“Get behind me,” Devlin growls, but I ignore him.
All my focus is on my brother, on the deadly weapon in his hands. “What the fuck are you doing?” I scream at him. “You’re pointing a gun at me, Royal. At your own twin sister. Are you really going to kill me for this? For some fight that’s not even yours?”
“I’m not pointing a gun at you,” he says. “I’m pointing it at your boyfriend. You just happen to be standing in the way, or he’d be dead on the ground right now.”
“We’re all carrying,” Devlin says behind me, his voice calm and even, though I can hear the strain in it. He’s pissed as fuck that I’m in his way. “You really don’t want to mess with us.”
“Don’t you dare pull your guns,” I snap at him.
He grabs me and tries to pull me back, but I twist away from him, panic tearing through me. I’m the only thing stopping Royal from killing him. I wrench away and dive toward Royal, my heart slamming in my chest and my whole body shaking.
“Royal, put the gun down,” I scream, dodging aside when Devlin swipes for me. He doesn’t stop until I reach Royal, standing in front of the gun so close that the muzzle presses to my chest. I widen my stance and spread my arms, as if my little body can protect all three of the Darlings, as if it could stop a bullet.
“Crystal,” Devlin yells, his voice harsh with panic. “What the fuck are you doing?”
For a second, no one else moves or speaks. I just put a gun to my own heart, and I can feel it racing wildly, careening out of control at the reckless, insane thing I just did, but I don’t pull back.
“What I should have done a long time ago,” I say, my eyes locked on Royal’s. “I’m standing up to my family.”
Royal stares at me in shock before yanking the gun down, pointing it at the ground. “So, that’s how it is,” he says slowly, a slight quiver in his voice. “You’re on their side now.”
I open my mouth to protest, to tell him that of course I’m not on their side. I’m Crystal Dolce, a flawless Dolce Daughter, a proud Italian, forged with a steel spine and blood thicker than chocolate. This is who I am, who I’ve always been. Family comes first—always. My twin is my life, and he’s in pain, and all I want to do is protect him. How could I take anyone else’s side?
Or maybe that’s just who I’ve been told I am. Now I can see my family loyalty for what it is. Something demanded of me, not earned. Now I see the truth. I was too hard on my brothers. They’re not monsters. They’re just kids, like me. They’re kids who have to believe what they do because if they stopped believing, they’d have to admit the truth of who they are. And admitting that truth is too horrible, too painful, for them to bear. So they go on with the charade, keep playing the game, keep letting the gamemaster tell them their next move.
I’m done with the game. They’re never going to let me off the gameboard, so I’m taking myself off.
“I’m not on anyone’s side,” I tell him. “I’m on the side of what’s right. On the side where everyone lives. You don’t have to fight our parents’ battles. This isn’t about us. Isn’t it time we stop letting them be our puppet masters? Time we stopped playing their game and joined forces to fight back against them?”
Lightning knifes across the sky, illuminating the churning water rising on the banks of the river below. Thunder shakes the earth underfoot, and for a moment, we all stand silent, as if listening to the decree spoken from the sky.
Then the thunder rumbles away into the distance, and Royal speaks. He steps backwards and raises the gun again, steadying the butt on the palm of his other hand as he aims behind me. “If this is a game, then you should know it doesn’t end until it’sgame over.”
“No,” I scream, leaping toward him, panic clawing up my throat and out my mouth. “Don’t shoot! Royal, you’ll go to jail. That’s murder. Do you really want that on you for the rest of your life?”
“It could be an accident,” Baron says. “Anything can look like an accident.”
Of course it can, to a boy who will probably be a lawyer like Uncle Vinny. Baron’s the quiet one, the thoughtful one, the observer. But he’s just as dangerous as the others.
I stand in front of Royal, pleading with him now, needing him to understand. “If you kill him, it’ll kill me, too. If you hurt him, it hurts me, too.”
He stares at me like he’s never seen me before. Maybe he hasn’t. “Who are you?” he asks at last.
“I’m your sister,” I say, tears streaking down my cheeks with the rain. “And you’re my brother, Royal. I want you to be happy again. Don’t you want me to be happy, even if it’s not with the man you would have chosen for me? What happened to the brother who supported me, who was always there for me, who would give his life to protect me before he’d pull a gun on me?”
Slowly, he shakes his head. “The man you’ve chosen, the one you want me to be happy with? His family killed your brother. I’m not that guy anymore, Crystal. And you’re not my sister. I don’t know who you are, but you’re not the sister I did that to protect. You’re a stranger, an imposter. You’re not a Dolce. I had a sister once, but she died in that basement with me.”
A sob wrenches from my throat, and I hunch over, trying to keep from sinking into the earth. Cold rain beats down on me, soaking my hair, my clothes. But I’m not shivering. I don’t even feel the cold. All I feel is pain.
“Fine,” I say. “Then fucking kill me, Royal. But if you’re going to kill Devlin, shoot through me to hit him. I don’t want to live even one second knowing that my twin brother is the one who killed the boy I love. If you cared about me at all, you would see that I can’t help who I love, Royal. I can’t help that I love Devlin any more than I can help being a Dolce. Sometimes, you don’t get a choice.”
“You just made your choice,” Royal says, his voice hard. Rain is streaming down his cheeks like tears, but I don’t know if he can cry anymore. He’s broken, something inside him gone. “You chose not to be a Dolce. You don’t deserve to carry our name. Crystal Dolce is already gone. I don’t have to kill you. You’re already dead to me.”
He drops the gun into the mud at my feet. My legs give way, and I fall to my knees, my body wracked with sobs.
“Crystal,” Devlin says behind me.
“We’re not done with you, asshole,” Duke says, stepping forward with his fists up. I don’t want to see the fight. I don’t want to be here at all.