Page 109 of The Compass Series

CONNOR

I ’d spent every moment at Aaliyah’s apartment since she’d invited me back into her life.

I promised myself, and her, that I’d never take our love for granted.

That I’d be there day and night, no matter how scared I became.

And truthfully? I was still terrified, but I was learning quickly that being scared was okay if you were brave enough to face those fears.

Each day, Aaliyah reminded me why I was facing my fears. I tackled them for her smile. For her laugh. For her love. If I was able to love her, then nothing would scare me away ever again.

“Go to work.” Aaliyah smirked as she pressed her lips against my forehead. My head had been resting against her chest gently, avoiding her incisions. Each morning, I loved to listen to her heartbeats. Each night, I did the same.

“But I like it here more,” I muttered, snuggling up against her.

“That’s the fifth time Damian had called you,” she said, pushing herself up to a sitting position.

She cringed a little, and I became more alert.

She was still a bit sore from surgery, but she was a trooper.

I worried more than she did. I didn’t see that changing anytime soon.

Maybe that was what love was, sometimes—worrying about the things you loved the most.

I groaned.

She laughed and kissed my lips. “You are going to have to get back to reality at some point, Connor. You can’t stay here with me all the time.”

“Says who?”

“Says me. You have a dream to go catch.”

“I’ve already caught her,” I said, pulling her into me so now she was sitting in my lap.

“Don’t be corny.” She snickered, trailing kisses down my chin. “I mean it. You have a whole company to run. Go get showered and get to work. I’ll be here when you come home.”

Home.

The place wherever she had been.

I reluctantly listened to her demands and pulled myself together to head to my office. Damian was quick to chew my ass out for not being around, but a big part of me knew he understood.

“Listen, I know you just got all happy and shit, which, congratulations by the way, I’m glad you both pulled your heads out of your asses, but I couldn’t keep this to myself much longer,” Damian said, dropping a packet on my desk.

Instant unease hit me. The last time he dropped a packet on my desk, it told me that Marie was Aaliyah’s mother, and well, needless to say, Aaliyah was still processing that disaster.

“What is this?”

“Walter Rollsfield’s grave dig. I know you didn’t tell me to go digging on him, but after the shit I found out about his wife, I knew I had to. I’m pissed I didn’t do it sooner. We could’ve avoided all of this shit.”

I opened the files, and the wave of nausea that hit me made me almost pass out. Damian had gathered old emails from Walter to other clients of his. Contracts. New properties that he’d bought under another business name.

My properties.

Walter Rollsfield bought every property that I’d brought to him for my passion project, and he was secretly planning to turn them all into luxury condominiums. Every. Single. One.

“Turns out the asshole was the one getting in the way of all of your hard work. Every single location he swept up to make a profit for himself. Dude…he sold you out. I wouldn’t be shocked if the Queens property fell through sooner or later, too.”

Why would he do that to me? From the jump, I looked toward Walter as a father figure.

He’d taught me the ins and outs of business.

He invested in me, in my dreams. Why would he go through all of that just to steal from me?

To lie and cheat. To take something that I loved, something I truly believed in, and take it for himself.

Hell, he’d stood beside me flabbergasted and angered by the fact that the deals kept falling through! Was that all an act? Was I some kind of pawn in some twisted game of chess he’d been playing?

I trusted him.

I trusted him more than I’d trusted anyone else in the business. The whole time, I sat stunned by how he could raise such a monster son, when in reality, Jason had been mirroring his own father.

Right after I read through everything, I headed over to Walter’s office. His secretary was quick to tell me he was in the middle of a meeting, but I didn’t give a shit. I barged right into his conference room, not giving a damn what I was interrupting.

The moment I flung the door open, a room of about ten gentlemen turned to look my way. At the head of the table sat Walter. He narrowed his eyes at me, baffled.

“Connor, what are you doing here?”

“Is it true?” I barked, my chest rising and falling hard as I stared into a set of eyes that I’d trusted for so many years.

Walter laughed nervously, shaking his head. “I’m in the middle of a meeting. Maybe later will be a better time to talk, son?—”

“Don’t call me son,” I hissed. “Is it true you bought all of the apartment buildings that supposedly fell through for me?”

Walter grimaced, and he cleared his throat. He looked at the gentlemen sitting around him and pushed out a fake grin. “I’m sorry, everyone. If you will excuse me for a moment, I need to handle this conversation in my office,” he said as he stood up and marched past me. “I will be back in no time.”

He headed for his office, and I followed him, staying right on his heels. The moment we were inside, he slammed his door shut and turned to me, fuming. “Are you insane, boy? Do you know how important that meeting is to me?”

“Do you know how important those buildings were to me?!” I echoed as rage shot throughout my entire system. The more I stared at the asshole, the more irritated I grew.

He walked over to his bar and released the longest sigh as he began pouring himself a glass of whiskey. “Truly, Connor, I cannot believe you are coming to me with this bullshit. After everything I’ve done for you.”

“I’ve done plenty for you, too, Walter,” I said. “Taking on Jason, for instance.”

“If you think you’ve done anything for me, you must be kidding yourself.

I made you, little boy. Without me and my investments early on, Roe Real Estate wouldn’t exist. A warning—don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

” He walked around to his desk, pulled out his chair, and sat.

He was acting as calm as a clam as if he hadn’t ruined my dreams.

“You screwed me over and pretended it was someone else.”

“Between you and me, I’m shocked it took you this long to realize what had been going on. All the clues were there. But you know what they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink.”

“Why would you do this?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Because I love money.

Don’t get me wrong, the properties you discovered are outstanding.

They are going to make great homes for very wealthy people down the line.

Which, in turn, would make me very wealthy.

It’s a win-win.” He sipped at his whiskey and then paused.

“Well, I guess it’s a lose-lose for you. But hell, I’m happy.”

“You son of a bitch,” I sneered, wanting nothing more than to slam my fist into his face. His smugness was driving me insane. “You lied to me about everything.”

“Yeah, well, welcome to the real world. People fucking lie to get what they want. You really thought I made it this far in life with honesty? Truthfully, you’ve helped me a lot. I’ll send you a thank-you check after my profits start rolling in.”

“I want nothing to do with you. I want nothing else from you. I’m done with you. Do you hear me, Walter? We are finished.”

“Yeah, well, I wish it was that easy, but you see, there’re something called contracts that keep you from walking away. When you signed to work with me, I was given forty percent of Roe Real Estate. So even if you’re mad, we are still business partners.”

“I still own a majority. I’ll work like hell to get rid of you.”

“Oh, no.” He shook his head in disappointment.

“You didn’t read the small print of Jason’s contract, did you?

Ah, the young and na?ve always forget to read the small print.

When you signed over the West Coast property, you gave Jason twenty percent of the company.

Which means you only have thirty percent.

So it looks like majority of Roe Real Estates belongs to the Rollfields. Tough break, kid. Really.”

“The contract only stays solid if Jason remains in the position for a year,” I told him.

“Yes, and he will. I have a fat check waiting for him after he completes his year working there, and then he will sign his shares over to me, making me the majority owner of the company. Plus, Jason will now definitely stay at the position, knowing you were fucking his girl. He’s petty that way.

He’ll hit you where it hurts—in his wallet.

So, let’s have you stay in your lane. I don’t want to end up firing you, son, but don’t think that I won’t. ”

“This was your plan the whole time, wasn’t it? You planned to take over my business all those years ago. You were using me.”

“Now you’re catching on. You didn’t truly think that I believed in your little dreams, did you?

You had a charming face and personality that I knew people would eat up.

You were the puppet, and thank you for making it so easy to pull your strings.

Come on, Connor. You didn’t truly think that low-income luxury properties would be a thing, did you?

That’s a joke of a concept. No one would touch that with an eight-foot pole. ”

“I looked up to you. You were like a father figure to me,” I confessed, feeling idiotic.

“Ding, ding, ding! There it is, folks! The secret to this whole game. The moment you told me about how your father walked out on you, I knew that was my way in. Sorry if you took it personal, kid. It’s just business.”

Every part of me felt defeated.

Everything that man had done for me in the past was simply to stuff his own pockets. I felt abused, used, and he had no problem destroying my life.

Everything I’d built, everything I’d hoped to build, was coming crashing down around me. And there was nothing I could do about it because I signed my soul away to the devil who appeared as my guardian angel.

“He can’t legally do that, right? There’s no way that’s legal,” Aaliyah said as we sat on her couch.

I went straight to her place after my conversation with Walter.

I felt like a damn idiot. How had I been so blind to the truth that was right in front of me?

I spent so much time thinking Walter was a saint, someone who saw a young kid and believed in them and their stupid dreams. In reality, all he saw was a way for him to make a profit.

“Even if it wasn’t legal, I have a feeling he’d get away with it. This is what he does—he gets away with shit and profits from it. I doubt I’m the first person he’d done that with, and I doubt I’d be the last.”

“I hate him.” She sighed, moving in closer to me. She rested her head on my shoulder.

“Me too,” I replied. “I can’t believe he tricked me for this long. If only I would’ve had Damian look into him sooner…”

“This isn’t your fault, Connor. Walter Rollsfield is a pathological liar.

There is no way you could’ve known. I didn’t know about Marie, either.

They both presented themselves as something they weren’t to get what they wanted.

Honestly, I think their whole relationship is built on lies.

They can’t be honest with each other because they are far from honest with themselves.

It’s actually sad the lives they live. We should count our blessings that we found out at all.

I’m sure there are still people who think very highly of the assholes. ”

I sighed and rested my head on top of hers. “What am I going to do now? I cannot, in good conscience, stay in business with him. I’ll have to hand Roe Real Estate over to him.”

“Well.” She laced her fingers with mine and held me close. “If it comes down to starting over, we’ll start over together. You’re not in this alone, Connor. You built yourself a name over the past year from the ground up. We’ll do it again. But no matter what, I’m here to build with you.”

“Thank you, Red,” I whispered, moving to brush my lips against hers.

“Always, Cap.”

Later on, we moved to the bedroom, and she fell asleep before me.

I rested my head against her chest, listening to her heartbeats.

My favorite song, my favorite lullaby. I had no clue how everything was going to be okay, but as long as her heart kept beating, I knew no matter what, we’d figure out how to face the world together.