I thought this day would never end.

The air between Valerie and me has been like a rope coiled around my throat, tightening with every second spent in her presence. I can't put it to the back of my mind anymore. Not after yesterday, especially not after I found out she and Paul were over.

My brothers called me an idiot; they said I should just come clean to both her and Sienna, but I can't. Call it cowardice, call it lack of certainty, call it whatever the fuck you want, but something is there, standing in my way, and it's getting unbearable.

I mean, I could barely keep my head straight in the tunnels today. She'd order someone around and I'd find myself tuning out everything else around me to focus on her voice, sharp as a knife. She'd trace her fingers over our blueprints and I'd picture her tracing the surface of my skin instead. She'd sip her coffee and I'd remember how I tasted her when I kissed Sienna yesterday. So light, it was, just barely there, the faintest hint of her blackberry chapstick, but it stood out like a diamond among the pearls that were Sienna's lips. And its presence there, intermingled with Sienna's intoxicating aura that has driven me insane for years, did something inexplicable to me.

I didn't lie to Sienna. Nobody can ever replace her; nobody can ever even come close to what she is to me. But it's time I admit that just like she has it in for all of us, I might have it in for someone else as well. Not someone other than her, but someone with her. Someone to whom, as I saw with my own two eyes and heard with my own two ears, she admitted her love.

Now I'm driving with that someone back to our mansion as the sun crawls to the horizon. We haven't spoken at all in the car; I don't trust myself with what can happen if I open my mouth first. I keep my eyes on the road, holding the steering wheel with two hands to keep my focus. I just have to get home. Then it'll be easier. It won't be just the two of us with the heavy marble that is the air in this tiny car.

"We did well today," she tries cutting that marble with the chisel that is her voice. "Got a lot of stuff done."

I nod and grunt in the affirmative, not trusting myself to speak. To be frank, she's the one who did well. I mainly stood there and covertly swooned over her like the idiot that I am. Not that I had a lot to do—much like last time—but what else did I expect when I volunteered to go? Fucking down bad moron. Jesse better have fucked Sienna and thank me for it or I'll find the nearest mountain cave and never emerge.

The heavy silence settles again, interrupted only by the rhythmic taps of her hands on her knees.

"So," she says, clearing her throat, "is, uh... is everything ready for tomorrow?"

I wet my lips. Why is she asking me this? She knows the answer.

"Should be," I say the words as quickly as I can without making it seem like I'm rushing to answer her. It doesn't work. "We'll talk about it when we get home."

Another weight of silence presses down. Some idiot tries cutting me off on the road. He fails.

"Did I do something?" Valerie snaps.

"What?" I glance at her and catch a glimpse of her round eyes and pinched eyebrows. My heart sinks just the tiniest bit.

"You've barely said anything to me all day," she says. "I've barely even seen you from how far you were standing, it's like you were hiding from me. Now you look like you'd rather be anywhere else. So, if you're mad at me or something, please tell me. I don't want us to continue like this."

I wish I had the balls to tell her how wrong she is.

"You didn't do anything," I say as our mansion looms in the distance. "I'm just trying to focus, Valerie. Like I said yesterday, we need to stay on track."

I don't know if I'm imagining it, but I still feel her eyes on me. I didn't lie to her; I am trying to focus, but I can hardly tell her what's distracting me. Either way, I don't have to see her face to tell that she doesn't buy it.

We're the first ones back. I park my car in our underground garage before taking the elevator up with Valerie. An even denser silence falls there, with the distance between us so small. She leans against the far wall, avoiding my eyes.

"Hey," I say, thinking to put my hand on her arm but deciding I'm better off not touching her.

She looks up with eyes of molten gold that drive my heart to my throat.

"You did nothing wrong," I allow myself a smile, wishing I could say more. "I promise."

She purses her lips, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards, and nods.

The elevator doors open. I let Valerie out first, watching her turn to round the corner and freeze, eyebrows crawling up and smile blooming. Following her, I stop in my tracks too.

Jesse has Sienna propped against a console under my painting of Danae—the woman in the nude on a black background watching gold rain down on her. Sienna's legs are wrapped around my brother's waist as she holds his face in her hands, kissing him. Her eyes fly to me and Valerie and she pulls away, smiling like a goddess.

"You're back!" She says as Jesse looks over his shoulder at us. "Already?"

"What time do you think it is?" Valerie asks her.

She and Jesse exchange glances before facing us again. "Three?"

Valerie snorts. "It's six."

Their faces fall and Sienna blinks. "What?"

Valerie crosses her arms with a smirk on her face. "What have you been doing all day?"

"Uh..." Sienna and Jesse look at each other again.

"I think," I feel my mouth stretch, "it's pretty obvious."

And good. I don't have to pack my cave survival kit.

Sienna's cheeks flush as she chews on her bottom lip.

"You left us alone," Jesse says, kissing her again. "What did you expect?"

"Nothing less," Valerie retorts, approaching them.

"Move, honcho," she gently shoves Jesse away. "My turn."

She kisses Sienna with a low moan. Her black hair lifts and Sienna's fingers emerge like flowering buds from its depth. My heart seizes and hammers in my chest as I watch them. I feel my inner ears spasm with how fast my blood rushes to the one part of my body that would give me away. I tear my eyes from them with the pain of taking a hammer to a marble sculpture and show them my back, disguising it under a supposed phone buzz while I try to get my bearings.

"Hi." I hear the smile in Valerie's voice as she says it.

"Hi." A low chuckle follows Sienna's reply.

"I have to take this," I lie and, not waiting for a response, make a beeline for my room.

Hands shaking, I go to shut the door, glad for the layer of concrete between me and the two women that are making me lose my mind, but a different hand grabs its edge from the other side.

"Jesse, I need to—"

"No you don't," he says, pushing the door open, waltzing in, and shutting it. I can't even gather enough strength to stop him. He crosses his arms, looking me over. "Are you fucking dumb or some shit?"

I sigh with the frustration of a thousand souls. "Not you too."

"Tiago," he points at the door, "how else am I supposed to take you running away from that?"

"You ran, too," I deflect like a fucking baby.

"After you, you moron!" he spreads his arms wide, eyes disbelieving. "Fuck, I don't even have a thing with Valerie and had to make myself run after you."

"I don't have a thing with Valerie, either," I argue, thanking my past self for soundproofing the place. "So I don't know what you're talking about."

He sighs and crosses his arms. "Are we gonna have that argument again? The one in Elijah's office not enough?"

I look down at my feet like a little boy and sit at the edge of my bed. The weight beside me shifts as Jesse settles in.

"What's holding you back?" He asks.

"I don't know," I answer genuinely. "Myself, I guess. I... I just don't wanna ruin it for them."

"Why would you ruin it?"

I look at my interlaced hands, willing the gears in my mind to work.

"I don't know," I say again. "I mean, look at them. They're in love. And I'm just... what? One of Sienna's accessories?"

A pause. A silence quiet enough for me to hear him blink.

"I thought I was the one hit in the head last night, man," Jesse says. "Why am I making more sense than you?"

I look up at him, mouth open to say something, but he cuts me off.

"Is that how you feel around her? An accessory? Really, now?"

I hold my breath. Two heartbeats. Let it out. "No."

"Then why are you saying this?"

"Because it's different, okay?" I snap. "They have history. They're... you know... a thing. Sienna has something for all of us, but we don't have anything for each other. They do. They've had a thing for eons before I met either of them. It's... it feels like an intrusion. Like I can ruin shit for them and for me if I do anything. I don't want to be that guy."

"Okay," my brother crosses his arms again. "So, what, then? Go on like this for the rest of your life?"

I feel like I've hit a wall.

My eyes look down again as I hang my head. He's right. I can't go on like this, it will eat me alive. But facing it... dammit, why does bringing down the biggest crime lord on this side of America feel easier?

"A man told me this morning," Jesse says, "he's the farthest thing from wise in this house but he did tell me all the same. That Sienna doesn't tell you she loves you, she shows you."

"Let me guess," I look him in the eyes. "Kaen."

He nods. "He was right. Until he wasn't."

I feel my eyebrows climbing up my forehead as my mouth drops. "No..."

My brother smiles with a glint in his eyes I haven't seen in too fucking long. I almost forgot what it looked like. He nods. "Yes."

My breath shudders on my exhale. Before I can say any of the million things I want to, he speaks.

"If you take a chance with her," he says, "she'll surprise you. And I'm willing to bet Valerie is cut from the same cloth."

I ponder his words for a long while. I think about them when everyone starts filing into the house. I'm still mulling them over at our meeting, and the only thing that interrupts them is the drop of a phone in the middle of the table.

"I tried getting what I could out of it," Imari says. "Nothing on it except for one number and the messages when they had you two in there. The guy's phone was completely fried."

"But what does that mean?" Gage's eyes dart to him.

"She either completely wipes her phone except for one number every time she uses it," his eyes dart to Elijah. "Or..."

"Or it was all on purpose," Elijah finishes, glaring at the thing. "I knew it was too easy, dammit."

"Kaen said as much yesterday," I put in. "But even this was planned?"

"Wait, what?" Sienna looks from me to Kaen. "She said something to you?"

My brother has been quiet all meeting, as always. But where his silence is usually that of a viper in the bushes, now it's like an angry hawk, watching the phone like it's his prey. Pray that can maul him to death.

"I'll explain," Jesse says when Kaen doesn't answer. As he talks, I watch Sienna's face. She keeps looking over at Kaen, and I can see her breathing getting uneven.

"Use it to reach out..." She repeats Jesse's words under her breath when he's done. "I take it that's what the number is."

"I don't know whose it is," Imari says, frowning. "I can't trace it."

"You can't trace it?" Valerie's eyes go wide. He nods.

The silence that falls is comparable to that between Valerie and myself in the car. All of us stare at the thing. My body turns to ice as Valerie's words sink in. If Imari can't trace it, who the fuck are we dealing with?

"She mentioned my mom." Sienna's voice is small and raspy as if she'd lost it screaming. It hits me like a bullet to my heart and my eyes snap to her. As do all my brothers'. As do her friends'.

"What?" Valerie says.

"She..." Sienna clears her throat, but her voice trembles with her hands. "She said that... I'm like her."

"She could mean anyone," Gage says, putting a hand on hers. "Sienna, it—"

"No, Gage," she says, voice rising with the tears in her eyes. She lets her gaze meet Kaen's. With that trembling voice that makes me want to crawl to her like a dog and hold her until she stills, she says, "La lugubre gondola."

I seldom see Kaen shocked. Mad, yes. Angry, absolutely. Completely enraged to the point of burning down the house he is in, definitely. But shocked? Surprised? I can count on one hand the amount of times I've seen him like that. Now would be one of them. It looks more like a glare than anything—with his eyes rounding and mouth thinning to a line—but I know my brother; I can distinguish his expressions. And this one might chill me more than his glare.

"The Liszt piece?" I say. "What—?"

Kaen goes for the phone faster than anyone can stop him. He taps it, puts it on speakerphone, and throws it back in its place. Everyone except for me and Sienna had jumped to stop him. Elijah glares at him like he just murdered someone dear to him. Sienna holds her breath. All of us listen to the ringing.

Brrrrr.

Brrrrr.

"Yes?"

My eyes dart from Kaen to Sienna. He shakes his head. She shrugs, still looking terrified. She was young when her mother supposedly died; we shouldn't expect her to remember her voice. But it's a woman on the other end and not Kaen's mom.

"Hello?"

Sienna stares at it like it's an angry predator trying to bite her head off. I move to turn it off. We don't have to know who it is; Kaen's trauma is enough for all of us.

But then different words come out of the phone. Words in a language I don't speak but have heard many times, enough to know what these particular ones mean.

"Sienna, solnyshko, eto ty?"

Sienna, Sunshine, is that you?

Her face goes paler than a blank canvas. More words follow, but I don't hear them. I wouldn't understand even if I had. The look of horror, of betrayal, of utter pain on her face is enough to rip my heart to shreds. She backs away as if the phone will lunge at her at any second, tears streaming down her face, throat bobbing, chest barely moving.

Someone shuts the damn thing off. Valerie.

"Sienna," she reaches out for her, but Sienna just bolts out of the room.

I immediately go to follow her, but Kaen's faster. Elijah, the fastest of all of us, grabs his arm in a vice-like grip.

"I'll take care of it," he says, glaring as Kaen turns to him. "You've done enough."

Looking like he had been slapped—which he only ever looks like if one of us is pissed at him and never when he is actually slapped—Kaen slackens as Elijah walks out of the room.

Kaen goes out of Elijah's sliding backdoor shortly after. We don't see him the rest of the night. Elijah comes back at some point, saying we shouldn't let this distract us, that Sienna will be fine tomorrow, and that she could use Valerie and Imari right now. But said is easier than done, and the dread that occupies the room is too thick for me to ignore.

Imari and Valerie go to her the moment we're done. By five minutes till midnight, I'm in my studio, staring at a blank canvas with a paintbrush in one hand and a glass of bourbon in another.

I should go to her. I should comfort her and tell her I'm there for her. I should shower her with all the love that I have for her. Her and... well. I don't even know if that's relevant anymore.

Take a chance.

I try to remember what I was going to paint.

I fail.

"God fucking damn me for a fucking imbecile," I curse aloud and down my bourbon in one swallow. Letting the burn spur me on like spurs to a horse, I drop whatever I'm holding and head to the door begging my mind not to wander, trying not to think lest I crawl back into my hole of paint and marble.

Hand on the handle, I don't even give myself a moment to breathe when I open it.