Page 1 of After Midnight

Chapter one

Dominic

“I’ve told you not to cross me, Dominic. I’m your mother, and you are to do as you’re told.”

“You arenotmy mother, Margarette. You are mystepmother.”And not a very good one at that, I thought to myself.

“I’m the only mother you’ve ever known, and you should show me the respect I deserve.”

Margarette walked away, trying to look regal but I could tell she was seething. Her coifed blonde hair and tall frame contrasted with the perpetual frown on her face. She and I had been arguing all week.

God, I knew I shouldn’t provoke the woman, but Miss Rita had convinced me I needed to stand up to her once and for all. “You need to control your own destiny,” she told me. “It’s time to stop taking grief from that hateful witch just because she was married to your father for fifteen minutes before he died.”

She was right, of course. Not about the fifteen minutes exactly, though it was an extremely brief marriage. Even as resigned as my papa had been in marrying Margarette, I doubt theirmarriage would’ve lasted very long, not once her true colors came out. At least my evil stepmother hadn’t taken Papa Eric’s last name, which he himself had taken upon marrying my dad, Patrick, and she didn’t want anything to do with that. So, that’s one thing I never had to share with her.

Unfortunately, Margarette held two important things over my head—my adopted sisters, Alli and Olivia. I would do anything to protect them, including tolerating our intolerable stepmother.

Margarette had a habit of saying hateful things to me that, although never overtly discriminatory, usually alluded to my being biracial or gay. To be honest, I was quickly reaching the end of my tether, but I also didn’t want to do anything to hurt the girls.

Alli and Olivia were the children of a couple both my fathers had been close to, so close that my parents had been listed as the girls’ guardians should anything unforeseen happen. The girls were still very young when their parents died and I became their instant big brother. That probably explains why I’d always felt so protective of them.

Sure, we had some bumps in adjusting to life as a family of five, but we became a happy, solid unit. Life was great, until it all changed yet again. The bubble burst when Dad was diagnosed with cancer and died shortly thereafter, then Papa Eric moved us to his hometown to live with his homophobic parents. That’s where we all had the misfortune of meeting Margarette.

Ignoring his grief, if not capitalizing upon it, my grandparents pushed Papa into marrying the evil witch. He’d resisted at first but in the end, Papa complied with their demands. Less than six months later, he was gone too. I’d always thought dying of a broken heart was some old romantic cliché, until my papa died.

True to form, the only person in our family not devastated by the loss of Papa Eric was his new wife. Margarette moved us away within a month of my grandparents signing over custody ofall three of us to her. Perhaps being passed off from homophobic grandparents to a witch of a stepmother was the lesser of two evils, but I hardly cared at that point. In every way that mattered, my childhood ended the year both my dads died.

Still, it really hurt when Margarette made us leave Papa Eric’s belongings behind. I always suspected we moved because she wanted complete control over us or, more precisely, our money. But I could never prove anything.

My dads had been fairly wealthy, having created a series of apps that were bought by a large software company. Nearly their entire estate went into a trust for me upon Papa Eric’s death, and I was grateful Margarette couldn’t get her gold-digging hands on it. Neither could my grandparents, for that matter. The girls also had a trust, set up by their birth parents. Being our guardian, Margarette would continue receiving stipends from the trusts until we turned twenty-one.

My sisters were my life. Olivia had blue eyes and long, curly blonde hair. She looked just like a China doll my grandmother kept in her guest bedroom. Alli was more tomboyish. Her dark blonde hair was shorter than Olivia’s, and while Olivia wore dresses, Alli preferred jeans.

Margarette would occasionally take them out with her. Me, not so much. “It’s better if you don’t come with us, or people might look at us strangely,” she told me once. Of course, I knew exactly what she meant. The woman was a piece of work.

Miss Rita was the one who kept my spirits up, my guiding light, I guess. That was the case even now, but especially when I’d been an impressionable, newly orphaned teenager. Had it not been for Margarette hiring the amazing woman as our nanny, I probably would have begun to internalize the covertly racist bullshit she threw at me.

“How’d it go?” I jumped as Miss Rita walked up behind me, pulling me out of my thoughts.

“How do you think it went?” I asked, chuckling.

“She kick you out?”

“No, I don’t think she can.”

“Then it went well.”

“Miss Rita, you know that woman is never going to give an inch when it comes to me. As far as she’s concerned, I’m here as her servant. I swear, Margarette thinks she’s Scarlett O’Hara. If I knew how to sew, she’d have me making dresses out of the curtains,” I joked, desperately trying to make light of the situation. Deep down, though, it still hurt.

Miss Rita laughed, but there was no humor in it. “You are amazing, Dominic Lawson. Don’t you ever forget that.”

I sighed. That was Miss Rita’s go-to comment. I knew she meant it but inside, I had a lot of self-doubt. “You know, Margarette said something that made me think.”

“She did? That’s a first,” Miss Rita said, sounding amused. “What did she say?”

“She said she was the only mother I’d ever known.”

Miss Rita looked at me with a blank expression, clearly waiting for me to continue.

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