Page 44 of City of Liars

My phone rang, and I dug it out of my bag, then glanced down at it. “Crap, crap, and double crap,” I muttered. “It’s my mom.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t have to answer it, you know.”

“Yes, I do. She’ll just keep calling. And if I don’t pick up, she’ll probably stop by my house.” That was the last thing I needed. Steeling myself, I took the call. “Hello?”

“Hello, Olivia.” My mother had on what I thought of as her Jane Austen voice, prim, proper, and very nineteenth century. “What is all that noise?”

Crap, crap, and triple crap. If she realized I was in New York, tracking down the very thing she’d demanded I ignore, she’d probably harness Dad’s infamous security team and have me dragged back to North Carolina. “I’m outside, on the street. It’s loud here. I’m, um…” I glanced at Theo, then, in a flash of inspiration, added, “…on a date.” His dark eyebrows winged upward, but thank goodness, he didn’t say a word.

“Really.” My mother stretched the word into three syllables, each more skeptical than the last. “How kind of you to answer the phone when you’re otherwise engaged.”

“I’m not that engaged.” God, why did every word out of her mouth make me feel so guilty, as if she were insinuating I’d answered the phone in flagrante delicto? “But I’m surprised you called, given how we left things.”

“Yes, well, I regret that.” There was a hum of static in the background; she must be speaking to me over her Mercedes’s Bluetooth speakers. “I won’t keep you, Olivia. I simply called to get your assurance that you’re no longer pursuing the issue we discussed.”

Quadruple crap with a cherry on top. “I can’t give you that assurance, Mom.”

“Excuse me?” Her tone was wintry.

“I don’t want to lie to you.” I’d already skirted the truth enough. “You have your principles, well, I have mine. I would never do anything to hurt you, Dad, or Grandma Ella. But I can’t just sit here and do nothing. I’m sorry.”

My mother was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke again, the chill in her voice iced me over, even from hundreds of miles away. “I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, Olivia. But if you continue down this path, you’ll alienate yourself from all of us. Think about what you stand to lose, before you decide to betray your family.”

“Are you threa—” I began incredulously, but it was pointless. I was talking to an empty line.

I didn’t want to cry in front of Theo. After all, it was his great-aunt who might’ve been stolen, not mine. He was the one whose family had been fractured, the one who was still paying the price of what had happened ninety-odd years before. But I couldn’t help it.

We both came from a legacy of loss and grief, and I wanted more than anything to put an end to it. I was tired of feeling like there was nowhere I fit in, tired of wishing for the wrong things, of never being enough. Most of all, I was tired of feeling like my own family didn’t approve of me, that the choices I knew in my bones were right were abhorrent to them.

The first tear broke free and spilled down my cheek, followed by another. I tried to turn away, so Theo wouldn’t notice, but it was too late. He’d already seen.

29

Theo

“What’s wrong, Liv?” I stepped closer, looking down at her.

“Nothing.” Her voice sounded choked. “I’m fine.”

“Are you crying?” I said, horrified.

She shook her head, ducking it to avoid my gaze, and I put a careful hand on her shoulder. “What did your mother say to you?”

Her teeth sank into her lower lip. “I told you. It’s nothing.”

“This doesn’t look like nothing.” Lifting her chin, I wiped the tears from her face. “Tell me. What did she say?”

It all came spilling out then. Her parents’ accusations. The digs at her intelligence, her accomplishments. Her mother’s not-so-thinly-veiled threat. By the time she finished, my skin was tight with rage.

“This is total bullshit,” I seethed. “What the actual fuck? They treat you like a traitor.”

She shrugged, as if her parents’ behavior were par for the course. “I told you how they are. Like Richard and Emily Gilmore, except with the viciousness factor turned up to eleven.”

“It’s not okay.” Christ, how I wished I could stand up for her. Someone needed to, if only so she knew that there was another person in her corner. Because God, she seemed so alone.

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking up at me from under wet, spiky lashes. “I don’t mean to drag you into my personal business.”

“You didn’t drag me. I asked.”