If possible, his hug tightens more around me. It says so much more than his words are telling me. It says how much he regrets the past, how much he wished to never let me go.

So I hug him back because I have those same regrets.

We lost so much time. We floundered and drowned and couldn’t come up for air for so long.

All that pain fades away now, almost as if it were never there.

I let him carry me back to bed. We don’t speak after that.

We just watch each other, limbs wrapped around one another as we fall asleep.

We’re both wounded and need to recuperate.

A nightmare startles me awake. There were harsh blue-green eyes laughing at me, mocking me, telling me I could never escape my fate.

A tear slides down my cheek as I open my lids. A thumb wipes the tear away.

Those dark green eyes collide with mine as he slowly wipes the tear. His hand doesn’t leave my face even after all the tears are gone. His strong hand cradles my cheek as he watches me intently as if I’ll turn into smoke and mirrors.

It’s late, like two or three in the morning late, but it seems like he slept too little, if he slept at all.

Seeing him in so much pain and not being able to talk about it kills me slowly. Asher has always been the silent type who directed his pain inside instead of purging it, and that killed him, slowly but surely.

I can’t have him keep all of it in, not after what all we’ve both been through.

“Trouble sleeping,” I murmur as if a louder voice will lift the cloak surrounding us.

“I can’t get her voice or face out of my head.” His words are low and filled with so much pain, they gut me. “I can’t believe that’s my baby sister, the same Ari I sacrificed so much for. I should’ve seen the signs, or stopped and questioned when I saw those fucking signs.”

“Hey.” I snake my palm up his naked chest and rest it against his calm heartbeat, his almost dead pulse. “We couldn’t have known, she was too strategic about it, and we were too young and with too many communication issues.”

“Communication issues she fed on and used against us.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Unfortunately?” His voice rises a little. “I think this calls for a stronger word than that. Our lives were broken to fucking pieces.”

“Not all our lives,” I say hopefully, almost pathetically.

“Not all our lives.”

My heart thunders so loud, it takes me a moment to gather my wits around me and ask to be sure. “Just the past?”

“Just the past.”

“I missed you so much, Ash,” I confess and another tear slides down my cheek. “Those three years were hell, absolute emptiness. I hated you so much for leaving me behind, for never looking back or trying to get me to you. Arianna might have killed us but you killed me by abandoning me. You were the only thread I had in life after Dad’s death and you just cut me off so brutally.”

“I’m sorry.” He wipes my tear with the pad of his thumb. “If it’s of any comfort, I killed myself, too. There hasn’t been a moment I haven’t thought about you.”

I can’t stop the tears even if I want to. The more he wipes them away, the harder they fall.

“Reina…” he murmurs my name like a prayer he’s been dying to say.

“I don’t want to fight. Not tonight.” I wrap my arms around his midsection and bury my face in his chest.

His strong hand covers the small of my back as he buries his nose in my hair, inhaling me in. “I don’t want to fight either. Not tonight, not ever.”

We wake up to the sound of harsh pounding on the door. I groan as I make out Asher’s shadow leaving the room and going to answer it.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” His grave voice pulls me from my sleep-induced haze.

I jump out of bed, wrapping the robe tight around me.

“Get out of here.” Asher’s voice turns lethal.

I peek out and pause. Detective Daniels stands in the middle of the living area wearing a smug grin and flashing a piece of paper at Asher.

“Not today, Carson. I have an arrest warrant for Miss Reina Ellis.”

I only come out after changing back into my clothes and doing my makeup. Now, I understand why Old Reina needed to do that whenever she went out. I didn’t like being put under the spotlight if I didn’t have some sort of shield. My perfect face and appearance were it.

It was a defense mechanism to hide my true feelings. I was a pro at that.

Detective Daniels waits for me with two buff officers wearing hats near the door. He’s had a smug grin on his face since he revealed the arrest warrant.

Perspiration coats my skin as one bleak thought after another barges into my mind. What if they actually found Reina’s body?

No. Alex said his guy sent him a text after that night saying she was safe.

My sister is a fighter; she wouldn’t just die.

Asher paces the length of the room, a phone to his ear. “Pick the fuck up, Alexander.”

“It’s okay.” I place a hand on his arm, forcing him to stop. “Go find him at the firm. He’s probably in a meeting.”

Still clutching the phone, he palms both my cheeks and tugs up so I’m staring straight at his pained eyes. “I’ll get you out of there. I promise.”

My limbs start to shake as if about to give up on me. If he keeps touching me, I’ll surrender to all those gloomy thoughts and break.

I can’t do that when I have to find my sister.

I try to wiggle away from his touch but he pins me in place, the forest green color of his eyes turning somber. “Are you running away from me, prom queen?”

“No.” Yes.

“You can’t leave me, not anymore.” His lips brush against mine in a brief, heartbreaking kiss. “You’re my world now.”

Tears well in my eyes, and I wrench myself from him before I start crying.

I can’t do that. Not now.

I stride toward the detective and the officers. My heart begs for one last glance at Asher, but I deny that request. I need to be strong for this, and I can’t do that if I keep thinking about Asher’s last words.

As soon as I’m in front of them, Detective Daniels tells me I’m under arrest for murder and reads me my rights, then he leans in to whisper, “I told you I’d get you.”

My expression doesn’t change, but my pulse rises at the contempt in his tone.

I walk with them down the hall and through the lobby where people stare at me all the way. Gaige runs toward me with a frown etched between his brows, but I stop him. “It’s okay, just try to reach Alex.”

He gives a sharp nod and retrieves his phone. My only option is to remain silent until Alex shows up. I’m sure he’ll be able to shut the detective down like before, that is if they didn’t really find a body.

The officers don’t say a word. They’re bulky with tattoos sneaking down their sleeves. One has an untamed beard and the other has a permanent sneer. Is that a scar over his jaw?

One of the officers takes the wheel as the other one opens the back door. Daniels retrieves cuffs and tries to restrain me.

I pull my hands free. “I didn’t resist arrest—there’s no need for those.”