Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Mara
My aunt Lina. My dear, baffling aunt Lina . . .
I have no idea how to finish that sentence without tipping straight into a meltdown. I’ve been rewinding the same mental tape ever since Mr. Hanley—the lawyer—gave me the CliffsNotes version of what she’s been up to for the past eight years.
Thoughts like ‘What the fuck was she thinking? and She cannot be serious,’ keep flashing through my mind in a relentless loop.
Her husband died, and that’s when she wrote her first will.
I get that. Grief rearranges you in ways you don’t see coming.
But I believe that instead of letting anything heal, she unraveled by rewriting it every six months.
Like clockwork. Fine-tuning her intentions depending on whatever had shifted in the Cavanagh family that season.
I didn’t even know she cared enough to keep up with us, but apparently, she’s been watching. All of us.
Hiring a private investigator isn’t “keeping an eye,” it’s stalking. I’m not sure if she was aware, but someone should’ve told her that it would’ve been better if she had shown up. But at least now I know how she learned Sam had died—and how she tracked me down.
Then, after Sam was gone, she rewrote it all again.
Redirected, rearranged, and rewrote to include my name in this game.
Apparently, she decided I had “no one left.” As if the universe had placed a tiara on my head labeled Most Tragic.
And then she added conditions. Instructions.
Little quests, like she assumed I had nothing else to do while unraveling the pieces of my life.
“Oh, Aunt Lina. This was messed up in so many ways . . . let me count them all.” I sigh as I grab a glass and fill it with water—because emotional meltdowns go better when you’re not dehydrated.
Listen, anyone would be happy with an inheritance, but me? Nope.
Every instinct in me wants to run. Pack, scoop Mila up, and flee this penthouse and the suffocating expectations built into its walls. But it’s those stipulations she added that prevent me from doing so.
They lock me into following her instructions. Why? Because of the trust set aside under my mother’s name—money that only releases if I “prioritize my own healing.” Whatever the fuck that means.
Mom needs that support. So do my aunts. I can’t walk away from that. They’re receiving something at the end of this year too, and somehow Lina decided I should be the one responsible for delivering their future. It feels so unfair, it settles under my skin like static.
And then there’s Mila. Aunty Lina left her a college fund.
It’s money I don’t want. Mila already has the small investment account from Sam’s life insurance—enough to send her to college someday if that’s what she wants.
Enough that I shouldn’t have to twist my life around a will written by someone who didn’t bother to call once in so many years.
There are donations I have to make in her honor, each one requiring so many steps it feels like she drafted a mini-epic for every cause. The manila folder Hanley handed read more like an encyclopedia of hoops and consequences.
She didn’t even leave one final message saying something like:
Dear Mara,
I resent you, so now you have to earn your keep in my gilded cage. Babysit my neighbor’s plant—and him. Keep cookies stocked for everyone. Smile like you’re being bribed (because you are).
Love,
Lina
I mean—really? As if I’m going to knock on every door and inspect houseplants.
Her testament reads like a caretaker’s to-do list. A cheerful caretaker, at that.
According to Mr. Hanley, Aunt Lina owned more than half the units in this building, including this penthouse and the land beneath it.
Which means . . . well, I don’t know what that means really but I don’t want this assignment.
It seems like a lifetime sentence, even though Mr. Hanley promised I’d be done after a year. I want to believe him, but life is never this simple. There’s always something hiding in microscopic print where money is involved.
I learned that from my former in-laws—the ones who offered “help” after Sam died.
Help that came with a horrifying caveat: they wanted Mila during the weekdays so they could “support her development.” My answer was simple.
I sold everything because a part of me feared they’d find a way to argue I wasn’t fit to raise my own daughter.
I hate all of this.
The legal traps. The rules disguised as generosity.
The way money transforms into a leash. I might even hate this penthouse with its glossy floors and the expectations tucked into every corner.
I hate the decisions I now have to make for Mom, for my aunts, for Mila.
Because my daughter seems too excited about staying in one place for a year.
She might even get to go to a school—wouldn’t that be different?
I hate that I feel ungrateful for wishing I had freedom instead of boundaries.
Air. I need air.
I unlatch the sliding door, and cold night sweeps in, brushing my face with something that almost feels like relief. I step outside.
The sky has cleared since the earlier drizzle. February stretches above me, dark and wide, the city glowing beneath it. Seattle’s lights smudge out most of the stars, but a faint scattering survives. Towers rise in all directions, windows lit and unlit—a mosaic of lives I’ll never know.
I breathe in, slow and deep, until the tight swirl inside me eases enough for my thoughts to stop tumbling.
Thankfully, Mila is finally asleep, curled up in what she called the perfect room—which is not the massive primary bedroom with the dramatic four-poster bed she refused to go near.
I didn’t press it. Aunt Lina’s room feels .
. . bad energy vibes-charged, almost like she might walk back in at any moment. Neither of us belongs there.
I lean my elbows on the railing, scanning the balcony’s edge.
There’s a dividing wall to my left. Low enough to tempt curiosity, high enough to warn me away.
The other side belongs to the neighbor. The recluse.
Alec, whatever his last name was. The man Hanley mentioned — like black ice or territorial cats— should be made aware of as a hazard.
Also, the guy Aunt Lina called a “good man who needs guidance,” which, honestly, makes me think he should invest in a compass or those new GPS units they sell at Circuit City, along with DVDs. I’m not an emotional Magellan.
On the inside, the penthouses face different directions, two separate lives arranged so they’ll never overlap.
But out here, the balconies sit along a single narrow ledge, close enough that if I stretched far enough, my fingertips might graze the divider.
I try to picture what kind of man chooses to live this high above everything—so distant from the world it almost feels intentional.
Maybe that’s why I’ve built theories about him, patched together from what my aunt’s lawyer told me.
Does it matter?
Can I just ignore him for the next few months, a year tops? As soon as I’m gone, I’ll try to give a shit . . . or two.
A soft strum cuts through the silence.
One note. And somehow it slips through me before I can brace myself.
I turn my head.
Someone is sitting on the balcony beside mine.
Of course it’s Alec.
He’s settled on a high-end outdoor sofa.
It’s one of those expensive pieces that can handle rain, sun, and any kind of mood.
The cushions are thick and pale, and he looks like he belongs on them without trying.
His posture is unselfconscious, legs stretched out, shoulders broad beneath a knit sweater that looks warm, textured, and expensive without bragging about it.
This time, I let myself really look at him. Not like earlier, when Mila’s blunt commentary made me want to dissolve into the ivory floors. That moment was mortifying in ways I’m still recovering from.
Now, though, with the balcony dim and quiet, I take him in properly.
Alec’s hair is tousled, sun-touched at the tips, arranged by restless hands rather than any attempt at grooming.
A few pieces fall near his forehead, softening the otherwise rugged lines of his face.
His jaw carries an uneven scruff that outlines his features instead of hiding them, giving him an edge he probably doesn’t even think about.
His nose is strong, purposeful, and his mouth looks unused to smiling—even though there’s something about its shape that suggests it once knew how.
And then there are the faint lines near his eyes, the ones formed by long nights, long years, and experiences he clearly has no intention of sharing with anyone.
Attractive isn’t the right word.
He’s . . . magnetic in a quiet, reluctant way.
His fingers stop mid-chord. He goes still, as if he didn’t expect to be witnessed. Then, slowly—cautiously—he lifts his head.
His eyes meet mine.
They’re dark, quietly intense, with a depth that feels like he’s watching from somewhere far inside himself.
And for one long beat, I forget how to breathe.
It’s been five years since I looked at another man this way.
Five years since anything inside me responded.
And I hate that my body is the first traitor, responding before logic can intervene.
I narrow my eyes, trying to chase the feeling away. “So, you’re a musician?”
A faint twitch pulls at the corner of his mouth—almost a smirk, but too restrained. He shrugs. “Something like that.”
“‘Something like that’ sounds like bullshit.” I gesture at the guitar. “So you play for fun, or because it makes people think there’s a depth to you?”
He lets out a huff that’s almost a laugh but doesn’t quite make it. “I do it because my drums don’t fit out here.” He nods toward the second story. “The place is soundproof. You’ll never have to deal with that—and there’s certainly no depth. More like anger?”