I know it’s not needed to be explained. Lenora knows our generations long feud with the Duvals. Our families have fought over the waterfront for damn near six centuries with more bloodshed than was ever necessary.
Seven years ago, back when I made the call to return and stay close to my family, Lucian Duval and I had drinks and a long conversation that ended with both of us agreeing the fighting had to stop. Both of our numbers were down to nearly nothing and the waterfront isn’t what it used to be. It was time to let it go.
Last year, Lucian died. Happy and peacefully in his sleep. Nothing foul. No bloodshed. And his son, Julen, took over the business.
Unreasonable. Hot headed and hungry for a power nothing short of full control of the entire city was going to get him. A piece of shit with too much ego for his tiny head. Decided the city was no place for the two of us. Offered to buy out the business, but I refused. Ushers will never bow to intimidation.
Maybe I should have. Ames and Eliah may still be alive now if I had.
“He asked me to give him the casino as a show of good faith.”
Even as I say it, I hear it — my boys died over a fucking building. Julen Duval murdered my sons to get a worthless pile of rocks. If he’d done his research, he would have known that damn place barely made enough to keep the lights on. Since the Depression, it seldom got visitors. I used it mainly to clean money. Otherwise, it’s useless.
But Duval got it in his head that he needed the damn thing and me with my pride, told him to go fuck himself.
Should have just given him the fucking thing. Even knowing it wouldn’t have stopped there, at least my kids would be alive.They wouldn’t have been gunned down and beaten in the streets simply for being in the wrong place.
Lenora’s cool fingers curl around mine and I find myself glancing at her.
“Not your fault,” she says firmly. “This is on them. They did this.”
But I should have let it go. I clung to the idea of fighting a battle I never stood a chance at winning without the numbers. But Eliah never had the nerve for the family business and Ames was indifferent about it. I already knew the damn thing was going to end with me and that was fine. I should have just given it all to him, taken my family and lived in peace somewhere.
But that isn’t how this life works. Submitting doesn’t end at a casino. Weakness becomes about control. For men like Julen Duval, compliance means ownership.
“We’ll get them.” Lenora stands and faces me, small, fierce, but steady. “Every single one of them.”
I nod but stay silent when helping her step into the water. I follow behind her and pull her into my arms. Tuck her between my thighs and back against my chest.
Neither of us speak another word as I gently bathe her. As I lather every inch with the scent of me and she sits quietly in my hold. I don’t miss the tears she doesn’t bother to wipe away.
“I love you,”I want to whisper into her neck where I bury my face. Into the fluttering pulse I skim with my lips.“I love you so fucking much.”
But it’s not the time. Confessing my soul to her now when there are still tears drying on her cheeks would feel false. Superficial. I may never tell her because she may never be ready to hear it from me, but I will go on loving her until my death.
Chapter Seven
Lenora
Thereareexceptionstoevery rule.
Even the bad ones. The ones burned into our minds from infancy. Cautionary tales told by worried parents designed to keep children in line.
We never had those conversations. As Ushers, the line of morality is a faded gray, easily blurred by a pen and checkbook.
Men like my father, men like Marcus, penned their own rules and it was everyone else who needed to fall in line.
Including the officers standing in the courtyard below, disturbing the coiling threads of fog rising off the slick cobblestone.
Three faceless figures caught in the filmy light filtering through the heavy smear of rain. None of them seem to notice their uniforms are growing damp beneath the onslaught. They stand in a rigid cluster at the bridge separating the world from us.
From my vantage point perched on Marcus’s office window seat, I’m a raven high above their heads, watchful as Mr. Pym shuffles from the house to address them. The elderly butler grips a wide umbrella over his gray head.
The one in the middle reaches into the inner part of his damp blazer and removes a manila envelope. The rain soaks it in the second it takes to extend his hand in the older man’s direction.
Mr. Pym accepts and words are exchanged. I’ve never had Eliah’s talent for reading lips, but it’s clear they’ve come on official business the way they stand rigid against the wet chill.
A soft clink interrupts my attempts to determine their purpose at Usher House. My head lifts and turns across the grand space of rich mahogany and the deep, faded burgundy accents that chase the darkness from the room. The afternoon light — what little there is — never passes through the grimy stains crusting the looming expanse of glass dominating two full walls.
