This is all my fault.

That thought loops in my head as we convene in the living room.

Riker’s on the phone with his Enguard crew, arranging for a personal convoy of trusted personnel to take us back home.

Em’s putting on a brave face, sitting next to me and pretending to read a book. But over the tops of the pages, she never takes her eyes from the comforting sight of her father.

Milah has isolated herself on a deep, plush divan, curling up in one corner and staring sulkily out the window, refusing to talk to anyone. I know her well enough to know she’s angry.

And I know her well enough to know she’s frightened, too.

Worse, this mess is because of me.

I know my sister was the original target, but I just made things messier by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If I hadn’t been at Milah’s place in Seattle when I was, then her security team would’ve handled both those groups of men, and this would’ve been long over.

I’d never have met Riker or Em. Never have become their problem. Never would've put them in danger.

I hate that some selfish part of me can’t stand the idea of never having met these two wonderful people, when it’s my fault Em is pale with sleepless hollows under her eyes, refusing to keep her promise to go to bed until her father can see her safely to sleep.

It’s my fault that little knot of stress and tension wrinkles above the bridge of Riker’s nose.

It’s my fault everyone was almost shot tonight.

It's my fault we're stuck here, under lockdown in the world's fanciest panic room.

Riker pulls his phone away and drops it into his pocket, then sweeps the gathered assembly with a long look.

“We’re staying until Sunday night,” he says. “Landon’s coming for us with an armored convoy then. It’s safer than us trying to get back to another airport on our own, even with police support, and we won’t have to worry about walking into an ambush on landing again. But it’s going to take some wrangling and paperwork to get that kind of heavy armor and artillery over the border without causing an incident.”

Milah wrinkles her nose. “Freaking tanks? Is all of that really necessary?”

The look Riker shoots her is guarded and thoughtful. “Not tanks. Armored cars. Yeah, it is necessary if you want to go home alive. I never should've agreed to this in the first place. Should’ve known something was up. How did they even know where we’d be? Who told them where to find us, and at just the right time?”

My sister’s eyes widen, and she stares at Riker. “What are you implying? That I set this up?”

“I’m implying something isn’t right,” Riker growls coolly, “and that you may have been taken advantage of. No, I don’t believe you’d knowingly put your sister in danger. That doesn’t mean this doesn't reek to hell and back.”

“That’s not my fault!” Milah cries, balling her fists.

“No one’s saying it is, sis,” I soothe. “Look, we’re all raw right now. We’ve got two days cooped up together trying to be as safe as possible. Let’s get some rest and maybe in the morning we can talk things through some more.”

No one answers. Not even James, the only one of us who seems completely unfazed by the situation, his expression icy calm as he flicks through his phone, the light reflecting from the lenses of his glasses.

It’s not hard to see that tensions are high, and we’re all a little freaked out, but I just...I just can’t stand my sister and this man who makes my heart hurt in all new ways fighting with each other. Not now.

Especially when I need to ask Milah a few questions myself, but I need privacy.

“Daddy?” Em chirps softly. “I’m tired.”

I know Em well enough by now to know she does that on purpose.

She’s too smart, perceptive, and she knows that as the child here, she can give everyone reasons to back down without conceding ground, because someone needs to take care of her. I flash her a grateful smile. She beams a tired one back at me.

Riker sighs, pressing two fingers against his temple before his shoulders slump and he offers Em a weary smile. “I’ll tuck you in, love. We'll talk.”

Em nods, closing her book and clutching it to her chest as she climbs off the couch. “Okay.”

Riker sweeps us all with a measured look, lingering on me the longest. “After Em’s asleep, I need to go tour the property and check for anything suspicious. We’ll talk later,” he tells everyone.

But I know, from the way he lingers, he really means me.

It’s not long before Milah and I are alone. Em and Riker have left, and James excuses himself to his room with a cordial goodnight. Milah’s still sulking, refusing to look at me. Sigh.

“Is there a reason you’re pissed at me?” I ask her.

Milah flinches, then scrunches her nose up before hanging her head. “I’m not. Not at you. Just feels like I’m being put on trial here for this entire thing.”

“I think that might be your guilt talking, sis.”

“Whatever. Probably.” She uncurls herself, standing. She looks about ready to drop, and she should go to bed, I think, but she offers me a humorless smile of pure exhaustion and asks, “Hey, wanna go sit by the fire pit? It's a nice night.”

“Should we be out in the open? Riker might worry.”

Milah actually looks horrified. “You think the fire pit’s outside? Um, do you know what a mosquito bite would do to my skin?”

I hang my head, struggling not to laugh.

Same old Milah.

And it’s same old Milah when she shows me her custom-designed patio – an entire glass enclosure looking out over the stars, with a few screened panels to let fresh air in and keep bugs out.

This fire pit is an elegant thing set right into the stone floor, sunken into the ground, and the casual seating scattered around looks like it was stolen from the Palace at Versailles. Milah drapes herself dramatically along a chaise. Very Marilyn Monroe.

I find myself a deep upholstered easy chair and tuck myself into it, hugging a pillow to my chest.

“Okay,” I say. “Now, what’s really going on? Why bring us up here? I thought this was your private sanctum. Not even family allowed.”

Milah cringes and flings an arm over her eyes. “I just wanted to talk to you alone, and then when the Daddy train wanted to tag along, I couldn’t think of a good reason to say no.”

“Phone calls are good for private convos, Mimi. You didn’t have to drag me to Canada.” I study her closely, the way her skin looks especially thin over her inner elbows, blue veins showing.

I hate that I can’t tell if the shadows under her eyes are withdrawals or just the shade of her sprawling arm. “Be real with me. How bad is it?”

That’s when Milah goes stone-still.

She drops the sulky party girl act, and I get to see my real sister.

There’s Milah, the pop starlet, and then there’s Milah, my sister – and Milah, my sister, is a quiet and brooding woman, sensitive and vulnerable and full of tortured, self-recriminating thoughts that drive her to extremes. She’s always been this way. When we were girls, she'd take bigger and bigger risks to be the center of attention, even if it meant hurting herself.

She’d fall off a stair railing after claiming she could run down it in heels. She’d mess around with dangerous boys who didn’t know how to take no for an answer. She’d drink herself into a stupor.

If I had to guess, I’d say she was a junior in high school when she started with the drugs, but I’m not sure.

I just know that once, long long ago, she wasn’t like this.

Then one day, when she was ten and I was eight, I found her with her mouth bloody and her dress ripped, sobbing into her skinned kneecaps. She would never tell me what happened. She still won’t.

But she became a different girl that day, and it felt like she was trying to take on all the bad things in the world so they couldn’t touch me.

Which is why I try so hard, no matter what, to be a good thing for her and, in my own way, protect her right back.

Without her party girl mask, Milah’s eyes seem a darker, steadier blue. She bites her lip, flaking off day-old lipstick.

“Feels like it’s eating me, you want to know the truth,” she whispers. “Goddamn. I thought it'd be better after all this time, but...”

I’m out of the chair in a moment and over to her chaise, settling on the edge, gathering her into my arms. Shaking, she huddles against me, burying her face against my stomach. Her arms are like narrow bands of steel around my hips and stomach. I stroke her hair and kiss the top of her head.

“Remember what your therapist said,” I murmur. “It’s always going to come and go. It'll never be completely gone, but the important thing to remember when it comes is that it will go again. It'll pass. It won’t hurt forever, Mimi.”

The wretched sound she makes nearly breaks me.

“I need you home, Livvie,” she sobs. “Daddy needs you home. It's just...it’s not the same without you, it –”

I stiffen. That’s when it all makes sense. That's when it sinks in.

Daddy set this up.

He used Milah and her withdrawals to get at me because he knows I can’t resist my sister when she’s in pain. He’s manipulating her to manipulate me into coming back home to Seattle, and to him.

I should be furious, but there's one question I can't get past.

Why?

Why go through all this trouble to pay Enguard to keep me safe, then play these weird games to get me to come home?

Is my father more involved in this than I realized?

I know he’s one of the targets, but I always thought it was just tertiary to Milah. That she was the main focus, and we were just collateral damage to scare her and even the score for their two dead men. Maybe I’ve been around Riker too long and I’m absorbing his suspicious nature and jumping to too many conclusions, but now?

Now, I’m not so sure.

Jesus. When did I become so mistrustful of my own father?

Then again, when he’s always looked right through me...

Did I ever really trust him in the first place?

“Milah,” I say carefully. I don’t want to set her off. This whole thing may be a farce, but her pain is too real. “Did Daddy ask you to bring me home?”

She whimpers, her hold tightening on me. “Please. Don’t be mad.”

It takes everything in me not to explode.

“Why? People are still after us. Home's the easiest place to get all of us together in one place to take us out together. It doesn't make sense.”

“It does, though!” she protests. “It’s safe. It wasn’t safe before, but Daddy’s put in new security systems and hired an entirely new security team. There are armed guards everywhere. It’s okay now. It’s okay to come home.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

Milah blinks, lifting her head, looking up at me with confused, tear-streaked eyes. “Huh?”

“I mean, what if I don’t want to come home? What if I’m enjoying life without having everything handed to me?”

She looks puzzled, staring blankly. “Sooo, what? You mean you want to keep playing house with Senor Daddy Issues?”

“I feel safer with him than I would at home.”

I feel seen with Riker, too. I feel appreciated. I feel alive.

But I can’t say that to Milah.

She pouts. “Daddy’s really falling apart without you, Liv. You keep everything together in one piece.”

“So hire a secretary. Hell, hire ten.”

“He has a secretary. It’s not that. Logistics, I mean. It’s more –”

“I’m a piece of furniture to him,” I say. “A prop. I might be his favorite chair, but I’m still a chair, Mimi. I’m tired of being invisible, but essential. Sick of being kept.”

Milah flumps against me sullenly. “Look, at least you aren’t the one he parades around like a show poodle on a leash. You should consider yourself lucky. You get to be invisible.”

“I don’t want to be invisible!” I flare. “I don’t want to just stand around doing nothing. I want to do things. For myself, for other people. Daddy’s acting like a kid who lost his comfort blanket. When your role in someone’s life can be replicated by a fetish object, you’re not really part of their life at all.”

“Oh come on, Livvie, don’t be that way –”

“What way?”

I can’t be here. I feel for Milah, I do. She’s as dependent on Daddy as Daddy is on me, this weird triangle of emotional crutches.

And I know she’s shaky, but right now she’s in the safest place she can possibly be without being in police custody, and I’m ready to scream. I don’t know where this sudden rage and frustration and pain and tension are coming from. Maybe it's over twenty years of bottling up every emotion to be the passive, meek, perfectly invisible daughter.

But if I don’t get out of here, I’m going to say some things I’ll regret – and possibly hurt Milah beyond repair.

I peel away from her clinging embrace, shaking off her clutching hands and doing my best to ignore the instinct to cave to her wounded look. I rise, backing away a few steps, toward the glass door leading out onto the lawn.

“I’m not being any kind of way, Milah,” I say. “And I need you to understand that. I’m being me, and it scares me that I’m this old, and I don’t even know who that is. I want to find out. I want to find out what kind of spark is inside me and if it could ever burn as bright as a flame, before Daddy smothers it enough to snuff it out.”

I can tell by Milah’s stare that she doesn’t understand.

Of course she doesn’t. I don’t think she knows who she is, either, but she’s spent her whole life exploding everywhere trying to find out, while I’ve just curled smaller and smaller inside myself.

Before she says anything else, I turn and walk away.

My name floats after me, echoing off the glass walls of her glittering cage as I dash through the door and out into the night.

I make it to the tree line before a stitch in my side reminds me this is likely the worst in a long string of bad ideas.

I slow down, bending over and catching my breath. My sandals weren’t made for running, and it’s dark and I feel like the biggest idiot in the world.

My father likes to tease me about how I was such a quiet baby. I never cried, supposedly, never threw tantrums.

Now I feel like I’m making up for lost time, acting like a little girl who didn’t get her way.

No. No, I’m not.

I’m acting like someone who’s been locked away forever but couldn’t even see the gold bars of her prison – only to finally recognize them and start rattling and screaming to be let out.

I’m not going back, I realize.

Not to that life. I can’t stay with Riker and Em forever, sure, but I’m going to make a life of my own one way or another. Maybe I’ll do something with my books. Or maybe I’ll end up waitressing in a dirty dive and renting a single room in a shared apartment with four other strangers I’ll love one day and hate the next. It doesn’t matter.

All that matters is that I get to choose.

I straighten, staring into the darkness, the trees.

Milah’s property is massive enough to have its own forest even inside the electric fence, and I can just make out a dirt jogging trail slipping between the trees.

I need air. I need to clear my head, because I know I’m thinking crazy. I’m stressed, scared, running on fumes and adrenaline, not even close to processing the shock and trauma of getting shot at.

So while I might be firm in my resolve...I think I need a walk to calm down before I go back to that house and have a real talk with my sister.

My heart trembles just a little as I head down the trail, but honestly, I’m too tired to be afraid.

Riker’s out checking the perimeter. There’s only so much that can happen in one night. I can’t help but feel the dark closing in on me as I make my way over loose gravel and silty dirt, but I don’t think anything out there can scare me more than the thoughts inside my own head.

I’m so wrapped up in my brain that I only halfway notice the trail starting to slope down through narrow, swaying pines that spear up against a clear night sky. I subconsciously adjust my stride, reaching out for an overhanging tree limb to brace myself as the path takes a sharp turn.

Then a large, loose rock slips under my heel, and suddenly the world goes tumbling away.

I let out a sharp scream as I hit the ground with a whoosh, the night tilting by and my breath punching out of my lungs. Mother Nature’s not done with me yet.

This slope is steeper than I thought. Suddenly, the gravel’s a conveyer belt, speeding me down the hill.

I shriek, pulse slamming, everything flashing by as I grab on desperately for anything I can, but it all slips through my fingers: twigs, brush, fallen branches, dead leaves, grass.

They're scraping my palms raw in a hot burn of pain but nothing else.

My life flashes before my eyes in all its wondrous, dull monotony. I realize I’m about to die with my greatest accomplishment in life being learning how to smile pretty and stand just far enough behind Daddy, when the ground drops out under me and gravity yanks my stomach down with my body not far behind.

I’m going to die at the bottom of a cliff, and it’ll be weeks before anyone finds my body.

Another shriek rips out of me as the fall drags me down, and I’m already bracing for long seconds of terror – only to slam up hard after barely half a second, landing on soft earth.

“Soft” doesn’t stop it from jarring up through me hard enough to make my teeth snap together and my skull jolt, whipping back on my neck. I lie there groaning, pain throbbing through me like a heartbeat, a full-body bruise. A sharp twinge in my leg tells me I’ve probably sprained it.

Ugh. Carefully, I push myself onto my back so I can look up.

I’m at the bottom of a shallow pit. I can hear water nearby, a big stream, probably something dug by fishermen or loggers long ago. It’s not too deep, but I don’t think I can get out of it on my own with my ankle like this. The sky is a circle of blue overhead – blue and little twinkling lights, like a bowl full of stars. I count them as I catch my breath, waiting for my head to stop spinning.

Welp.

At least I didn’t die.

Riker’s going to be so mad at me.

“—iv? Liv!”

I smile because I must’ve hit my head harder than I thought.

That’s Riker’s voice, calling my name with a stark desperation, ragged with emotion I’d never thought I’d hear from anyone. Not for me.

“Liv, fuck! Hold on. I'm coming.”

It's really him. Not a hallucination.

My heart leaps – with relief, I tell myself, only relief and nothing else – as I strain up on my elbows.

“Riker.” Too soft. I choke and spit out dirt, taking in a deep breath and swallowing before trying again. “Riker!”

“Liv!”

“I’m over here. I’m over here!”

I hear something crashing through the brush like a bear.

Holy hell. Please, please don't let it be an actual bear. That’s more than I can take right now. But I can hear Riker mutter to himself, cursing with those crashes, and I realize what's happening too little, too late.

“Riker, don’t, there’s a pit!”

He's undaunted. I get one glimpse of his tall, thickly powerful body silhouetted against the night before it comes hurtling down right on top of me.

I’d never realized the weight of a man could be so heavy – this thing of stone crushing me, only stone isn’t this warm and sinewy and doesn’t smell like Riker, that deep smoky scent that wraps me up as much as his heat, mixing with the sharp, crisp stinging scent of crushed pine needles.

Somehow, his arms are around me, as if by lifting me into his bulk he could minimize the bruising force slamming into me. Somehow, he’s buried his face in my throat, his beard teasing against my skin and tracing the sensitive hollow where my collarbones meet.

It hurts. It hurts where his weight digs in, but I don’t care, because nothing could possibly hurt more than the raw, desperate burst of longing for the man tumbled on top of me right now.

Pure stillness, save for the rasp of our breathing, the chirp of crickets, and the whisper of my beating heart, slowed down to a soft and almost frightened thing. I am afraid, right now. Afraid of what I’m feeling. Afraid of getting my heart broken.

Afraid of the heat surging through me in wild, sweet flares, leaping through my veins, as Riker pushes himself up on his elbows, and the shift in position molds his entire body intimately close to mine.

The tip of his nose brushes mine as he looks down. His chest heaves with shallow, swift breaths, pushing out to crush against my breasts, dragging my dress and my bra against my flesh and suddenly making me aware of my body in a way I’ve never known before.

As I look up into darkened green eyes, I feel like a woman. Not just a thing of limbs and bone that happens to breathe on this earth.

I feel how soft I am compared to his masculine hardness, how small I am compared to his bulk.

I feel every nerve in my body tingling, radiating waves pouring out to the very tips of my fingers.

I know the weight and fullness of my breasts and how they seem to ache for his touch, and I know the swell and softness of my stomach, leading down to a tightness between my legs and a tension in my thighs.

I know a gnawing, hard pull inside that whispers how it might feel to just spread my legs to either side of Riker’s hips, and to discover just how hot and delicious it'd be if he moved against me just right.

And I know him as a man, too, when he shifts on top of me and I feel something hard, something thick, something hotter than even the fire building between us rubbing against my hips and stomach.

I breathe in sharply, air licking over my tingling, sensitive lips.

Riker still hasn’t said anything, his body tenses, bulk hardened into steel, and I struggle to find something, anything to break the stillness between us before it shatters into a scream.

“Are you all right?” My voice is raw inside me, breaking, throaty, coming from somewhere deep that seems to give away secrets I’m afraid to tell.

Riker’s gaze drops, watching my lips as they move on the words, and the warmth inside me spreads further, deeper, in a liquid flush.

“Don’t think I broke anything,” he whispers, a low growl under the words, all fire and wild. “You?”

“My ankle,” I breathe. “I don’t think it’s broken, but probably sprained.”

“Which ankle?”

“Left.”

I expect him to lift off me, to check my foot, but he doesn’t move.

He’s so close I can make out the faint flecks of gold against the green of his eyes, glimmering like fireflies in the dark.

So close his every breath lets me taste the hint of coffee he drank on the flight here, mingling with his natural cologne of everything intensely masculine.

So close his body heat melts through me like he’s a hearth on a cold winter night.

And then that melting turns into something like napalm pooling between my thighs until my panties cling to my skin and I catch a scent that I think is me, creamy and soft and sweet and with just enough sultry-hot musk to whisper the forbidden.

I want this man so much it hurts.

Riker's nostrils flare. He senses it too, this mating call turning animal between us, pure primal call and response, and a low growl begins to rumble in his chest and roll through us both.

His head dips toward me, closing that last distance, and my lips part in yearning, in need, in hunger, and in every question and answer that’s ever waited inside me to be found.

“Riker?” James’ cool voice calls over the woods. “I heard shouting, a crash...you need backup?”

Riker and I both freeze.

I expect him to close behind that familiar mask, but instead he lets out a low, self-mocking laugh that’s half groan and all thrill when it feels like he’s letting me in on the joke between us.

His head drops between his shoulders, resting on my collarbone for just a moment, his lips and beard moving so close to my chest that my entire body tightens.

It’s an oddly intimate moment, sweet, and I want so much to wrap my arms around him. Want it so bad, but I restrain myself.

Barely.

He lifts his head, looking up toward the edge of the pit, and calls, “Could use a hand, James, but nothing to worry about.”

James’ voice sounds closer. “What the hell happened?”

“Was doing a perimeter walk and heard Liv scream. Looks like she slipped on the path and fell in a gravel pit.” He glances at me with a questioning lift of his brows. I nod before he smirks and continues, “Dumbass that I am, I fell in after her.”

James’ exasperated sigh carries over the night, before his head appears over the side of the pit, looking down at us with flat disgust. “What am I going to do with you?”

Riker rocks back, pushing himself up onto his knees, practically straddling me – then shifts to roll off me, before those strong, thick arms I love so much slide underneath me and lift me up against his chest.

“Just take Liv,” he says, lifting me higher. “Mind her left ankle. I’ll get myself out.”

There’s a flash of vertigo as I’m lifted over Riker’s head.

I feel like I’m going to fall again, but then James slips his arms under me, pulling me against his chest. It doesn’t feel the same as Riker – colder, sharper, James’ suit scratching at me – but I don’t have to stay with him for long.

In a powerful heave of muscle, Riker hauls himself out of the pit. Even in the darkness of night, he’s beautifully dirty, his shirt streaked with earth and the top button popped off to expose a tuft of chest hair, a scratch bleeding down his cheek and mud smudged along his sweat-glistening throat and jaw.

He takes a minute to shake his body out, not even looking fazed by the fall, before he’s there, taking me from James with a look that howls possession.

I have to be imagining that.

I hit myself too hard.

Right?

But I’m not imagining how close and tight Riker holds on as he cradles me against him and flicks James a look. “Go on ahead and ask the house staff for a first aid kit. I’ll be right behind. Don’t want to jostle Liv too much.”

James responds with one of those heavily skeptical looks, then just snorts and turns away. Like a shadow, he melts into the woods, leaving us alone.

Riker looks down at me for the better part of a minute, something like a promise glimmering in his eyes, before he curls his arms tighter and sets off toward the trail.

“It’ll be all right,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you.”

I tuck my head under his chin – and he lets me.

I can feel his heart against my shoulder, and it’s beating so wild, as manic as mine. I hurt all over, but I hardly feel it when this warmth is stronger, brighter, louder.

“I know,” I whisper. Then I close my eyes and sink into him.

His hands are strong, seeming to promise they’ll hold me together.

No matter what comes next.

I don’t remember falling asleep. But I must have, lulled by the gentle rhythm of Riker’s strides, because the next thing I know, I’m waking up in the dark with the softness of a bed under my sore, aching body.

I can feel something tight and grainy on my ankle. Probably a bandage or a wrap, but the compression feels good against the dull, steady pain.

I crack one eye open. I’m in a large, lush guest bed in a darkened room that's not mine.

My shoes are gone. I’m nestled under the covers, still in my dress. I’m clean, too, the feeling of grit and dirt wiped away. My scratches sting, but not as much as they could.

And I’m not alone.

A mountain breathes next to me, quiet and slow. Riker.

He’s sprawled out shirtless, thick corded muscle rising and falling in weathered, tanned swells, his normally-combed hair a tangled mess against the pillow, his lips parted on quietly grumbling, drowsy breaths.

His chest is a swarthy plain of hard chisels dusted with deep-brown, curling hair and fatal tattoos, and I think if not for the heavy, burly arm pinning me in place and making it hard to move, I wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to run my hands through that pelt and tangle my fingers in it.

Oh my God.

I’m tucked up against Riker.

He’s holding me.

And my entire body feels so hot, so electric. If I move, I'm sure I’ll shower sparks.

If I don’t pull away from him right now, I’m going to do something rash and reckless.

I feel like being wild, like letting my hair down for the first time in my life, but throwing myself at Riker isn’t the best way to do it.

I want to talk to him first, to know if I’m misreading the way he touches me, the way he looks at me, the way he’s holding me right now. But I don’t want to wake him, either.

I need to get this energy out somewhere, assuming I can even walk.

No way to test but try, so I very, very slowly wiggle my way out from underneath him and replace my body with a pillow, nudging it underneath his arm.

He snorts a little, then settles, sighing.

I linger for a moment, fondly watching his sleeping face, then slip my legs over the side of the bed and stand gingerly.

There’s a twinge from my ankle, but it holds my weight and I barely even limp.

It’s just a mild sprain, probably hurt more when it happened. With one last look at Riker, I pad to the door and step out into the hall.

Immediately, the sound of my father’s voice beckons me from down the hall.

I get a crawling chill that I can’t quite explain.

What's going on? Daddy? Here?

No – his voice is crackly, too distant to be natural.

He’s on speakerphone. His voice is coming from the master bedroom suite down the hall. I see the door cracked, light spilling out, and I hear Milah countering, her voice agitated and shrill.

I shouldn’t eavesdrop, but I’m still upset and confused over this whole mess with my Dad and Milah conspiring to get me home like this entire angry crime syndicate thing isn’t happening.

I need to know what’s going on. I creep closer to the door and lean against the wall, taking the opportunity to take my weight off my ankle. Just inside I can glimpse Milah pacing back and forth, her hair swinging like an angry cat’s tail.

“Look,” she says. “I’ve tried everything. She doesn’t want to listen, Daddy. And no, I don’t get what the big deal is. Why do I have to do this? Livvie’s an adult. She can do what she wants. Last I checked, we were more worried about who’s trying to kill her, not who’s babysitting.”

Our father’s voice barks back from her phone speaker. I can just barely see it glowing on the nightstand. “Have you forgotten everything I’ve done for you, Milah?”

His voice is cajoling, coaxing, the kind of tone that makes it hard to focus on what he’s actually saying even as the guilt trip hits you in the gut like a sledgehammer. He’s good at that. “All I’m asking is this one tiny thing from you, and it’s too much?”

Milah’s pacing stops. She drops into baby girl voice, syrupy and sulking. “But Daddy...”

“You can ‘but Daddy’ me, babe, but remember that doesn’t work on me any more than it worked when you were begging for another hit. I covered for you, Milah. I paid for rehab. All in the hopes that someday you’d get better. You are better now, aren’t you, baby girl?”

I've never wanted to hit my father so hard in my life.

I'm going to be sick.

You don't do this to recovering addicts. You don’t pressure them to magically get better or treat them like their recovery status determines if they’re worthy of basic human consideration.

If this is what Daddy’s been doing all this time, then it's no wonder Milah backslides so hard, so often.

No wonder she breaks down out of the blue when it really does seem like she's making progress.

No. Fucking. Wonder.

Yet this clicks together with a dawning realization, too. I knew something wasn’t right with our father, and it’s not hard to see now that he has some kind of end game in mind.

He wants me home for some reason other than what’s being said, and I have a feeling he knows more about the incident with the Pilgrims than he lets on.

Why else would he be so calm when the two daughters he supposedly loves more than anything in the world are on a mob hit list?

God, maybe I’m just being paranoid. I don’t know.

My head’s spinning in too many directions. I don’t know what to think when I feel like I’m looking at a puzzle with half the pieces missing. I'm losing my mind.

Milah’s still talking, though, and I pull myself out of my swirling thoughts to listen.

“Yeah...I guess I’m better,” she says, her voice small. Weak, submissive, totally not my world-famous sister. A thing that hurts me to hear when I don’t think she’s even aware of it, unlike her pouty baby girl act. “I can try, maybe? I mean, I don’t think she’ll listen, but...”

“Of course she’ll listen to you,” Daddy oozes out. “You’re her sister. Do your best, baby girl. I’ll be waiting.”

The call ends, the phone emitting a little bloop.

I hear a groan, then a rustle of cloth, and peer around the door carefully to glimpse Milah slumping into a chair next to the bed. An open, half-empty bottle of champagne sits on the nightstand, and she swipes it up by the neck and takes a long, mournful pull, tipping her head all the way back.

I can’t stand to see her like this, but I’m not sure if I should intervene.

Until she opens the drawer of the nightstand and pulls out a little clear baggie with fine white powder in the bottom.

No.

She’s barely shaken it, barely torn it open to start laying out a neat line of bone white on the dresser when I have the door open, barging in without thinking.

“Mimi, don’t.”

Milah jumps with a little squeak, the baggie flying.

She snatches at it, but I dive across the floor.

Okay, so I’m not exactly an action hero here. I trip on my bad ankle and get lucky.

Our hands collide, grasping for the baggie, but I’m the one who manages to grab hold of it, even if I get my face and hands dusted with white powder for the trouble. I immediately snap my hands behind my back with the baggie clutched inside. Milah tries to reach around me, keening softly, grabbing.

I take a step back, out of reach, and square my shoulders before saying firmly, “No.”

Milah stares up at me like I’m some new species she’s never seen.

Then she just crumples, drooping forward with a whimper, pressing her face against her thighs, small and forlorn with her kimono-style robe draped around her. “Goddamn it, Liv, just once. Just this once to make it stop!”

“You know it won’t make anything stop,” I say. “Why do you want it so bad now? Is it because of Daddy? Does he make you feel so bad you need it?”

Milah says nothing, turning her face to the side, staring dully across the room. That scares me.

It scares me more than I want to admit.

Because maybe, just maybe, as bad as I thought I had it with Dad, Milah’s had it worse all these years. And maybe I never noticed because I was invisible to her, too, and as long as I didn’t look too close, it didn’t have to hurt when she didn’t look back.

I bite my lip. “Milah...please. Tell me the truth. What’s going on with Daddy?”

I can already tell by how her mouth twists that she’s not going to tell me.

Not everything, anyway. She wraps her arms around herself, shaking her head.

“He’s just being proud, that’s all. You know how it goes. He thinks he can take care of you better than Enguard and he’s really getting hung up on it. You know what he’s like when you take a hit at his ego.”

I’m not buying that for a second, but I don’t know what else to say, do, or ask.

I just sigh and limp across her room to push the bathroom door open and step inside. The plastic baggie splashes in the toilet, then swirls away with a whoosh.

When I step back out, Milah’s hunched down, her shoulders practically touching her ears.

“I’m sorry,” she says, staring at her knees. “I just...when the craving hits...” Her eyes brim, fat wet droplets pooling on her lower lashes. “Why am I so broken, Livvie? Why can’t I just walk away from this?”

“You aren’t broken, Mimi. And you can’t walk away because if it was that easy, we wouldn’t have addicts at all.” I’m still so mad at her, but I can’t be cruel to her right now.

Leaning down, I rest my brow to hers. “Your body’s just confused, that’s all. It thinks it needs something it doesn’t need like it’s life or death, so it’s sending you the wrong signals. We’re going to ignore those signals and look for the right ones, and what the right ones say now is that your body needs sleep.”

Milah nods mutely and lets me help her to her feet.

It's times like this she’s almost childlike, letting me help her into bed and tuck her up close. I take the bottle of champagne into the bathroom and pour the rest of it down the sink so she can’t gateway herself into going for another fix again, then sit with her, stroking her hair, until she falls asleep in a shaking, clammy knot of miserable whimpers.

I don’t doubt that she’s in real, genuine pain. Real need.

But I can’t let her have any more of that mess that was ruining her life.

And the second she’s asleep, I pull off what has to be the first completely silent room shakedown in history.

Tiptoeing everywhere, I check in and under drawers, in the closet, even under the mattress, creeping a hand in to keep from waking her and making her go all Princess and the Pea on me. I peek under boxes, turn out her purse, even look inside the toilet tank.

Nothing.

I’m hoping that was her last stash, but just to be safe, I check the areas of the house she frequents, too. I’ll have to do a more thorough check tomorrow since my ankle is starting to hurt like hell and it’s well after midnight.

I took care of my sister. Now I need to take care of myself, too, and after the last twenty-four hours, I need the kind of sleep you can only have when you’ve nearly died twice and can’t remember if you even ate dinner.

I should go back to my room, but I don’t want Riker to wake up and worry when he finds me gone.

Yes. That’s my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.

That’s my reason why, after a few minutes in my own room to change into a clean nightie, I creep back into his room on silent mouse feet, crawling back into the me-shaped space left in the bed's wrinkles.

That’s my reason for easing that pillow out of the space between his arms, and gently inserting myself back where I belong.

That’s my reason for curling up and burrowing into his chest, letting his warmth and smoky scent completely surround me until I feel sheltered and safe and so deliciously hot.

That’s my reason.

Not because Riker’s world taming arms are the best place to hide from the terrifying thoughts that threaten to permanently destroy my life.