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?”
“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.