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I took a deep breath and opened the door. My suitcase's wheels rolled, my heels tapping out a staccato rhythm down the hall, across the living room, past the piano that I mentally set afire, and into the foyer. Nobody stopped me.
There were vehicles waiting in the gravel driveway. Tommy and Connor were standing by a black SUV, and I left my suitcase for someone to put in the back. I didn't care who. I slid into the front passenger seat because I really didn't want to sit next to either of those two at this point.
As it turned out? It didn't matter.
They ignored me the whole drive down to Boston. Halfway through, I dug my air pods out of my purse and stuck them in my ears to drown out Tommy and Connor's hushed conversation from the back seat. I closed my eyes against the fleeting countryside past my window, unwilling to admit to myself just how much I was going to miss it.
The sound of a door slamming shut jolted me awake, and I gasped, blinking away the confusion. We'd stopped outside a converted factory building. I hadn't realized I'd fallen asleep, and I didn't like how easily I'd let down my guard.
“Cassidy." Connor stood a foot away, one hand on the open doorframe and the other extended towards me. "We're here."
Realizing he was offering to help me from the car, I pushed past him without accepting. I was prepared to march right into the building ahead of him, but the scenery caught my eye. My steps slowed and then stopped. I knew this neighborhood. We were in City Point, two streets down from where I grew up. I swallowed past a wave of bile. "I thought you lived on D Street."
"Not anymore, Callum felt my place didn't send the right message. Michael picked this place out himself."
I just bet he did. Roping me back into the life wasn't enough—my father wanted to keep me under his thumb, and this was just the kind of underhanded stunt he liked to pull, forcing me to live less than three blocks from where my whole life was upended. Well, I got the hint, loud and clear. Score one for dear old daddy.
"It's a good neighborhood, Cass," Tommy scowled at me as he brought my suitcase to the curb, "and a hell of a lot nicer than your last place. Better security, too."
It took every ounce of willpower I possessed not to kick his teeth in as I rolled my suitcase towards the front doors. As much as I hated to let that little jab go, I was afraid that if I unlocked my jaw, I might throw up. Or start screaming. I needed to be off these streets and away from those two.
Tommy rattled on about the building's security as we rode the elevator up, talking way too much, pointing out cameras, keypads, and who-knows-what. I didn't hear a word he said. I just stared at the floor indicator, mentally willing the elevator to go faster. I could feel Connor staring at me.
"Here we are," he said quietly as the doors opened onto a private hallway. A hesitant smile tugged at his lips, and he held out a key. I rolled my eyes and plucked it from his hand, careful not to actually touch him. I didn't think I could bear it.
The door swung open into chaos. There were approximately seventy thousand people in the apartment, all of them walking too quickly and talking too loudly. Unloading groceries, hanging up drapes. Touching up paint on the walls. Wheeling in boxes from the service elevator. High, vaulted ceilings with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the harbor and the beach I used to play on as a child.
My throat closed up. I struggled to breathe.
Too much light. Too much noise. Too many people. I just wanted to be left alone.
"Cassidy.Cass." I flinched when a hand touched my shoulder. Connor must have been saying my name for a while. "What's wrong?"
A mover walked by, and a box fell from his hand dolly that had been stacked too high. It hit the ground hard, splitting a seam and spilling books onto the polished floor. Not just any books.Mybooks. Medical textbooks, dog-eared novels from secondhand bookstores, a few titles leftover from my father's library. I watched, frozen, as he scooped up the books and dumped them carelessly back into the tattered box.
"Stop.Stop!Put those down!" I snatched one of the books from the man's hands. It was my mother's copy ofGray's Anatomy, her personal copy from nursing school that she'd given me when I made the decision to apply to medical school. The spine was ripped.
"Cass—"
"I want everyone gone, Connor." I cut him off. "Get them out of here."
"They're just finishing up."
"They're done. Now." My voice was cold-rolled steel, and my eyes must have held the same edge, because Connor simply nodded once and kicked everyone out.
I crouched down and started stacking up my books. Brushing off the covers, smoothing the pages, clucking over little dents and tears. I was probably being far too critical over some moldy old books, but these were my things. My life. And they were just throwing them about like garbage.
Connor and Tommy were talking in hushed tones in the kitchen. It looked like they were arguing about something. Tommy was in Connor's face, his telltale temper on display in the set of his shoulders, hands clenched, ready to fight. Connor stared coldly back at him, not yielding an inch. Whatever he was saying surprisingly knocked my brother down a peg, because although Tommy's posture didn't soften, he did take a step back, nodding in agreement before he turned to leave.
I turned back to my books and pretended I couldn't hear Connor's footsteps cross the room. Two polished dress shoes stepped into my field of vision as he knelt down. "Cass, are you alright?"
His voice sounded tired. Resigned, as if he already knew the answer. But he didn't come nearer and he didn't touch me, and for that, I was grateful. I might have shattered completely if he had. "I'm fine. They were being careless with my things."
"I'm not talking about the books."
"I'll take care of this. If this is supposed to be my home, I'd rather take care of my own things. I don't want a bunch of people running around, waiting on me hand and foot."
Connor sighed heavily. "That would be Callum. I think it was his idea of helping."
