Page 122 of Creeping Lily

“Don’t think I don’t know,” Linc growls, the tremor in his voice not weakness but rage, rattling like something barely caged. “Don’t think I don’t know exactly what happened in that house.”

“You know nothing,” Bentley snaps, his arm jerking, gun lifting higher.

The leather of his jacket creaks; the scent of metal blooms in the air. I can almost hear the metallic kiss of a safety being tested. My pulse counts the seconds we’ve got left.

“You never wondered why Peter Masters was particularly bloody?” Linc tilts his head, a slow, wolfish smile curling his mouth. My heart betrays me—God help me, I still think that smile is beautiful. But there’s nothing kind in it. It’s the smile of a predator.

Bentley’s hand shakes, just enough to rattle me. Fear slides through me like ice water. I’ve just found Linc again—I can’t watch him vanish into a pool of blood at my feet.

“You made yourself the hero that night,” Linc says, each word like a splintered bone. “The one who saved her.”

“You hated me for not protecting her,” Bentley snarls.

“We fought because you didn’t protect her,” Linc agrees, voice steady and lethal. “When we should’ve fought because you were the one who hurt her most. You were her worst monster that night—and you made me think otherwise.”

“I held her,” Bentley bites out. “I comforted her.”

“Yourapedher!”

The words are a resounding echo in the small cabin. Linc’s tone is the crack of a coffin nail—final, absolute.

“I wasfixingher!” Bentley roars, spit flying.

“Fixing her?” Linc’s laugh is sharp and humorless. “She wasn’t yours to fix. And you knew exactly how I felt about her.”

“We were drunk,” Bentley mutters, his voice splintering. “We were idiots.”

“Excuses,” Linc murmurs, almost to himself, the disgust curling like smoke. “Excuses excuse everything, don’t they, Bentley?”

And then the silence comes—thick, humming, seconds from shattering into violence.

In my mind,we’re still just three kids tearing down the street on our bikes, sunlight melting over our backs, the taste of summer sugar in the air as we shriek with laughter outside the ice cream parlor. In my mind, I’m wedged between two older brothers who keep me in their shadow like I’m something rare—something fragile and worth guarding. Back then, I had everything Ineeded. Safety. Joy. That warm, unshakable cocoon of belonging.

Until I didn’t.

One lapse in judgment—just one—and I wasn’t that girl anymore. I wasn’t the kid they doted on, who they carried on their shoulders and protected from the world. One careless, reckless moment snapped the thread and left it dangling over the edge of something darker. After that, I lost everything.

Now they stand in front of me, bickering like rabid dogs, and I can’t reconcile them with the boys I knew—the brothers I idolized. The summers spent side by side from the time I was eight feel like someone else’s life.

“Why did you come back, Bentley?” My voice is quiet but it cuts through their venom.

So much about this is hidden in shadows I can’t see through. Linc—Titan—may be a killer, but at least he’s never pretended otherwise. He doesn’t sugarcoat. He doesn’t dodge. He doesn’t lie. Bentley, on the other hand, hasn’t given me a single straight answer since he showed up.

And between the two of them, he’s the one who’s cut me deepest. He’s the one who took something I can’t ever get back. I might not want to see either of them bleed, but Linc neverphysicallyhurt me the way Bentley did.

“I came back for you.”

I almost laugh. “I don’t doubt that. But why? The truth, Bentley.”

His eyes shift, just enough for me to see the lie before it leaves his mouth. This isn’t the Bentley I once knew. Not the man I spent my summers with. Not the one I looked to like an older brother, never once imagining he could betray me in the most unforgivable way. He’s here for a reason, and it reeks of self-interest.

“Tell her,” Linc says, voice like a blade pressing into skin.

I glance between them, seeing the differences I used to overlook. Bentley—dirty-blond hair, piercing blue eyes, that sharp Scandinavian jawline. He’s all breadth and angles, shoulders stretching his tailored suit like he was born inside one. Always dressed for power, even when it’s wildly out of place.

Linc is the one who answers. Linc is always the one to tear me open.

“He’s running for the Senate,” he says, every syllable a nail in Bentley’s coffin. “The only thing in his way is the ghost of his past.”