“I try to keep him on the straight and narrow.” He shrugged. “I look the other way.”
“But you’ve done bad things for him?”
“I make a call now and again.”
“As bad as what my father does?”
He went to speak and then seemed to think better of it.
“I’m nothing like my father.”
“I heard that. And we’re grateful you’re not in league with your parents, which I would like to say, is a relief, because I don’t know you, Anya, but the little I do, I’m glad you see things as they are and not as you hope them to be.”
“How do you mean?”
“We’re not out of the woods yet.”
“Because you don’t want to have to kill me?” I tested a theory. “In case I don’t do right by Cassius.”
He let out a laugh.
“What’s funny?”
“I’m his lawyer. I don’t do any of the killing.” Just when the words settled heavily in my stomach, he winked at me.
That was a threat—raw and real and without any lines blurred. He’d made it clear that fucking up wasn’t an option. Not for me, anyway.
The room became bathed in a deathly silence. Awkward and heavy and desperate for one of us to break it.
“Anya, you obviously came in here to find me, so please tell me how I can help you.”
Just do it, I scolded myself. Ask him.
This isn’t like you to act shy. . .
“I need your help.”
“With . . .?”
“I need to get a message to my brother.”
He hesitated. “What would you want me to tell him?”
“That I’m okay. That I’m going to rescue him from that house.” I just wasn’t sure when.
“Cassius can’t know.”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”
“If you can find a way without Stephen or my mom finding out. Maybe get a staff member to deliver it. The gardener would do it. I can give you their names.”
He raised his hand. “Stephen would shoot me on sight.”
“If you were careful. . .”
“And then Cassius would gut me like a fucking fish.”
“I don’t think he would.”
“That’s because you don’t know him.”
“He’s changed.”
“I’m sure you’re a great influence. But you can’t take the monster out of the man once it’s moved all its furniture in.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means, watch yourself around him, Anya. He’s got a dark side.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think you do, sweetheart.”
“Don’t patronize me. Don’t call me that.”
“How does Anya Glassman sound? Is there a better ring to it?”
He didn’t need to hit so low. “I’m nothing like my father.”
“Time will tell.”
“There are more secrets about me than you could ever learn in a lifetime,” I blurted out.
Again, that quiet.
That slow twisting of his mouth into a smirk. “Go. Do something. You cook, I hear? Go bake some cookies . . . or . . .”
Pursing my lips, I held back on the tirade I was on the verge of spewing—that he may consider me untrustworthy, but I wasn’t the one who got his father shot in the head like Ridley’s untrustworthy dad. Yet Cassius had found it in his heart to let his son into his life.
Or maybe he was just keeping his enemies close.
I turned to go, pausing by the door. “Oh, by the way, we need to buy Cassius a new guitar.”
Ridley looked surprised. “A guitar? Cassius already has one.”
“About that . . . he kind of doesn’t. Anymore—” I bit my lower lip.
“What did you do?” he gritted out.
I shook my head. “It wasn’t me. Not really. Well. . . ”
He let out a long, drawn-out sigh. “Explain.”
And I did, I told him all about the music room, about how I found him holding it and how he threw it when he saw me standing there, as though I was the reason for all that fury. In so many ways, I suppose I was.
I didn’t tell him about the chapel.
Or what happened within.
Because that was just ours. And there was no reason for anyone else to hear Cassius’s confession. Or to know all that had unfolded since between us. All the passion, all the healing, and all the love that flowed between us. Because those sacred moments had to remain pure, just between us, and not shared with anyone else.
This was me protecting Cassius the best way I knew how.
Cassius
“I have something to show you!” Anya greeted me at the door, her face lit up with excitement.
“And I have something to give you.” Without giving her a chance to protest, I grabbed her by the waist, flung her over my shoulder, and carried her through the house.
Work, well, that was something I’d tried to do this afternoon, but after fighting these roiling desires and this fantasy that wouldn’t let up, I’d just come home early to be with her. This, this was as dark as any obsession went—me trying to unravel all the damage I’d done by reenacting all the different versions of it. As if we’d have lived through different circumstances in other lives. This was me trying to put all the broken pieces back together.
“What’s happening?” She laughed, her joy palpable.
The days and hours that unfolded since the first time in the maze had left me wanting to do nothing but worship her.
“Wait, where are we going?” Her tone turned nervous.
Understandably, as I was carrying her down the stairs that led to the dungeon. With her still over my shoulder, I headed toward the last cell in a long line of prisons. Putting her down, I watched her reaction.
Which was predictably horrified. “What is this?”
Without giving her time to react, I nudged her backward into the cell, towering over her, lifting her hands above her head, and pressing them into the brick. Caging her in, I used the force of my will to overpower her.
I could have sworn her heartbeat thundered against my chest like a trapped sparrow. But this was me baring my soul, and if she was to love all of me, she’d have to love my darkness, too. If we were to endure in a relationship, she’d have to accept every piece of me.
Taking her mouth, kissing her like this moment was all we had, pillaging, swirling my tongue, savoring her taste, obsessively controlling, fucking her mouth with mine until her moan proved she was relenting to my passionate attack.
Her breaths were short and sharp as she recovered when I broke away.
Lowering to my knees, I glanced up at her, watching her reaction to the way I unzipped her jeans and tugged them down her hips.
“I won’t have to stay in here?” she whispered, eyes wide with uncertainty.
“No, but you will have to remain very still. Understand?”
“I’ll try.”
“It’s not a request,” I demanded.
Her exhale sharp and sudden, she darted her gaze around the cell as she understood what this was. She frantically nodded, almost begging for it.