by Maria Luis
I’d heard her laugh, once.
When I’d been down the hall, a bouquet of flowers clutched in my seventeen-year-old fists, ready to surprise her for her birthday.
Her laughter had died the moment I rapped on the hospital room door and entered the space. Disgust had lined her features, and the hatred that narrowed her eyes was one I’d always been familiar with.
As were the words she greeted me with: I don’t want you here. You aren’t my son.
“The concussion,” everyone always assured me. “She doesn’t realize what she’s talking about.”
I wasn’t stupid.
I’d been two when the car accident stole the use of her legs, and it seemed unlikely to me that fifteen years could pass with the same old excuse of her concussion working like a charm. No, for a reason I’d never understood, Victoria Meriden hated me. Despised me.
I wasn’t her son just as I wasn’t Jay Foley’s son.
By blood, maybe, but nothing more.
I shook off Ambideaux’s hand like he was nothing but an obnoxious fly, then sent a quick glance up, my gaze following the curve of the oak stairwell. Somewhere in this townhouse, my mother was set up in her room like the princess she never was, which had to be an improvement for her from her routine hospital visits.
“Lincoln,” Ambideaux demanded with an unwavering stare, “I warned you what happens if you screw off on this. I want Benson and Tabby taken care of. If you don’t, your mother will regret it. You’ll regret it.”
I met his gaze unflinchingly. “She’s not mine to regret. She never was.”
The only thing I heard on my way out was the pottery cracking one last time under my weight, and then the non-existent sound of Jason Ambideaux’s plans withering like wood set ablaze.
The smile that slipped onto my face as I stepped back into the world was perhaps the first genuine one I’d ever experienced in thirty-four years.
And while I wasn’t free from the bullshit of New Orleans politics, I would be. Soon.
I refused to have it any other way.
9
Avery
I was experiencing déjà vu.
Me at my table in Jackson Square, shuffling my Thoth deck mindlessly as I waited for someone to look my way and ask to have their cards read.
Him storming toward me, emerging from the shadowy Pirate’s Alley alongside St. Louis Cathedral.
Except this time, I knew the taste of his lips and the hard brush of his athletic body alongside mine. I knew what it felt like to be wrapped up in his embrace as he thrust into me, the pressure so acute with each shift of his hips, the pleasure in his blue eyes only that much more erotic when he groaned my name.
And I knew now, though I wish I didn’t, what it meant to look a man in the eye and realize that it came down to him or me.
I hadn’t agreed to Nat’s proposal, but I hadn’t turned her down either.
The guilt was eating me alive.
Guilt which only surged forth like a thunderous wave as Lincoln Asher took the seat opposite mine. Forty-eight hours since I’d seen him last, and I soaked up his presence like I’d been starved of sustenance.
You can’t. Don’t even go down that road.
I couldn’t stop.
My shuffling slowed, the backs of my hands resting in my lap, each half of the deck clasped in my palms. He said nothing, and I didn’t either. We’d parted ways in anger, our words dripping like poison in that motel room, and the awkwardness of this moment stole my words and kept my mouth sewn shut.
Should I apologize for speaking my mind? For trying to push him away and avoid the future hurt?
Or maybe you should whip out the I’m sorry’s for sort-of agreeing to kill him?
Fingers tightening around the deck, I dropped my gaze to his plain clothes. Dark jeans paired with a plain black T-shirt. Unwanted approval hummed in my veins because there was no denying that he looked good tonight. “You’re not wearing your uniform.”
For a conversation starter, it could have been better. I’d maybe rate it a C-minus on the scale of A-F—nothing higher because, really, that was the first thing to come out of my mouth considering everything that had gone down between us? Utterly pathetic.
But it seemed to break the slab of ice, even just a little, because Asher let out a low chuckle that sent shivers of awareness twirling down my spine. I sat up a little straighter when he said, “Guess I never broke the news to you. I’ve been suspended.”
“Suspended?”
The bottom of his chair scraped against the concrete as he positioned it directly before mine, the toes of our shoes touching when he sat down. “Suspended,” he confirmed with a small dip of his chin, his right forearm landing on the table. “Want to take a guess as to why?”
Knowing him, it could have been a number of things.
He was stone and fire, all at once. Unreadable and yet in possession of a temper that ran on a short leash—if there was a leash at all.
“Did you talk smack?” I asked, all too aware of our shoes getting closely acquainted with one another’s.
His mouth hitched, the side with his scars, and as I watched them crinkle and stretch, I felt a wave of protectiveness sweep over me. Could I do it? Could I be the one to take away the vitality in his Haint-blue eyes?
Lincoln Asher wasn’t a good man, and I wasn’t entirely sure he was even likable when he went on one of his ridiculous alpha bents, but that didn’t mean I had the right to take his life.
Now you’re just being a hypocrite—do you have the right to take Jay Foley’s either with that logic?
No, I didn’t.
And yet I’d thought of nothing else since leaving Whiskey Bay yesterday.
What would it be like to walk free in this city without watching my back? Would each breath I brought into my lungs taste a little sweeter?
My cards slipped from my grasp, and it took my brain a moment to register the fact that Asher had stripped them away from me and was setting them out on the velvet-lined table.
“You’re not doing it right,” I muttered, reaching forward to take them back.
His shoe eased against mine, a silent warning for me to give him space. He followed it up with a husky, “Let me try.”
After our argument—after being called a coward, however right he was about that—I should have raised my foot and plowed it straight into the apex of his thighs. He was a cocky bastard, and there was not a single reason why I had to put up with his bullshit. Not. A. One.
But I was a junkie and Lincoln Asher was my chosen vice, and so I caved without verbal admission, falling back into my seat and folding my arms over my chest as I watched him sort the cards with his brows furrowed and his teeth sinking into his lower lip.
He would never be sexy, not in the classic, model sort of way. He was altogether too rough for that, too rugged and way too dominant. And yet as the sun set behind St. Louis Cathedral, its cream-plastered walls turning red and pink and yellow from the dipping sun, I couldn’t look away from this man who I so wanted to hate.
“Turns out some of my rank didn’t enjoy me coming to your rescue three weeks ago,” he said, gently flipping over the tarot cards as his gaze tracked every minute detail of their illustrations.
My mouth dropped open. “They suspended you for that? You were helping me! And Casey, too.”
Giving a curt nod, he turned over one last card, so that three were spread out before him. The rest he bundled up and slipped back into their velvet pouch, which had been resting next to the lit candle. “It was a use-of-force. I got a nice slap on the hand. They didn’t want to piss off the kid’s father, and I get it. Although I think it’s safe to say that after recent events, me and Joshua Hampton won’t be attending any crawfish boils together or anything like that.”
Joshua Hampton? The kid who’d attacked us was Hampton’s son?
I felt like a fish, my mouth snapping open and shut—or at least like a snapping turtle—but it was hard to digest all that inf
ormation. If it had been Big Hampton’s kid that night . . . “Was it staged?” I asked, already dreading the answer.
Blue eyes lifted to meet mine. “It wasn’t staged by Hampton, if that’s what you’re wondering. Little Hampton showing up at the right time and the right place was just icing on the cake.”
“Then by who?”
“That’s who I came to talk to you about.” Lips curling in a small grin, he gave a soft laugh that was so at odds with the harshness of his features. It lit me up like a match and kindling. “But, first, I’m gonna read your cards. Put you in the hot seat. What do you think about that?”
“I think the fist you took to the head the other day may have popped a screw loose.” It wasn’t at all what I wanted to say, but it sounded a lot more confident than the thoughts running on repeat in my head: what are you doing here? Why are you being so nice?
“You can learn anything off YouTube.” Tapping the center of the first card with the tip of his finger, he dragged it close, shifting his big body so that he could get a good look at the illustration. “I spent a few hours today studying.”
My mouth betrayed me by quirking up at the boyish way he confessed it all. “So, a few hours of YouTube later and you feel comfortable enough to read tarot?”
“Nah,” he said with a shake of his head, “but I feel comfortable enough to read yours.”
Something about that struck a chord, and I sucked in a sharp breath. If I let myself get lost in the tailspin of wondering why he was here reading my spread, I’d never venture up for air again.
Mentally, I shoved the why’s aside, sending them fluttering into the evening air.
“You’re already off to a rough start.” Wrapping a hand around my mug of hot chocolate, I lifted it from the table to my lips, blowing away the steam. Asher’s blue eyes tracked it all, but whatever emotions he felt weren’t out for open season. He watched me steadily, carefully, but the heat I’d come to recognize from him was nowhere to be found.
Obviously, you idiot. Y’all aren’t just strangers anymore.
The hot chocolate burned on the way down, its temperature a few degrees too hot. Coughing and swallowing happened all at once, and I cranked forward, hand to my throat, as I tried to catch my breath.
Asher’s fingers went to my chin. “Look up. It’ll help.”
In between gusts of coughing, I croaked, “I thought that was just an old wives’ tale.”
His fingers didn’t move away. Instead, he gently angled my chin so that my face tipped up, my gaze latching onto the darkening sky. Beyond the spire of the cathedral was a full moon in all of its glory.
My hand hooked onto his wrist, just as his deep voice rumbled, “Not sure about the old wives’ tale, but it’s what the nuns always told me.”
The . . . nuns?
Tearing my gaze from the beauty above us, I fixed my attention on his face. “The nuns? Did you go to Catholic school?”
He pulled back, his touch leaving my skin bereft of his warmth, and he returned to the cards. “Nah, public,” he finally answered. “But, before that, I was with the Ursulines for a time. I don’t remember much.”
Had Jay truly cast him aside at birth, just like that? It was beyond extreme, and until the day he’d ordered Momma’s death, he’d never veered to the extremes. Even-keeled might as well have been his middle name.
Although it wouldn’t be shocking to learn that all of that was just another lie.
“Did Jay . . .” How to even put this into a question that wasn’t fully offensive? Swallowing, I tried again. “Were you ever close with him, at some point? I mean, with you growing up here in N’Orleans, you had to have seen him at some point, right?”
The following second felt as though it lasted months, and then Asher was sighing, dropping his elbows to his knees, lacing his fingers as he stared at our feet. “We’re going to have this conversation right now, aren’t we.”
It wasn’t a question.
Or, if it was, it’d totally been rhetorical.
“We don’t have to,” I murmured, and then risked another sip of my hot chocolate. Mmm, much better. “I mean, if you’d rather we discuss our meltdown from Thursday night, we can do that too.”
His façade cracked, a grimace peeking through. “We both said some shit we didn’t mean.”
That wasn’t true. “I meant every word I said.”
Letting out a dry laugh, Asher lifted his head to meet my gaze. “I did, too. Should I be worried that you’re gonna take that candle and shove it down my pants in retribution?”
“I’m not crass, Asher.”
His arched brow was the only response he gave me.
Rolling my eyes, I crossed my right leg over the left. “All right, so I can be crass. Sometimes. Rarely.” Uncomfortable under his astute gaze, I squirmed in my chair. Then reprimanded myself for acting like an immature brat who couldn’t get comfortable. Time to get this conversation back on track. Hopefully.
“Go back to Jay.” I tapped his shoe with mine. “What was he like?”
His big hands shifted over the cards once more, the pads of his fingers lazily tracing the illustrations while his gaze remained locked on my face. “We’re going to do this the unconventional way,” he said. “You good with that?”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
Alongside my foot, his jumped into a small rhythm—like he couldn’t keep his emotions in check. Or, maybe, it was actually his nerves.
“The unconventional thing is that I’m going to sit here and read you your cards. That work for you?”
I stared at him, refusing to show any hint of trepidation. He clearly had a plan with this tonight, and who was I to tell him to screw off without even allowing him the chance to give it a go? Maybe it’d be revelatory.
Or maybe he should learn that you aren’t supposed to sift through the cards and pick the ones you want before a reading.
Maybe that was the case, but curiosity trumped every other emotion for me.
“Avery?”
A small nod tilted my head down. “Yeah, all right. It works for me.”
A brief, grateful smile ghosted across his lips before he plucked the cards right off the table and clutched them in his big hands. Turning to me completely, his feet sandwiching mine and the table to his right, he flipped his pickings around, with only the first one showing.
The Three of Swords—Sorrow.
My nails dug into my palms as I noted the familiar card with its black and purple coloring, and a sword puncturing a rose. It wasn’t a card I pulled often for myself, but it was nevertheless one that always made me feel a measure of sadness seep into my bones.
I pushed the question out: “What’s that represent?”
Asher’s lips parted on a short exhale. “This is your past.”
The laugh that broke free from my chest was more air than joy. “Pretty accurate, I guess.”
I don’t know what I expected from this so-called reading. Perhaps for him to simply call the card out and move onto the next. Maybe for him to create a fanciful tale that was nothing more than unicorn bullshit, all gussied up with glitter and rainbows but containing little substance.
I’d expected those things, going so far as to gear myself up for them, but I couldn’t have expected this.
“I never knew about you, you know.” He set Sorrow to balance on my knee, forcing me to touch the card or see it teeter off and fall to the ground. “Until I was around twenty-five, I had no idea who my biological father was. I was given to the Ursulines at two. Dropped in foster care at three and stayed that way until I was a legal adult. Jay Foley never came around. Never showed his face.” Blue eyes flicked up in my direction. “And when I finally met my mother, she never mentioned his name either.”
Awkwardly, I shifted in my chair. “I . . . I don’t know where you’re going with this.”
Clearly uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation, Asher raked his fingers through his messy hair. His ha
nd hesitated at the back of his skull, forearm flexing as he studied me. Then, he spoke, that familiar husky timbre of his making me shift for an entirely different reason. “I was twenty-two when I heard about your suicide in the news.”
In my head, I jumped up from my chair and stormed away, hands over my ears to stamp out the sounds of the words I didn’t want to hear.
In reality, I didn’t move a muscle.
“Foley was on the City Council at the time,” Asher went on, hands linking together as his elbows went down on his knees. “And all I remember thinking as they showed your picture on the news was that you must have known so much love from your mom that it was impossible to live without her.” A ragged laugh came from his mouth, and, as though embarrassed by the sound, he scrubbed a palm over his lips. “In that moment, I was jealous of your sorrow. Jealous that you’d loved and been loved, and all I knew was pain and disappointment.”
Why was he telling me this?
The fact that he could sit down and tell me something like that was just—
“When Big Hampton dropped that little bomb,” Asher said, cutting into my thoughts, “I realized you’d known a sorrow of a different kind.” He nodded his chin in the direction of the card, which was still balanced on my knee. “You’ve been alone, isolated, and yet you still survived.”
I had no other choice.
It was either survive or give up, and Momma had never raised me to roll over and take it. Be brave, she used to tell me, and always be bold. For years I’d repeated the words in my head, over and over again until it was either believe in what my Momma had preached or just accept that I’d been spoon-fed yet another lie.
Asher’s foot nudged mine. “It wasn’t true, what I said about you being a coward. I’ve known my handful of people who’ve pissed off Foley and they couldn’t manage to do what you did. What you’re continuing to do right now—live.”
Every word that fell from his mouth pushed the blade of guilt yet another inch into my sternum. I wanted the anger from him. I wanted to feel that familiar fury swirling in my gut. I wanted, above all else, not to think of Lincoln Asher as anyone but a calculated killer who could snap my neck in two without remorse.