CHAPTER 198

MOONA POV

I want to tell him but I can’t. Even now I can’t let them throw Peter in prison. He’s my brother. He was there for me when no one else was.

 My heart is breaking worse than Cain’s, even though I can’t show him. My heart is breaking because I know I can’t come back from this, because no matter how much Cain’s eyes say he wants to forgive me, I know he won’t.

      I know he can’t.

      I know he’ll never trust me again.

 I wish I could say I’m sorry, but I can’t. Even though I can’t bring myself to land my brother in the shit, I can’t bring myself to confess all this either.

 Cain’s glaring right at me as I hear Brian’s car pull onto the drive. I want the ground to swallow me up and never spit me out again, but I’m standing right here with nowhere to run and no one to turn to.

Brian doesn’t even notice the destruction as he steps through the door. He sees me before Cain but he’s already got questions of his own.

  “Mathew Connor was asking directions to your house in town earlier, why?”

      He has to crunch on glass before he comes to his senses. I watch his eyes widen in horror.

      “Mathew Connor?” Cain asks. “Who the fuck is Mathew Connor?”

      I have no idea who Mathew Connor is. No idea at all.

      “He was in my books a few years back,” Brian says. “From a broken family in Gloucester, a nasty piece of work. Violent.”

    Cain looks at me but I can’t meet his eyes.

      “What was he doing asking for you, Moona? Do you know him?”

      I shrug, because I know I’m going to have to say something. “Never heard of him.”

 He looks so confused. “Was he here? Is that what happened to the place? It’s not the first time he’s resorted to breaking and entering. His criminal record is a mile fucking long.”

 “I’ve never heard of him,” I repeat again, and I haven’t. I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.

 

 He doesn’t believe me, I can see it in his eyes, and I’m so fucking angry that these people want to see the best in me, even when I’m lying to them. Even when all the evidence is stacked and I’m standing right in the middle of the home they think I destroyed today.

      “Well, are you sure?” Brian tries again. “He’s tall, stocky, wears a hoodie with a dragon on the sleeve. He has a tattoo under his right ear, of a–”

      “A snake,” I say, and I don’t understand. “But that’s not Mathew Connor.”

      He tips his head, smiles just a little. “That’s definitely Mathew Connor, Mathew. I’d recognise him a mile off. I saw him skulking back along the lane a few minutes ago. I’d a good mind to pull over and demand to know what the fuck he’s doing round these parts.” He pauses. “But I think I know now. I think it’s pretty obvious. So why don’t you just tell me how you know him and we can get this mess straightened out?”

      Even now his eyes are so kind and calm.

      “Tell us what the fuck’s going on!” Cain  barks, and it brings me to my senses.

      I look from one to the other and know there’s no running from this.

      “That’s not Mathew Connor,” I whisper. “That’s my brother, Peter. The first brother I remember.”

Cain’s eyes widen but not as wide as Brian’s.

 “How long have you known him as Peter?”

      “He is Peter!” I yell.

      “How long, Moona?”

      I shake my head, trying to block out everything. All of this. “Since I was fourteen,” I admit. “He found me, came looking for me. Said he was still my brother.”

      “Moona,” Brian says and his voice is so calm. “That’s not Peter, I swear. I have Mathew’s case file, and I have Peter’s too. He came for help with socialisation skills nearly a decade ago. I knew you used to live with his parents, I saw it in your file when you first arrived. He’s at law school now, in Birmingham.”

      I shake my head. “No.”

      “Yes,” he says. “I swear I wouldn’t lie to you, Moona. However Mathew knows you, it’s not because he was your brother.”

      “What the fuck?!” Cain snaps, and his eyes soften. “Did he hurt you? Is that sonofabitch the one who bruised your wrists?”

  Brian’s eyes go straight there and I can’t pull my cuffs down quickly enough.

 “It was him, wasn’t it?” Brian asks. 

“It was Mathew, all those times they thought it was you, it was Mathew.”

     

  “Peter,” I whisper. “It was Peter."

 But Peter isn’t Peter and I know that now.

      I think back to how we met.

      I think back to bumming a smoke from a guy in an alleyway, and he looked so similar, so fucking similar.

      And that’s when he told me he’d been looking for me. That’s when he told me he knew me and offered me inside.

      I knew he was Peter, I just knew it. I called him Peter and he said it was him.

  He said he was my brother, and I believed him.

      I believed everything he said.

      Because I wanted to.

      I wanted to believe he really was looking for me, and I wanted to believe he really loved me.

      I slip to the floor, not caring if there’s broken glass there, not caring about anything.

      And then I tell them everything.

Finally, for once in my life, I tell someone everything.