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Mendez Family Cemetery
Natchez, Mexico
Seven years ago
Alejandro Dupree stood over the yawning pit in the earth, glaring down at the shiny black coffin, its surface blanketed with long stem roses in white. As though the flora themselves were grieving for the one sleeping inside.
His mother loved white roses. Said they were pure, like they’d been untouched by the pollution of the world. Pollution of men and their deeds.
Men like his father.
The hand woven with his squeezed his fingers, and he turned to look at the only person in the world he loved more than himself. His little sister, Sallina, offered him a broken smile, her green eyes faded with grief.
“Do you think she’s happier now?” she asked, her voice reedy. At nineteen, Sally was still just discovering life outside of Maison Enchante´, the massive, cold southern plantation house in Savannah, Georgia, that was more like a mausoleum for the dead, than a home for the living.
“Honestly, I hope so.” Some of his earliest memories of his mother were of her singing Mexican lullabies, rocking him to sleep, and telling him stories of when she was young. Those were the good memories. The memories he would hold on to forever. Those were stories he would tell his children about their abuela.
It was the other memories, though, the ones that made his stomach twist and the bile rise that he would scour from his mind forever. If that were possible.
“I hope that, wherever she is, she is much happier than she ever was here.”
Sally sniffled, pressing a balled-up tissue under her nose. Of the both of them, Sally was the most affected by their mother’s death. She’d lived in Maison Enchante´ during the worst years, when their father fucked anything that moved, and their mother drank anything that could numb the pain. Sally had seen it all. After AJ left for Miami at eighteen, it had been Sally and Mama against the Monster. Sally took upon herself the responsibility of making sure their mother ate, that she didn’t drown in her vomit, and that she looked presentable when he hosted house parties. Year after year, more pieces of their mother died. And Sally watched it happen, had seen their mother’s decline, had heard her crying out alone in her room, had witnessed their father parading women through the house—even fucking them out in the open for their mother and Sally to see.
Sally didn’t know that AJ knew. She loved him, had tried to hide the worst of it from him, but he knew it all.
Before he’d escaped, he’d asked their housekeeper, Lisana, to keep an eye on his sister. Lisana had worked for the family since before he was born, and she was loyal to their mother and her children. She’d agreed to watch over Sally and keep AJ informed about the goings-on in the house. So, there was little he didn’t know about the horrors that Sally and their mother had faced.
And AJ had been forced to do nothing. His asshole father effectively tying his hands, threatening to ruin everything AJ was trying to build.
Their father hadn’t even bothered attending his own wife’s funeral, having dropped the façade of adoring husband years ago. Everyone knew he was cheating on her, flashing his mistresses all over, throwing his infidelities in her face. He never hid who he was—not like that first year when he was acting the dutiful husband…because he was waiting to get his hands on her dowry. The company her father, their maternal grandfather, had built with his own two hands. Once that first obligatory year was over, the true Henri Dupree was revealed for all to see. And he’d gloated in his victory.
The fucking bastard.
“I hate him, AJ! I hate him so much! I can’t stand being his daughter,” Sally hissed, her body vibrating with unspent rage. A rage he knew just as intimately as she did.
“I know, sis.” And did he. As the eldest child and only son of Henri Dupree, AJ had known his fair share of pain—physical, emotional, and mental. Out of all of those, though, the mental anguish was the worst. He was never good enough for his father, never the son he wanted even though he was the son he was given. AJ didn’t choose to be sired by that man, he didn’t choose to be born into a family where imperfection wasn’t tolerated. He didn’t choose to be the son of a man who knew nothing of loyalty, faithfulness, compassion, or basic human dignity.
Their father was a monster. A monster who killed their mother.
“I have an idea,” Sally broke through his thoughts, her smile now genuine.
“Oh? What’s that? Skip the reception at the hacienda and catch a flight home tonight?”
Because their mother was born and raised in Natchez, she’d asked that her body be buried in the family cemetery, where she could be with her beloved mother and father again. Their great-uncle and his wife had planned a beautiful service and insisted on hosting the reception in their home for those who knew and loved their mother. There were few non-family members in attendance, but most of the people at the graveside service had known her when she was young…before their father got his hands on her. Corrupting her beauty, her innocence, and her heart.
Sally shook her head, her eyes bright. “No. We should change our name.”
He furrowed his brow, confused. “What?”
“Henri Dupree should be cast out and burned to death, but sense we cannot remove him from our blood, we should be able to remove him from our mouths. Every time I have to introduce myself or write my name, he is there. Dupree.”
AJ nodded, grinning. “You’ve got a point. So what should we change it to?”
Sally dropped her head, her lips trembling. “Mendez. We will take Mama’s name. She was the last of her family, and we are the last of hers. We should carry her name.”
Stunned by the conviction in his sister’s voice, AJ swallowed a ball of tears. Damn, but she’d grown from the quiet, withdrawn, easily frightened girl she’d been three years ago, before she’d escaped.
Unable to speak for the tightness in his throat, he simply nodded.
