38

38
Cole
The whiskey burned as it slid down my throat, but it didn’t do a damn thing to clear my head. I swirled the amber liquid in my glass, my eyes scanning the club.
The music thumped, people laughed, drank, danced... but for me, it was just noise.
Noise to drown out Yasmin. From the very instant her absence dawned on me, I couldn’t breathe properly.
Philip had warned me against excessive drinking after I came to work looking so dead.
Sarah had sent me messages about how she hated me and how she would file for abuse the moment she returned from Las Vegas. Well, I bluntly didn’t give a fuck.
But Yasmin had made me do things. I told myself she meant nothing—not when she was alive, and certainly not now that she was dead. She had been nothing but an object bought by Dad to help me focus on being responsible.
She was bought and placed neatly in my life, as though her existence could shape mine. And yet, here I was, haunted by the ghost of a woman I’d sworn to forget. A woman who betrayed me and died the moment I decided to fully seek answers.
And after knowing someone who looked like her existed, I found myself battling the urge to travel down to Las Vegas to confirm my assumptions. Especially not after finding out that Yasmin’s body wasn’t found in the car today.
“Do you think she’s not dead?” Philip had asked what I considered the dumbest question. Yasmin was dead - the remnants of her clothes and even the wedding ring were found there. She must have burned beyond recognition.
But then again, Miss Arlene Gomez made the story complicated. She too was gone for five years, and then returned days after Yasmin died.
I’m getting insane, and I know I need this drink to clear my head.
“See who came by tonight?” Marcus’s voice interrupted my thoughts.
I didn’t bother looking at him. “Save it, Marcus. I’m not in the mood for your shit tonight.”
He smirked, sliding onto the stool next to me, his presence as annoying as ever. “Still sulking, brother? Don’t tell me Yasmin’s death is actually bothering you. Thought she meant nothing to you.”
My grip tightened on the glass, and I turned to glare at him. My voice was low, venomous. “I didn’t come here to think about her.”
Marcus raised an eyebrow, unfazed by my warning. “You’re not fooling me, Cole. You’ve been a ghost yourself ever since she died. You won’t even come home.” He leaned back, crossing his arms. “Didn’t you always say you wanted her gone? That she was nothing more than a tool for you to inherit Dad’s company?”
I hated the way he said it - so casual, so damn true. I had treated Yasmin as a mere object. I’d convinced myself she was disposable. And yet...
“I don’t need you psychoanalyzing me,” I muttered, finishing my drink and signaling for another.
Marcus smiled, that infuriating smile that reminded me we were twins, even if I wished we weren’t. “Fine. Let’s not talk about the dead. Let’s talk about you. Why haven’t you been home since the party? What’s really eating you, Cole?”
I stared into my glass, trying to drown the image of her. Yasmin, with her soft, wide eyes that always looked at me with equal parts fear and longing. Yasmin, who obeyed my every command without question, even when her hands trembled.
Yasmin, who flinched when I raised my voice yet still dared to ask if I was okay when I came home late.
“She’s gone,” I said finally, more to myself than to Marcus. “That’s all I ever wanted.”
I wondered why I was talking to him. We had never been that close. We were too different to accept any blood ties we ever had. But here I was, doing the unthinkable.
Marcus laughed, a sharp sound that grated on my nerves. “You keep saying that, but I’m starting to think it’s bullshit. You’re unraveling, Cole. Maybe she wasn’t so meaningless after all.”
I shot him a warning look, but he wasn’t done.
“You know what your problem is? You’re not willing to admit that Yasmin got under your skin. She wasn’t just some girl Dad bought for you. She was yours, and now you don’t know how to function without her.”
“Shut up, Marcus.”
“Fine.” He held up his hands in mock surrender, but his smirk remained. “If you’re done being a brooding mess, why not have some fun? Look at that girl on the dance floor.”
I followed his gaze reluctantly - this happens when you blindly make your way into your brother’s clubhouse. I turned towards his gaze and froze.
She moved with the kind of confidence that demanded attention, her hips swaying to the beat. Her dark hair framed her face like a curtain, and though she wore a mask, her eyes...
Blue. Deep blue, the kind that made you stop breathing for a moment.
Yasmin’s eyes.
It couldn’t be her. I’m definitely seeing things. Yasmin was dead. But this woman... she had the same delicate features, the same full lips that had trembled under my gaze.
“Want her?” Marcus teased, his voice cutting through my haze.
“No,” I said quickly, but my eyes betrayed me. I couldn’t look away.
Marcus laughed, standing. “Whatever you say, brother. But she’s looking at you like she wants you too.”
I swallowed hard, my fists clenching. This was a cruel trick of the universe, throwing a stranger in my path who bore Yasmin’s likeness.
“Here.” Marcus pushed a key into my hand. “Room 12 upstairs. If you’re really over Yasmin, prove it. Go to her. But if you walk away... well, maybe you’re not as heartless as you pretend to be.”
I glared at him, but he was already walking away, leaving me alone with my thoughts and the key burning a hole in my palm.
I wanted to throw it away, to leave and drown myself in whiskey until I couldn’t think anymore. But instead, I found myself standing, my feet moving toward the stairs.
As I reached the door to Room 12, I hesitated. My hand hovered over the handle, my chest tight.
“Here for me, Master?”
The voice sent a jolt through me, and I turned sharply.
She stood there, the girl from the dance floor, her head tilted, lips curved in a teasing smile. “Marcus said you’d be here.”
I couldn’t speak. My throat was dry, my mind racing.
“Yasmin?” I breathed out to myself, the name slipping out before I could stop it.
She closed the distance between us, her hands resting on my chest as she leaned in. Her lips brushed against mine, soft and familiar, and I was lost.
For a moment, I forgot she couldn’t possibly be Yasmin. For a moment, I let myself believe.
But as her kiss deepened, a chilling thought crept in. Was Marcus playing a trick on me?