The jails of London were just as dark and dank as I had envisioned. There was the distinct smell of rot here, as if the very air itself had gone bad. I could practically feel it seeping into my fine suit, the scent settling in between the fabrics. I sighed, unbuttoning the buttons of my jacket. It would need to be thoroughly cleaned after this.

"You came," a familiar voice croaked and I looked up to see my sister for the first time in months.

Cecily Keene was far paler than I'd ever seen her. Lacking access to any sunlight down here in these dark cells, her face had become as white as porcelain, her eyes duller, her hair flat and colorless. Even her lips were cracked and dry as though she never quite got enough water. It tugged on my heartstrings to see her this way. She was my sister. No matter what she'd done, no matter what she deserved, I loved her and I always would.

"Why did you send it?" I asked, slamming the newspaper she had sent me down onto the table between us as the guard lowered her to the chair across from me.

Her manacles clinked against the metal legs and she frowned, gaze flicking to the engagement announcement spread before us. She blinked before slowly raising her eyes to meet mine.

"You sailed all the way here for that?" She scoffed.

I said nothing, keeping my arms crossed and my expression unreadable. I'd learned long ago how to deal with my sister. Cecily had the uncanny ability to find the wound inside you that cut the deepest and twist her own knife into it. She knew Charlotte was my weak spot so, naturally, the engagement announcement was the new favorite weapon in her arsenal.

When I didn't answer, she leaned forward, peering at me across the desk as her long, unbound hair draped over the metal top.

"Do you still love her?" She asked.

"Why did you send it, Cecily?" I replied, keeping my tone flat, indifferent.

She watched me for a moment, expectantly, then frowned when she realized I wasn't going to play her game, that I knew better than that. She sighed, reaching out and gripping the edge of the paper with a hand tipped with cracked nails. She flipped it over and raised a brow. I leaned forward enough to see what she was pointing to and recognized the address we had lived at our whole lives. I looked up at her, brow furrowing in confusion.

"What—" I started.

"Turns out, father bought the house legally," she informed me, shrugging a shoulder as she fell back against her seat once more, feigning disinterest. "Which means the police cannot seize it as part of their investigation. It's over. We're in here. Legally, the house falls to you."

I blinked at her, taking in the information while remaining on my guard. Cecily hadn't called me here to do me a favor. She wanted something. I wasn't risking getting too close until I figured out what.

"They aren't looking for you," she told him in a sneer and suddenly her tone shifted to something too accusatory for his taste. "They don't even have a warrant out for your arrest. So why did you run?"

I couldn't help the tick in my jaw as I reached out and collected the newspaper again, folding it and tucking it under my arm as I stood to leave. Cecily was imprisoned here, not me. I didn't have to stay here and listen to this. I didn't owe her any answers. I didn't even owe her a visit. So I headed for the door behind me. It was not until my hand gripped the knob that she spoke again.

"Patrick Welford says you can get me out of here," she said, her voice quiet, desperate.

I paused just at the sound of it. It wasn't like my sister to allow herself to be vulnerable, to let her weakness show. Even here. Even with me.

"Disgraced attorney Patrick Welford?" I asked, turning back to her and raising a brow.

"Hard to meet any other kind in here."

She moved to stand and then hissed as the manacles dug into her wrists, pulling her back down to her seat. I just raised my chin and waited for her explanation, for her to finally disclose what she wanted from me, why she had drawn me here from continents away.

"He says that it's rare for judges to sentence a woman for any sort of violent crime," she said. "And even rarer for them to give a woman so significant of a sentence. Because of that, I might have grounds for an appeal or, even better, to convince them that they got it all wrong the first time."

I stared at her, jaw straining with the urge of keeping my mouth shut. She and I both knew they hadn't got anything wrong. Cecily had been just as involved, just as violent, as our father, our brothers, me. But she hadn't possessed whatever purer intentions that Charlotte had supposedly spotted in me which had been my salvation.

"You could tell them," she told me, her voice nearly a whisper now, her dull eyes shining brighter with the hope, the possibility of escaping this place. "They let you go for a reason. They must think you have nothing to do with the family business. You could convince them that I didn't either. I am naught but a meek woman after all."

I kept my expression as passive as I could.

"I'll think about it," I told her through gritted teeth.

Her eyes went wide as I turned away from her and wrenched open the door to leave.

"Camden!" she shouted after me. I could hear it all in her voice. The hurt, the rage, the desperation. And it was everything I could do to keep walking away from her. "You think you're better than us! You always have! But you're not!"

I exhaled through my nose, fighting to keep my composure as the guards led me back through the jail and out into the street again.

It had only been months since I'd seen my home but it already felt as though I'd spent years away from the enormous estate my father had purchased somehow legally. Or, at least, all of the paperwork had been in order. Still, I had no doubt that whatever funds he exchanged for the deed of this place had been ill-gotten at best. None of it matter. Because now, it was mine.

I stepped through the door using the key I'd collected from the estate attorney my father had hired long ago and entered a house that had been completely, thoroughly abandoned. Dust coated every available space, curtains had not been drawn so the upholstery of the furniture had already faded considerably, even the smell was musky and stale. Still, I drew the curtains closed and sat alone in the dark on the enormous green couch that my mother had bought only a year ago now. But she was in jail too now, along with my father, both my brothers, my sister, and a good deal of people I had grown up around and called my friends.

All because of Charlotte.

I remembered the day we met. I remembered the party she attended with my sister, the way she caught my eye across the room and smiled. I remembered the way she had spoken to me, all coy and bold at the same time, her eyes glimmering with intent that I entirely misread in my eagerness to please her. I remembered the way I felt around her, the way I always felt around her, what it was like to finally tell someone I wanted to be better than all of this, more than all of this. And to have them believe me, encourage me, care about me.

But it wasn't real. None of it was real. Not with her.

But the other memories in this house. All the times my father watched as my brothers and I beat and threatened men who owed him money, all of us competing to see who could be the most brutal, who could win George Keene's favor. All those times when I would have to tuck my hands tightly behind my back to hide their shaking whenever my father called me unexpectedly into his office. The day that my father gathered the family to tell them that he intended for me to take over his empire when he passed. Me, the youngest of his sons. I would remember the way my brothers stared daggers at me during the announcement for the rest of my life, how I locked my door that night, fearing the possibility of my own brothers coming to take my life in the dead of night. Dangerous, horrible memories.

But they weren't the only ones. There were other times. Times in which we weren't just a crime syndicate but a true family as well. The birth of my nephew. William and Mary's wedding. My parents' thirtieth anniversary party. Even Cecily and I had our moments. As children, we had been inseparable as was often the way with twins. But my mother called it unnatural and made it her personal mission to keep us as separated as possible as we aged through adolescence. Still, I remembered all those nights spent in forts in our room we'd built with our pillows and blankets, reading books and playing with our toys. It was difficult to reconcile who my sister was with who she had been. There was no one else, on this earth, who I wanted to save more than Cecily. But I'd seen what she had been capable of these past few years, I'd seen the woman she had become, the cruelty behind those eyes so similar to mine, and I knew. Cecily could not be saved because Cecily did not want to be saved.

I sighed, closing my eyes and collapsing back onto the couch behind me.

Tomorrow, I would make arrangements to restore this house. Tomorrow, I would open my father's books and see what unfinished business he left behind. Tomorrow, I would merge back into English society. Tomorrow.

But tonight, I only wanted to lay here in the dark and submit to the abyss one more time.