“Aunt Mennie,” he said, his voice breaking as he closed the distance between them. She’d been the woman who had delivered him, since his mother hadn’t been able to afford a hospital stay. Over the early years of his life, Menyara had been the only family he and Cherise had known. For that matter, his mother had rented a room in Mennie’s home until the duplex beside it had been cleared for habitation. “You’re still here.”

She rose slowly to her feet. Even tinier than his petite mom, she shouldn’t have been intimidating to anyone over the age of five and yet there was something so powerful about her that it had never failed to quell him. Without thinking he swept her up into his arms and held her close.

“I knew you would return,” she breathed before she kissed him on his branded cheek. “Your mother, she told me to watch for you.”

To anyone else, that comment might have seemed odd. But Menyara was a gifted clairvoyant. She knew things no one else did.

Not even Acheron.

“I didn’t kill my mother,” he said as he set her down again. That was the vicious rumor that had been going around.

She patted his arm. “I know, Ambrosius. I know.” She turned and indicated the tomb she’d been tending. “Every day I have come for you, to let Cherise know she’s not alone.”

He looked down at the stacks of flowers and rosaries that were arranged around the tomb and saw where a small group of black roses were blooming in a tiny patch of earth. “You bring her flowers?”

“No. I only arrange those the dark-haired man sends.”

Nick frowned. “Dark-haired man?”

“Your friend. Acheron. Whenever he’s in town, he comes and he visits, too. And every day without fail, he sends over flowers for your mother to see.”

His blood ran cold. “He’s not my friend, Menyara.”

“You may not be his friend, Ambrosius, but he is yours.”

Yeah, right. Friends didn’t screw each other over the way Nick had been screwed by Ash. “You don’t know him. What he’s capable of.”

She shook her head at him. “Ah, but I do. Even better than you. I know exactly who and what he is. I know exactly what he can do. And more to the point, I know what he cannot do. Or what he dare not do.” Her features softened as she touched his brand, but said nothing about its presence. “All your life, I have watched you. Your mama always say that you react without thought. You feel too deep. Mourn too great. But one day, Ambrosius, you will see that you and your friend are not so different. That there is much of you in him.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t walk out on my friends and I damn sure don’t hurt them.”