Chapter 5 #2
"They should. I wasn't." The exit for St. Charles Avenue approaches. "Luc called me when Maman collapsed. I was in Yemen, middle of an operation that was already going sideways. By the time I could extract and get to a phone, she was gone."
"That's not your fault."
"Isn't it?" The street opens up before us, live oaks forming a canopy overhead, streetcar tracks gleaming in late afternoon sun. "I chose that life. Chose the SEALs over family, chose contracts over coming home. When they needed me most, I was half a world away playing hero for strangers."
"You were doing your job."
"My job got Maman buried without me there to hold her hand." The words come out harder than intended. "My job meant Papa died asking for a son who couldn't be bothered to show up until the funeral."
Isabella doesn't respond immediately. Smart woman. She recognizes when someone needs silence more than platitudes.
The Garden District unfolds around us; antebellum mansions set back behind wrought iron fences and gardens that riot with subtropical excess. Old money, old families, old wounds that never quite heal in the delta's humid embrace.
I turn onto our street. The Pascal mansion sits mid-block, Greek Revival perfection that Maman restored to its former glory with Papa's oil money.
White columns rise two stories to support a gallery porch that wraps the entire front.
Shutters painted dark green frame tall windows.
Gardens overflow with magnolias and azaleas and roses that Maman tended herself until the day she died.
Luc waits on the gallery, arms crossed, watching our approach with an expression readable from fifty yards away.
Resentment. Anger. Grief still raw as an open wound.
The wrought iron gate stands closed across the drive. I punch in the old code, half-expecting it to fail. The gate swings open smoothly. They haven't locked me out. Don't know if that makes this easier or harder.
I pull into the circular drive, cut the engine.
For a long moment, I just sit there, staring at my childhood home through the windshield.
Every window holds memories. Every column witnessed fights and laughter and all the messy reality of growing up Pascal in a city that never forgets and rarely forgives.
"Remy." Isabella's voice is quiet, careful. "We can leave. Find somewhere else."
"No." I force myself to move, open the door, step into heat that wraps around me like coming home and walking into fire all at once. "This is the safest place I know. And my siblings... they're not exactly civilians. They can handle what's coming."
"What does that mean?"
"You'll see." I round the SUV, open Isabella's door, offer my hand. "Just trust me on this."
She takes it, steps down with natural grace that makes her borrowed jeans and simple blouse look elegant.
Luc descends the gallery steps, moving with the same controlled economy of motion that runs in our family.
He's younger than me by a couple years, built leaner but with the same Beaumont features that marked Maman—sharp cheekbones, dark eyes that miss nothing, a mouth made for either poetry or cruelty depending on mood.
Right now, his mouth is a hard line.
"Didn't think you'd ever come back," he says. No greeting. No welcome home.
"Had a reason to." I gesture to Isabella. "This is Isabella Durand. Isabella, my brother Luc."
Luc's gaze shifts to her, assessment quick and thorough. "The asset?"
"The scientist," I correct, putting just enough edge in my voice to make it a warning.
Something flickers in Luc's expression. Not quite approval, but acknowledgment that some lines still hold. "Inside. Margot's on her way from the restaurant."
He turns without waiting for response, expecting us to follow. I exchange a glance with Isabella—she's taking in the family dynamics with that quick intelligence that misses nothing—then follow my brother through the front door.
The foyer hits me like a physical blow. Nothing's changed.
Maman's portrait still hangs above the curved staircase, her face serene and beautiful and forever young.
Papa's offshore rig photos line the opposite wall, black and white images of derricks and roughnecks and the Gulf's endless horizon.
The antique mirror Maman found in a French Quarter shop reflects us back, and for a moment I see ghosts—younger versions of myself running through this space, Maman calling after us to slow down, Papa's deep laugh echoing from his study.
"Everything's exactly as they left it," Luc says, watching me with clinical precision. "Margot won't let me change anything. Says it's disrespectful to their memory."
Margot's turned the house into a shrine. Luc lets her because neither of them knows how to move forward.
"Where's she living?" I ask. "Margot."
"Here. I've got the guest house out back." Luc moves into the front parlor, and we follow. "She runs Maman's restaurant full-time now. Beaumont's, over on Magazine Street. Keeps her busy."
Keeps her from thinking about the fact that our parents are gone and I wasn't there when it mattered.
I've kept tabs on them both over the years—couldn't help myself even when staying away seemed like the right thing to do.
Luc returned to New Orleans after Papa died and ran the wildcat oil business until he turned over day-to-day operations to his second-in-command.
Now he ostensibly runs an import/export business and does whatever else he does in the shadows;` he's been careful to keep off my radar. Smart man.
The front door opens again. Heels click on marble, sharp and purposeful. Then Margot appears in the parlor doorway, and the temperature drops.
Our sister inherited Maman's beauty and Papa's temper, a dangerous combination wrapped in an athletic frame with curves that time has only enhanced. Right now, fury radiates off her in waves. Diamonds flash on her fingers—Maman's rings.
"Convenient," she says, voice dripping acid. "You show up now that you need something."
"Margot," I start.
"Don't." Her fist connects with my jaw before I register she's moving.
The hit catches me off guard, sends me stumbling back a step.
Delta Force training, Papa's temper, and years of rage behind it.
"You don't get to come back here acting like nothing happened.
They died, Remy. Died while you were overseas saving strangers.
Saving strangers while your family fell apart. "
The words land like they're meant to. I don't flinch, don't deflect, just take it because she's earned the right to her rage.
"You're right," I say quietly. "I wasn't here. I should have been."
It throws her. For just a second, the fury wavers, replaced by something sharper—pain, raw and unprocessed. Then she rebuilds the walls, gaze shifting to Isabella.
"Who's this?"
"Isabella Durand. She's—"
"The reason you're here." Margot's assessment is faster than Luc's, cutting deeper. "You're in trouble. Both of you."
"Yes."
"And you thought bringing it to our door was a good idea?"
"I thought New Orleans was off everyone's radar. And I thought this house had enough security that we could fortify it properly."
Margot laughs, bitter and dark. "Security. Right. Because Papa's paranoia about offshore competitors wasn't enough. Now you want to turn our home into a fortress."
"Margot," Luc says quietly. "Let him talk."
Our sister rounds on him. "Why? So he can explain how he's put us all in danger. How he's brought his war to our doorstep because it's convenient?"
"Because he's family," Luc says, and the word carries weight of things unsaid. "And Maman would have wanted us to help."
The fight drains from Margot like blood from a wound. She sags slightly, grief winning over rage, and for a moment she looks young and lost and so much like our mother it hurts.
"She asked for you," Margot says, voice breaking. "At the end. Maman said your name. You didn't come."
The guilt hits like it always does, sharp and relentless. "I know."
"Do you?" Tears streak her face now, mascara running black. "Do you have any idea what it was like watching her die? Holding her hand while she called for a son who was too busy to answer?"
Isabella moves then, crosses to Margot with quiet grace. "I'm so sorry for your loss."
Margot stares at her like she's forgotten anyone else was in the room. "Who are you again?"
"Isabella. I'm a scientist. Your brother extracted me from a dangerous situation in Prague." She speaks in French, fluid and natural. "I know we're imposing. I know this is difficult. But Remy's trying to keep me alive, and he thought coming home was the safest option."
The switch to French does something to Margot's defenses. She blinks, reassesses, some of the fury bleeding into curiosity.
"You speak beautifully," Margot says, also in French now.
"I grew up in Geneva. My mother insisted on proper French, not the Swiss version." Isabella's smile is genuine, warm. "Though I have to say, Louisiana French has a lovely music to it."
Margot almost smiles. "We're not proper Parisians here."
"Thank God for that."
The tension breaks slightly. Not gone but fractured enough that we can all breathe again.
Luc clears his throat. "You'll want Papa's study. It's secure, and the weapons cache is still there."
I turn to him. "You kept it?"
"Margot wanted to donate the guns to a museum. I convinced her that wasn't smart." He moves toward the hallway. "Come on. I'll show you what we're working with."
Papa's study still smells like cigars and old leather.
The offshore rig photos continue in here, mixed with family portraits and Maman's watercolors.
His desk dominates one corner, mahogany and brass, covered in paperwork that Luc must have been sorting through.
But it's the gun safe hidden behind a false panel that interests me now.
"Combination's the same," Luc says. "Papa never changed it."
I work the dial from memory. The safe swings open to reveal an arsenal that would make most private security firms jealous.
Handguns, rifles, ammunition, tactical gear.
Papa was paranoid about competitors sabotaging his rigs, convinced someone would come after the family eventually.
After he died, the lawyers showed me his security files—three attempts on his life in the years before the stroke, all quietly handled, none of us knowing until then.
"This works," I say, already planning defensive positions. "We'll need to set up cameras, reinforce entry points, establish fields of fire."
"I can help with that." Luc leans against the desk, arms crossed. "I'm not military anymore, but I know the house. And I've got contacts in the city that might be useful."
"What kind of contacts?"
"The kind that move product through the port without customs asking questions.
" He meets my gaze steadily. "I handle security at Dominion, but I also take private contracts.
Intelligence, black ops work, security jobs that need someone who knows how to operate off the books.
The import-export business gives me legitimate cover when I need it.
" His smile is dark. "Papa wasn't the only one who knew how to work the shadows. "
I nod, then turn to Isabella. She's examining one of Maman's watercolors—a garden scene, magnolias in bloom, painted from the back gallery.