Leather & Lark: The Ruinous Love Trilogy (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, 2)

… ONE YEAR LATER

I let myself into my great aunt Ethel’s sprawling home, the familiar rhythm of waves following on my heels from the nearby rocky shore until I close the door behind me. The scent of lavender and roses greets me in the foyer from the large bouquets that line either side of the entryway. There’s a framed photo of Ethel and my great uncle Thomas resting between two of the vases, a picture I took at their wedding anniversary party six months ago. I’m staring down at the photo when my older sister, Ava, appears from the direction of the kitchen, the cadence of her footsteps so familiar that I don’t need to look up to know it’s her.

“That was a great party, wasn’t it?” I say when she stops at my side to admire the warmth of our aunt and uncle’s wrinkled faces, their smiles forever frozen as they dance against the backdrop of friends and family.

“Yeah, it was. Aside from that jellied carrot salad. What the fuck.”

“It’s Ethel. She likes what she likes.”

“Apparently, she likes making the rest of us gag at the table. How she can be so good at muffins and so horrible at literally everything else, I’ll never know.” Ava shudders in my peripheral vision before turning to embrace me. “Hey, Meadowlark.”

“I missed you,” I reply, and she squeezes tighter before letting me go. “Are you still good to drive Ethel to the venue this weekend if everything with Sloane’s surprise elopement goes to plan?”

Ava sighs, my biceps gripped in her hands as she appraises me. Something about her expression seems drawn now that I have the chance to really look at her. Maybe it’s just the stress of recent travel from California. She’s not the type to chill, and it’s probably starting to catch up to her along with everything she’s been organizing here. I give her a bright smile and hum a few bars of the “Wedding March,” but it doesn’t crack her stoic mask.

“Sure, I can get her there, but I can’t stay for the wedding, unfortunately. You’ll have to give Sloane my best if she ends up saying yes to this crazy elopement plan,” Ava finally says as she lets go of my arms.

“Where is Auntie Ethel anyway? She wanted me here at eleven o’clock exactly, for some reason,” I say as my gaze pans across the living room. Normally, when my aunt demands a specific time, she’s already at the door, ready to bark her orders.

“She’s upstairs. Mom and Dad were in the sitting room with Tremblay the last time I saw them. I’ll be in the office going through the eighty million pieces of fucking paper that are still left. If you don’t see me, I’ve chosen to end things by paper cut rather than read through another ledger of flour and sugar orders.”

“I know what will cheer you up.”

“Margaritas?”

“Jellied salad.”

“In the most loving way possible, fuck off.”

My sister gives me a sardonic grin before she presses a kiss to my cheek and then marches away, disappearing down the corridor past the boxes of paperwork she’s set out in the hallway. A sense of unease settles in my chest like a thick syrup that sticks to my bones.

My watch buzzes with an incoming text from my aunt.

You’re not late, are you?

I roll my eyes but smile as I pull out my phone to tap a reply.

Right on time, Auntie. Just arrived.

Good. Take the rear steps. And bring me the hand lotion from the bathroom down there, would you? Take your time.

My face scrunches. I’m not unfamiliar with my aunt’s strange demands. Hurry up. Then take your time. Bring me a random thing. Even still, it’s a little odd.

I shrug it off and send her a simple “okay” before I head toward the bathroom next to the stairway that leads to the wing where my aunt’s bedroom looks across the sea. I’m nearly there when I hear tense voices floating out into the corridor. It’s the familiar tone and cadence of my stepfather speaking, followed by another man’s voice I recognize to be Stan Tremblay’s. His deep baritone summons goose bumps on my skin.ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

Normally, I would leave my mom and stepdad to their secrets and plans and the never-ending machinations that keep their respective businesses running and their family happy. I’ve overheard meetings like this for as long as I can remember. They’re part of the murk rippling beneath the pristine surface that gives the appearance of a flawless life.

“ … the name of the one who worked for Leviathan?”

My steps falter. My mother’s voice evokes memories of the night I crashed Merrick’s vehicle into the reservoir. I mean to grab my aunt’s lotion and keep walking like I can simply ignore this is part of my life. This is none of my concern, this constant scheming, these endless battles. But it’s the next two words that root me to the floor.

“Lachlan Kane.”

I look toward the sitting room at the end of the corridor. One of the double doors is ajar. With just a moment’s hesitation, I follow the flow of voices, slinking into the empty office across the hall.

“The fact is, there could be a hundred different people who want a pound of flesh from either one of us. We can’t go around killing everyone who does.” My stepfather lets out a sardonic laugh. “There would be no one left in Rhode Island.”

My mother’s irritated huff escapes the room. I imagine her silvery-blue eyes are likely sharp enough to flay the skin right off my stepfather’s face. She might love him with every beat of her steely heart, but when it comes to work, there are lines they don’t cross, even if their businesses bleed into each other more and more as time goes on. “Damian, we’re not just talking about someone wanting to fuck up a factory and make your life miserable for a few months. We’re talking about someone deliberately targeting both of us. Kelly Ellis was on my board. Cristian was your fucking cousin. Every month there’s another murder. It’s clockwork. Forty days. It’s not some coincidence.”

“And every forty days we’re right back at square one. We have no witnesses and no evidence. Certainly nothing that points concretely to someone from Leviathan.”

“Kane has the skill,” Tremblay says as I hear the sound of thick paper slapping a wooden surface. “He worked for Leviathan for sixteen years. Perhaps he’s taking revenge for being cut loose.”

Pages rustle. A thoughtful hum resonates in my stepfather’s warm tone. “Are we sure he was even fired? For all we know, they kept him on. I scrapped their whole contract—it’s not like I told them to get rid of Kane.”

“All the more reason for him to be going after us if the wrong people are taking advantage of the situation. How do we know Leviathan hasn’t been hired by a competitor?”

“We don’t. Because this is all just conjecture. We have no proof that points to anyone or anything specific.” A heavy sigh escapes from my stepfather and I hear him shift in his chair. “Look, I agree it’s possible that Kane or perhaps Leviathan have something to do with this … pattern. They certainly have the means. But it could just as likely be a competitor like Bob Foster—”

My mom snorts.

“—or someone paid by one of our competitors or a hundred other options. I don’t believe it’s prudent to go after an organization like Leviathan or one of their maybe-employees without being completely sure.”

“And if we don’t remove the most likely threats, we invite harm to our doorstep,” Tremblay says, another paper slapped down on a table. “Kane has two brothers. One appears to be … normal. A doctor, living in Nebraska. But the other …” Papers shuffle. “Rowan Kane. He’s volatile. He will back up his brother and has done it before.”

No. No, no, no.

My hand covers my mouth to trap the desperate sound that begs to escape. It feels as though the world has flipped over, like I’m falling off the edge.

My mother sounds just as shocked as I feel when she says, “Rowan Kane …? The same Rowan that Sloane is marrying?”

“Yes. I’ve been digging into him, asking around. He had a history of violence, some juvenile citations shortly after immigrating to Boston but the details appear to be missing from police records and nothing ever resulted in charges. And there was something in his early twenties as well, a fight at a bar that put Lachlan in the hospital. Word from my connection is that Rowan beat the man who injured his brother and left him in the alley. There’s record of Lachlan’s medical treatment, record of the other man who ended up dead in the hospital, but nothing on Rowan.”

My blood rushes in deafening waves in my head, dulling the hushed conversation between my parents as pages rustle. But I catch their brief questions. Is Sloane safe? What about Lark? We need proof. But can we take the risk to wait …? Every word feels like a sharp blow.

“What you’re suggesting, Stan …” my stepfather says, letting his thoughts trail away. I can picture the stress on his face, the way he’s probably shaking his head. “We could eliminate the Kanes and still not solve the problem and then what? Then we’ve got Leviathan breathing down our necks for real, that’s what. We need proof.”

“We cannot sit back and wait for proof to drop into our laps. If we do, more of our people will die. You’re telling me you’ve not done worse for Covaci Enterprises?”

“Stan—” my mother barks.

“And this is why not everything should be outsourced,” Tremblay says. Pages shuffle and then slap against the wood. “Nina, we should discuss this with Ethel, look at handling this kind of thing the way the Montagues always have—”

“No,” my mother interrupts, her tone firm. “Leave her out of it. She’s got enough to worry about right now. Damian and I will sort this out. Give us a week and we’ll let you know what we want to do. Thank you, Stan.”

Standing in the shadows, I watch through the crack between the hinges as Stan Tremblay leaves the sitting room. He doesn’t glance in my direction as he strides away with sure and powerful steps, his head bent, papers tucked beneath his arm. He might be nearing his seventies, but he’s still one of the most formidable people I know. A specter of my childhood.

My parents leave a few moments later, talking about mundane things. Lunch and liquor. Where they might go for dinner. Things that seem so far removed from the conversation they just finished, and yet this is the way it’s always been. Deals in dark corners. Life in the light.

I let them pass by and wait until my heart calms enough that I can hear clearly before I leave my hiding place and grab the bottle of lotion from the bathroom, then take the stairs by twos.

Hands trembling, I make it only a few feet down the hall before I set the lotion down and press my palms to one of the decorative tables lining the corridor and stare at my reflection in the gilded mirror. My cheeks are flushed as waves of adrenaline wash through my veins.

I can’t let them take Rowan from Sloane. I need to find a way to stop them. I must.

But I don’t know how.

I don’t have some family enforcer on my side. No one who can rally for my position. I’ve always been the one to protect, not the one to scrap with the other apex predators for a slice of prey or territory.

“I don’t know how to do this,” I whisper to my reflection as tears well in my eyes.

My watch vibrates against my wrist and I look down to see Rose’s name flash up on the screen.

Hello Boss Hostler! I’ll be ready to make a dukey run soon!

My nose scrunches and I wipe my eyes as I try to decode Rose’s circus lingo, pulling out my phone to blink down at her message as though it might help to see it on a larger screen. It doesn’t.

Boss Hustler …?

Boss HOSTLER. The dude in charge of the show. That dude is you.

Okay … And I’m supposed to make what now?

A dukey run, you know? To Leytonstone Inn to take all the wedding shit to the venue? How about we meet at 3pm at your place. Got the dress? I can’t wait to see it!

I glance down the hallway toward my aunt’s favorite wing of the house and bite down on the inner edge of my lip until blood washes over my tongue. Though I might not know how to fix this situation that seems as inevitable as an avalanche, I can’t let Sloane down on the most important day of her life either. We’ve still got a handful of days until the surprise elopement that Rowan has been planning for the last few weeks. Maybe I can convince her and Rowan to run. They could get out of Boston. Get out of the country. Live some other paradise life far away from here. But as fast as these ideas come up, so too do the thoughts that whisper about how this will never work. Because families like mine, we don’t get to where we are by letting shit go, or by allowing such simple things as borders and geography to stand in our way. Not when we have every resource at our fingertips to do what we want.

I need to find another way.

I clamp down on my panic. I just need to get the dress and get the fuck out of here so I can find a safe, quiet place to figure it out. Breathe. Plan the next steps and then take them one at a time, just like I’ve practiced.

With a single deep breath that fills every crevice in my lungs, I wipe my eyes a final time.

I’ll be there.

I slide my phone into my pocket and turn my attention back to the mirror. I take another deep breath.

Smile, I tell myself.

Keep smiling.

I smile and smile and smile until it looks just right, until everything beneath it is stored away. Only when I’m sure I look just the way I’m supposed to do I take a step back from the mirror and head down the corridor.

I find Ethel not in bed, where she often is just before lunch, but in her craft room, where paints and threads and yarn and canvases line the white shelves and tables, everything laid out with impeccable precision and kept clean despite frequent use. She’s sitting at her favorite wingback chair, which faces a window overlooking the sea, her hair a cloud of white curls resting on her hunched shoulders, her focus honed on the needlepoint in her hands. With a sudden swear and a hiss, she puts a finger in her mouth and for a second my smile is genuine.

“You should take a break from stabbing yourself so you can visit with your favorite niece,” I say with manufactured brightness as I enter the room.

Ethel gives a sharp, startled inhale that spills out with a rumbling cough. “Sweet baby Jesus, girl. You’ll scare me to death before I make it to the nursing home.”

“That’s one way to piss Mom and Ava off. They’ve been packing for days.”

I set the bottle down on her table and press a gentle kiss to my aunt’s cheek, her wrinkled skin dusted with powder and blush, the scent evoking my childhood memories of sitting at her vanity as I played with her makeup. The comfort of those moments isn’t enough to mask the worry that burns in my chest and threatens to ignite into panic.

“Ava should go back to California. She’s got enough to worry about at home, she doesn’t need to be here,” Ethel says as I turn away and face the black garment bag that hangs from the top edge of the closet door.

“You know she won’t, not until she’s got everything packed up at least. She’s stubborn. Wonder where she got that from.”

“Not me, if that’s what you’re implying, my girl.”

“No,” I deadpan. “I would never, Auntie.”

My aunt glances up and I flash her a bright, fleeting smile. I take a step closer to the closet, but I can feel her scrutiny on me, Ethel’s watchful gaze sharp enough to cut through any armor I try to put between us. I should have known better than to try to fool the woman who built an empire out of flour and sugar—details are kind of Ethel’s forte. It’s better to grab the dress and get out of here so I can figure out what the hell I should do.

The only problem is, I’m just a little bit too late.

“What’s wrong?” Ethel asks, no hesitation in her tone. “Are you unsure about Sloane’s wedding?”

My eyes don’t stray from the garment bag, even though I feel my aunt’s gaze drilling into my head. I have the most powerful urge to rescue the dress from its black cocoon, as though Sloane’s happiness will suffocate in there if I don’t let it out.

I shake my head as I walk toward the bag and grab the hanger. “No, Auntie. Absolutely not.”

I’m unzipping the first few inches of the garment bag when Ethel says, “Well, that’s a bit of a shame, dear, because it would make solving the Kane problem a little easier if she were to suddenly dislike those boys.”

When I spin to face her, my aunt is pulling a thread through her canvas, a devious grin on her lips. “How do you know about the Kanes?” My eyes narrow. “You set me up to overhear Mom and Damian.”

“Maybe.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”

My aunt shrugs. “Better for you to hear it from the horse’s mouth. Your sister thinks I’m senile. Who knows what I’m making up?”

Fair point. I know as well as anyone not to trust half the shit Ethel Montague comes out with. It’s part of her power, to always keep you guessing. “How do you even know about all that?”

“Meadowlark,” she says with a cluck of her tongue as she pins me with a flat glare above the acetate rims of her glasses, “this is still my house. And this family’s business is still my concern, whether your parents think it should be or not.”

My throat tightens as I take a few steps closer to my aunt, the partially opened garment bag draped across my raised arms like an offering. I open my mouth to say something, but words die on my tongue when my aunt smiles and turns her attention back to the embroidery hoop clutched in her hand.

“Have a seat, my girl.”

I do as she commands and sit across from her as she pushes the needle through the canvas to create stitches of crimson. “I don’t think the Kanes are involved in whatever is going on,” I say. She keeps her eyes down on her work but nods. “Definitely not Fionn. Rowan would never do anything to inadvertently hurt me by harming people I know, no matter how thin those connections might be.”

“And Lachlan?”

Would he? Is this retaliation on behalf of his boss like my parents and Tremblay were saying downstairs? Could Lachlan be the type to take revenge on us for dropping the contract? For him being sucked deeper into a life he never asked for? He’s certainly sharp around the edges with a giant and jagged chip on his shoulder. But it just doesn’t sit right. “I don’t think he would take a risk that would jeopardize his brothers’ health or happiness. No.”

“I don’t either. Personally, I think Bob Foster is finally making his move, that slimy little shit. Leave it to him to kick a dying dog when it’s down. But Tremblay has a different opinion, and your mother is leaning in his direction.” Ethel looks up at me as she pulls the thread taut. “Damian doesn’t seem wedded to the idea that Lachlan is involved in these murders, no pun intended,” she says as she momentarily drops her gaze to the dress spread across my lap. “But it’s one of the reasons I love her as much as if she had been born a Montague. She’s just as bossy and conniving as me.”

A deep sigh fills my lungs. “Maybe there’s some way to prove it, like a solid alibi that would take Lachlan out of consideration.”

I know as much as Ethel does that there’s no such thing as a solid alibi when people like Lachlan are involved. “He is a professional. People like him with access to the right resources can make up any excuse, fabricate any believable story and evidence.”

“What if I just talk to Mom and Dad, convince them he wouldn’t do it …”

“It’s going to take more than a conversation to sell that story, Lark.”

“But I can’t just let this happen to Sloane. I can’t. Not after everything that happened when we were at Ashborne—”

My aunt’s hand darts out and catches mine, squeezing with surprising strength. “I know where you’re going with this, Lark. But you cannot blame yourself for the things that happened at that school. None of it was your fault, you hear me?”

Though I nod, the tears still blur my vision with a watery film. Although I know that what Mr. Verdon did was not my fault, I can never seem to shake the guilt I still feel. It’s a sense of shame that drapes across me like a veil. I’ve questioned myself thousands of times, blamed myself for being strung up in the fear he injected into my thoughts with his whispered threats and promises. And just as I’ve questioned myself over and over, I’ve reassured myself too. It wasn’t my fault.

But maybe if I’d acted sooner …

“You can’t second-guess the decisions you made to survive.” Ethel lets go of my hand and coughs, a rumble of discomfort that creases her face with pain. When I reach out to lay a comforting hand on her arm, she waves me off.

“We could get nurses here for you. Get a room set up just the way you want it. You don’t have to go to a care home,” I say as her cough continues and her face pinks with strain. My heart squeezes as Ethel raises a tissue to her mouth and wipes away a smear of bloody saliva from her lips. “I can arrange it all for you. I don’t mind.”

“I mind,” she wheezes out. It takes her a moment, but she regains her composure, though her cloudy eyes are still glassed with a thin film of tears from the mere effort to breathe. “I won’t have you all scurrying around this house like deranged little hamsters while I slowly wither away into the afterlife.”

“Well that’s … bleak. And kind of weird.”

“Maybe it’s time you learn that power can be found in unexpected decisions.” Ethel picks up the hoop with one hand, her needle with the other, and levels me with a serious look. “I’m the one who decided to go to Shoreview. No one will watch me deteriorate in my own home. It won’t stop it from happening, of course. But it’s even worse to fall apart in full view in the symbolic heart of the empire I built. Besides, I’ll be closer to you. And you never know,” she says with a wink before her eyes finally drop to her work, “I might need to hang on to a little power for a final scheme or two.”

My head tilts, but Ethel doesn’t look up, not even when we descend into an extended moment of silence. “Scheme …?”

“Indeed. You know,” Ethel says as she pierces the taut canvas to pull a red vein of thread through the fabric, “something I love about your mother and Damian is that they are so steadfast in their beliefs. Family first. Promises made must be kept. Vows, honored.”

My gaze drifts out the window toward the sea as I nod. I expect my aunt will say something about how it’s our shared duty in this family to make hard decisions to look out for one another. There’s a lesson in this, she’ll say. Sometimes, we all need to sacrifice a little happiness to protect the ones we love and keep our promises to look after one another. And nothing is more important than that. But the hollow pit in my stomach will only grow deeper. More desolate. More insatiable.

“Back at the school, when Sloane protected you, did you promise to look after her in return?”

I blink at Ethel, only now realizing my cheeks are damp. “Yes.”

“Yes,” my aunt echoes. “You did. And you can keep that promise by making another. The kind of promise that your parents would not interfere with. At least, not if they were … convinced.”

“I don’t understand …”

Ethel lets my confusion linger in the air as she pulls her thread through the fabric. Pierce and pull. Pierce and pull. Maybe she’s waiting for me to find a solution myself, or to divine her thoughts from her simple motion, but I don’t. “Do you know what my favorite thing is about your mother and stepdad?”

“Their ability to obliterate their competition and take out their opponents while maintaining the image of a perfect, happy family?”

“That too,” Ethel says. “Mostly, though, it’s their loyalty. Their deep love of each other. Their deep love of you girls.” Ethel pulls a final crimson stitch through the canvas before she knots the thread and clips it with scissors. “Their unwillingness to break promises to the ones they love.”

She’s right, of course. I know that for all the darkness in their lives, my mom and stepfather love us deeply. Just like my mother loved my dad, Sam. And long before she met my dad, she loved Damian. Her childhood sweetheart. A young love that burned bright but couldn’t survive the demands of time. Or so they must have thought, until my dad passed away and those embers slowly came back to life.

“So you think I can talk them out of killing Lachlan because, what … my parents love their family …? That doesn’t make any sense, Auntie.”

Ethel turns to me, and I meet her eyes, the color of fog, a mist over the sharp mind that grinds away beneath the gray film. “Do you remember going to Damian’s father’s funeral when you were little?” I shake my head. “You were about five. It was the first time your mom and stepfather saw each other after so many years apart. I’m sure I’m not the only one who could feel that electric charge between them. But your mother had you girls. She had Sam. Life had moved on. And no matter how much love Damian and Nina still had for each other, they would never break your mother’s vows or wound your dad. Had we not lost Sam, that never would have changed.”

I swallow, trying to conjure a memory of the funeral, but it doesn’t come. Neither does the meaning of what Ethel is trying to tell me, though she watches my reactions closely as though imploring me to catch on. “I really don’t understand. Are you saying you think they won’t make a move against Rowan once he and Sloane are married, because they won’t interfere with her vows …?”

Ethel chuckles and shakes her head. “No. They care about Sloane, of course. But they care because you do. They took Sloane in because of what she did for you at Ashborne. But it’s your happiness that is their priority. Your heart they can’t bear to break.”

“So, what … if it was me getting married …?”

Notes that felt discordant suddenly blend together. A chord that rises from chaos.

“Look down at your lap again, girl,” my aunt says, and I drop my gaze to the wedding dress draped across my legs. “And tell me more about Lachlan Kane.”