The Revenge by Tijan

“I sent them to my phone.”

“What?” I was scrambling. I hadn’t expected that from him. “Why?”

“Because that shit is bad.” He pointed a jabbing finger at my phone. “That shit can’t stay between us. That’s why you wanted to come here, isn’t it?” His eyes were blazing and fierce.

I shifted away, letting out a sigh.

That was messed up.

He was right. I needed to tell Kash.

I leaned back, my head resting against the back of the booth, and there, I felt the club swirling around us. Everything was swimming. I felt the waves pushing down on me. I was lost, hearing the techno bass, feeling the heat of the lights, the smell of the dry ice in the club, and he was right. He was totally right. I mean, I knew it, but seeing my brother’s reaction to Hoda’s text messages, I knew I’d been wrong.

But craaap.

Crap!

Crap!

I tasted salt and opened my eyes, everything blurring.

I was crying. Again.

I hated crying.

A hand circled my neck and I was pulled in to a chest. Matt’s arms wrapped around me again. He hugged me to his side. “Bailey. Man.” His hand began smoothing hair back from my forehead. “Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—Well, I don’t know what I meant, but if this is about Hoda and Quinn…”

I shook my head, the tears falling even faster.

It wasn’t. I wished it was.

He hesitated then, and finally, after maybe a minute of sitting there in silence, he spoke. “I think we should call Kash about this.” The admission came out of him in a rush, almost rueful, like he couldn’t believe he was saying what he was saying. His hand shook as he said those words, then he smoothed it out, letting it fall to rest on my shoulder.

He was right.

And why was I crying?





EIGHTEEN

Kash


The inside of the warehouse was completely silent.

I had a twin. A fucking twin.

This man, this brother of mine, was tied to a chair and had been kept captive for weeks until it was time to finally deal with him. Didn’t say a word, either. I put my phone down, my wallet. I laid my gun on the table and I picked up tape. I wrapped it around my knuckles, flexing my hand to test how it felt. All the while, he watched me.

He hadn’t been beaten.

He’d been fed. He’d been given water. He was put in a room that was deemed comfortable. A bed. An audio cassette recorder, with tapes if he wanted to listen to anything or record his own message. There was a bathroom just off the bedroom. The temperature was always comfortable. He asked for a fan once, and it was given. He gave no indication of escape, or wanting to hurt himself, or even plotting an escape.

He read. He listened to music. He exercised in his room, and when he asked, he was brought out to do laps around this very warehouse.

He was also kept away. The closest building was a thirty-minute drive, through woods and rivers and fields. All the time, nothing.

I watched my grandfather, but there was no report of him being worried.

“Is that supposed to intimidate me?”

His first words to me.

I looked at my taped hands before going and dragging a chair over. “These?” I flexed them. “No, no, no. They’re to cover up a cut.”

His heavy eyes just watched me, not missing a thing. He didn’t react. There were no emotions flickering over his face—his face that resembled mine exactly. But no. Looking closer—and I had been; I’d been watching him on video this whole fucking time—there were differences, but they were slight.

His cheekbones were a little wider. His jawline wasn’t as pronounced as mine. He had a slightly wider forehead. But his eyes were mine. His nose was mine. Our mouths were the same. I imagined we would’ve been considered identical twins.

All the time—since he broke into my apartment, since he was captured—I didn’t know how I felt about his existence.

I leaned back in my chair. “Do you know why I’ve waited this long to speak with you?”

He didn’t hesitate. “To figure out if I’m here because our grandfather sent me or if I ran from him.”

He was intelligent. Good to know.

I leaned forward, my elbows going to my legs again. “Yes.”

“And to have your girlfriend look into me.”

There was no prompt for that one. I raised my eyebrows. “What do you know about my girlfriend?”

“She’s smart. Gifted with the computer. I know our grandfather finds her a threat.”

I watched him steadily. I was looking for any cracks, any break, but there was nothing.

Was he telling the truth?

“My girlfriend’s been preoccupied.”

A small flicker. There it was.

He reacted.

I continued. “The same day you got on a plane for America, our grandfather ordered a hit on her mother. My girlfriend hasn’t been looking you up. She’s been mourning the murder of her mother that happened right in front of her.”

His pupils dilated. Enlarging. He looked away, blinking rapidly to cover up his reaction.

I saw it, though. He was surprised. I wanted to name that other flash, though it was so brief, but it looked like regret. Sorrow? I wasn’t sure. It was gone when he looked back at me. His features completely schooled back so he was in control, but I knew what I detected.