Page 143 of Dance of Thorns

“You always looked like her.”

His voice is husky, his eyes still stabbing into the opposite wall. I take a long drag of the cigarette, feeling the dry bite of the smoke hitting the back of my throat. I exhale, hoping to God the nicotine calms my frantic pulse, and hand the cigarette back to him.

Bane’s eyes stay glued ahead as he takes another puff, gray smoke curling like ribbons around his head and drifting on still air toward the ceiling.

“For being fraternal, not identical twins…” He shakes his head. “You always did look so similar. It was the personalities and the way you presented yourselves to the world that were different. Dove was the popular cheerleader. You were?—”

“The unpopular psycho,” I grumble before I can stop myself.

Bane snorts, one side of his mouth lifting in a small smirk. He takes another slow drag of the cigarette and hands it back to me, his face darkening.

“When Antonio and the rest of your father’s men barged into the house on Staten Island, the room you were in was the first door they kicked in. And there you were, black hair shaved?—”

“I think it was purple,” I say quietly.

Bane shakes his head. “No, you’d dyed it raven-black three days before.”

My gaze drops to the floor. “Oh,” I say.

“In that place, with your hair shaved off and the rest of your personality stripped away by that motherfucker,” he growls, “when Antonio kicked in the door, he thoughtyouwere Dove; Cesare’s daughter and princess of the Marchetti empire. Soyouare who they grabbed. Antonio was there to get you both,obviously, but his boss’s daughter was the priority. They were carrying you out when the chemicals from Lorenzo's meth lab went up and the place exploded.”

He takes the cigarette from where I'm holding it out to him, still looking dead ahead, like he can’t look at me.

Maybe like he doesn’t want to.

“Then that fucking roof beam came down and hit the side of your head, and took your memory…”

He closes his eyes, his mouth turning grim.

“When you woke up in the hospital, everyone was calling you Dove. They all thought that's who youwere. Andyouthought you were Dove because that’s what everyone called you. They pressed you to remember things. They showed you pictures and told you stories, and you rememberedDove’s lifebecause you had beeninher life since day one.”

His Adam’s apple bobs.

“You remembered those birthdays because you were there too,” Bane growls like broken glass. “You remembered her triumphs and wins, because you celebrated them with her. You remembered her sad days because you were there to comfort her.”

A bitter, broken sound cracks the silence, and it takes me a second to realize it’sme.

Tears roll down my cheeks, my breath coming unevenly. I take the cigarette back when he offers it, my hands shaking as I suck greedily at the smoke. I inhale deeply, filling my lungs with black poison, trying to drown myself in it.

“Lark.”

I startle to hear that name from his lips. I slowly turn to look at him with haggard eyes. Bane nods his chin at the cigarette between my fingers, and when I look at it in a daze, I see it’s burned all the way down to the filter.

Wordlessly, Bane pulls an old mug off the top of the desk and sets it on the floor between us. He drops the burned stub of the cigarette into it, pulls a fresh one from the pack, and lights it. He exhales slowly and passes the new one to me.

“Does…” I shiver as I bring the cigarette to my lips. “Does my dad know?”

Bane shakes his head thoughtfully.

“Honestly? I don't know. I’ve wondered, though. If he did…”

“All I’ve ever been to him is a bargaining chip to further his empire,” I say bitterly. “I mean, at least in the last seven years…that I’ve been her.”

By which I mean, even if Daddidrealize it was Lark and not Dove who came out of that building alive, if everyone wascallingme Dove, and IthoughtI was Dove…

Well, he still has a daughter to trade via an arranged marriage.

Which leads to the next question that comes burning to the front of my mind.