Monica Bosworth has eyes that could cut gemstones.

I’ve known this since I was a little girl. When no one else is looking, she gives me glares and once-overs, the skin around her orbs tight and contemplative. She evaluates me like I’m a specimen she’s trying to understand.

Or eradicate.

And right now?

Definitely eradicate.

Lindsay makes a gasping choke, the kind of sound you hear when someone expires. It’s the sound of everything she knows about herself dying. She’s alive, though. More than alive. I can tell from the different expressions that migrate across her face in real time that she’s processing all of it second by second, realization by realization.

I am just there, frozen and silent, unable to find a single, solitary way to connect with anyone in the room.

Even Silas.

Monica turns to Marshall, her voice so flat and even. It’s like a steamroller is ironing out her words. “We have a situation now, Marshall. We need to control the information. Who else knows this?”

Silas won’t stop looking at me.

Drew wraps his arm around Lindsay’s shoulders and stares straight ahead. His neutral demeanor is one that comes from exquisite control. Underneath the surface, it’s very clear that he would rather have his hands around his mother-in-law’s throat right now, squeezing every spare drop of oxygen from her lifeless body.

“I don’t know, Monica,” Marshall says, drawing out his words deliberately. “You tell me. Who else knows this?”

Flinching but recovering quickly, she looks at Lindsay. “I would prefer to answer questions privately.”

“What you prefer doesn’t matter, Mother,” Lindsay slings back. “What you prefer has been the dictate of my entire life. I’m done. I’ve been done for a very, very long time, but this? This takes the cake. You slept with someone else? Daddy isn’t my father? You lied to me all these years?”

I stand, my chair falling over behind me, one of the rolling wheels scraping hard along my calf at a diagonal. It stings, so I know I’ll bleed. The pain is nice. I could sit with the pain. Make friends with it.

Pain can be a source of comfort when chaos is your only alternative.

Senator Harwell Bosworth, the man expected to be the next president of the United States, is my father. Hidden in plain sight. My entire life, I’ve been led to believe that my father killed himself when my mother was pregnant.

And now?

It turns out I’ve spent my entire life around him and didn’t know.

“The rumors,” I hiss, drawing out the last consonant like a snake’s kiss. “The rumors about you and my mom. They’re true. Oh, Mom. Oh, God, Mom,” I moan, starting to lose my breath, dropping the tether line that keeps me connected to the world. Silas’s hand is warm on mine, but it’s not enough.

Nothing I know about myself is true.

The one person in the world I could trust unconditionally is dead.

Yet she’s now the person in my life who has betrayed me the most.

Monica opens her mouth, steely eyes staring at me through narrow slits. She opens her mouth as if she’s about to say something, then shuts it tight. Good. Because if Monica Bosworth says one direct word to me, I’ll be arrested.

For assault.

The press wants to milk me for scandals? Oh, I’ll give them one.

It hits me.

I’m not the scandal here.

Monica is.

“WHO?” Lindsay screams. Monica jerks like she’s being executed by a firing squad and Lindsay’s one-word demand is a bullet that wounds but misses the lethal mark. “WHO IS MY FATHER? WHO DID YOU SCREW, MOTHER?”

All of the air in Monica drains out of her, like a tire deflating, a hot-air balloon being decommissioned, a soul entering certain hell. Drew watches her, protective arm around Lindsay, but he drops it as Lindsay jumps to her feet, crosses the room, and slaps Monica with a crack so hard, it almost breaks the woman’s shell.

Almost.

Eyes unfocused, mouth drawn, face like marble chiseled in prison, Monica just takes the hit.

I’ve never seen anything like it.

Fear spikes through my body, sudden and unexpected. The prickly sensation in my veins, on my skin, in my pores, is so all-consuming. It robs me of speech. All I can do is stare.

All I can do is freeze.

“ANSWER ME!” Lindsay screams again, this time curling her hand into a fist, elbow pulling back, the expected punch caught by the quick reflexes of her own husband.

“Don’t,” Drew says, his voice filled with heavy anguish. “Please. She’s the wife of a presidential candidate. I can’t let you assault her, no matter how much you want to.” His voice drops so, so low, and yet I can hear him when he adds, “Or how much I want to.”

“She deserves it.” Lindsay’s voice sounds like a demon.

“And so do I.”

We all turn toward the new voice to find the senator in the doorway, looking at Monica with so much compassion. It’s almost unseemly, like we’ve been invited to watch them have sex. Her tear-filled eyes meet his and it hits me.

He knew.

He knew all along.

How many more secrets do they share?

“You knew,” I gasp, my breath hot against my tongue, sour and sweet at the same time, lightly flavored with salt from tears I only now realize are running down my face.

Lindsay catches my eye, her look so raw and vulnerable. We’re connected. We’re not sisters–different mothers, and different fathers–but our sisterhood is here nonetheless, our bond forged by lies.

Monica, Harry, Anya–they all lied to us.

And who is the fourth? Who is Lindsay’s biological father?

Monica ignores me. Harry looks at me with a steely expression, his jaw set, body tight and formal, but his eyes–oh, those eyes. I didn’t know a person could plead for mercy with just the skin around the eyes.

Somehow, he does.

“No,” I say, shaking my head, breaking his gaze. “No.”

“No, what?” Silas asks under his breath. “What’s wrong?” He clears his throat and squeezes my hand. “Aside from the obvious.”

“I can’t.” I drop his hand and pivot on one very shaky, rubbery leg. I’m half turned toward the door. Marshall is standing, frozen, taking in the sight of Harry, who now looks at his wife with very different eyes than the ones I got.

“If anyone deserves to be slapped, it’s me,” Harry says.

“That can be arranged, Daddy,” Lindsay spits out.

“Lindsay, I–”

“You knew,” she says, interrupting, mirroring what I’m thinking. “Who is he? Mom won’t tell me. You know everything, right? Of course you do. You always know more than you let on. That’s your job, isn’t it? That’s how politics works. Keep secrets and tell lies and leverage what you know to make sure you have more power than anyone else.”

Harry looks at her with tenderness.

It’s the look you give a child you’ve raised and nurtured since birth.

I have to leave. I will my body to move, but it won’t. Trapped by my own frozen impulse, my breath going in and out of my lungs without any effort on my part, I am paralyzed by too many thoughts. So many. It’s as if they’re coming out of my lungs, over my lips, microscopic pieces crawling along the fine ridges of muscle and bone that make up my body.

“We can discuss that in private,” he says to Lindsay. “Later. First, I want to speak with Jane. Alone.”

“Already? Already I’m pushed aside because I’m not your real daughter?” Lindsay barks, eyes widening with grief, her belly curling in as if Harry had gut-punched her.

“You are my daughter in every real way, Lindsay. Just not blood,” he says, his voice filled with pain.

“That is a major, major, big way, Daddy,” she says, her voice dropping to a growl.

“Yes. It is,” he agrees. “And we’re going to need a long time and many conversations to get through this, but I know we can.”

“I don’t need a bunch of long conversations. I just need one piece of information: who is he?” Lindsay is tenacious. Uncompromising.

And right.

Monica catches Harry’s eyes. She doesn’t even have to shake her head. The two have some sort of unspoken agreement.

“Later,” he says firmly. “I promise we’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

“Not good enough,” I say, the prison of my mind releasing me. “That’s not good enough.” Our eyes meet and I look at my father. My actual father. I have one who is alive and here, staring at me with compassion and complexity. I feel like I’m naked and flayed, my blood running out of my body as if sacrificed to the truth.

“You don’t get to dictate what’s ‘good enough,’” Monica interjects, finally coming out of whatever spell she’s under.

“You don’t have a say right now, Stepmother,” I shoot back, rage flooding me, replacing my blood.

Lindsay lets out a weird sound, a whoop that cuts off suddenly with a sob. Monica ignores me, but the jab hit a nerve. A thin line of sweat forms on her upper lip and her eyes go shifty. She won’t look at me now. Good.

But Harry does.

“Jane,” he says, voice dropping. “Don’t.”

“You can’t tell me what to do.”

“Please don’t,” he amends.

“Then get her out of here. Now,” I order, looking right at Monica, whose chin rises in defiance as she continues to ignore me but looks at Harry with a very clear expression. It’s a challenge.

Pick one of us.

He does.

“Monica,” Harry says, “I need you to leave.”