For the first time since Ryder and I met, I saw tears in his eyes. Whether they were from anger, sadness, or frustration, I didn’t know. I imagined it was some combination of all three. All this time, we were trying to figure out what happened to Orielle, who might’ve killed her, and she was alive and well, staying with her mother.

“Callista, what a surprise,” Veronica said. She’d cooled off somewhat since our initial encounter and was now boiling some tea, probably to calm her own nerves. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably, and she kept wiping them with a tea towel.

I surveyed the house, which looked like thieves had recently ransacked it. “Going somewhere?” All the answers to my questions were so close I could taste them. But I had no idea how to extract them from Veronica’s tight lips. Or Orielle’s, for that matter. Why had she faked her own disappearance?

“We were just about to head out on vacation,” Veronica explained, lips pursed. “Sorry about the mess. I wasn’t expecting visitors. Especially this time of night.”

“You might want to postpone those vacation plans,” Ryder said. “No way in hell I’m letting you two skip town.”

“If I were you, Ryder, I’d watch your mouth,” Veronica warned. “You’re trespassing on my property right now. Give me one good reason not to call the cops on you.”

Ryder laughed. “Go ahead, call them. I’ll wait. I’d love to watch you explain how you reconnected with your long-lost, presumed dead daughter, and are now going on vacation together.”

Veronica dabbed her forehead with a tea towel as she poured tea into four ceramic cups. “Ori came home last night. I was so overwhelmed, I hadn’t had the chance to—”

“Cut the bullshit, Nica,” Ryder spat.

“She—”

“Don’t you dare defend her. I want to hear it from her own mouth.” Ryder turned to Orielle, his gaze so venomous the poison seemed to permeate the room. “Why did you do it? Who put you up to it?”

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Orielle said.

For the first time since we were children, I heard her sweet, clear voice again. It nearly snapped my heart in two. This was the girl who used to braid my hair and sing Disney songs with me. The girl others bullied because she was a little different. The shy bookworm. The aspiring athlete. She wanted to be so many things. She always had such enthusiasm and so much imagination. What happened to her?

“You raped me, Ryder. I wasn’t going to let you get away with it,” Ori said, her bitterness so real it had teeth.

“There are no cops here, so cut the bullshit,” Ryder continued. “You and I both know I never touched you. I’m your half-brother. How—why the fuck would I do something so disgusting?”

Ori shook her head, tears slipping down her thin cheeks. She crushed a tissue box against her chest and yanked out a Kleenex. “I’ve asked myself that question so many times over the past few years. The only answer I could come up with was you’re a monster, and you deserve to rot for the rest of your life.”

I looked at Ryder. Veins bulged from his forehead and his knuckles were white. He looked ready to throttle Orielle. I stepped in and rested a reassuring hand on Ryder. Then, I turned to Ori. “Ori, if you won’t tell him anything, then tell me. We used to be best friends, like sisters. You can tell me anything. If you want some privacy, we can move to another room.”

“No,” Ryder insisted. “Knowing her, she’ll try to run the minute I lose sight of her.”

Orielle lurched up in her chair, then sank down again, on the verge of hyperventilating. It was then that I noticed her dark, empire-waist dress was trying but failing to disguise an obvious baby bump. “How many months?” I asked, gesturing to her swollen belly. Her arms instinctively wrapped around her midsection, and she bit her lips hard.

“Who’s the father?” I asked, hoping the change in conversation would relax her a little. It didn’t. Orielle became even more tense, her shoulders hunched so hard they almost brushed against her earlobes.

“None of your business,” Veronica interrupted. “Why the hell are you here, anyway? Did Rayner send both of you?” She looked dazed and suddenly so old. Almost a grandmother. An overprotective, wild-eyed granny. She looked anything but composed and dignified in that moment.

“I need you to come back to Northbridge with me,” Ryder said, his voice as calm as I’d ever heard it. “Only you can clear my name now, Ori. You can tell them the truth. That’s all I want. I don’t care about all that other bullshit.”

Orielle wiped away all her tears and finally stood up. Veronica tried to pull her back by the wrists, but Orielle shook her mother off. “Clear your name? Clear your name? Don’t make me fucking laugh. You had twenty-two years. Why did you never clear my mother’s name? Huh? You fucking bastard. Don’t you dare preach a goddamn thing to me.”

“Ori,” Veronica gasped. “Please, calm down. For the baby’s sake.”

“No, Mom, I’ve been calm for too long. He needs to know the hell he put my family through. He needs to atone for his sins.” Orielle towered over Ryder and I, her face darkening.

“Ori, please, baby. Have a seat,” Veronica pleaded, tugging on Orielle’s dress.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Ryder exploded, taking a step towards Orielle.

Veronica stood up and shielded Orielle once more, as if her daughter was a fragile figurine. “She’s talking about what you did to me twenty-two years ago. When Ori was only the size of a plum inside my belly.”

“What did I do? Tell me, because I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play dumb, Ryder.” Veronica turned to me. “Do you know what this asshole did to me? He slept with me, then turned me in to the police, saying I raped him. I was charged with five years in prison and a lifetime on the sexual offenders’ list. Do you know what they do to pedophiles in the women’s prison? Do you, Callista?”

I turned to Ryder, eyes filling with tears. “Is what she’s saying true? You sent her to prison…while she was preg—”

“Of course it’s not fucking true!” Ryder interjected. “I fucking loved her. I thought Orielle was my baby. We wanted to build a family together.”

“Then why did you—”

“I didn’t turn her in! Dad beat the shit out of me when he found out about us. He locked me up in the back shed for three days, and then kicked me out for good. Said if I ever came back, he’d kill me. Once I was free, I looked for you everywhere. It wasn’t until after spending months living on the streets that I learned about your arrest. I had no clue what the hell happened and assumed you just got involved with some other man. They never released any names in the media to protect the underage victim…”

“If you didn’t do it, then who—”

“Dad. He fucking set you up. He set us both up,” Ryder said, barely containing his rage. “He planned the whole thing.”

“He wouldn’t go that far—”

“He was mental. Possessive as hell. Jealous. Angry. Of course he’d go that far.”

Veronica sank into her chair, gripping the armrests so tight the seams were about to rip. “For over twenty years, Thomas told me you turned me in and ran away. That you were using me all along. The lawyer said—”

“And you believed him? Instead of trying to find me again, you believed that bastard and whatever lawyer he bribed? You saw what he did to me, Nica. You suffered under his roof. And you still chose to go back to him?”

“I had no choice. He raised Ori when I was in prison. I needed his support. Ori needed her father. I had no one else.”

It was Ryder’s turn to get incensed. “But you weren’t going to let it go, were you? You wanted to get even, so you set me up. Using your own fucking daughter as bait!”

Veronica buried her head in her hands; her manicured nails dug into her sunken cheeks. “It wasn’t like that.”

“It was precisely like that. Everything makes sense now. Everything. No wonder Orielle disappeared. No wonder I was framed. It was all part of your big plan to get back at me.” Ryder let out a frustrated groan and tugged on his hair. “All this time, I thought it was Cally’s dad…but it was you, Nica. You planned this. Even if I could go back in time, I would never clear your name. You’re fucked up in the head, and you will never deserve my sympathy!”

“I didn’t know—” Veronica collapsed against the armrest, her body shaking. “I thought—I was—”

I was stuck in the middle of the chaos, unsure of whose side I was on anymore. I came here wanting to find out what happened to an old friend. The last thing I expected was double-crossing and unimaginable betrayal. Thomas Ainsworth had orchestrated a devastating plan that tore his family apart for over two decades. Now he was a dying man who’d succeeded in exacting revenge on both his son and his cheating wife.

“You weren’t there when I was growing up,” Orielle interrupted, arms folded across her chest. “You weren’t there when bullies at school kicked and scratched me and called me names because my mom was a whore and a pedophile. You weren’t there when I came home with black eyes and dislocated shoulders because the older kids thought I was a slut or the devil’s child. Every time we left the house, someone would recognize Mom from the news and publicly humiliate her. Maybe Dad was an abusive drunk sometimes. Maybe he slapped us both once in a while. But he was the only man, the only fucking man in our lives who would stand up for us. Who would scare off the bullies, ward off the persistent media dogs, and get rid of the protestors and religious fanatics. Maybe Dad was an asshole, a corrupt politician, and a cruel father and husband, but he was also the breadwinner, the one who put a roof over my head, bought me new clothes, a car, anything I wanted. You weren’t there, Ryder. So you don’t get to judge us.”

“I wasn’t there because your mother deliberately kept us apart. Veronica didn’t want me near you. Never gave me the chance to interact with you and explain my side of the story. Don’t you understand? If she hadn’t been so ignorant and prideful all those years ago, I could have cleared your names. I could have saved you from the bullies. Defended both of you. Worked hard to build a life for the three of us, away from Thomas Ainsworth. But you both chose him instead. That was your choice.” Ryder’s entire body shook. I propped up his elbow so he could lean against me for support.

“How were we to know—” Orielle blurted out.

“It was still your choice.”

“What’s your point, Ryder?” Veronica demanded. “It’s been over twenty years. All three of us, no—all four of us, in this fucked-up family, we’re ruined. We’ll never be normal again.”

“You’re wrong, Nica. We can still fix this. Ori, come back with me to Northbridge. You can still make the right choice. We’ll both right all the wrongs. You can clear my name. I’ll clear Nica’s name. We’ll part ways afterwards and never speak again. How about it?”

“It’s not that simple, Ryder,” Orielle said. “It’ll never be that simple. My mother suffered for over twenty years. I suffered all my life. You think all of that can be undone because you’ll finally fess up?”

“I was innocent in all of this, but you make me out to be the villain,” Ryder said, eyes watering. “Where’s the justice in that?”

“Justice was dead the day I was born,” Orielle snapped bitterly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, my mom and I were about to leave.”

Ryder pulled away from me and blocked Orielle’s path. “You know I can’t let you leave now.”

“What, you’re going to kidnap us?” Orielle challenged.

“If I have to, yes.”

“Ryder…” I interrupted. “Maybe…”

“Cally, stay out of this. You wanted to find out what happened to Ori, well now you know. I came here to clear my name, and I can’t do that if I let her get away again.”

“I can’t turn myself in. They’ll arrest me. They’ll ask why I waited all these years…” Orielle explained. “Ryder, I don’t want my daughter born inside a prison. Don’t do this. For your niece’s sake.”

“You should’ve thought of that before you set me up all those years ago.”

Panicked, Orielle sprang up, dug in her heels, and tried to make a run for the door. Ryder stopped her almost immediately, his muscular arm blocking her way. Orielle glared at him then sank her teeth into his forearm. Ryder pulled back, howling in pain. Orielle had drawn blood. The woman had fight in her. She would do anything to protect her baby and her family.

I felt like a bystander in all of this, yet I knew I was the only one who had the power to decide the fate of this family. So I played judge and jury, grabbed Ryder’s burner phone, and dialed 911. Then, I restrained Veronica while Ryder held down Orielle until the police arrived seven minutes later.

It felt like the longest seven minutes of my life. Veronica was only in her early fifties, but physically, she was anorexic and very weak. I had no trouble keeping her in her seat. She’d wasted away, pining after her daughter. She was no longer the vibrant, attractive young woman I remembered as a child. Instead, Veronica looked like a broken woman who’d never be fixed again.

Orielle, on the other hand, was a wild child who looked like she was out for blood. She put up a good fight but was still no match for Ryder.

When the police finally took all of us down to the station, my fear turned to relief, because maybe, just maybe, the three of them would finally get the justice they all deserved.