Chayden came to a hesitant stop as he saw what had her transfixed. Even with the mask in place, it was obvious the color drained from his face and panic filled his dark eyes.
Rising to his feet, Caillen drew his blaster and aimed it straight at Chayden’s head.
Fain skidded to a halt as he scowled at them both. “What’s going on?”
Ignoring the question, Chayden held his hands up. “Whoa, buddy. It’s not what you think.”
Caillen moved the setting on his blaster from stun to kill with his thumb. The targeting laser never wavered from Chayden’s forehead.
Never in her life had she seen anyone with a steadier hand. Caillen cut a sexy, fearsome pose as he glared in angry retribution over Chayden’s invasion of her privacy. “It better not be.”
Desideria dragged her gaze away from the screen that held every tiny detail of her life and her mother’s as well as her sisters’ to Chayden. “Why do you have all of that?”
Chayden lowered his cowl and the mask over his face so that she could see the sincerity in his expression. “You’re not going to believe me, I know you won’t, but I swear to the gods I worship that it’s the truth. She’s my mother too.” He gestured toward the files. “Obviously, I’ve been collecting all of—”
“Why?” she asked, interrupting him. “Why would you spy on us like this?”
He didn’t answer until Caillen tightened his grip on the trigger, pulling it back to let him know that he had no qualms about taking his friend’s life if Chayden had betrayed her. “You need to answer, Chay. Now. No lies.”
A tic started in Chayden’s jaw. “I wanted to feel connected to my family even if it was only from a distance. It was stupid, I know. But when you’re alone in the universe, you reach out even when it doesn’t make sense to do it.”
Turmoil filled his eyes as he stared at her. “You have no idea how isolated you feel when your own mother hates you for something you couldn’t help and wants nothing to do with you. You don’t want to crave her or the rest of your family because you know they’ll never accept you, so you stay at a distance and imagine what it would be like if your family could just be normal, even for one nanosecond.” He glanced up at the photo of her mother. “Once I heard she was dead and I realized you weren’t the one who killed her, I pulled the files I had so that I could put together a suspect list. Unfortunately, it’s long—no one should have that many enemies. But knowing our mother, I’m really not surprised.”
Desideria couldn’t breathe as all of those unexpected words slammed into her like fists. That was the absolute last thing she’d expected to hear from him.
There was no way he was her brother…
Was there?
“Bullshit,” Caillen blurted out. “I don’t believe a word of it.”
Chayden inclined his head toward the monitor. “My father’s photo is in there too. Flip through the files and Desideria will know the instant she sees him.”
With his blaster still on Chayden, Caillen stepped away from the con so that she could take his place and scan through the files. The moment she began opening them, she grew even more suspicious. Chayden had every single thing about her family catalogued. Honestly, it was creepy and disconcerting… it definitely reminded her of the dossier an assassin would put together to use against a target. He even had her old test scores from school and her recent promotion. Articles about her mother and private transmissions between her mother and some of her advisors. Everything he’d need to kill them all.
It took several minutes to find a male photograph buried in the multitude of others of her, her mother and sisters. But just as he’d predicted, she knew the minute she’d found his father. There was no doubt whatsoever.
How had she not noticed the similarity before? But the most heartbreaking one was the photo after it…
Chayden had manipulated a picture of her and her sisters so that he was in it too. Pain for him swelled inside her that he’d had to go to such a degree to have a family. She didn’t mention it to Caillen or the others. There was no need to embarrass him. She closed the file.
Her heart pounded as she turned toward Chayden and the reality of his identity slammed into her so hard it was all she could do to breathe. She reached out and lowered Caillen’s arm so that his blaster wasn’t centered on Chayden’s head any longer.
Chayden dropped his hands.
She stared at him in disbelief.
He was her full brother.
Her mind whirled as she struggled to put all these new pieces together and the reality of who he was sank in with a force that was dizzying. “I don’t understand.”
“Yes, you do. I’m a male heir. Firstborn and only half Qill. Mom couldn’t afford to have me hanging around lest I bring her legitimacy into question or confuse the chain of inheritance.”