and as long as she’s alive, we’re all in danger. She thinks we had something to do with her sister’s death.”
“And why would she think that?” I ask dryly.
“Because Trent, the fucking idiot, invited her to the kissing rock that night. She thinks Trent did it.”
I scrub my hands over my face in frustration. After a long moment of silence, I pause, gathering my thoughts. Hating the words as soon as they leave my lips. “I’ll take care of it.”
The color slowly returns to his face, and the tension dissipates from his body, as if hearing this is a relief.
That memory is suddenly replaced with another one from our past.
A picture.
A fucking picture is all Vincent gave me to go off of. I didn’t even know Madison had a sister, let alone a twin sister. I didn’t know her well. She was popular, sure, but for the past year, she’d been gone, away in Italy, and even before that, my ex-girlfriend Summer hated her, so keeping my distance from Madison was always a given if I wanted to avoid hearing any of Summer’s shit.
Just like most towns and cities, Ferndale is broken into parts. My family, along with Vincent’s and a handful of our other friends, live in what we like to call the “Riches Circle.” The community is gated and only the higher class, the founding families, live here. Each house was built by our ancestors years ago, and it’s been passed down each generation.
And my house? My father had it built to fit in with the rest, so we wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb. But, of course, in perfect Benedict fashion, he had to outdo everyone by making our house the biggest structure in all Ferndale.
Then you have the middle class. That’s where everyone else lives, the regular families on the north side, near downtown, but the lower class, those are the hillbillies of the city. The outcast, thrown into poverty, who are all looked down upon.
I stand on the incline of the hill, on the north side of town, staring out at the house that belongs to a dead girl. It also belongs to the living sister who I’m supposed to make disappear. With my hands shoved into my coat pockets and my breath fogging the air before me, I wonder if I’m doing the right thing. Of course, my father has men who handle this sort of thing for him, but before I make that call, I need to see with my own eyes who I am dealing with. Is she this horrible troublemaker they are making her out to be? Out for vengeance?
When she finally steps out of the house, my brows tug down as I take her in. She isn’t Madison. Clearly. She isn’t a threat either. With reading glasses, an olive-green knit sweater, and jeans straining over thick thighs, this girl looks harmless. And sad.
So fucking sad.
I shouldn’t do it, but I follow her all the way to the graveyard. My chest pangs when she sits near a makeshift tombstone in the grass that is a lot fresher looking than the surrounding ones. I don’t know how long I stand there and watch as she sobs into the cool air. Plumes of fog escape her lips with each breath she releases. Her back wracks with her deep sobs. I can see it trembling, her entire body shaking from where I stand.
My lips thin into a grim line. She is still mourning the loss of her sister. Of course she is angry. But she isn’t a threat, and she sure as shit isn’t dangerous. It’s obvious Vincent knows that. He wants her gone for whatever reason. And maybe it’s best that I do get rid of her.
I make the decision, then and there, to leave her be. To protect her at any costs, because I refuse to be the one to hurt her. Not while she’s already down.
Once I get back home, I slip into my father’s office. There’s only one reason I go into his space while he’s here, and he knows it just as well as I do. It kills me to do so. To even come to this man for help, but I have no other choice. She’s not a threat, and this…this is the safest bet.
“What do you need, Sebastian?”
I square my shoulders. “I need you to find anything you can on Madison Wright’s family and her sister. I need the sister gone, far away from here. Get