She looked around, aghast when she realized it had been me who’d done all this damage.
“I came back to the chapel trying to make sense of it, but I couldn’t find anything. Couldn’t find any meaning behind it. So, I made it make sense. In my own head, anyway. I found a sledgehammer and—” I scanned the chapel to say the rest.
“Even the statue?” she said breathlessly. “To find meaning?”
“I tried and failed to, so I punished God. Tore down his house. He broke me, so I broke his sacred home. Tore it to shreds. Allowed this place to die. Because at that moment, I couldn’t have faith. Couldn’t find anything to believe in. My only goal from that day out was to avenge their death. And since then, I haven’t . . .”
“You haven’t what?”
“I haven’t been able to leave this chapel.”
“What do you mean?”
“In my mind, I wake up here every day. In my dreams, I’m standing over there before St. Mary Magdalene. My nightmares are all here. Each waking hour I’m in here. A part of me never leaves.” Shaking my head, I admitted my truth. “What you see here around us, is me.”
She took a few seconds to process my words, trying to make sense of the way I’d annihilated everything that had been sacred.
“No,” she soothed. “This is just a building. A structure. Where terrible things happened. This is not you. You’re more than this. You’re remarkable and profound and have so much to offer.”
“I can’t find my way out,” I admitted it, finally.
She took my hand and led me toward the door.
The bright afternoon light met us on the other side, spilling over us, casting a brightness that I soaked into my bones as though for the first time. A shift within, a sense that perhaps, just perhaps, I’d be able to separate from what clung to me in that place, in the hidden corners, in the center, and lower still in the floorboards deep underground.
Together, we made our way back along the pathway, putting distance between ourselves and the chapel, and for the first time when I stopped to look back, it looked different.
“What if it never lets me go?” My throat tightened.
“It’s you who must let that place go, Cassius. Your faith never died in the chapel.” Anya squeezed my hand. “It was always inside you, waiting for you to draw on it again.”
My fingers traced the sun inked on my wrist as though the sign had always been with me.
She nodded. “The answer was always there.”
Together, in silence, we drew our faces up to let the sunbeams warm us as we continued back toward the house, forever changed.
Anya
Cassius had turned off all the cameras in the house—telling me he wanted us to have a certain amount of privacy from now on. They’d remain on the outskirts of the perimeter, carefully monitored by two of his men. We’d be able to have more freedom to do many things we didn’t want others to see.
I made myself busy during the days that followed, searching out every single room and making sure I knew every part of this house, just as I was getting to know Cassius better. He’d gone to the office for a few hours, leaving me to spend more time in the chapel tidying up, but he’d at least admitted to himself we’d need a crew to help with the major structures and furnishings. We probably had a year of work ahead of us.
Taking a break, I’d come into the kitchen to grab a chicken salad for lunch. Standing by the counter, I poured hot water into a mug to make tea.
Peering out the window, I watched a familiar car pull up the driveway and park. Ridley, the slick lawyer, was swaggering out of it toward the house.
By the time I made my way to the front door, he’d entered and gone off somewhere. It didn’t sit right with me knowing he was here and Cassius wasn’t. But I’d been reassured countless times we could trust him, and he was an old family friend—so I held on to that fact with the kind of faith only reserved for the brave.
Eventually, I found him. And there he was, sitting behind a desk in a swanky office. Comfortable enough to throw his feet up on the desk and use the landline to make a call. Ridley raised a pointed finger to warn me to stay quiet as he finished up.
Standing before him, I folded my arms across my chest and waited impatiently. Taking in the sophistication of the private space. The ornate ceiling. The crown molding. The elegant glass desk in the middle.
It all screamed feminine. A stark difference to Cassius’s office, which was understated and masculine. Other than the powerful man who resided within it when he was here, it was void of emotion.
This office screamed of years of use . . .
A sinking feeling weaved its way through me, followed by a protective one.
I took a step forward, hand on my hip. “Does he know you’re in here?”
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know this had probably belonged to Cassius’s mother.
“I don’t think he would like—” I started to say.
Ridley lifted his hand up to silence me. “You don’t need to worry about Cassius. . .”
“Don’t I?”
He placed the phone down. “Not where it involves me.”
I raised an eyebrow, challenging him to tell me more.
“How are you, Anya?”
“What are you doing in here?”
“Hello to you, too.” He smirked.
“Does he know you’re on the estate?”
“Excuse me?” He pushed up and sat on the edge of the desk. “Look, I know we had a rough start, me failing to get you out and all that.”
“You did the right thing.”
“Well, not so sure about that now.” He shook his head slightly. “Anyway, Cassius tells me things are good between you two.”
“What else has he told you?” I gave him a suspicious glance.
“Look, I’ve known this family for a long time. My father was his dad’s attorney. By the way you’re looking at me, I can come to the conclusion that you don’t trust me.”
“I feel protective toward him.”
“Considering everything you’ve been through, that’s admirable. I want you to know I’m not the enemy. Neither is Cas.”
“I know.”
“It must be hard to trust anyone after what you’ve been through.”
I shook that off. “Cassius told me how much you did for him after his parents died. How grateful he is.”
“Well, he’s like a brother to me.”
“I know what really happened. To his family.” I stepped closer. “About the part your dad played in that.”
“Not sure I like your tone.”
“I felt comfortable enough to be honest.”
“Seeing as you’re shooting daggers, I know you know the truth. The day Cassius tried to speak with his father, it was mine who sent him away.”
“I’m sure he meant well.”
He shrugged. “I’ve spent every day of my life trying to make it up to him. The guilt eats at me every single fucking day. Sometimes, we make mistakes. Sometimes people don’t forgive.”
“But he doesn’t blame you.”
“Only himself.”
“What do you do for Cassius exactly?”