Page 1 of An Abundance of Brothers (Twisted Bard)

PROLOGUE

A NOTE FROM LUCINDA

This isn’t Kansas. Or the Wizard of Oz . Or Twister if I want to be a tad more current. But I’m going to tell you something. You may not believe me, for it is truly astonishing, but it is the absolute truth, I swear on my son’s grave. May he rest in peace. Or not.

My son was an ass.

He got that from his father. And he, from his father. Well, you get the picture. I never said anything when he married Callie. It was not my place, and the girl was a delight. We got along famously. Shared pain and all that, I suppose. My husband had already drunk himself to an early grave, and I never stood in the way. Who was I to deprive him?

When Callie became with child, I was the natural choice to take her to her doctor appointments. My son was much too busy for such things. There, she met another young woman, Sophia. They bonded immediately over having twins and a love of Vin Diesel. They set their appointments for the same dates and times and were fast friends by their twenty-eight-week checkups. Maybe more. Although they never shared it with me, I do believe they planned to run away together. Callie need not have worried. I would have helped her. I’ve caught Callie staring wistfully at the picture I took of them on more than one occasion.

They were terrified their husbands would find out about the other, but that wasn’t what tore them apart. That happened quite literally.

Plans were made. They decided to be induced on the same day and have their babies together. Twins tend to come early, and when they both made it to thirty-nine weeks, the doctors were ecstatic. But then tragedy struck.

I mentioned tornadoes. The twisters that day raged down and tore the hospital in half, right down the middle, as each mother was giving birth. The generator lights came on when the power went out. We lost track of Sophia and her babies in the chaos, and our fear was that they had not survived.

But as soon as I set eyes on my grandchildren, I knew a mistake had been made. The doctors had thought the twins would be identical, although they couldn’t say for sure. But Callie had one baby with fair skin and red hair like her. The other baby had dark hair and olive skin.

Like Sophia.

Did the switch happen when the power went out? The chaos of saving all the mothers and all the babies? It didn’t matter. Callie accepted both children as hers. She never even hinted they were not. Sophia was gone, likely dead. Callie used the names they had both decided on: Xander Cage and Dominic Toretto.

My son never questioned it. That would have taken a keener observation and more caring than he had. He followed in his father’s footsteps, and Callie mourned her husband for less than a week and in public only.

She mourned Sophia every minute of every day. It took years for her to recover enough to move forward, but I suspect she mourns her still.

They had picked out identical names for the kids. Xander Cage and Dominic Toretto. Sophia had planned on calling them by their first names, so Callie used their middle names.

We loved Cage and Toretto. And we never spoke of the possible mix-up.

But this story is not about Callie and Sophia. It is about their boys and begins twenty-five years after the tornadoes tore our world apart.

Miracle of miracles, Sophia and her sons survived.

Since this is not my story to tell, I’ll turn it over to those who know it best. The first is Sophia’s oldest son, Xander. He is an unlikely hero who struggles to find his place in the world and desperately wants to be loved and accepted.

The other is Dominic, raised as his brother. With red hair and pale skin, he looks nothing like his family and desperately wants to find the truth.

Their journey begins with that picture from long ago of both women smiling and happy. It ends with them realizing the truth I suspected all along.

Two sets of identical twins, switched at birth, resulting in both mothers having a matching set. One dark and mysterious. The other fair and gingered with a wicked sense of humor.

Do not misunderstand, my friends. Xander and Dominic are the narrators of this story of love and belonging, but they do not end up together. They were raised as brothers. But they each find their true love, and their unbelievable stories are each shared here with you.

I hope you enjoy this impossible tale. Those who have skipped this note might be confused as the story unfolds. But they have only themselves to blame. Perhaps they can piece it all together with just the clues left behind. I admire them for that.

Who am I to stand in their way?

Lucinda March