Warner huffs. “Fine.”
“Come sit, Em.” Hyland pats the spot next to him. “You’re making me nervous.”
“I’m fine here.”
“You’re clearly not. Sit down before you fall over.”
While Warner pours Axel a drink, I reluctantly plop myself down. The pair join us in the living room, taking opposite sides of the sofa. For all the tension lingering between us, there might as well be a whole ocean separating them.
“His name is Gunnar.” Axel takes a large mouthful. “He doesn’t exist on any public record. Not under that name, at least. I think he had another once… Before he found his way back to us.”
“What does that mean?” Warner massages his right knee between winces.
“I didn’t know that I was a twin until he came home. My mum kept his birth a secret. He was relinquished as a baby and never legally tied to her… so I had no idea.”
“Why would she do that?” Hyland questions.
“Because I’m not my father’s son.” Axel stares down into his glass. “He was infertile. Mum had an affair and fell pregnant, but he agreed to raise me. Just not a set of twins. Gunnar had to go.”
“She gave him up,” I state the obvious.
“It was a little more than that.” He smiles brokenly. “My father forced her to get rid of Gunnar unless she wanted to be a homeless, single mother. She was literally bullied into it.”
Warner scrubs his face. “I don’t understand.”
“She was young and terrified. My father could be coercive, even abusive. Having me around kept Mum vulnerable and under his thumb, but he didn’t want the hassle of two mouths to feed.”
“Evil bastard,” I snarl.
“Yeah.” Axels snorts. “None of us knew what happened to Gunnar after that. I grew up with an asshole who couldn’t stand the sight of me and a mother who was too emotionally fragile to be a real parent. When Gunnar returned, I don’t think she was surprised that her past had found her.”
Attempting to wrap my head around Axel’s tale only worsens the throbbing from my head injury. I can’t imagine how Hyland’s coping with the information in his state.
“How did he find you?” I ask more gently.
“Not a clue. Gunnar learned the art of disappearing a long time ago, but he also learned how to hunt along the way. You can ask Madden all about that.”
After a long pause, Warner clears his throat. “Your mother is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder. According to public record, she killed your father.”
“Convenient, right?” Axel laughs without humour.
“Tell us the real story.”
“It’s irrelevant now.”
“If this man is coming after us, then it’s all relevant. We need to know what we’re dealing with.”
“It’s me he wants.” Axel swirls whiskey around his glass. “I helped our mother cover it all up. I lied for her. I erased Gunnar’s existence from our lives.”
“Why?” Hyland prompts.
“Because Mum isn’t a killer. All these years she’s served… it’s a lie. She took the wrap to cover up the fact that Gunnar stabbed my deadbeat dad forty-three times when he returned and learned the truth behind his abandonment.”
Howling wind whips outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the gusts almost drowning out Axel’s dejected whispers. Hyland stares at Axel without a single word to offer. He’s doing better than Warner—head bowed and face buried in his hands.
“I don’t know what happened to Gunnar after he was sent away.” Axel wipes beneath his leaking eyes. “But whatever it was… he was desperate when he came looking for a home. Instead he got the truth, and it broke him.”
“He killed your father?” I whisper.
