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I hated Connor.
Ihatedhim.
If he were any other man, if this were any other situation, I would have left. I would have. I wanted to, but after I’d exhausted myself of tears on the bedroom floor, I couldn’t help but admit he had a point. An appallingly illustrated, horrifying point…but a point, nonetheless.
I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to be with him.
But I didn’t want to die, either.
Why did Connor have to be so duplicitous? So kind and sensitive one moment, cruelly vicious the next? Why did he have to bring up my mother like that? I saw the flashes of fear in his expressive eyes between the anger, I understood his words came from a place of fear, but that didn’t make them hurt any less. I didn’t want to be scared or controlled. I wanted to be seen as capable. An equal, like the way we were in Maine. I wanted to love him, the idea of who he could be, but he just kept hurting me.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, putting your faith in the same people time after time and expecting different results. I already had my answer.
More than ever, I wished I could talk to my mother. She’d married into the mob, and she had always been able to delicately bear the quiet domesticity and the brutality of her husband’s lifestyle.
Until it got her killed.
I wanted to follow her example, but every time I turned around Connor was making it harder and harder. What was once a rift between us was now an unnavigable divide.
I hadn’t left the penthouse in days. There was a little terraced garden that I made frequent use of if nothing other than to escape from under the watchful eyes of my keepers. In addition to the armed guards outside, Connor and Tommy had taken it upon themselves to act as my personal bodyguards, dividing the time into 12-hour shifts, watching me around the clock.
My spontaneous escape act a few days ago had been the straw that broke the camel’s back. Tommy showed up the next morning and shouted at me for nearly an hour, took a coffee break, then shouted at me all over again. I weathered the ass-chewing silently, which only spurred him on more. Later, the walls shook with the way he was going at the heavy bag in the gym, but after that, he was calmer. My brother’s tried-and-true stress relief method—if you’re pissed off, find something to hit.
I tried it a few days ago and almost broke my hand.
“Come on, hit it like you mean it.” Tommy was standing behind me and correcting my form as I punched the speed bag. He’d taken it upon himself to teach me some self-defense, but boxing was where his true enthusiasm lay. “Alternate now, keep ‘em up.”
Truthfully, it was a fantastic outlet. I imagined Connor’s face as the speed bag. Often.
I was breathing hard when Tommy finally called a halt, tossing me a water bottle. “You’re getting better, little sis. We’ll get some muscles on those scrawny chicken arms, yet.”
I scowled and spat water at him. Tommy yelped and jumped back, and I laughed. “Fuck off. Just because I don’t hit things for a living doesn’t mean I’m scrawny.”
“Yeah? When’s the last time you saw the inside of a gym? Or, better yet, a meal that didn’t consist of caffeine and ramen?” Tommy made a face.”
I rolled my eyes. “The life of a resident isn’t exactly conducive to leisure time.”
“Or life in general,” he pointed out. “But you’ve got it in spades, now, so let’s get ‘em up. Heavy bag.”
I groaned. My arms already felt like lead. “Again?”
“Yep. You’re not too bad with your right, but you’ve got a left like a faintin’ granny.”
“Ass.”
“Hit the fucking bag.”
I tried to keep up my scowl as I went at the heavy bag, but I couldn’t. It was cathartic, and if I was being completely honest with myself, I actually enjoyed these little sessions with my brother. No pretenses, no history between us. He clucked at me like a mother hen, making sure I ate enough, got enough sleep, worked out almost religiously…but that was it. Nothing about what was happening within the Clan or the threats on my life. It was almost like I could forget when Tommy was around.
If only it were that easy with Connor.
He was sullen. Sulky. Back to his old, glowering self, emotionless, distant, and cold. Some days, I was grateful he gave me a wide birth. But mostly, it just felt lonely.
Try as I might, I just couldn’t get him out of my mind.
“Hey, boss?” Grady stuck his head in the room, pointedly avoiding me. Apparently, he’d gotten his ass reamed for letting me slip out that day, not that I felt particularly bad about it. Okay, maybe a just a little bad. “Connor says he needs you and Mrs. McTiernan down at Lady D’s.”
Tommy’s head snapped up, all business. “What for?”
