Page 166 of Empire State Enemies

I swallow hard, my heart hammering in my chest.

“Fine,” I say evenly, my voice steadier than I feel. “You send me out that door right now and I am never coming back, Connor. I mean it.”

He narrows his eyes at me, his gaze hard and unreadable. But I don’t flinch.

“Maybe I take things too far sometimes. Maybe I meddled where I shouldn’t have. But I did it because I care for you, you asshole. I did it because I’m loyal.”

I take a step closer, my eyes blazing into his, pouring every ounce of my hurt and heartbreak into my voice. “You know, I put up with a lot of crap every day. Vicky jerking me around at the office, Brenda hassling me for payments, my landlord refusing to repair my place, debt collectors breathing down my neck. That’s my life, Connor. That’s the shit I deal with on a daily basis. But you know what? I won’t take crap from you. Not about us, and not about this.”

I don’t give him the option of deciding. I turn around and slam the door behind me.

And I mean it. This is the point of no return for me.

FORTY-TWO

Lexi

Let’s get one thing straight: I’ve had my moments with rage.

Like when Grace got bullied in middle school by that mini sociopath Margo with her stupid Hello Kitty backpack.

Or when the school hottie called me a “freak show” over my heterochromia.

When Mom started puffing covert cigs after her diagnosis, flipping the bird at medical advice with each puff, I wanted to scream until my lungs bled.

When Vicky torpedoes my life with on a whim her absurd deadlines—torching my calendar and my sanity.

When Deano threatened Grace, sparking a kind of protective rage in me I didn’t even know I had.

When the upstairs neighbors have naughty time so loud I think they’re going to come down on top of me and ask me to join in.

And then there was the time Dad died. Yeah, safe to say I was pretty pissed at the whole world about that one for a long time.

But this? This is a whole new level of rage.

Never in my twenty-six years on this earth have I felt sheer, unadulterated fury as when I storm away from that Fifth Avenuetownhouse, making a beeline for the Central Park gates before I detonate.

No one has ever treated me so disgustingly as that jerk sitting up in that townhouse, probably swirling an espresso instead of, I don’t know, maybe coming after me? Showing a shred of decency?

I know I screwed up and regret it deeply. But I also know my intentions were pure even if my methods were flawed.

All this drama stems from Connor hiding things in the first place. Killian was always going to confront him, with or without my involvement.

I’m so blinded by anger, I crash into what feels like a brick wall, only to snap back to reality when a gruff voice under a cap snaps, “Hey, watch it, lady!”

For a split, hopeful second my heart leaps. Is it Connor chasing after me, in some grand gesture, ready to apologize for being such a monumental asshole?

But it’s not him. Of course it’s not. Connor isn’t coming. He’s not going to chase after me, because he doesn’t care. He never really did, did he? I was just a distraction, a shiny new toy for him to play with until he got bored. And when I became a nuisance, when I did something he didn’t like, he ordered me out of his life.

In front of his family.

That was the most humiliating, soul-crushing moment of my life. To be treated like that, like I’m less than nothing, in front of the people he loves most in the world?

I have emotional scars.

He’s still up there in that townhouse, finishing up dinner, while the Quinns make quick work of brushing any drama under their plush, expensive rug.

I hurl a halfhearted apology over my shoulder at Cap Guy and barrel through Central Park like I’m on a special ops mission, feeling my blood about to blow a gasket.