Page 3 of Birthright (Sinners of New Orleans #4)

TWO

Olivia

T hirty days.

It’s been one whole month since I drove the thirty hours from Montreal, Canada, to New Orleans, Louisiana. And all for… this. Rubbing a hand over my face, I sigh.

I stare at Gino’s, our family bar, now weighed down by decades of neglect. The once vibrant spot is a shell of itself, with chipped paint and cobwebs claiming every corner.

This place was my father’s pride, my childhood playground. I spent summers spinning on barstools and drinking Shirley temples.

Gino’s has always been my family’s life.

Our legacy.

And now it’s mine .

I grab a duster and extend the handle, reaching into the corners to bat down the cobwebs. Behind me, Joey laughs. “That’s the decor, girlie,” he says as he slices through a lime, prepping for service later tonight.

“Cobwebs are not decor!” I shout back as I bat down another one. I don’t know when the last time this place was cleaned, but the dust might be as old as Joey himself.

As long as I’ve been alive, the old man has been a fixture in this bar. He worked for my grandfather first, and then my father before he died.

Even thinking about my father’s death makes my chest ache. I push it down, still not ready to deal with the mountain of trauma that is Salvatore Marchese.

Three months ago, my father died, and even though I haven’t seen him since I was a kid, he still wrote me into his will. Leaving me a few hundred bucks and this bar.

Perfect timing, really. I had just ended my three-year relationship with my fiancé, and while breaking up with Rhett was the right thing to do, everyone in my life thinks I'm going through some sort of early twenties crisis.

My mom is counting down the days for me to give up on the bar, move back home, and beg my ex for forgiveness.

That's not going to happen.

Not since I caught him balls deep in his pretty blonde secretary.

I shudder at the memory.

Creaking upstairs has both Joey and I pausing, our eyes shooting to the ceiling as we listen.

“He must be up,” Joey says. “Want me to-”

“No,” I cut him off, propping my duster against the wall and wiping my hands off on my yoga pants. “I got it.”

Joey looks like he wants to say something else, but he bites his tongue and goes back to slicing limes.

With my inheritance of the bar, I also received the apartment above it, where my father used to live. And with that, I inherited my grandfather. An eighty-six-year-old man with raging dementia.

I make my way up the stairs to check on him.

“Sally boy,” he calls out as I enter the apartment. “That you?”

"No, Grandpa, it's me, Olivia."

Gino Marchese stands in the living room of the small two-bedroom apartment, where he's lived his entire life.

His father, Gino Sr. opened the bar back in the 1920s and my great grandmother gave birth to him in this very apartment.

This building is older than the man himself and has been passed down for generations.

My grandfather looks at me, confusion etched across his dark bushy brows, signaling to me that we're in the midst of another episode.

I can hear my mother’s voice echoing in my head. "Do you really think you're capable of taking care of someone with dementia, Livy?" I don't think she meant to sound so condescending, and at the time, I took it as a challenge, telling her that I was more than capable of caring for my grandfather.

But I had just learned of my father’s death, and while my memories of him are coated in anger and disappointment, my memories of my grandfather are the opposite.

While my father was running up debts and failing as a parent, my grandfather was making me Shirley temples and hosting movie nights with too much chocolate mixed into the popcorn. I don't have a bad memory of the man.

Until now.

Because my mother’s words are starting to ring truer. I'm not sure if I am capable of taking care of someone while their mind is slowly deteriorating. But I can't stomach the thought of putting him in a home — even if I could afford it.

"Where's Sal?" he asks, and a pang hits my chest. I can't keep explaining to my grandfather that his son is dead over and over again.

Avoiding the conversation that I know will take us down a deep spiral, I decide on lying instead. "He ran out to the store."

Grandpa huffs, both of his hands hitting his hips. "Damn boy. He keeps stealing my money. I checked the box and there's nothing in there!"

I don't have the heart to tell him that his cash box has been empty for a while. And not just because my father spent it all, but also because…banks exist.

"I bet he'll refill it when he gets back," I say, continuing my new trend of lying.

He waves a hand dismissively. "Never does. Probably out gambling it away." Slumping into his recliner, he scrubs a hand over his face. "Every damn time."

It makes my heart ache to see him so upset over something that's not happening.

"Grandpa—"

At my voice, his head snaps to me, as if he forgot I was even in the room.

Confusion strikes again as he looks at me.

"Rachel?" He calls me my mother’s name, and it’s not the first time this has happened.

It's as if he's swinging back and forth between timelines, never quite sure where or when he is.

"What are you doing here? I thought you and Sal called it off? "

I assume he's talking about my parents’ divorce.

They officially split when I was five years old, though I don't think they'd been happy for a while.

My mother didn't even wait for the ink to dry on the paper before she packed me up and relocated us to Montreal, where her parents and extended family lived.

For her, New Orleans was nothing but a six-year mistake she made in her youth. Even if she tells me I'm the best thing to come from this place, I know that she hates it here. All of her memories were tarnished by my father.

It didn't take long for the appeal to wear off for me either. A few summers alone with him, and I was begging her to never send me here again.

So why'd I come back…

"Yeah," I say, feeling defeated. Going along with his version of reality might be easier in some way, but the memories they bring up aren't so simple. "We did. I'm just here with Olivia."

"Livy." His face brightens at my name, though I assume he's remembering me as a little girl, not the full-grown adult standing in front of him. "You two really did make a good child," he muses. "It's a shame you couldn't stay with him."

I wince. If my mother was here, that would piss her off. As if it was solely her fault that their marriage collapsed.

"Why don't you take a nap?" I suggest, reaching for the blanket draped over the back of the recliner. He nods as I lay it over him, and he leans back to get more comfortable.

I leave him there in his recliner, sighing as I head back down to the bar to continue cleaning.

I wanted a fresh start, and I thought my inheritance might give me one, but now, as I'm feeling bogged down with memories I’d rather not relive, I'm not sure if this is a fresh start or if I’m just repeating my mother’s mistakes.