“Are you scared I can’t handle it if you love him? If he loves you back?” she whispered, her eyes searching my face.
I threw my hands up to shield her from any emotions I might have been showing. We were twins, able to read one another even if we didn’t want the other one to see what we were feeling. I couldn’t let her see this. I didn’t even want to witness it myself.
“What will it take for this family to think I can handle something?” she asked me. “Do you think I’ll drown my heartbreak in drugs?”
“Your heart will be broken? Because you love him?” I asked even though I didn’t need her answer.
“Of course I love him.” She spat the words out like she hated the taste of them. “I’ve loved him forever. He’s always been there. We’re a team, we work well together, and he’s always believed in me the way—”
Our eyes met, and the pain she felt hit me like a freight train, hard and heavy enough to knock the wind out of me.
I whispered, “I don’t know what to do here.”
“Well”—she stood up tall and wiped a hand over her face like she was wiping away emotions—“you’d better figure it out, Lilah.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve tried my best to be straight to the point these days.”
I nodded. “I see that. You seem to face things head-on now.”
“You’ve always been the one who knew exactly what to do, right? You got the grades, you got into college. You took care of a miscarriage, for God’s sake—all on your own. You handled it all. So you’d better figure it out now. I’m going for a walk to clear my head. Figure it out, Lilah, because if you don’t love him enough to fight for him, then he deserves me … because I will.”
“I don’t know if I love him.” I shook my head repeatedly. I couldn’t feel that for him. Not after what we’d been through, not after I’d lost his baby. I couldn’t go through that again, not with him. “I shouldn’t because I won’t survive loving him.”
“You will,” she said and walked past me with tears in her eyes. “You’re strong enough.”
“I just don’t know. It’s only been a few weeks. How could I know?”
“Because I know.” My sister’s voice was pleading. With that, the door shut behind her, and she left me in her small, empty hotel room.
Silence was either an enemy or a friend. It calmed you or left you alone with the worst of your thoughts.
Dante had taught me there was never really any silence, because the world was always talking. The sounds I heard now were my tears falling one by one on that table. I had a choice. Or so I thought. Love never really gives you a choice. I thought I would have to choose between breaking my sister’s heart or my heart or maybe even Dante’s.
There wasn’t an easy answer.
There was no right answer.
And I always searched for the right one.
I’d only ever known how to do the right thing.
When the knock at the door came, I found myself wanting to be anyone else at that point. I wanted to save everyone and not ruin one more thing.
24
Steal an Identity
Delilah
“Izzy, I know you’re in there.” He banged on the door after I looked through the peephole and didn’t answer.
I didn’t know the tall lanky man outside my door, but I knew he must have been a part of Izzy’s undercover work. She didn’t know anyone else here and had only been on the island a few days before she ended up in jail. I’d never seen her with anyone like this.
I took a deep breath. It was answer or throw a wrench in everything.
I did the dumb thing.
I told myself I was smart enough to act like Izzy for as long as we needed.
I swung open the door.
“Hey, sorry. I was in the bathroom.” I cleared my throat and tried not to shrivel when he stepped up to me and then narrowed his eyes.
His pupils were dilated, his breath smelled of alcohol, and the way his body twitched told me it wasn’t the only thing affecting him. “You ready?”
“Um, ready for what?” I tried to hold the door closed to indicate I didn’t want him inside, but he shoved past me and glanced around my room.
“We’re going to the ship now. Fucking agents are onto us. We got word someone’s sniffing around. Probably from you fucking up by getting thrown in jail.”
“I don’t think—”
“No. You don’t think at all.” He turned around, and his words rumbled out so fast that spit flew from his mouth. He pointed a long bony finger at me. “You’re lucky Iago wants to fuck you six ways to Sunday, because otherwise you wouldn’t even be on this boat with us. We got a car out back. Let’s go.”