“Yeah.”
“Huh.” He wasn’t sure what else to say. Cass had a point about the lack of connections. It would be more understandable if it was Cass sitting at the center, but Dana? Yeah, he wasn’t quite sure what to think about that particular detail.
Cass sighed. “I don’t know what it means or if it means anything at all.”
He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “There’s not much we can do right now, so let’s get through the rest of today before we worry about what might be coming.”
She didn’t let go of his hand but remained quiet as they continued to her parents’ house. As he drove, the air around her slowly shifted as her grief sifted back in. She turned to stare out the window, and his heart stung at the soft sniffles she tried to hide. He brought her hand to his mouth to brush his lips over her knuckles, a silent offer of support because there was nothing he could say to ease her pain. Her grip tightened.
When he drove through the gate at Spanish Elms, she finally spoke, her voice husky with tears. “Thank you for being with me today, Grayson.”
It was all he could do not to pull over and gather her into his arms, or better yet, turn the car around and avoid the impending interaction with her family altogether because he didn’t need Cass’s magic to know things could go sideways easily.
Instead, he stated with simple honesty, “No place I’d rather be, sweetheart.”
Chapter 13
Cass
On one of the two half-moon couches in her parent’s living room, Cass sat next to Grayson, a breath away from flying apart. Her emotions bounced along the gamut of apathetic numbness to chafing resentment to a hollow sort of heartache then back, leaving her a mess. If not for Mr. Swanson’s insistence that she be present for the reading, she would have asked Grayson to take her back to his condo. Instead, she sat stiff as a board, nails biting into her palms, as she tried not to lose her shit.
Swanson stood between the two couches as he proceeded quickly through the formalities and into the financials. First up was Iris’s shares in Pythia. While she had ceded the running of Pythia to Rhea and Elias years before, she still held both her and Dorian’s shares, which would now be divided between Sofia and Cass. That little announcement drew frowns from her parents but not the expected angry outburst. Strange, considering that if the two sisters decided to team up, they would be in a position to seize majority control from Rhea and Elias. Insight struck hard, and Cass realized the lack of reaction was because her parents felt confident that Cass would continue her hands-off approach to Pythia instead of seeing Yaya’s decision for what it was—an unspoken request that her granddaughters act as the final check on their parents’ ambition and greed.
Resentment flickered, quickly followed by guilt. Cass didn’t want that responsibility—not after doing everything she could to leave behind Pythia and its twisted ties. A muffled sniffle came from Sofia, who sat next to a stoic Russ on the other couch as Swanson’s voice faded into the background. Taking in her sister’s grief-ravaged appearance, Cass felt the sticky webs of Pythia tighten, because protecting Sofia took priority. Snippets from her vision at the cemetery teased her mind in a dizzying dance and piled onto her growing suspicions about Russ, weighing them down with the certainty that something much darker was at play.
Her mother’s soft shudder of breath caught her attention. Rhea was slumped heavily into Elias, looking far from her normal composed self. Her typical impenetrable mask was gone, fractured by grief and loss.
It’s disconcerting to see her being so… human.
A flash of memory slapped aside the childish thought and seared through Cass’s brain, the weight of it undeniable.
Cass struggled through the heavy fog of sedation, unable to move, her arms and legs strapped to a bed. The room was dim, but she could make out her mother hunched in a chair next to her. Rhea’s shoulders shook as she buried her face in her hands, her muffled sobs seeping through Cass’s haze and the heavy press of guilt in the air—hers, her mother’s, or both. It was hard to tell them apart.
“And to Cassandra…”
At her name, Cass snapped back to the present.
Swanson shared Iris’s personal messages. “I leave my grandmother’s mirror as a reminder that what lies behind paves the way forward. To Sofia, I leave my emerald ring from my beloved Dorian as a reminder that love is unconditional and forever. To my Rhea, I leave my locket so that you never forget you have always been one of my most precious gifts.”
A sob escaped Rhea as she buried her face into Elias’s chest, and Swanson fell quiet. In a rare show of emotion, her father’s arms came around her mother, and he pressed his lips to the top of her head. Watching it, Cass’s heart broke a little, the ragged edges tearing away old scabs.
Yaya’s words from years before, when Cass had struggled to come to terms with the situation surrounding Thena’s death, echoed in her mind: “Remember, there is always more to the picture than what you see at first glance, angel.” Maybe it was time to grow up—to lower the lenses from her younger self, the ones tinted by resentment, blame, and guilt, and study her family’s picture with a nuanced eye.
Swanson cleared his throat and waited until Rhea regained her composure. When she finally lifted her head, he continued. “Iris set up individual trusts for both Sofia and Cassandra that can be accessed on their thirtieth birthdays. Each account totals seven hundred fifty thousand. Her wish was to ensure that her granddaughters had the financial freedom to pursue their own endeavors. The remainder of the estate goes to Rhea.” He took off the reading glasses and tucked them into an interior pocket of his suit jacket. He then opened his briefcase and pulled out three small boxes with accompanying envelopes. “She also asked me to give you these personally.” He moved to Rhea first, then Sofia, and finally Cass, handing each woman a package and an envelope.
Like the other two, Cass’s wasn’t overly large and was unwrapped. The wooden box was hinged on one side and just big enough to hold her great-gran’s pocket mirror, the one she’d always admired even though Yaya had been careful to keep the antique out of reach. She set it in her lap and then took the envelope Swanson held out to her. Her name was written on the front in her grandmother’s familiar looping script, and when she turned it over, she found it sealed with wax. She brushed a finger over the raised lines of the Alcmene crest—an hourglass surrounded by the swirls of an infinity loop—set in the indigo wax.
Grayson’s arm around her shoulders tightened, and she turned. He was frowning, his attention on the letter and box. His gaze came to hers, and he gave a barely there head shake. It didn’t take a genius to understand he didn’t want her to open either item here, and since she’d rather read her yaya’s last letter in private, she tucked the envelope under the box for later.
Across from her, Rhea had set Iris’s unopened gift in her lap but was slipping the letter free of the envelope. Sofia had done the opposite, setting the envelope aside so she could open her gift. The gleam of the emerald ring their yaya had never been without glinted. Sofia stared down at the ring, her finger gently brushing the faceted jewel as tears spilled down her drawn face.
Swanson returned to his briefcase, collected his files, and tucked them away. Then he addressed the group, his voice gentle. “There are a few forms that need to be signed, but they can wait until Monday.”
Elias carefully removed his arm from Rhea and got to his feet. “Thank you, Eric,” he said gruffly as he offered the lawyer his hand. “If you can bring those to the offices, I’d appreciate it.”
Swanson shook his hand. “Of course. I’ll make sure you know when to expect me.” He moved to Rhea, who was still seated, her gaze on Iris’s letter in her trembling hands. He carefully took a seat on the edge of the stone coffee table in front of her and set his briefcase on the floor. “Rhea.” He waited for her attention to switch from the letter to him then reached out and patted her knee. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Rhea blinked a couple of times as if finding her way back to the present and set the letter aside. She briefly covered his hands with hers. “Thank you.” Her voice was an empty mimicry of politeness.
