Crescendo

“Mr. Mill ar,” I whispered. I couldn’t think of anything else to call him. Hank seemed too informal; Dad seemed revoltingly intimate.

“Let me introduce myself properly,” he said. “I’m the Black Hand. I knew your father Harrison well.

He gave a low groan. “I love you,” he murmured into my hair. “I’m happier right now than I ever remember being.”

I have rules about who I take there.”

I was getting really tired of that answer.

“If you showed me, you’d have to kill me?” I guessed, fighting the urge to feel irritated. “Once I’m inside, I can never leave?” Patch studied me a moment. Then he reached into his pocket, twisted a key off his key chain, and slipped it into the front pocket of my pajama top.

“Once you’ve gone inside, you have to keep coming back.”

carved on either side of it: NORA and JEV.

I looked up. “Jev? That’s your real name?”

Harrison Grey wasn’t your dad.”

I opened my mouth, but the argument I expected to come flying out didn’t

You killed him,” I whispered. “It was you. You were wearing Patch’s hat.” The shock of the moment was quickly being eaten up by abhorrence and ice-cold fear. “You killed my dad.” Any trace of kindness or sympathy vanished from Rixon’s eyes.

It’s unhealthy.”

“So’s a relationship with Patch, but that didn’t stop you.” I didn’t respond.

I was reassigned to Marcie,” he said.

Five seconds passed before everything fell into place. The sick, hot feeling that had churned in my stomach since leaving Marcie’s spread to my extremities. “You’re Marcie’s guardian angel?”

“It hasn’t been a pleasure cruise.”

They were sleeping together. All these years they’ve been doing it. Which means my dad could be your dad. And you could be my— sister.” Marcie’s words dropped like a blade between us

“The Black Hand is Patch’s nickname?”