Page 29 of Crown of Ash

"Marcus." Andre had not moved from the chair he had set his jacket on. His hands hung at his sides and would not stay still, thumb moving against the pads of his fingers, the tell Marcus had never told him about. "Can we talk?"

Marcus looked at him.

He had a list of reasons to say not tonight, and every reason on it was good. He could have recited them in order. He had built a professional life out of being able to do exactly that.

Andre's eyes were open all the way. Marcus had seen that twice. Once in a car outside a courthouse. Once in a kitchen on Alter Road at two in the morning, four days before he moved out.

"Don't wait up," Ghost said to his laptop.

Marcus put a hand once, briefly, against the back of Andre's shoulder, and walked toward the front of the building without checking whether he followed.

He followed.

Chapter 16

The front of the building was the part that was allowed to look like a business. Gray carpet, gray light coming through the reinforced glass from the lot, a reception desk nobody sat at, a framed certificate of insurance on the wall. It was ninety feet from the main floor to Marcus's office. They walked it without talking. Marcus was aware of every one of them.

Andre's stride was uneven. The knee still caught him on a hard floor when he was tired. He was clearly past tired.

Marcus opened the door and held it. Andre went through. Marcus shut it behind them. The latch was loud.

"Sit down," Marcus said. "You look like hell. I'll get you water."

"I'm fine."

"I didn't ask. Sit down."

Andre sat. Marcus went to the cabinet, filled a glass, set it in front of him.

"How fast were you driving?"

"Fast enough."

Marcus looked at him. "Sit there and drink that before you say another word."

He went to the desk instead of the door. The desk was a known quantity, its polished mahogany surface holding the ghost of every late night he’d spent leaning against it. In the top right drawer, a heavy-bottomed glass. Under the credenza, a small refrigerator hummed faintly, housing a single bottle of water, sweating in the chilled dark. Getting the glass was a procedure. Procedures had steps, open drawer, retrieve glass, open fridge, pour water. Steps could be counted. They could be controlled.

His hands would not do it.

He watched them try, fingers pale and strangely distant, refusing to curl around the refrigerator handle he’d pulled ten thousand times. They made a dry, scraping sound against the metal, like leaves dragged over pavement. He stopped. He laid both palms flat on the credenza’s cool wood, pressed down until his knuckles whitened. He stood there with his head bowed, breathing through the pressure building behind his eyes.

He had held it together since the call that his brothers had taken fire. Held it while Jack screamed inside the car, a raw animal sound that didn’t sound like Jack at all. Held it through Scarlet’s calm, until his legs gave and he sat hard on his kitchen floor. Held it nine minutes ago in front of Zain, whose anger had really been fear wearing another face.

“I thought it was you.”

Marcus did not turn around.

“When Scarlet walked into that office he said Lakefront took fire in Delray.” Behind him, Andre hadn’t sat down; Marcus could feel him standing there, a solid weight of shared dread. “He’s a trauma surgeon.”

“Andre.”

"Nine seconds." Andre's voice had gone flat and controlled, the voice he used to read a report out loud so it wouldn't shake. "I counted them after. Nine seconds where the answer was you."

Marcus's hands came off the credenza.

He turned around. Andre saw his face… and stopped talking.

Six years. Six years of a discipline Marcus had engineered from his Lakefront brothers outward and load-tested against the worst hour he could picture. He had imagined this. He had sat in a car outside a factory for two hours after a phone call from Evelyn Jefferson telling him Deon was gone. He had imagined every version of this, or so he thought, and had built against all of them.