Chapter Thirteen
THIRTEEN
Phoebe
“We have something to tell you. Sit down, please,” Hailey tells me and her older brother—taking the words right out of my mouth.
We have something to tell you, too. Admittedly, I did not plan to say please , so my best friend is more polite than I am.
Rocky and I share a confused look before we plop down on the squeaky edge of a twin bed together. The rouge comforter is a baroque, Gothic pattern. Identical thick drapes frame the ornate mahogany headboard.
We only chose to gather in one of the mansion’s bedrooms since it’s doubling as the surveillance area. Monitors, keyboards, and audio equipment are spread over a wooden desk and pushed against forest-green wallpaper.
Oliver spins on the office chair in slow, relaxed circles and slides a ballpoint pen behind his ear.
When I catch his gaze, I slip him a look like what is this?
He raises his hands, telling me, No need to panic.
Am I panicking? I’m staring at my best friend, who is death-clutching an old, musty hardback to her chest like she’s Gollum hoarding the One Ring to rule them all.
Thinking about The Lord of the Rings washes me with a wave of sad nostalgia, because we all binged the trilogy together at a Four Seasons, and Hailey and I agreed that Legolas isn’t nearly as panty-droppingly hot as Aragorn.
Simpler times.
Yet, still chaotic, considering we were in Chicago to dupe a trust-fund baby and his misogynistic friends.
Now, I’m here. Sitting beside Rocky after the hottest hello of my life. It feels like he’s still inside me, the ache and tenderness a weird comfort, and I’m simultaneously ready for everyone to find out we’re together and also terrified it’ll cause serious friction.
“Who’s we ?” Rocky asks his sister.
Hailey draws a circle in the air from her to Oliver. Then to Nova, who’s bent over the desk, clicking a mouse, and checking the status of the camera footage. I’m shocked when her finger veers to Trevor. He’s practically hugging an antique dresser while wearing black Bvlgari sunglasses and a slim black suit. I watch him wobble.
What the hell? “Is he drunk?” I ask everyone.
“Are you drunk, PG?” Trevor retorts lamely.
“Uh, no. I’m sober.”
“Could’ve fooled no one.” He sways, about to fall over, but he catches a drawer and straightens himself up. Rocky is about to rise off the bed, but Trevor extends an arm to halt his older brother. “Stop. I’m perfectly proficient at standing.”
“Could’ve fooled no one,” I mutter under my breath.
He hears, somehow. “Go flash a crusty old man—”
“Knock it off,” Rocky growls.
Nova could’ve broken his neck with how fast he whipped his head back at Trevor. I’m not bristling at that stupid dig, but Nova narrows his gaze on him for an extra beat. With Trevor’s dark shades, it’s impossible to tell what he’s staring at.
Really, I’d bet his eyes are shut.
“And, ladies and gentlemen,” Oliver says, “that is what consuming half a handle of vodka in an hour looks like.”
Rocky lances a glare at him now. “And how did he come by a handle of vodka?”
“I had to stop at the liquor store.” Oliver opens his hands like there was no choice. “Trev was in pain and refused to take a pill.”
Trevor rests his face on his arm. “Do you know how much a Percocet sells for? I’m not swallowing money.”
“You shouldn’t be selling any drugs,” Nova says sternly, returning his attention to the computers.
“I’m not selling in Victoria.”
“I meant anywhere .” Nova clicks through the cameras again, checking for motion near the portico outside. “You don’t know who you’re getting hooked on that shit.”
“So?”
“I think we should focus,” Hailey interjects while squeezing the book. Her black nail polish is chipped. “We don’t have much time left before the godmothers and godfather get here.” Her cargo pants hang loose on her bony waist, and her cheeks seem more sunken since yesterday.
“Nova, do you have a protein bar?” I ask him.
He crouches down to a duffel bag.
“We-we need to focus , Phebs,” Hailey says, sounding frantic. “This is more important.”
Rocky is biting his tongue, because the last time he chimed in after me, Hailey acted like we were ganging up on her, and he has an easier time pretending not to care. I can’t hide my worry. Not for her.
“It takes two seconds to eat something,” I say gently.
“Please, just listen to me ,” Hailey pleads, distraught and blinking rapidly like she’s struggling to see what’s up and down.
“I am, I am,” I say fast.
Oliver rises casually from the chair and rolls it over to Hailey. Her wide eyes land on him, and as he holds the seat out for her, she mechanically sits down.
“Leave her alone, Phoebe,” Trevor warns with no inflection in his voice. I get he’s protective of his sister, but I’m not actively trying to cause her more distress.
Rocky shoots him a hard look. “Stay out of it, Trev.”
He backs off.
I retreat, too. I nod her on and clutch my kneecaps, prepared for whatever bomb she needs to drop. “Let’s hear it, Hails.”
From behind her, I see Nova handing Oliver the protein bar.
“I’ve done a lot of digging about our births.” She pulls at her fishnet sleeves, a cropped black Metallica shirt over them. “And there is so much that doesn’t make sense.” She speaks to me and Rocky. “Like how our parents said the triplets were born in Dallas. I checked the birth records of every hospital in the city on the day Phoebe was born. No triplets,” Hailey concludes. “Then I expanded my search to the month. There were multiple full sets of girl and boy triplets born in May around Dallas, but none with two boys and one girl. Which means they’re lying, possibly about more than we can imagine.”
“Okay…” I draw out the word. “We might…we might not be triplets.” My insides twist, and I share a pained look with both of my brothers.
Standing behind Hailey, Oliver holds the back of her chair. “We might also still be triplets. It’s not a guaranteed lie.”
Hugging the book, Hailey continues, “It’s also totally possible Phoebe and Oliver are twins and Nova is older, but more likely, they lied about our places of birth and birth dates.”
Rocky stares gravely ahead. “They didn’t want us to figure out who we really are.”
“I think so,” Hailey whispers. “We need to start looking at the real possibility that our ages are incorrect.”
My brows jump. “Like how incorrect?”
“Hailey thinks we might be off by a year or more,” Nova says from the computer. “Rocky hit puberty way before me and Ol did.”
“But Nova and Oliver could’ve been late bloomers,” Hailey reasons, her voice pitching weirdly. “What else does everyone remember seeing? With your own eyes?”
We all try to recall the past.
I’ve been padlocking fond memories of me and my mom. Where she combed my hair late at night and called me sweet spider . It’s all been grief upon rage, and as the tidal wave rises, I instinctively swim away.
Nova runs a hand against the back of his neck. “They hired tutors for Oliver everywhere we went. Paid for them,” Nova says. “When he was little. Maybe four, five, six. They’d pull him out of pre-prep, or maybe it was pre-K, where I’d be with Phoebe.”
“I was always jealous,” I say. “I wanted to be in those sessions. I thought they were cool…but really…I just wanted to be with him.”
“Me, too.” Nova meets my eyes, then shifts to Oliver. “You remember being tutored?”
“Eight hours of eight different languages a day. It’s in there somewhere.” His smile is light and effervescent, like those aren’t traumatizing memories. I want to believe my brother that they weren’t, for his sake. “Isn’t that right, Hailstorm?”
“Hmm?” Hailey lifts her chin to look at Oliver above her. “I was there.”
“You were there?” Rocky’s gaze darkens.
I frown, not aware of this either. “I thought Addison homeschooled you when we were that little.”
I hated that Hailey couldn’t go to the preppy pre-K with me, Rocky, and Nova, too. Later, around middle school, she would join us, but that was on the occasion that our parents decided to enroll us in a private school rather than teach us at home.
“She did, but sometimes she’d leave me with Oliver and his tutors.” Hailey watches Oliver unwrap the salty caramel protein bar and break it.
He hands her half. “To our sequestered childhoods. May they forever be remembered.” He taps his piece with hers, and my sunken heart only elevates when I see Hailey nibble on her chunk.
“I remember holding Trevor,” Rocky says, looking over at his little brother. “You were a newborn. I know you were.”
“I don’t care if they’re my parents or not, Rock,” Trevor admits. “They’ve never cared for me—”
“That’s not—”
“It is true.” He wobbles, then catches his balance. “They’ve always acted like I’m a mistake, and maybe now we know why.”
“None of us saw her in the hospital,” Hailey says, faraway, “after she gave birth to Trevor. She just appeared three weeks later with the baby and no longer pregnant.”
Rocky glares. “So the pregnancy could’ve been a scam. And for the rest of us, we have no memories of each other being that young because we’re all too close in age.”
“I-I just think we can’t believe anything they’ve ever told us,” Hailey says.
I hold out my hands. “What if, what if , Trevor is adopted, and we’re just blowing this all out of proportion?”
“You would like that,” Trevor deadpans.
I grimace. “No, I wouldn’t .” He might annoy me, but Rocky’s love for Trevor makes me care for him, too. “It’d still mean you and the rest of us were lied to. But it also beats the alternative. Being kidnapped. I don’t want that for you, Trevor, or for any of us.”
“It’s not that simple,” Hailey mutters to herself, staring off at the uneven floorboards. “It can’t be that simple.”
Oliver lifts her wrist toward her mouth. Hailey takes a dazed bite from the protein bar in her hand. “I have a better question,” he says to me and Rocky. “How exactly are we supposed to pull a job on the Konings without the help of the people who raised us?”
Rocky’s face twists. “We can do it without them.”
Hesitation spreads from the rest of us. Even as my stomach overturns at the idea of working with our parents, this isn’t a two-man job. Plus, we’re coming in at such a disadvantage.
In our mountain of silence, Rocky assures us, “ We can .”
“Hailey and I are servers at a country club,” I remind him. “Oliver set himself up as a therapist . What is he going to do?”
“He can pivot.”
“I can pivot,” Oliver agrees into a bite of his protein chunk.
I let go of my knees. “I’m just saying that outside of me dating Jake, our roles aren’t that great when it comes to the setup of a billion-dollar family takedown.”
“Phoebe is right,” Nova says. “As much as none of us want to pull this with them—the godmothers are already in Claudia’s ear. We won’t be getting that kind of access with our personas as they are, and we can’t change them.”
Rocky lets out a long, angered groan. “ Fuck ,” he nearly shouts, then scrapes his hands through his hair. “What’s to say they’ll even want to do this with us? They want us out of Victoria.”
“We tell them the truth,” Hailey says, “about everything except the end. The end. We say we’ll leave with them with the payout from Jake. But we won’t. We’ll stay. They’ll go.”
Once we all agree (Rocky more reluctantly), I ask, “What’s with the book, Hails?”
“It’s the history of Victoria.”
“Anything good inside?” I smile a little.
She shakes her head once, and her anguished eyes beg me, Don’t ask, Phoebe, please.
So I don’t pry. None of us do. “Who’s attending this dinner?” I ask. “Trevor is drunk—”
“Speak for yourself.”
“Again, I’m sober ,” I point out, “and Addison is going to panic and wonder what’s wrong with Hailey.”
“I-I can’t go down there,” Hailey stammers.
“I’ll stay back with Hails and Trevor,” Oliver offers.
Nova hunches back toward the computers. “Count me out of dinner.” He switches camera angles on the screen. “If I go down there, I won’t be able to control what comes out of my fucking mouth.” He’s furious in his quiet, simmering Nova way.
“That leaves me and you,” I tell Rocky. “Let’s go.” I stand.
He catches my wrist and tugs me back to the bed. “We have something to tell them.”
Yeah.
I know.
But this is a really bad time to give Hailey more anxiety. Unloading the heavy fact that oh, by the way, I’m with your older brother for real sounds like a trigger for a multitude of terrible emotions. Unease. Fear. Anger.
Please don’t hate me, Hailey.
Now I’m scared.
Under my breath, I whisper to Rocky, “Let’s not do the thing.” I try to stand again.
He pulls me down. “We’re doing it,” he whisper-growls back.
“Rocky.”
“There’ll never be a good time.”
“A good time for what?” Nova asks him.
“To tell you Phoebe and I are together.” Rocky flashes a tight smile. “Surprise.”