“Well, then, maybe this is karma kicking you in the nuts. But I doubt it. Sera’s not the selfish asshole you were when Elle died.”

Sera was the furthest thing in the world from selfish, but... “She just offered me grief sex. How is that different from what I did?”

Kori rolled her eyes and tossed pale hair over her shoulder. “She wasn’t talking about sex, you idiot. Well, not just sex. She’s lonely, Kris. She’s alone. Her entire family was murdered, and here we are flaunting a house full of siblings, and lovers, and grandmothers, and she’s still alone in the crowd. She just asked you for a human connection during the most difficult time of her life, and you slammed the damn door in her face. You fucking humiliated her. If you weren’t my brother, I’d kick you in the balls for her.”

I stared into my cold mug, trying to reconcile what I’d thought I was saying with what Sera and Kori had obviously heard. “I didn’t mean to... It came out all wrong.”

My sister shook her head in disgust. “You are a world-class idiot. Fortunately for you, the world forgives well-meaning idiots over and over.” Kori stood and glanced into my mug on her way into the living room. “That’s revolting, by the way,” she said with a gesture at the yellow goo floating in my mug.

“It used to be a Marshmallow Peep.”

“Well, now it’s marshmallow carnage. But to bring my point home, you just turned down the woman who put a marshmallow duck in your hot chocolate. I hope you feel like a real asshole now.” With that she headed into the living room, then turned to look at me right before she headed upstairs. “Fix this before it’s too late, Kris.”

But as I curled up on the couch, under my scratchy blanket, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d already lost that chance.

Thirteen

Sera

The next day, my third day in the House of Crazy, I avoided Kris as much out of humiliation as out of anger. I stayed in my room until I could actually smell and hear breakfast being served. I ate in the kitchen, while he ate on the couch with his sister. I dodged his glances and stayed out of his physical reach, excusing myself to the restroom twice when I didn’t have to go, just to avoid being left alone in a room with him.

I couldn’t face him, after making such a fool of myself the night before, and the worst part was that I’d been totally blindsided by his reaction. He’d kissed me. He’d flirted. We’d shared innuendo, and heated glances, and...hot chocolate. He’d seemed more than interested.

I knew we couldn’t have anything serious—I had to be gone before he found out about my connection to the Towers, and eventually he would find out—but I’d thought maybe I could have him for a little while. A few nights with more than a pillow for company and warmth that didn’t come from an overhead vent. The touch of hands that didn’t want to kill me and lips that hadn’t given the order to fire.

But I’d misread something, somewhere, and in the end, that was probably for the best. I couldn’t afford to get attached, and the last thing I needed was another short-term fling, especially considering how the last one had ended.

I shook off that thought before it could reopen old wounds, determined to focus on my current problems. Unfortunately, Kris was prominent among them. I hadn’t asked to inherit a criminal enterprise from the father I’d never even met, but if he found out that killing me would break most of Julia’s bindings and free his sister from the burden, would he even hesitate to pull the trigger?

Hell, he’d probably decide he was meant to kill me—that that’s why his dead lover had told him to take me in the first place.

I couldn’t afford to trust Kris. I couldn’t afford to touch him. I certainly couldn’t afford to like him. I was on my own again. With any luck, he and his merry band of mafia rebels would help me find and kill my family’s murderer soon, and after that I would disappear, hidden by my own Skill, as I had been most of my life.

The hard part would be getting out of that screwed-shut house without a shadow-walking escort...

But in spite of my determination to distance myself, I couldn’t help watching Kris through the kitchen doorway during breakfast, while he laughed with his sister like I’d once laughed with mine. Ian and Vanessa were honorary siblings—that much was obvious in the way he made them smile in spite of gunshot wounds and missing loved ones.

And his grandmother...

I’d never seen a grown man so dedicated to his grandmother, even when she smacked him on the back of the head and talked to him like he was still sixteen years old, either because she actually thought that was the case, or because with those blue eyes and that pale hair, he looked like an overgrown teenager when he wasn’t scowling or plotting Julia Tower’s destruction.

A teenager with a gun, and a dangerous edge behind his easy smile.

Don’t look at his smile.

After breakfast—another family affair I existed on the edge of—Kris, Van and Ian sat at the kitchen table brainstorming their next move in the search for Kenley, while Kori disappeared through the hall closet.

I took advantage of their distractions for a chance to circumspectly look for what I’d come to think of as the escape hatch. There had to be one. I remained convinced that he would never leave his Gran—a woman with no Skill or obvious defensive abilities—alone in a house she couldn’t leave.

But the house wasn’t that big, and all the windows and exterior doors were screwed shut. Frustrated and desperate, I even searched the closet in Gran’s room for hidden panels covering a secret exit. Yes, that would be crazy. But screwing the exits shut wasn’t exactly sane.