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Anger ignited in my gut. “I only asked one thing of you, Cass. One thing.”
“I’m not going to be your prisoner.”
“It’s for your own good. With this mole, I don’t know who to trust—”
“Then maybe you should leave me to watch my own back.” Cassidy planted her hands on my chest and pushed, surprisingly hard for someone her size. “I learned a long time ago the only person I can depend on is myself, why on earth I ever thought you’d be any different—”
“What the hell does that mean?” I growled.
“It means I’m leaving, Connor. Get out of my way.”
“I will lock you in this apartment with an armed guard if I have to,” I warned through clenched teeth.
“Fuck. You.”
Anger crested, tinged with fear, and I lost it.
“You wanna end up like your mother?” I roared. “Blown to kingdom come, just a charred heap of ash only recognizable by your dental records? A nice round bullet-hole between those pretty eyes of yours, what’s left of your brains splattered across the sidewalk? Or maybe you won’t be so lucky. Maybe they’ll just steal you away instead, really take their time with you, horrors you can’t even begin to imagine…”
Rage and terror surged through my bloodstream. I was barely aware of what I was saying. I pushed her back against the wall, caged her with my body. “Is that what you want? Is that what Rosaleen would want? Keep it up sweetheart, and that’s what’ll happen to you—”
Cassidy hit me.
An open-handed slap to the cheek, but it was hard enough to turn my head. I raised a stunned hand to my face. It was red and stinging from the slap, the imprint of her hand standing out in stark contrast to the blood that had risen to my cheek.
“Cassidy.”
She hauled back to smack me again, but this time, I caught her hand. Her eyes were red-rimmed and filled with hatred. “Don’t you talk about her. D-Don’t you say her name.” She wrenched her hand from my grasp.
“Cass—"
“I hate you.”
The words were delivered so quietly, so coldly and full of utter conviction that they stopped me in my tracks. The silence in the room was deafening. All my anger had dissolved, leaving me reeling with the weight of what had just happened. Cassidy just stared at the floor, eyes glassy with unshed tears and looking as hollow and empty as I felt.
I knew as soon as I had said it that it had been a mistake. To throw the brutal details of her mother’s murder in her face like that, the violent ends I’ve seen other loved ones meet in this life—I knew it would scare her.
I knew that it would hurt her. And I said it anyway.
I felt lower than low. But also, strangely vindicated, because I was scared, too. The thought of losing her…it gutted me. These feelings for her were something I was wholly unprepared to take on and something I was not ready to fully admit to myself, but there they were, all the same. God help me, I needed Cassidy in my life. Iwantedher in my life, wanted her to want to be in my life, but if nothing else, I just needed to know she was safe. I needed her to understand the danger. That was the reason I said what I did, and I had never regretted something as profoundly as I did in that moment.
Cassidy turned and numbly walked past me without another glance.
“Cass, stop. Pease. Just wait a minute.”
The only answer I got was the click of the guest room door as it closed.
I slid down the wall and leaned my head back against the doorframe. The wound in my side throbbed, my cheek stung, but my heart hurt worst of all when I heard quiet sobs on the other side of the door. I couldn’t make myself open it. Couldn’t take back what I’d said, even though she had needed to hear it. Maybe it was for the best. I’d been a fool to think that it might ever work out between us, that someone like her could love someone like me.
Cassidy could hate me all she wanted, but I would do whatever it took to keep her safe.
16
Cassidy
Iftherewasonething to be said about Connor, it was that he was a man of his word.
I was his prisoner in all but name. There were armed guards outside the penthouse. Food and other necessities were delivered to the door. The windows weren’t locked, but we were too high up for that to matter unless I spontaneously sprouted wings. Just me and 2,000 square feet of posh living and enforced security, something I knew I should be grateful for, but that still didn’t stop the walls from threatening to close in on me. My one consolation was that somehow Jerome had pulled off a minor miracle and lied out of his ass, claiming family hardship and getting my residency placed on suspension. I was out on a six-month sabbatical, an idea that both relieved and depressed me.
