Chapter 8 - VINCENT OFFERS A HOUSE“Stay with me.”
“No.”
Vincent sat across from me in Caroline Mercer’s guest apartment in Brooklyn Heights.
Caroline was my college roommate.
Now an anesthesiologist with a schedule chaotic enough that giving me her spare room barely changed her life.
Vincent looked around.
“Security?”
“Doorman.”
“Worthless.”
“He called police when Derek came back.”
“After twelve minutes.”
“How do you know?”
Vincent did not answer.
Of course.
I pointed with my uninjured hand.
“This is why I’m not staying with you.”
“Because I know things?”
“Because you know things I didn’t ask you to know.”
He leaned back.
“Your mother said the same.”
“Good.”
“I have a house in Connecticut. Gated. Staff. No one gets near you.”
“No.”
“Lena.”
“I need safety, not ownership.”
That landed.
Vincent looked toward the window.
Then:
“What do you want from me?”
I thought.
“The truth.”
“About?”
“Why you came without asking what happened.”
“You asked me to save you.”
“That doesn’t answer it.”
He looked at my cast.
“I heard him breaking the door.”
Fair.
Then:
“And because when Anna called me once, I did not arrive fast enough.”
My mother.
“What are you talking about?”
Vincent stood.
“Not today.”
May you like
I hated him for that.
But for the first time, I understood his help came with history I had never been told.
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