Dante chose a restaurant with private booths and no music. Amara chose the chair facing the door. He was already there when she arrived, standing beside the table. In photographs, the resemblance between them had been easy to dismiss. In person, it was not exact enough to be comforting and not vague enough to ignore. The eyes were wrong in the same way.
He said her name.
“Amara.”
“Don’t say it like you’ve been allowed to.”
Dante took the blow without moving. “Fair.”
She sat. He waited until she did, then sat opposite her. For several seconds they looked at each other.
Amara had imagined siblings as something people grew beside. Shared bedrooms. Stolen clothes. Childhood arguments. Somebody who remembered the same mother younger. This man remembered their father.
That fact made her want something from him while she was still furious enough to deny him everything.
“How long have you known I was me?” she asked.
“Four years.”
“Did you follow me?”
“I researched you.”
“That is a polite word.”
“Yes.”
“Did you watch me?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did you arrange the audit?”
“Yes.”
No excuses yet. Amara hated that she respected the answers.
“Why?”
“Because I needed someone inside Adeyemi Group who could reconstruct the current financial trail and would not be connected publicly to the Grecos.”
“Someone.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“You mean your sister.”
“Yes.”
“You found your sister and the first thing you decided was that I would make a useful weapon.”
Pain moved across his face.
“I told myself you were the best person for the work.”
“That can be true and still be disgusting.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Amara leaned forward.
“My father wrote a letter because he was afraid Ade would use his unborn child as leverage. More than three decades later, his son found that child and used her as leverage.”
Dante went completely still. There it was. The sentence he had not allowed himself to form. Amara saw it arrive.
“That is not what I meant to do.”
“I don’t care what you meant.”
His eyes dropped.
Good.
She wanted the truth to hurt the person who had chosen it for her.
“Did Chiara agree?”
“She knew I wanted you on the audit. She objected to how long I waited to tell you.”
“But she let you do it.”
“Yes.”
“Did Folake know?”
“No.”
“Kolade?”
“No.”
“So you used intermediaries to place me in a company whose managing director did not know why I was really there.”
“Yes.”
“That means my professional independence is compromised.”
Dante looked up. “The evidence is real.”
“My independence is also real.”
“I did not fabricate your qualifications.”
“No. You fabricated the circumstances under which they were selected.”
He had no answer. Amara sat back.
“What did you want?”
“For Ade to pay.”
“Money?”
“At first.”
“And then?”
Dante’s voice changed.
“I wanted him exposed. I wanted the company to carry Matteo’s name in its history. I wanted the lie to become impossible.”
“And if Kolade’s company collapsed?”
“I did not care.”
“Do you now?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Dante looked at her.
“Because you are inside it.”
Amara almost laughed.
“Still making my choices about you.”
He flinched.
She stood.
“Do not contact me unless it is about evidence I have formally requested.”
“Amara—”
“No.”
His face closed around the word he wanted to say.
Brother, perhaps.
She left before he could ask for a relationship he had postponed for four years because revenge had seemed more urgent.