The Fortuity Duet

by Rochelle Paige

  Her hand trembled as she handed the envelope to me. I glanced down and was surprised to see it was addressed to my parents and the address in the corner was for the transplant center at the hospital. “What is this? Some kind of charity thing for my parents?”

  It could have been something like that since they donated to a lot of hospital causes. They got thank you letters and invitations to events all the time. But with Faith’s reaction to whatever was inside, I knew that wasn’t what it was. The way she shook her head and looked at me with red-rimmed eyes only confirmed it. I flipped the flap of the envelope open and pulled out two sheets of paper. One was type-written and on hospital letterhead. The other was lined paper with what looked like Faith’s handwriting on it.

  “Read the one from them first,” she whispered.

  I looked up and the tears were spilling down her cheeks. Dropping my hand holding the letters into my lap, I focused on her. “I don’t know what these say, but you have to know it doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, it’s not going to change my feelings for you, Faith. I love you. Today. Tomorrow. Always.”

  Her head dropped low, and her shoulders shook. “Please, Dillon. You’re killing me here. Just read the letters.”

  I took a deep breath before unfolding the letter from the hospital first. Then I quickly scanned the note Faith had written and the connection between the two hit me. It had only taken a couple of minutes before I began to question everything I thought I knew about my brother’s death.

  “This isn’t possible,” I mumbled, not understanding how Declan’s name could be listed in the letter from the hospital. “He died in the crash, and that was a month before your transplant. There’s no way you could’ve gotten a kidney from him. Not with that much time in between. There has to have been some kind of mistake.”

  I read the letters again, convinced that it couldn’t be true. If what I was reading was right, then my parents had been lying to me ever since I woke up from my coma.

  “As much as I wish differently, there wasn’t a mistake. After I had agreed to move in with you and finished my last final exam, I decided to let go of some of the emotional baggage I’ve been carrying for years. You’ve made me so happy—changed me for the better. I wanted to give thanks to the family who lost a loved one and offered me a second chance. The transplant center couldn’t give me the name, but they offered to forward a letter from me to my donor’s family. That letter.”

  My hands were shaking as I stared down at the note she’d sent to her donor family. It was crazy to think her love for me had inspired her to write it. The way she’d talked about how hopeless she’d felt back then. How well her life had turned out since the transplant. That she’d fallen in love with me.

  It would’ve been fucking amazing to read this if it hadn’t been accompanied by the letter from the transplant center. The one that explained what they were forwarding and why. If it wasn’t a mistake, that letter was black and white proof that Declan was her kidney donor. “My parents didn’t say anything about donating Declan’s organs, but I can see them doing something like that. It would be just like them to try to help people during the worst time of our lives. But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a mistake of some kind. Maybe they messed up and forwarded your note to the wrong family.”

  “That’s what I was hoping, too.” Tears streamed down her cheeks as she shook her head. “But I called and asked the receptionist to double-check if it was mailed to the wrong family in error. She’s the one who sent it. She couldn’t confirm the name of the family it was supposed to go to, but she was able to tell me there wasn’t a mistake.”

  “Fuck,” I groaned. “This is really happening.”

  “It is.”

  It wasn’t just the contents of the letter that I didn’t understand. It was how Faith got it, too. “If they mailed this to my parents, how the hell did you end up with it? Do they know? Did they give it to you and not even tell me about it?”

  I never would’ve thought they’d do something like that, but I also never expected they’d lie to me about when Declan died.

  “No, your parents haven’t seen the letters.” She took a shuddering breath before continuing. “I saw it when your mom asked me to grab the mail one day, and I just panicked. The coincidence was too much. The envelope was from the same transplant center where I’d gotten my operation and came so soon after I sent them my letter.”

  “So you just took it?” I asked, shocked by her answer.

  “I know it sounds crazy, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. I grabbed it and took off, stopping not too far from their house to read it. It wasn’t until I got home that I even thought about how wrong what I’d just done was.”

  “This is so fucked up,” I muttered. “That was a huge violation of my parents’ privacy. It could have been something else, something not connected to you. And it’s also a crime, Faith. You can’t just go around stealing other people’s mail.”

  “I know,” she whispered.

  “Fuck!” I swore. My mind was reeling. There was so much wrong with this shit storm, and I was busy obsessing over something stupid like her stealing a piece of mail instead of focusing on the worst of it—what’d been inside the envelope in the first place.

  My gaze dropped to her side, right to where I knew her shirt hid the scar from her surgery. “You have Declan’s kidney inside you.”

  She nodded jerkily. “I do.”

  If you had asked me an hour ago if there was anything Faith could tell me that would make me look at her differently or love her any less, I would have said fuck no. But knowing she was standing before me—alive because Declan had died—wasn’t something I could have conceived in my wildest imagination. He’d been the other half of me. His death had been more shattering to me than the injuries I’d suffered in the crash that took his life.

  Faith had been the one to drag me out of that darkness. She quickly became the most important thing in my life, and I loved her with all my heart.

  But right now I was angry.

  And confused.

  And more than a little freaked out at the idea of a part of my brother living inside her. She’d filled the emptiness inside me as corny as that sounded. I’d thought it was because she was perfect for me; like my mom was for my dad. That fate had finally taken pity on me and decided to put me out of my misery and gave me someone to love. That it was all happenstance.

  Only I didn’t know what the fuck to think anymore. A piece of my twin lived inside her. Maybe the instant pull I’d felt when I first saw her wasn't Faith at all. Maybe it was my connection to my brother.

  “Fuck,” I groaned again.

  If I tried to talk it out with Faith feeling the way I did at the moment, things were going to get ugly. I was too pissed and confused to watch my words, and I was likely to take my anger out on her. Even with my mind reeling, I didn’t want to say things to her I could never take back. I couldn’t stand the idea that I might hurt her in a way she could never forgive.

  “I need to go.” I stood up and strode into the house, grabbing my keys from the hook by the door.

  “Dillon, no!” she cried. “Don’t go. I get that you probably don’t know what to think. Neither do I. But we love each other, and we’re supposed to face the hard stuff together. Right?”

  I paused at the door, knowing in my head that she was right. It was hypocritical of me to force her to open up to me in the past only to walk away right now. But I knew I needed time. Time that maybe she’d already had considering how distant she’d been with me lately.

  “When did you find the letter?” I continued on before giving her a chance to answer. “How long have you known about this?”

  Her silence was damning.

  “How fucking long, Faith?” I yelled. “If I had to guess, I’d say it was about a week ago. The day you went shopping with my mom, right? That’s when you stopped sleeping well. When you started to pull away from me. But it couldn’t have been that long because that would mean you
’ve kept this from me all this time.”

  “Dillon,” she sighed. “I didn’t know what to say.”

  “So all those times I asked you what was bothering you, and you said you were fine? You were just lying to me?”

  “I needed time to figure it all out in my head,” she tried to explain.

  “Yeah, time to figure things out sounds pretty damn good to me,” I growled. “And you’re going to give to me what you took for yourself.”

  “Okay,” she agreed, starting to cry openly. “I guess I deserve that.”

  “Don’t push me right now, Faith. Don’t try to make me feel guilty for being angry. This wasn’t something small you chose not to share with me. It’s really fucking huge.”

  “It’s not my fault!” she argued. “I didn’t know what to do. How to tell you. I was scared.”

  “Declan was important to me. You knew that and you chose to keep this a secret for an entire week,” I countered.

  “I’m sorry.” She looked so fucking sad. But as much as it killed me to see her like that, I couldn’t let it sway me from what I needed to do. Before I could work through things with us, I needed to figure out my own damn self.

  “So am I,” I replied before walking out the door with no idea when I would return.

  5

  Dillon

  I drove around for several hours before heading to a casino with a hotel attached to it. I checked in to a room and proceeded to drink myself into oblivion. I’d mostly avoided alcohol since the night of the crash, but in that moment I felt like I needed a drink more than I needed my next breath of air. And I drank it like it was water.

  When I woke up the next day, it was early afternoon. Food was the last thing on my mind, but I ordered room service. Another bottle of vodka. I didn’t bother with any mixers and drank it straight up. No ice either. My goal was to consume enough to forget, and that’s exactly what I did for several days.

  When that wasn’t cutting it for me, I took a shower and headed down to the tables. If alcohol wasn’t enough to numb the pain, then gambling was sure to do it. But my mind wasn’t in the game, and I lost a decent chunk of money. Not that I cared. I felt like it was no less than I deserved. Only then I started winning, and it just pissed me off even more. So I bailed on the casino and headed to one of the clubs where I used to be able to find underground poker games.

  It’d been more than eight months since I’d been there, but the doorman was the same and he recognized me. I got a chin lift before he lifted the red rope and let me through. The people waiting in line complained, but it was a perk to having previously been a regular and I sure as shit wasn’t in the mood to apologize for it. I slid a twenty into his palm and walked inside, hitting up the bar and then heading towards the back where another bouncer manned the door that led downstairs to where the poker games were held.

  When I reached him, I pulled my wallet from my pocket and retrieved a coin from behind my driver’s license. It’d been given to me several years ago when I’d first discovered the games, and without it you couldn’t get in. The bouncer took it from me and flipped it over, examining both sides before handing it back and opening the door.

  I headed down the stairs, downing my double vodka on the way. It didn’t take long for the owner of the club, Grant Michaels, to notice me and stride towards me.

  “Dillon Montgomery.” He held out his hand, and I moved my empty glass to my left so I could shake it. “It’s been a long time.”

  “Too long,” I grunted. I’d forgotten the rush I felt when I was down here. It was exactly what I needed to take my mind off how fucked up my life was at the moment. I shouldn’t have wasted time at the casino and headed straight here.

  “We’re glad to have you back.” His blue eyes scanned my face, and if I hadn’t known what an unfeeling bastard he was I might’ve thought they held a hint of concern. “Were you looking for anything in particular tonight?”

  “I was thinking seven card stud or five card draw. High stakes.”

  He lifted one dark brow. On him, it was an arrogant gesture. Then again, pretty much everything was. “The latter goes without saying or else you wouldn’t be here.”

  That was why he more than had the right to be arrogant. He owned several successful nightclubs in town and ran a poker ring that probably pulled in more money than all of the bars combined. The people who played at his tables had serious money, and they weren’t afraid to risk a lot of it when they were gambling. And Grant didn’t let them do it without taking his cut.

  “I think we’ve got a couple of games that might interest you.” He waved over one of his hostesses and instructed her to take me to tables two and four.

  She fluttered her eyelashes at him and leaned forward, practically begging him to notice her tits. When he barely glanced at her, her expression fell for a moment before she pulled herself back together and smiled at me seductively. I wasn’t interested, so I gave her a quick shake of my head and gestured for her to lead the way to the tables Grant had mentioned. I didn’t like the feel of the five card draw game and opted to settle in at the seven card stud table instead.

  I pulled a stack of thirty one-hundred dollar bills and dropped them onto the table. The dealer slid stacks of chips across to me. I tossed my chips in for the ante. My leg started to bounce while I waited for the hole cards to be dealt. I glued my gaze to the table as she dropped the first round of up cards in front of each of the players. My five of hearts was the lowest value showing, so it was up to me to make the first bet and bring it in. My down cards weren’t much help, but I was in the mood to play dangerously so I went with the full amount of the small bet instead of just the ante again.

  “Call,” the player to the left of me said.

  “Raise.”

  I heard a variation of that from each of the players at the table before it was up to me to meet the raise or fold. I tossed more chips onto the table and waited for the next round of up cards to be dealt. By the time I had seven cards in front of me, there was almost a thousand dollars of my money at stake. It was down to me and a player two seats to my left since everyone else had folded. His up cards were better than mine, but I had the impression that his best ones were showing. If I was right, I’d win the game because my down cards gave me a straight. But if he had two more tens in the hole to go with the pair he had showing, then he’d beat me with four of a kind.

  I started to doubt myself when he went with the big bet on the final round. But I was already in deep, so I called. Then I sorted my cards to line up the five which gave me a straight and moved the two dead cards off to the side, face down. Since I was the one to call, my opponent placed their cards face up on the table first. He looked so damn smug when he flashed me his three of a kind that I couldn’t help but chuckle when I tossed my straight on the table. The money didn’t matter to me, but it was always nice to beat someone when they thought for sure that they had you. That hand almost wiped the guy out, and he rolled a couple of chips towards the dealer before collecting what remained and pushing away from the table.

  I played a few more hands, losing two and winning another before Grant settled in the chair next to me. It must have been a signal to everyone else because the dealer and few players who were left all got up to leave. His gaze dropped to the half-full glass of vodka near my right hand. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drink when you’re playing.”

  He wouldn’t have since I’d never had a drop of alcohol at one of this tables before. “You haven’t.”

  “Although the background checks my security team performs on my underground clients include a wealth of personal information, I like to keep things professional.”

  That wasn’t much of a surprise. I wasn’t shocked to learn he looked into the people who received a coin to gamble in his place, and I’d already noticed he kept himself separate from pretty much everyone. What I didn’t know was why he was bringing it up. “Okay.”

  “It’s a very rare occasion when I’m moved
to offer unsolicited advice.”

  Fuck. Now I knew where this was headed. “And this is one of those times?”

  “Indeed it is.” He raised a tumbler of amber colored liquid to his lips and took a gulp. I mirrored the action with my vodka, figuring I could use the extra fortification. I discovered how right I was when he continued. “We have more in common than you realize. We were both raised in wealthy families. Had every advantage money could give us. Would’ve given it all up if it meant we didn’t lose a sibling in our teens. And we spiraled afterward. I stood by and watched while you did it. I held back and didn’t interfere, but I was happy as fuck when you stopped coming around because I figured it meant you’d come to terms with your loss. I had my guy check into it and found out you met a girl. Fell in love and moved her into your house, didn’t you?”

  I nodded as I shot back the rest of my vodka.

  “Then tell me this, Dillon. What the fuck are you doing here when the woman you love is waiting at home for you?”

  Shit. When I heard it out loud like that, it was a damn good question. The situation we found ourselves in was fucked up, but it wasn’t Faith’s fault any more than it was mine. Drinking hadn’t helped, and neither had gambling. Only one thing would—getting some answers from my parents.

  6

  Dillon

  I headed straight to their house, walked inside, and shouted, “Mom! Dad! Where are you?”

  It was barely six in the morning, and my dad ran down the stairs half-dressed for work in suit pants and a white T-shirt without any socks or a dress shirt. My mom came running towards us from the kitchen in a nightgown and robe.

  “Where the hell have you been?” my dad asked when he caught sight of me mid-way down the stairs. “When I told you that you were doing a good job and could leave on time, I didn’t mean that you could disappear for days on end with only a single text to tell us you’d gotten into an argument with Faith and needed us to check on her. You could’ve at least bothered to call your mother and let her know you were alive.”