Chapter 86: JUST WANT TO KNOW SHE’S ALL RIGHT
Chapter 87
Lumi
The drive out to my mother’s old building took longer than I remembered, or maybe I was just driving slower than usual, some part of me stalling without meaning to.
I could have gone another way. That was the thing that kept circling in my head the whole way there, round and round like a fly that wouldn’t land.
I could afford a deposit on a decent flat tomorrow morning if I wanted one. I could afford to buy somewhere outright if I was patient about it.
But renting meant someone else’s name on the lease. Someone else’s rules. Someone else who could decide, on a whim, on a bad night, that they were done with me and change the locks while I was at work.
I’d had enough of my life belonging to other people’s decisions this month to last me a lifetime.
This place was mine. Actually mine.
I’d spent years running from anything that was linked to her, refusing to even drive down this street if I could help it.
And now here I was, turning onto it on purpose, because it was the one door in this whole city nobody could shut in my face.
Five days, I told myself, gripping the wheel a little tighter as the building came into view. Five days and I can bring this back to life.
It sounded stupid even as I thought it. I knew that. Some small, sane part of me was practically shouting that this was a terrible idea, that grief-stricken decisions made at midnight rarely survive daylight, that there were reasons I hadn’t set foot in this building in years. I ignored it. I’d gotten good at ignoring that voice lately.
The gate groaned when I pushed it, rust flaking off in my hand, hinges that hadn’t been oiled since before Theo was born.
I stood there a second, keys biting into my palm same as they had outside the penthouse, and then I made myself walk through.
Dust had settled over everything inside. It coated the tiles entryway, the console table by the door, the enormous gilt-framed mirror that had once reflected some of the most important people in this city walking through that same doorway.
My footsteps left prints behind me on the floor, the first prints that room had seen in years.
I stood in the middle of the foyer and turned in a slow circle, and despite everything, despite every reason I had not to feel it, something in my chest loosened just slightly at the size of the place.
It was enormous. My mother had been one of the wealthiest women in this city once, the kind of woman other women tried to dress like, tried to talk like, tried to walk into a room like.
This foyer alone was bigger than the hotel room Theo and I had been sleeping in all week.
Five days would be enough, I thought again, walking further in, running a finger along the dusty banister of the staircase.
I just had to get a cleaning crew in tomorrow. Get the electric and the water switched back on. Air the place out, open every window, let the light back in. It could be done. I’d rebuilt a company from nothing. A house was just a house.
Something skittered across the floor near the kitchen doorway and my heart slammed so hard against my ribs I nearly dropped my keys.
I froze. Every hair on my arms stood straight up.
It’s empty, I told myself, forcing air back into my lungs. It’s been empty for years. It’s your mother’s house. Nobody has any reason to be here except you.
I made myself walk toward the sound anyway, because standing still and imagining things had never once helped me in my life.
When I reached the kitchen doorway I saw it, a small grey shape disappearing into a gap behind the old cabinetry.
A rat. It’s just a rat.
I let out a breath that shook more than I wanted it to and pressed a hand flat against the doorframe to steady myself.
The kitchen alone could have swallowed my hotel room twice over.
Tiles countertops gone dull under years of dust, a chandelier hanging dark and cobwebbed above what had once been a breakfast table for twelve.
I remembered sitting at that table as a girl, swinging my feet the way Theo did now, watching my mother move through this house like she owned the very air in it.
Because she had. This whole house had been built around the idea that she was untouchable.
The ghosts started creeping in at the edges of my mind then, the way they always did in this place, memories I usually kept locked down tight rising up uninvited.
Her laugh in this kitchen. Her perfume on the stairs. The last time I’d seen her breathing, and the one time I hadn’t, in a room upstairs I wasn’t ready to walk into yet, maybe wouldn’t be ready to walk into for a while longer.
I pushed it all back down, hard, the way I’d trained myself to over the years. Not tonight. I hadn’t come here to fall apart.
I’d come here to fix something, because fixing things was the only thing that had ever made the falling apart stop, even for a little while.
I kept moving through the ground floor, mentally listing everything that would need doing, half a notebook’s worth of tasks stacking up in my head, and that was when I heard it.
Not a scurry. Not the quick, low scrape of small claws on wood.
Footsteps.
Slow. Deliberate. Coming from somewhere above me.
I went completely still in the middle of the hallway, every muscle in my body locking at once. My own heartbeat felt too loud, thudding somewhere up near my ears.
A rat didn’t sound like that. A rat didn’t have a rhythm to it, a weight, the unmistakable cadence of someone walking on two legs and trying, badly, not to be heard.
Nobody knew I was coming here. I hadn’t told a single person, not Priya, nobody. If something happened to me in this house tonight, it could be days before anyone even thought to look here.
Weeks, maybe. This building didn’t exist on anyone’s radar anymore. I’d made sure of that myself, years ago, when I decided I never wanted to think about it again.
My eyes swept the hallway, fast, searching for anything, and landed on an old brass letter opener sitting forgotten on the console table where it had probably sat untouched for a decade.
I snatched it up and closed my fist around it so tight the metal edge bit into my palm, and I told myself it was better than nothing, even though some cold, honest part of me knew exactly how little use it would be against anyone determined enough to hurt me.
I backed toward the wall, keeping my eyes on the staircase, waiting.
The footsteps came again, closer now, unmistakably descending, and then a shape came into view at the bottom of the stairs, tall, familiar in a way that hit me before my brain had even finished processing the shape of him.
The letter opener nearly slipped out of my hand.
"What...what are you doing here?"
...
REN POV
Six days.
Six days since I’d told her I wouldn’t call unless she did, and I’d kept my word, which was maybe the stupidest promise I’d ever made to myself, because keeping it was slowly killing me.
I sat on the edge of my bed with my phone in my hand for the better part of an hour most nights now, thumb hovering over her name, not pressing down.
I told myself it was strength. Some nights I almost believed it. Mostly it just felt like standing at the edge of something and refusing to jump, not because I didn’t want to, but because I’d promised her I’d let her be the one to decide.
I wondered if Theo was sleeping all right. I wondered if she was eating properly.
I wondered a hundred small, useless things I had no right to ask about anymore, and every one of them sat in my chest like a stone I couldn’t put down.
I thought we were strong enough to face whatever came but I was wrong. She’d never choose and the realization hurts more than my sis refusing to speak to me anymore.
I picked up the phone anyway, but not to call her. I scrolled to Neve’s name instead.
We hadn’t spoken since that day at the house, since I’d watched my own sister say things to Lumi I still couldn’t forgive her for, and walked out without a backward glance.
Six days of silence between us too, though that one had been easier to keep.
She picked up on the second ring.
"Ren." Her voice was careful, testing the air before she committed to anything. "I didn’t think you’d call."
"Neve."
"I’m glad you did, actually." Something in her tone softened, warmed, hopeful in a way that made my stomach twist a little, because I already knew what she was hoping for and I already knew I was about to disappoint her.
"I’ve been wait for you to apologise properly..."
"Have you heard from Lumi," I cut in.
The silence on the other end went cold instantly, all that warmth draining out of her voice in a single breath.
"That’s why you’re calling me."
"Neve..."
"Six days, Ren." Her laugh came out short and humourless. "Six days of nothing, and the first time you finally pick up the phone, it’s not to ask how I am. It’s to ask about her."
"I just want to know she’s all right."
"Unbelievable," she said, and the line went dead before I could say another word.