stop chasing ghosts that don’t want to be found.
“Fine,” I concede, dropping the Ella thing. “Talk to me about what I can do. Right now, all of the Marie shit is a dead fucking end. We have nothing new. No leads on her or Desta. I’m living in your palace?—”
He squeezes my shoulder, giving it a small shake. “Rowan, you are the prince of Messalina. It’s your palace as much as it’s mine. This is your family. It is where you always belong. Having you here has kept me sane when insanity seeks my mind. I don’t want you to leave. I want you to stay as long as it makes you happy.”
My hands meet my hips, and I shift my weight again. “I can’t help but feel that if I could find Marie, find Desta, that?—”
“I don’t want to say this, but I’m going to, because I think you need to hear it. Not because I’m being cruel, but because I love you and I hate watching your torment. We have to assume that Desta is gone. That she is exactly as our mother said. Dead.”
My throat thickens, and I attempt to swallow, but it’s futile. I’m suffocating.
“You can’t hide a person like that anymore. Everyone has a trail. Marie might be found, or she might not be. But Desta is likely not with her, and this search will only lead to more heartache.”
My insides seize up, but it’s still what I need to hear. I’ve had the same thoughts, but…fuck. “What about Brea?”
His brows furrow. “What about her?”
“Where is she?”
Sebastian tosses his hands up. “Down south somewhere.”
“Yes, butwhere?” I press. “You realize we’ve been going based on our mother’s word about her.”
He looks off into the distance. “I remember Mother and Althea talking about how Brea was sick from the moment she was born. I remember Mother talking about a heart condition and surgery. How Brea couldn’t be around us. The only time we saw her was right after she was born. Do you remember?”
I shake my head, then think about it, my face twisting up as I dredge up the memory. “Vaguely. She was in an incubator in the hospital, hooked up to a million wires.”
“Yes,” Sebastian agrees. “This was three months after Father died and Desta was taken. Mother was beside herself with grief and worry. I can’t blame her for that. Her husband died, her child was taken, and by that point, Mother had met with Marie about the tiara, so Mother believed Desta dead. Then her newbaby, her youngest princess, was deathly sick. I became king and moved out of that palace and you?—”
“I was sent to a boarding school.”
I was alone after losing more than half of my family. Sebastian would come to visit on occasion, or I’d go home to his palace on holidays, but it wasn’t home. There wasn’t much there. It was empty, and we were too young. And I hated myself. I blamed myself for all of it. For everything that happened to us. I filled that emptiness with useless pleasure. Expensive yachts, cars, and pretty women.
It's a wonder I never became an alcoholic or a drug addict.
Nothing has been right with our family since the night our father was murdered. It’s been endless lies, secrets, grief, sadness, and this fucking curse.
The night I spoke to Sebastian about what a hot pain in the ass his Bellamy was, I came home. Something in his voice made me do it. I flew all day to get to them. It was the first real spark of life to hit any of us since that fateful night killed it all those years ago. But now…
“Mother never mentions Brea. She hasn’t in years. I don’t want to say this either, but I’m sure there’s a reason for that too.”
I close my eyes, that thought sending the worst sort of chill through me. Especially as I think about my growing niece and nephew in Bellamy’s stomach. What if something happens to her or them during delivery? What if something happens to Phaedra, Sabrina, or Zayer?
It would end us all. I couldn’t handle it, and I’m positive Sebastian couldn’t either.
