Deception. Betrayal. Mistrust.
It seems the closer Rayne gets to the truth, the more she finds herself wanting to run away from it. It's complex and terrifying-more than she ever fathomed.
New family members, good and bad, pop out at her like a br...
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𝗞aedyn was out of the taxi and darting inside faster than the one hundred dollar bill he'd paid the cabman for the twenty-minute drive had the chance to slice through the air and land in his lap.
It had already been two days.
Six hours to wrap things up at the AAC. Ten to pull his parent's prying fingers off his body. Seven more poised thirty-thousand feet in the air.
It had already been two days since he'd got the news that his partner in life and crime had been in an accident. So when he sprinted down the hallways, shoving crash-carts and people alike out of the way, he barely paid attention to the security guards trying to keep up, and the nurse's complaints.
He climbed three flights of stairs.
Rueben sat doors down, but he couldn't bring himself to entertain a conversation.
Instead, he shoved open the wooden door with a force so heavy, he garnered the attention of the doctor checking on his stitches, and the nurse fixing—what looked like—a new leg suspension.
Kai immediately gazed at him like their souls were magnets.
And that was all it took for his feelings to morph into tears—that was all it took for his limbs to give out with each step climbing toward him. It was all it took for his shaken and barren arms to engulf his twin's broken body—for him to pull him tight enough, he could pretend he never left.
He knew Kai had survived back-to-back surgeries, but there was relief in seeing him with his own eyes.
There was relief in feeling his chest rise and fall with unborrowed breath.
There was relief in hearing the grunt he'd emitted from the weight Kaedyn had just placed on him.
"Is this how it felt when I was hurt?" Kaedyn questioned, trying to sound tough, but failing, "Because, if so, I'm afraid I might have to retire with you. I don't know if I can handle this. I don't know how you did."
It was strange.
They had always been deployed in this lifestyle. They knew how to hold a gun and hit a bulls-eye before they'd ever learned how to ride a bike. And yet, it wasn't until this year—until they'd mended what had been ruined and opened themselves to more than just a life of crime, did this pain—this fear for lack of survival—truly threatened his well-being.
It took destroying their dilapidated walls—destroying their groomed nature of coldness—for the utter weight of his humanness to tear him apart.
Kaedyn pulled away as he felt his brother's hand on his upper arm.
Kai attempted to smile, but it fell short as if he were trying to bury his real feelings for the sake of him. Something Kaedyn had done so many times himself that he wasn't all that surprised to see that his twin had memorized such a sad expression.
