Page 23 of Twins for the Enemy

When the hotel driver drops me off, I nearly don’t recognize the mansion. Even the gate has been decorated with cerulean ribbon and purple, white, and blue periwinkle flowers. Even the last bits of snow are gone. It’s like his cold, empty mansion has been turned into a fairytale castle.

At the very least, Kieran genuinely loves her.

It’s such a shocking change that I nearly trip over my feet when I see two men standing at the entrance, wearing all black and holstered guns. One of them raises his eye at me.

“Are you on the guest list, ma’am?” he asks. “This is a private party.”

“I know,” I say. “For Ellie. Um, I’m friends with Kieran. I’ve been living here.”

“Is that right?” he asks, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “Why weren’t you in the house then?”

“We were at a hotel. He must have showed up here about fifteen minutes before I did.”

The two men exchange looks. I let out a slow breath.

“Can you get Kieran?” I ask. “He can tell you that I’m telling the truth.”

“Right,” one of the men says. He claps his partner on the shoulder. “I’ll go see if I can find him. Keep an eye on her.”

He takes quick strides away. The other man turns to a couple who have walked up to the mansion.

They show him their licenses before being allowed inside.

He opens the gate to allow them in. I peek past them.

The front yard has been filled with tables and chairs, covered in cloth that alternates between purple, white, and blue.

Periwinkle petals create pathways and heart shapes on the lawn.

Catering staff walk around with their trays, offering food and champagne to passing guests.

The guests are dressed in fashionable coats and pants. I’d taken the white coat and boots that Kieran had given me, which makes me almost look as wealthy as everyone here, but the mix of wonderment on my face and the sweatpants give away that I’m inadequate in comparison to everyone else.

“Hello,” a woman’s voice calls out. I turn toward it. “You were asking about my brother?”

The woman is beautiful. She has long blonde hair that flows behind her like a veil. She’s thin to the point of almost appearing sickly, but her face has a glow that makes it indisputable that she’s one of the healthiest people here .

“Hi,” I say brightly. “I’m so sorry that I’m party crashing. I just wanted to talk to you about—”

My breath catches as she stops in front of me. I hadn’t noticed when she was farther away, but faint scars pull at her skin near her left eye and along her hairline. My eyes search her face, recognition hitting me harder than any fist could have. Helena Porter.

Recognition must hit her at the same time, as the glow vanishes, her face turning a stark white and her jaw drops. The security guard looks between us, uncertain.

“Ma’am?” the man asks Helena.

It snaps Helena out of her shock. She jerks her shoulders back, raising her chin.

“You have some nerve coming here,” she says. “Did you come to finish the job? Do you want to burn down my engagement party too?”

“I didn’t... I didn’t know,” I say.

“You should get fucked,” she snarls. “Get out of here. I’m calling the police. ”

Some more guests who’d just arrived stop, watching us. One of them has a young girl, who clings to her gold necklace. I place my hand over my abdomen like the twins need to be protected from this criticism.

This is what I deserve.

“I—please don’t do that.” I raise my hands in defenselessness. “I don’t under—I don’t know what’s going on either.”

She pulls out her phone as the people around us whisper. They use hushed voices, but from how they’re hovering, they don’t mind being seen as spectators of this train wreck.

My hand sinks into my pocket. I feel the rough edges of the compass. I’d run away after sleeping with Kieran because I’d wanted to experience more life. And I did. But just like I thought, I can’t stay in Heaven because I don’t belong here. I cause problems. I cause fires. I ruin lives.

“Ellie!” Kieran grabs onto Helena’s arm. “Stop. Let’s talk inside. ”

Ellie. It’s a nickname.

Holy shit.

I carefully look over at him. He must have been running over because his breath is coming out a little harder than normal. How did I become so familiar with his face? His breathing?

Yet I couldn’t tell when he was hiding the most important secret from me.

Helena—Ellie—looks over at him, her mouth open as she’s about to explain something, but she stops and studies his face as well.

“You knew,” she accuses. “Why? Why is she here? You wanted me to be the one to send her to the police? Did you think that was some kind of engagement gift?”

“Let’s just go inside,” Kieran says. He indicates to me. “Come on, Farah.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Ellie spits out. “You can explain right here.”

“Then I’m just taking Farah. Don’t call the police. I’ll deal with this.”

He grabs my arm, pulling me past the gates and the guests, who have turned into an audience, watching as Kieran takes me through them, heading inside the mansion.

I should stop. I should dig in my heels and run for the hills before the police get here. I should claw at his eyes for letting me be so blind to his true intentions.

It’s my fault. If I learned anything from my father and my brother, it’s that people will convince you that they’re doing what’s best for you while hiding their true motives.

As we step into the foyer, I’m relieved to see nobody is inside. Kieran locks the doors behind us. He puts his hand on the small of my back, leading me into the den.

I stop in front of an armchair, but I don’t sit down. He stays near the bookshelves.

“What are you doing here?” he asks .

“You’re going to demand answers out of me?” I snap, but I don’t look at him. “You hid the fact that you’re the brother of the woman—that you’re Helena Porter’s brother.”

“I’ll explain why I hid that from you when you explain how such a good, empathetic woman could start a fire in a building with people inside it,” he says. “Don’t tell me it’s only because you were fired from your job.”

I dig my nails into the armrest of the chair. “It was nearly midnight. The store should have been empty.”

In his silence, his rage is palpable. Like the rising heat when a fire is right outside the door.

“You’re not even going to take responsibility?” he hisses. “You’re going to blame my sister that she was at a store at midnight? She’d been working during their usual hours. She and Bettiol agreed to meet later to get her late mother’s ring resized.”

My throat clenches. The news reports had mentioned that Helena and Bettiol were there that late over a special customization, but they hadn’t mentioned it was for her deceased mother’s ring.

“It’s not like that,” I say. “That’s not what I mean at all.”

“Explain it.”

I rub my forehead. “I already told you that I didn’t do it, and you didn’t believe me.”

“When did you ever allow my perceptions to affect your feelings?” he asks. “It doesn’t sound like the woman who broke through my door and didn’t take the chance to run away. But you ran away from that fire that you claim you didn’t start.”

“I only showed up because—I’m not innocent,” I restart. “But the person who started the fire called me. He didn’t tell me what he did, but I was worried, so I went there. I had no idea people were inside.”

“You’re not close enough to anyone for that to be true,” he says. “You forget that I did an intense amount of research into you when I was looking for you. You don’t have any friends. You don’t talk to your parents. Your only roommate has been—”

He stops. My heart pounds in my chest.

“Kieran—” I start.

“Your only roommate has been your brother,” he finishes. “Are you fucking kidding me? That piece of shit?”

I turn to look at him. He’s gripping onto a bronze globe on the bookshelf. I’m wary of him throwing it. I know he won’t throw it at me, but I’m prepared for the chaos of a man’s rage.

“It’s not his fault. He—”

“If you excuse it over his drug use, I swear to God—”

“I called him. I called Neal,” I cut in.

“I told him about how I was fired. Mr. Bettiol was regularly asking me to work off the clock. I confronted him about it. He fired me and told me that if I tried to report him for violating labor laws, he’d tell everyone that I’d been stealing from him the whole time I’d been working there.

I was upset. I left a voicemail for Neal, venting to him about it.

A couple of hours later, I got a voicemail back from him about how he was going to confront Mr. Bettiol.

I tried to call him back to stop him from doing anything—”

I stop, my eyes burning and a thickness in my throat. I take several breaths. He watches me. His hand relaxes on the globe, and his expression softens, but he doesn’t move toward me. I don’t know why I want him to.

I take one more deep breath before forcing myself to continue.

“Neal is temperamental. I don’t know if it’s the drug use, mental illness, or brain damage from the abuse, but he is.

Maybe on some level, I called him because I knew the old Neal—the big brother who’d do anything to protect me—would come out and do whatever it took to make me feel better.

But when I heard his voicemail and how angry he was, I knew I’d made a mistake.

I got over to the store as quickly as I could, but it was already in flames.

I ran in to get Neal out. That was when Mr. Bettiol saw me, and I knew I’d be a suspect.

Neal told me that we needed to go separate ways.

That’s when we—when I crashed into you.”

Kieran appraises me. His arms cross over his chest. The hand on top switches back and forth between a fist and open.

“So, Neal left you in another bad position,” he says.

“It’s not Neal’s fault.”

“It is. You’re blinded by your ideals about loyalty to someone who doesn’t have any loyalty to you.”

I let out a slow breath through my nose. “Kieran, you can’t go after him.”