“So why has he been around so long? Why not kill him off ages ago?”

“Because he’s efficient, Harper. You don’t just train up a guy like Tet. All twenty-eight years of his life made him what he is. A killing machine. The perfect fucking assassin.” Vincent leans over again, cupping my cheeks in his hands. “I need you to understand this, Harp. He’s not the person you think he is. He’s manipulative, calculating, and deadly. I can’t blame you for falling for it. World leaders have fallen for it—”

My mind stops listening as I remember back when James was tallying up his kills back in the desert. Destabilized entire governments, he’d said. Too many to count, he admitted. What he did in Mexico counts as genocide.

He said it all right there. He told me everything Vincent is telling me now, only I never saw it clearly.

“—so don’t think that you ever had a chance, Harper. Because you didn’t. He’s been planning this since that first year he went looking for you on your birthday.”

“Planning what?” I ask, desperate to know what’s really going on.

“To use you, Harper. He’s going to kill your entire family, and he’s gonna use you to do it.”

Chapter Eighteen

Harper

I think about this for a second. My first instinct is to defend James. He’s not using me to get revenge. He’s not using me to kill my family. He loves me.

But I can’t bring myself to say it out loud and when I look Vincent in the eyes, he knows this. He knows I’m having doubts about James.

“Eat,” Vincent finally says. “You’re not eating.”

“How can I eat when you just told me he’s going to kill my brother and father?”

Vincent reaches over to stroke my cheek. “Harper, just let us take care of it, OK? We know Tet’s plan. We know how he works. We know what he’s after. So if you just trust us to take care of it, you will never have to think about him again.”

“But every time I see you, I think about him. How can I not think about him when you’re twins?”

“I’m sorry about that. I really am. We can talk about that later, when the timing is more appropriate. But for now, it’s time to eat. You need nourishment.”

Nourishment? Who talks like that? He sounds like my father—if my father ever cared that I wasn’t eating. James would just say, Eat your fucking dinner, and after we fuck, we can discuss.

“Eat,” Vincent repeats.

I pick at my lobster. I’m just not in the mood to put so much effort into a meal.

After watching me push my food around for a few minutes, Vincent sets down his fork. “You like lobster, Harper. I know you do. So what’s the problem?”

“I’m not hungry anymore.”

“You’re going to eat. If you don’t want this, then tell me what you do want.”

I want James to be sane. I want James to love me. I want James to show up here and blow the place up and take me away. I don’t even care where. Anywhere that’s not here. Anywhere that’s not filled with all this pretentious shit.

Lobster dinners? I think back to the many times I’ve had lobster. Lots and lots of times. It was something we ate regularly. Every couple weeks at least. But in Huntington I ate crap. For a whole year I got to choose my own food and I ate crap. And I ate it waiting for my brother to show up and save me from my dull life that scared me so bad I wanted to take pills to make the stress go away.

And then… James Fenici blew into my life and swept me off my feet. He demanded things of me. He had expectations. He had plans. And I loved that part about him. I loved that he drove a crappy Hummer. I love the fact that his go-to place was a shithole in the desert. I love the fact that no matter where we were, life was real. And exciting. I love that life with James is moment by moment. Nothing is dull or diluted. Life with James is a full-color, full-speed-ahead kind of life.

I fell in love with that man. I did. I fell in love with the James everyone else hates. And no amount of lobster dinners and Southern California mansions can compare.

I’ve had lobster dinners my whole life. I don’t want lobster dinners. I want junk food. I want crap. I want all the things that make life feel good. I want all the stuff that’s bad for me.

“Harper?” Vincent asks.

I look at him. Why does he have to look like my James?

“Harper, I’m not talking to myself. I asked you a question. Please respond with an answer. What do you want to eat, if not this?”

“I want… umm…” I don’t even know how to explain. I don’t even know if I want to explain it. Why bother? He’s just going to get mad at me for wanting James.

“Want what, Harper?”

I shrug. “I want my life back. And my life isn’t about lobster dinners anymore. It’s about junk food.”

Vincent just stares at me because I make no sense.

I tug on my lobster bib until it breaks and I drop it onto my plate. I look Vincent in the eyes as I push back in my chair and set my napkin on my lap. “I’m not hungry. I’m not eating. I’d like to go to bed if that’s OK.”

I expect him to get angry, but he surprises me with an understanding smile.

God, I can’t take this confusion. I can’t take it.

He takes off his bib and gets up and walks over to me, grabbing my hand in his. “OK.”

And that’s it. We start the walk back up the path to the house. Since we’re facing it now, I can see it all lit up in the distance. It’s massive, for sure. And overwhelming in its opulence.

Growing up on a yacht is a very luxurious experience, because let’s face it, megayachts are pretty special. But no matter how big your ship is, it’s never big. It’s still a boat when you get down to it. It’s still got a finite amount of space that everything has to fit inside.

So this mansion, to me, signifies wealth.

I grew up wealthy, but I didn’t have a frame of reference to compare my life to except the local indigenous populations of the islands we frequented. They were poor, but think about it, we all lived in the same place. Paradise. We sat on the same beaches. We swam in the same turquoise blue ocean. My cabin was probably the same amount of square footage as the small bedrooms the other girls on the beach lived in.

We were not so different in my eyes. I’m sure their perspectives are different. But my perspective counts too. And that’s what it was. So moving to the beach—into that small, cramped studio apartment—well, that was not so difficult for me. James’ house in the desert, same thing. It was actually rather spacious. Not that we spent much time there. But it was comforting to have a small space with the open desert around. It mirrors the experience of our boat surrounded by the sea.