The room spins, what?

Bennett keeps going, his voice flat and matter-of-fact, somehow sounding like it’s coming at me through a tunnel. “Technically, your dad was, but your mom died because he was poisoned and he was the one driving. From what I read you almost died too.” He says that last part as he gestures to the scar through my right eyebrow.

My world tilts, the words hitting me like a physical blow. My entire body feels like it has been sucked into a vortex—weightless, breathless, and spinning. A dull buzzing fills my ears, drowning out everything else.

That’s not right.

The thought stumbles through my mind, sluggish and foggy. My parents died in a car accident. I was there. I remember.

Black ice on the road as we were on a switchback. The car spinning out of control, and Mom screaming.

Or… had she been screaming before we hit the ice?

The memory twists, warping now, edges fraying and slipping away as Bennett’s words carved a crack through the story I’d told myself for years.

I blink hard, trying to ground myself. When my senses return, Mo is watching me carefully. Her hands are wrapped around her mug, but I can see the tension in her shoulders. She’s speaking, but her voice comes through in fragments, muffled by the roaring in my head.

Bennett doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch. His intense gaze pinning me in place. “Theo,” he says, his voice steady and deliberate. “I know this is a lot, but you need to hear it.”

I inhale sharply, trying to steady myself. My voice comes out hoarse as I manage a joke, “If that’s the bad news, then what’s the good news?”

He hesitates for a moment. For the first time, his expression shifts—like he’s searching for the right way to say it. Then, finally, he sighs. “The good news is… we’re first cousins.”

I blink at him, certain I didn’t hear him correctly. “Cousins,” I repeat, the word sounding foreign on my tongue.

Mo, who has been uncharacteristically silent, mutters, “Told you this was going to be a lot.”

I let out a breath, trying to piece this together. My parents were murdered. Bennett—this guy I just met—is family. How though? My dad’s only sibling was his twin, and he died before we were born.

I stare between the two of them, my thoughts racing. Murdered parents. A long-lost cousin. “You’re joking,” I say weakly, though I know from the weight of Bennett’s gaze that he isn’t.

The silence stretches between us, heavy, suffocating.

Finally, I exhale sharply, dragging a hand through my hair. “Maybe we should start from the beginning?”

Mo doesn’t answer right away. Then, with a sigh, she abandons her coffee and makes a beeline over to my liquor cabinet. Without a word, she pulls out a bottle of whiskey and three glasses.