Chapter Five
Marcus
Iknow what I am.
I own my flaws with the same weaponized precision as my strengths.
I am not a good man. I’m barely a decent one.
My very soul is stained with more blood and darkness than all of hell combined.
But that’s what it means to be an Usher.
It’s blood and death and sacrifice. It’s knowing nothing is permanent and the people you love most in the world will die or betray you.
It’s accepting that your funeral tux will always be at the front of the closet.
I never take mine off.
It’s the only uniform I wear since Catherine’s death.
Not because I mourn her after all this time — I do, of course.
She was the mother of my sons — but it became pointless when a week later, my mother died.
Then my brother and his wife. In between, friends.
Colleagues. Members of the Family. Death becomes more common than breathing.
It seemed pointless to wear anything else.
But what little I had left of my soul, I sold it for a single night in the arms of the one person I knew better than to ever touch.
Curled with unwarranted trust into my side, Lenora washes my ribs with every steady breath. Her riot of curls the shiny color of raven wings unspools across my pillow. Tickles my chin. My throat. She’s covered in only my sheets, but I know every inch of her naked flesh underneath.
Every inch.
I left nothing untouched. I tasted every part of her with the fervor of a man who knows I will never get this again.
Nor do I have the right to.
James would kill me if he were alive. Rightfully so. He trusted me to protect her, not use her when she’s broken and fragile. He wouldn’t give a shit that I have loved his daughter for much longer than I ever had the right.
I was married with two toddlers when Lenora was born.
I agreed to be her godfather — of course I did.
James was my brother in every way that mattered from the moment my dad married his mom and insisted James take the Usher name.
I loved him. Trusted him. In our line of work, those are rare qualities to come by.
And I would have died for her if he asked.
But I never knew her. We lived in different cities. Ran different sectors. We held lengthy phone conversations and met for drinks when one of us was in town, but I didn’t see Lenora again until she was eight.
At Catherine’s funeral.
Unlike me and James, Catherine and Gloria were essentially sisters. Unlike me and James, they took every opportunity to get the kids together. Lenora spent whole summers at Usher House while I was off taking care of business. My boys practically lived at James and Gloria’s when they weren’t home.
Now with my sons dead and my wife gone, I realize just how little I actually saw them. How few of their milestones I was present for. The family business always came first. They knew that. Lenora knew that when her parents died a few years later.
After I lost Catherine, Lenora practically moved into Usher House.
My wife was barely cold in the ground, and I came home to James and Gloria having a full screaming match with a fierce, tiny Lenora.
She stood in the foyer, small hands tight around each of my boys’.
Ames had been still and pale. Eliah clung to her like the thought of letting her go might destroy him.
“I am not leaving!” Lenora was shouting.
I don’t know how it came around that she would stay through the summer and the boys would attend her school the rest of the year. It was a rash and careless decision to get everyone to go away. To leave me in peace.
I regret that now.
I regret many things. But I should have been the one to put my children together again.
I had no business letting an eight-year-old fill that void.
But I didn’t know them. Catherine raised them.
She was the present parent. I made the money.
I kept the structure and function of our lives. I thought that was enough.
Against me, Lenora shifts and I study her face. Chin and cheeks marked by my stubble, lips swollen from mine. God, she’s beautiful. Still so feisty, but soft. Too soft for an asshole like me.
Yet, my arms only tighten.
My lips find the top of her head.
I made her a mother when she barely even knew her own life. I put my responsibilities on her tiny shoulders and threw myself into anything that would keep me away. Only to get pulled back when news hit that James and Gloria Usher were gunned down outside their home.
Lenora was at Usher House. Away from them. A terrible thing to be thankful for, but she would have been dead, too, if she had been home.
Their funeral, James’s, pulled me into a different sort of grave. A hole I had no one to pull me out of. No one to turn to. Catherine was gone. Gloria — the only person who might have understood the all-consuming grief — was gone. There was no one, and my brother was dead. My best friend.
But now I had a broken fifteen-year-old who has her mother’s eyes and her dad’s lopsided smile wandering around my house, flanked by my sons who refused to leave her side for even a second.
She’s fine, I kept telling myself. She doesn’t need me. They have each other. They have Mrs. Pym.
How was I supposed to help her anyway? What could I possibly do when I barely had the strength to leave my bed in the morning? When my knuckles were raw from beating into anything that triggered my rage.
I was falling apart. She didn’t need my spiral on top of her pain and I needed to work. To forget. I needed to pick up the pieces James’s loss left behind. An estate I kept running in case Lenora wanted to go home when she turned eighteen.
She didn’t.
She stayed.
And I stayed away. I ran from seeing the disappointment on their faces.
Until I couldn’t anymore.
Until I woke up one morning and missed my home. My boys. Even while I hesitated darkening their lives, I returned.
The hot July sun scorched through the rubber soles of my shoes as I rolled out of the car.
It baked my clothes to my clammy skin. But it was the sight of the century’s old estate looming over me that had the back of my neck prickling.
It was the vacant stare from the grimy windows.
The rust flacking off the iron fence. It had been so long since I stood before the grand, oak doors that I almost felt like a stranger.
It nearly sent me back into the air-conditioned interior of the idling vehicle, but my feet propelled me closer. Punishment for my neglect.
Somewhere inside were three lost children I abandoned. Faces I hadn’t seen in … Christ, how long has it been? Enough years that they had zero reason to want anything to do with me.
That prickle of unease intensified. That knowledge that I didn’t belong here. With them. No amount of groveling was going to make up for my cowardice.
I ascended the first step.
My shoes scraped the stone. Loud in the afternoon hush.
Then, I heard it. The soft hum of chatter. The steady stream of one-sided conversation. Curiosity had me pivoting and following the sound around the side.
She sat crouched in the dirt. No hat. Face red from the sun. Dark hair barely contained in the thick plait falling down her back. She’d been in a black dress. Loose with thin straps over her sun-kissed shoulders.
“That is no way to behave,” she was telling the odd spray of flowers running the side of the house. “If you can’t play nicely, I will put you in a pot and leave you in the greenhouse. Do you want that?”
I glanced around to make sure I wasn’t missing anyone, but it was just her and a small arsenal of gardening tools.
Perhaps, she works with Gordon, the groundskeeper, I guessed.
“Now, you will keep your roots to yourself, understood?”
Small, deft hands patted soil around the plant with the black blooms.
Careful not to frighten her, I edged a step closer. My feet rustled on the grass and her head twisted in my direction.
I was punched by the sight of Gloria’s dark eyes, and when her face broke into a smile that took my breath, it was all James. I was still reeling beneath the sensation of getting punched in the gut when she scrambled to her feet.
“Uncle Marcus?”
Without giving me a chance to brace, she launched herself at my chest. The sweet scent of earth, flowers and woman, crashed into me a second before she did.
Her arms swung around my shoulders. Every part of her that made it clear she was not fifteen anymore settled perfectly, so fucking perfectly along mine.
“You’re home.” She squeezed once before pulling back to peer up into my face. One eye was twisted against the sun, but she smiled so big, I knew it had to hurt. “The boys will be so thrilled. Have you seen them yet?”
I think I gave a mute shake of my head, but all I could focus on was the unraveling of her hold and the loss of her scent as she pulled back.
“Let’s go find them.”
With that declaration, my hand was captured and I was led through my own house while the tiny creature stealing all my damn senses chattered on about everything I missed while I was gone as if it was merely days and not years.
“We redid the guestroom,” she states, gesturing wide towards the stairs as we pass by. “Ames will tell you it wasn’t necessary, but,” she cuts me a narrowed stare from over her shoulder, “it was. Brown is an unattractive color.”
Against my better judgement, I pulled her to a stop. Her big, brown eyes jumped up to my face as I peered down at her.
“Brown can be the most beautiful color sometimes,” I heard myself mutter stupidly, but, God, it was worth it when she broke into an overwhelming smile.
“You’re right. Chocolate. Chocolate is a beautiful brown and I love chocolate.”
I was ready to buy every chocolate factory across the country for her, but she was moving again. Still talking and gesturing to things I didn’t care about.