Samuel reached my side and stopped.

“You asked me to come,” he said quietly, “if the situation ever became public.”

“It just did.”

Jessica laughed, but there was a strain underneath it now, a thin crack running through her composure.

“This is insane.” And I understood, watching her, that she still did not grasp what was happening, that she still thought she was in control of this room, that she thought I was bluffing with a stranger and a briefcase.

She had spent our entire lives certain she understood me completely, certain I was the weak twin, the soft one, the one who could be pushed and would always yield.