Page 178 of Reverie

“I’m going to fucking kill you for what you did to my family,” I growl, rolling over to pin him to the ground.

“Not if I kill you first, motherfucker,” Marcus says with just as much heat.

He hits me with a kidney punch, and the pain causes me to lose ground. He flips me over, and in the process, I grab his shirt, prepared to choke him with it.

Instead, the fabric rips, baring his chest.

I freeze.

One heartbeat. Two. Three.

Ominira.

Emblazoned across his chest in bold script is the single name that has haunted my dreams for decades.

“Ominira,” I say, my voice barely above a strangled whisper. My speech must infuriate Marcus because he rears back with a primal yell that signals his intent to smash my skull in.

But if not for Patrick, who grabs his arm, halting his progress, I’d be a bloody mess on the tile floor.

“You need to chill,” Patrick says, releasing a long-suffering sigh.

With one final hard look, Marcus lifts off me, jerking away from us and pacing toward the far wall of the small structure. I rise and take two big steps toward Marcus.

“Who was she to you?” I ask. I try to keep all emotion out of my voice.

Ominira was someone who mattered to Marcus. And I killed her.

Marcus laughs darkly.

“Do you care?” he mutters back. For once, he isn’t smiling, and with his serious countenance, I can see every weathered,tired line on his face and the hardened set of his jaw. The jovial asshole who shadowed Winter whenever I met her at her apartment is all hard edges and vengeance.

“Yes. I care very much,” I reply.

Marcus turns to face me, leaning against the wall with one ankle crossed over the other. He folds his arms and says, “Ominira Adichie was my sister. When she was six years old, she and my mother traveled from Accra to the United States on a visa lottery. My father came to the States earlier and was finally able to bring our mother and one sibling over. Except when they landed in New York, instead of meeting my father, they were taken. I have never found my mother, but she is expected to be dead. My sister, however, was raised on your father’s island.”

I stand there stunned, looking and feeling like an idiot. Ominira and I were not friends, but I saw her often when I visited Isla Cara. She was kind to me.

And I killed her. I could rationalize it and say it was a mercy killing because I know that if I hadn’t done it, someone else would have, and they wouldn’t have given her nearly as much dignity or compassion as her life ended.

But to her brother, none of that matters.

I know that if I were in his shoes and Ella had been the one murdered, I wouldn’t care about the reasons.

I’d just want revenge.

I don’t know what to say, not that there is anything I could say.

“Law, you’re lucky I didn’t shoot you on sight,” Patrick says.

Keegan doesn’t move, instead choosing to continue leaning against the wall.

The guards Misha sent are an interesting bunch, although I haven’t made an effort to know any of them.

The one I’ve spoken to the most is Patrick, which is why I felt confident in sending him along with Winter. Keegan is usuallysilent—a man of few words. I think we’ve shared maybe thirty words with each other, and the most conversation we’ve had was in the helicopter a few hours ago.

But Patrick…he’s a hot head.

A hot head with secrets, apparently.