Page 110 of The Next Lie

Delia sits two chairs down from him. She’s the real reason I’m even suffering through this “family” dinner.

My sister.

My dead sister.

My alive sister.

The woman at this table with my mother’s cheekbones, my father’s dark lashes, and rosary marks circling her wrist like she earned them instead of inherited them from the nightmare that tore us apart.

She looks beautiful. That should not bother me, but it does. Her hair is pulled back in a clean, low knot. Her black dress is simple, fitted, expensive. She has the calm posture of someone who knows where every exit is and who might choose violence before dessert.

I keep looking for seven-year-old Delia in her face and failing to find her. Is she doing the same? Does it disturb her the same way it disturbs me, on some deep, foundational level? The un-rightness of it?

I can’t see it on her face if it does. She’s better at hiding things than I am, I think. I stab at my salad, pissed off.

Deacon sits beside her. That also bothers me.

He is angled slightly toward her, not in an obvious way, not enough for anyone normal to notice. Unfortunately, normal left my life several chapters ago. He watches the room while appearing to eat. His forearm rests near Delia’s place setting. When she shifts, his eyes track the movement. When a server—we do have fucking servers, what universe have I stumbled into—enters with another bottle of wine, his hand drifts half an inch toward the knife beside his plate.

Protective.

Practiced.

Familiar.

My stomach tightens.

I do not like it.

I also don’t like that I don’t like it.

There are too many reasons to resent Deacon Cross. He wrote me letters under another name. He kissed me in the kitchen like he had some claim he expected my body to recognize before my brain caught up. I have plenty of material. I do not need to add jealousy over my sister to the list.

Shiloh leans toward me. “You are glaring at your salad like it gave the order.”

“I don’t like arugula.”

“Reasonable. It has always struck me as smug.”

Ever reaches for the bread basket and sets a roll on my plate without looking at me. “Eat.”

“I am eating.”

“Have some bread.”

I stare at the roll. My stomach chooses that moment to growl, traitorous and loud.

Shiloh’s mouth curves. He says nothing, which is how I know he is trying very hard to stay alive.

I pick up the roll and take a vicious bite.

Nash sits at the head of the table like a judge presiding over a trial. He has been cordial in the way men are cordial when they would probably rather order the body be disposed of. He asked Cal about his flight. He asked Delia whether the drive was difficult. He asked Deacon nothing, which somehow said more than a question would have.

Dinner moves around me in careful pieces.

No one says anything about my family. No one mentions the Syndicate, or Mother Superior.

No one asks why my sister came back from the dead with rosary marks on her wrist and a face that dares to look at me like I’m the one haunting her.