***
I was concentrating on everything and on nothing as Kwan drove me across the Brooklyn Bridge and down FDR Drive toward Pier 11. The backpack sat beside me, mocking me.
Money. Funny how no one ever talks about the downside to a fortune. There are very few stories about what it costs to be in that elite group of people to whom the everyday worries of mortgages, kid's shoes or the electric bill simply don't exist. There's a downside to all that money. And the downside can be deadly.
My brain hurt from all the thinking. My heart ached because I knew what I had to do.
Tristan wasn't going to put the brakes on. It had to be me. Oh, I could probably annoy him enough with questions and neediness to drive him away, but I didn't want to whine my out of the relationship. And, chances were very good that he could seduce his way out of any serious discussions anyway.
Tristan King was not what I wanted out of life. I wanted a lifetime of expectations, the traditional kind with children and grandchildren. I wanted a home that wasn't a fortress. Safety and security, love and affection and a simple life was best for a girl like me. He was anything but simple and every day with him was living on an edge that I was certain to fall off of sooner or later.
It seemed like an eternity before we came to the pier. Kwan wished me luck as I got out of the car. I wasn't feeling lucky. I was scared and not just because of Mom. I was scared that I was planning to walk away from the only man who'd ever made me feel really alive. A man who could captivate my very soul and literally put the world at my feet.
I looked around, suspicious of every person on the boat. Who was the bad guy? Suddenly everyone looked dangerous even though all the agents and the cops told me that the kidnappers probably wouldn't even get on until I disembarked at the Brooklyn Bridge.
It wasn't even a five minute ride. I pushed the backpack under the last seat as far as it would go. I didn't look back as I got off the ferry.
Come and get it, assholes. Just let my mother go.
I took a taxi back to the house. A plain yellow cab just like millions of New Yorkers take every day. The windows weren't tinted, the carpet was dirty and the driver smelled like curry and cigarettes. It was comforting and bittersweet. The kind of ride that suited Raina Harding--Brooklyn native, recent recipient of useless degree, going home to the home I grew up in and the bedroom I'd be sleeping alone in, probably for a long, long time.