Page 98 of Forsaking All Others

“Even if you didn’t commit them all, there are dozens of murders attributed to Lo Spettro,” I whispered, my heart as cold as dry ice emanating from my chest. I felt dead myself, buried beneath the weight of this stranger who was not a stranger, this husband who was not my husband. “You’re on the FBI’s Most Wanted even though they have no idea what you look like.”

“It’s good to feel acknowledged for your talents,” he quipped, but there was no clear humor in his voice, only an automatized kind of mechanicalness that said he’d studied humanity and knew how to fake it until he made it.

I had no doubt he could.

After all, he’d done it with me.

Who knows how many times . . .

“Is this the first time you’ve impersonated Dario?” I asked, because my curiosity outweighed my fear of hearing his honesty.

His lips flatlined, which was answer enough.

“How often?” I wheezed.

He pursed his mouth. “Enough. Usually ten to fifteen times a year. Never for longer than a few days, though.”

I closed my eyes against a rush of dizziness as my entire life rearranged itself around the colossal truth.

“And I never noticed,” I whispered.

It was a blow to my self-esteem I never could have braced for. Over the last six years, I had honed myself into a weapon of knowledge. I couldn’t be the strongest person in the room, or the most influential, but I could be the sharpest mind, and that was more than enough power for me.

I was a secret dealer, a criminal fixer, yet for six years, two identical twins had been swapping themselves out for each other under my nose and I hadn’t even noticed.

Pathetic.

“Not pathetic,” Luca said, and I knew I’d spoken the word out loud. “No one has ever noticed before. I spent nearly ten years practicing to impersonate Dario.” He paused and made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat. “No, we spent nearly ten years becoming the same person with different motives. Sometimes, I can’t even tell us apart. We even have all the same tattoos and most of the same scars to make the sameness nearly exact.”

Despite myself, I felt a pang of empathy in my heart.

All I had ever wanted was to be an actualized individual with my own independence and dreams. All I’d ever wanted was to be seen.

And here Luca was telling me that his entire purpose in life was to be unseen.

How lonely and dark that existence must be.

“Who else knows about this diabolical twin swap?” I asked.

Luca shifted slightly so that he was leaning back, and the weight of his knees on my pinned arms lessened enough to make me realize they had gone numb.

“Lando, Carla, Bonnie, Cesare, and Ciro. Now you. Even that is too many.”

“It’s shocking you’ve been able to keep it a secret for so many years,” I mused, so deep in the puzzle I didn’t even notice when he moved off me to stand and offer me his hand until I was automatically reaching up to grab it.

He hoisted me to my feet so strongly that I pressed into his torso. Before I could catch myself, his strong arms banded around me, and when I looked up to glare at him, there was an expression on his face I thought might have been uniquely Luca’s.

It was a striking combination of ferocious hunger, almost cannibalistic, and frustration, like he couldn’t quite understand why I provoked such a response in him.

“Whenever I was playing your husband, I spent as much time with you as I could,” he confessed, rough and snappish.

“Why?” I asked, even though I knew he wouldn’t want me to.

I deserved answers, and I wasn’t afraid to push for them.

He pursed his lips as he studied me, holding me so close to his body it felt as if he wanted the imprint of me against his skin for all time.

The overhead system crackled before I recognized Ciro’s voice. “Boss, there’s cops at the door.”