Page 121 of The Brothers Hawthorne

He’d known that he was emotionally compromised. He’d known that.

“I trusted you,” Gigi said, like the words had been ripped out of her. “Even after you lied to me. You’re my brother, and you lied to me, andI trusted you anyway.Because that’s what I do.”

“I can explain,” Grayson said, but that was just another lie, because he couldn’t. He wouldn’t ever be able to explain this to her because the secrets he was keeping—they had to stay hidden.

No matter the cost.

“Go ahead,” Gigi told him, tears streaming down her face. “Tell me you haven’t been sabotaging me—sabotagingus—from the beginning.”

Grayson couldn’t tell her that. He couldn’t tell her a damn thing.

“That guy outside, the one you claim is so dangerous, he said that you were playing your own game. He warned me.Careful with this one, sunshine.”

Grayson would never forgive himself if she ended up putting herself in danger because of him. “Gigi—” Grayson was not a person who pleaded, but he was pleading now.

“Don’t,” Gigi said, her voice low and guttural. “Just shut your mouth and give me what you really found in this box, because I don’t believe for a damn second that you haven’t already opened it.”

Grayson’s chest hurt. Every single breath he took hurt. It all hurt. “I can’t.”

Gigi swallowed. “Then stay the hell away from me—and my sister.”

She opened the door. Savannah was coming down the hall, but she took one look at her twin and brought her diamond-hard gaze to Grayson’s, and he knew.

He’d lost them both.

TWO YEARS AND EIGHT MONTHS AGO

Grayson sat hunched on the floor of the tree house, his knees pulled to his chest.Posture unbefitting of a Hawthorne, he thought dully. The words didn’t hurt the way they should have.

He ran his thumb over the bit of metal in his hand. Grayson remembered being eight years old and writing haiku after haiku, crossing out the words, calmly tearing sheet after sheet out of his notebook. Because when you only got three lines, they had to be perfect.

He had wanted—so badly—for them to be perfect. He’d agonized over focus and content, metaphors and wording.A drop of water. The rain. The wind. A petal. A leaf. Love. Anger. Sorrow.But reading over the final product now, all he could think was that what he’d written hadn’t been perfect.

Hehadn’t been—and this was the cost.

Everywhere Grayson looked, he saw Emily.Emily’s amber hair blowing in the wind. Emily’s wild, larger-than-life smile. Emily lying on the shore.

“Dead.” Grayson made himself say it out loud. It didn’t hurt the way it should have. Nothing hurt enough.

He read the damn haiku again, his grip on it viselike, the metal biting into his fingers.When words are real enough, he remembered telling Jameson,when they’re the exact right words, when what you’re saying matters, when it’s beautiful and perfect and true—it hurts.

Grayson had wanted Emily to lovehim. He’d wanted her to choosehim. Being with her had made him feel like perfect didn’t matter. Like he could afford, every once in a while, to lose control.

This was his fault. He’d taken her to the cliffs, when Jameson wouldn’t.Some people can make mistakes, Grayson. But you are not one of those people.

A sound like a fist beating flesh broke the silence in the tree house. Brutal. Repetitive. Merciless. And the more Grayson listened to it—without moving, without blinking, barely even breathing—the more he realized that the vicious, ruthlessthwack, thwack, thwackhe was hearing wasn’t the work of a fist.

Splintering wood. A crash. Another. More.

Grayson managed to stand. He walked over to the tree house window and looked down. Jameson was on one of the bridges below. There was an ax in his hand and other blades at his feet.A longsword. A hatchet. A machete.

The bridge was barely holding on, but Jameson didn’t stop. He never stopped. He attacked the only thing holding him up like he couldn’t wait to fall.

Down below, Nash ran toward the tree house. “What the hell are you doing, Jamie?” In a flash, he was climbing to Jameson, who swung the ax harder, faster.

“I would think the answer’s apparent,” Jamie replied, in a tone that made Grayson think that he was enjoying this, destroying a thing they both had loved.

He blames me. He should blame me. It’s my fault she’s gone.