Until she didn’t.
“There’s been a lot going on,” I say stiffly. “The funeral planning, the relatives arriving…”
There’s been so much more than that, too. Talking to cops. Talking to the board of Dolce Sweets. Talking to lawyers and estate planners. Talking to Colin Finnegan, who admitted Baron convinced them to take him back here to get his car that night, took the six boxes of Lady Alice that we’d hauled out to Colin’s vehicle, and took off into the night. Considering Baron’s genius, he can make sure we never see him again if he wants, but at least he didn’t make us think he died.
And I have a feeling he’ll be back, at least for Duke. Not only that, but I have a pretty good idea that he won’t go much further than the Mississippi River to the east.
“The relatives just started arriving yesterday,” Crystal points out.
“King’s been here since Thanksgiving.”
“He’s not a relative,” she says, leveling me with a look. “He’s our brother.”
“Yeah,” I say, busying myself with putting my paraphernalia away.
“What happened between you?” she asks.
“He convinced us to move on,” I say. “Him and Dad. He said you were dead, that you were never coming back. I would have kept looking forever if not for him.”
“He thought I was,” she says, swallowing. “He was trying to help you. All of you. It’s not like he was tricking you.”
“You talked to him about it?”
“Yeah,” she says. “I’ve talked to him and Duke both. I wished I’d gotten to talk to Daddy…”
“Well, he’s dead,” I say. “It was him or Devlin. He wouldn’t have let him stay in his house like I have.”
“See?” she says, her voice cracking. “You’re the one who won’t forgive me.”
“Forgive you?” I ask, then shake my head. “You let us think you were dead, Crystal. Don’t you get what that did to us? We searched for you for weeks. We gave up, accepted you were dead, and had a fucking funeral for you. We fuckinggrievedyou. Do you know what that’s like, to think your sibling, your twin, is fucking dead?”
“I know what it’s like to grieve for a twin you lost,” she says. “For a whole family. You think I didn’t miss you, too?”
“Miss us?” I ask incredulously. “You think that’s all it was? We avenged you, Crystal. We burned this town to the ground for you.”
“And you think I didn’t mourn for what I lost?” she asks, swiping angrily at a tear on her cheek. “You think it didn’t kill me, too?”
“I think you’re the one who made that choice,” I say flatly. “We didn’t.”
“I didn’t have a choice, either,” she cries, tears streaking her cheeks now. “You and King and Daddy all said you’d kill Devlin.”
“We’d never have hurtyou.”
She wipes both cheeks at once, her breaths hitching. “Killing Devlin would have hurt me. It would have killed me.”
“Then what’s the difference?”
“If you knew someone in this town was going to kill Harper, would you shrug it off and let it happen because she’s not part of our family?” she asks. “Or would you take her across the world to protect her if you had to?”
I just stare at her.
Harper. Of course that’s what it’s like for Crystal. Harper isn’t just mine to possess. She’s a part of me, the replacement for my soul that was long ago destroyed. She may not know it, but she’s already possessed me, owns every breath I take and every fucking murderous intent that arises when I think of someone touching her. I wouldn’t just take her across the world. I’d set the world at her feet, bring her the fucking stars one by one.
“I’d kill them,” I say quietly, remembering the body swinging at the bottom of the rope over the river and the one I dumped later, the night that redneck asshole came knocking on her door, thinking he’d take her as payment for her mom’s addiction.
“Then how can you not understand?” she asks. “I’m sorry, Royal. It’s not that I didn’t think about you. I just couldn’t let myself imagine what you were going through. It would have really killed me. So I had to think about what you said last, that I wasn’t part of the family. I wasn’t a Dolce anymore. And then we changed our names, and I told myself I was Devlin’s family now, because if I wasn’t yours, I didn’t have to remember what I lost. But I never stopped being your sister, not even for a minute. So why are you acting like I’m a stranger?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Maybe we’re both strangers.”