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“You owe your education, your livelihood to Thorpe Industries,” she says firmly, quietly. “Is it really so much to ask that you pay it back in such a small way?”
“Upending my entire life is hardly small, Grandmother.”
“Jobs and condos will still be in Chicago,” she says. “Your family needs you.”
Anger simmers, too close to the surface for me to speak. I force more air into my lungs, counting backward from twenty before I dare speak again.
“Three months,” I say.
“Eighteen months,” says Grandmother immediately. “Even if we were able to find a replacement for you that quickly, training takes time.”
“Six,” I say, gritting my teeth.
“Twelve.”
I have the distinct feeling I’m being played, but I’m too busy managing my anger to parse it out. I survived it here eighteen years. One more probably won’t kill me.
Unable to say the words aloud, I manage a curt nod.
Grandmother smiles. “I’ll have my assistant get in touch today about the details.”
The minute the door shuts behind them, the feeling starts to boil over. Considering everything in the apartment belongs to someone else, I pull on my gym clothes as fast as I can. If I don’t hit something soon, I’m going to blow.
Two hours later, I collapse onto a chair at the boxing gym down the street. Digging through my gym bag, I pull out a bottle of water and my phone, powering it up for the first time since I got to the lawyer’s office that morning.
A couple of missed calls from work—they’re definitely not going to like my leaving, but I’ve got bigger fish to fry right now, and I’d outgrown that position a while ago anyway. I ignore the calls for the moment, snort at the emails I’ve already gotten from Grandmother’s personal assistant, and move on to texts from Finn.
Finnegan Hale is the real reason I bothered coming to New Haven this week. He’s my best friend, has been since seventh grade, and considering the number of times he’s come up to Chicago to see me the last few years, I owe it to him to make the trip this time.
I towel off my face and hit Call.
“Weston Thorpe,” he says when he answers.
“Finnegan,” I say, smiling for the first time all day. “What are you up to?”
“Just finished my shift at the kennel,” he says. “Sully and I are about to crack open this case. You want in?”
“Bet.” I check my watch. “Be there in thirty minutes or so.”
“See you then.”
Finn and his twin sister, Callahan, had opened up a dog kennel-slash-pet grooming service just outside the city on the farm they inherited after their parents died. Finn had all but raised Callie and their cousin Sully. I still don’t know how they managed to keep social services at bay, but Finn somehow made it work. As a result, he’d had to stay in New Haven instead of coming with me to Chicago for college, but we’d kept in touch all these years anyway.
Finn Hale had held me together in high school every bit as much as he’d done for his own family, when I didn’t have half his baggage to deal with. I owed him. Hell, I loved him. If anybody could choose their family, he was mine.
I pack up my gym clothes and head for the showers, looking forward to an evening with my closest friend in the world. Maybe coming back to New Haven for the next twelve months wouldn’t be a total loss.
3
Callahan
The commotion up at the desk had me on edge. Tiptoeing between the kennels like the customers could somehow hear my footsteps over the dogs, I crept toward the back exit, hoping to get away before—
“Callie, can you come to the desk, please?”
Lucy’s voice crackles over the walkie-talkie attached to my belt, stopping me just short of the door. I take three deep breaths and reverse course, heading back down the hall toward the front desk.
The pole barn that serves as our main facility was originally built for my dad’s hobby farm. He’d had this grand vision of turning the small family farm into some kind of homestead. I didn’t understand it then, but at fourteen years old you’ve got other things on your mind. Like, why you had to move away from your childhood home out to the godforsaken countryside right before high school.
