On the staircase, the words landed like bombs.
Melissa's hand flew to her mouth. Not in surprise — in recognition. The recognition of a woman hearing a secret she'd carried alone for years finally spoken aloud by someone else, and the relief and the horror of it hitting simultaneously like two trains colliding in her chest.
Victoria's head turned to Danton.
Slowly. The way a gun turret turns. She looked at the boy she'd called brother — the boy she'd smiled at and said I'm happy to finally have a little brother — and something behind her eyes rearranged itself.
Not anger. Not yet.
The anger would come later, and when it came it would burn the world down.
What she felt now was the specific, surgical shock of a person realising they've been lied to so thoroughly that even their love was built on counterfeit foundations.
Sienna — always the calm one, always the porcelain mask, always the girl who felt nothing where others felt everything — felt the ground fall away beneath her.
