Page 160 of Monstrous Urges
Annika laughs quietly.
“That’ll make for an interesting Christmas card.”
I smirk, shaking my head before I focus on her again. “What the hell happened to you that night? And Taylor?—”
“Tatjana,” she says quietly. She reaches out and slips her hand into her sister’s. “Her name is Tatjana. Or…it was.” Her lips twist as she looks up at me. “What you really want to know is how, right? How there’s two of us. How no one knew…”
“I think that might be a good place to start.”
She nods, sipping her coffee with a grimace. I take a swig of mine, and scowl.
Yeah, it really is terrible.
“Our parents—our father, especially—were really protective. And a little paranoid.” She sighs. “Okay, a lot paranoid. There were constant threats against our dad and his extended family, and I guess it only got worse when he and our mom got married. So when they had us—twins that no one expected—they made a decision to…minimize risk.”
Holy shit.
“They kept one of you a secret?” I murmur.
She nods slowly.
“When we were kids, it was a fun game, really. Some days one of us would get to play the princess, while the other stayed hidden out of sight. Other days, we’d switch. It wasn’t that hard: our family was fairly reclusive, and we had all those walled grounds. Only our parents, our housekeeper, and our dad’s most trusted second-in-command, Ruslan, knew. Nobody else guessed. That’s how good we were at it.”
She exhales slowly.
“But then you came along. Well, your family did. You were always our sworn enemies, and then suddenly one day, our father and yours were talking. We heard our parents discussing in hushed tones late at night about a truce. There was just one problem.”
“My father thought there was only one Brancovich daughter,” I grunt. “And if there was a second one…”
She nods. “Then your family would probably not go ahead with the marriage. Because another daughter?—”
“Meant another alliance, potentially to a family mine was still in conflict with.”
“See? I knew you weren’t just a tough guy.”
I smirk. Then my smile fades as I turn to look at Taylor. I reach out and take her other hand in mine, squeezing.
“What the fuck happened that night,” I growl. “And how is it that you’re fine, and she’s the one with no memory after the car crash?”
“For a start, there was no car crash,” Annika murmurs. “My sister was never on your island until you brought her there.”
39
ANNIKA
I wake to smoke and screaming.
The bedroom is dark, but through the windows, I can see the flash of muzzle fire. The sharp burst of shadows as an explosion thunders somewhere close. Very close.
Terror rips me the rest of the way out of sleep. Shaking, I slip out of bed, pulling on sweatpants and a hoodie before I creep to the door. It opens a crack, and I peer out with one eye.
A shot rings out, loud and deafening, and something warm sprays the outside wall next to the door and mists across my forehead. I lurch back, quickly shutting the door and bolting across the room to cower behind the bed.
I hear more screams of pain. The cries of men falling, and the staccato bang-bang-bang of automatic gunfire.
We’re under attack.
Or at least, they are. There’s no “we” here. I’m a prisoner in this house—the silent accessory to a dark prince who neither speaks to me, nor even looks at me. Which I’d be fine with, if not for the fact that I’m trapped here and can’t leave.