Chapter 72

• I watched as John stepped into the room, the weight of his presence enough to make the air in the space grow thick with tension. Funmi stood next to me, her hand gripping mine with a quiet desperation, her thumb brushing across my skin in a feeble attempt to calm me. But nothing was calming me anymore. Nothing could.
• The moment he walked in, I felt the unraveling begin. The cracks in everything I had believed about family, loyalty, and love—everything I thought I knew about myself and Funmi—were being exposed.
• “Cole,” John said, his voice strangely hollow, like he wasn’t really there. His eyes were fixed on me, but there was a coldness to him now that wasn’t there before. It was as if the man who had once been my brother had been replaced by someone else entirely. “We need to talk.”