Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Corvus…
“Well, well, well… look at what the cat finally dragged in…” Specter stood up from the billiard’s table after taking his shot.
I rolled my eyes and stopped at the bar.
Spooky didn’t even ask – just popped the top on one of my favorite beers and handed it over.
I rose the bottle in an absentminded salute in his direction and he gave me a half-assed little grin of appreciation for the acknowledgment.
“Fuck, I take a timeout for one night and it’s like you girls couldn’t live without me,” I shot back and Synister chuckled from where he sat back on a bar stool, eyeing the table, his hands wrapped around a cue as he calculated.
“You’ve been spending a lot of time with this one,” he said.
“Just getting my dick wet,” I lied. I could taste it like the bitter tang of heated, acrid metal on my tongue just saying it. I felt a pang of actual fucking guilt just phrasing it that way… because I knew better. I knew just how much Savannah was starting to mean to me.
It had started out all fun, games, and cruel intentions… but the more layers I peeled away from her, the more of a mystery she presented.
She was turning out to be one of a kind, and she was hiding something – and hiding it well from me might I add.
She wasn’t all she appeared to be and was exceedingly private.
I’d realized it over the intervening weeks since I’d first captured her that almost all of her Savvy Savannah Davenport persona was one hundred percent Bona fide bullshit, and though I’d asked and tried to get to her history she was sealed as tight as a clam freshly dug out of the sand and I couldn’t help but wonder if she held a pearl in there.
In fact, I could almost feel that she did.
I just didn’t know why she tried so hard to hide it.
The more interaction that I’d had with her, both in our working and private lives, the more she stoked my curiosity… and I couldn’t help but feel it was a dangerous game that we played because I had sworn to myself; never again.
“Come with me,” Syn said, rising and putting his cue onto the table.
I blinked and checked that he meant me and not Specter, and he did. I followed him into the chapel, and set my beer on the coaster at the boardroom table, taking my seat at his right hand in the conference chair. He took his seat and leaned back in it, swiveling to face me.
“Things are different,” he said without preamble. “This one is different,” he cocked his head, his dark eyes studying me. “Bring her in.”
I shook my head and said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I didn’t think I was asking,” he shot back plainly.
I breathed in deep and let it out slow.
“I thought so,” he murmured. “You don’t want to bring her here with the rest of the guys on a Friday or Saturday night because you don’t want to claim her – but you don’t want any of the others to make a move on her, do you?”
“Get the fuck out of my head,” I muttered.
“Can’t,” he said plaintively. “We’ve known each other too long for that shit.”
I smiled, but it didn’t hold any mirth.
“I’m still figuring her out,” I said and he raised his eyebrows.
“I beg your finest fucking pardon?” he said.
“She saw you kill a man, saw Requiem, Grim, and Reaper’s faces – and you’re still figuring her out?” he was sitting up now, and at full attention.
“Relax,” I told him. “I’m not worried about that part when it comes to her at all. She’s got her own secrets. Is hiding something. I’m just enjoying the hunt and the mystery.”
Synister scoffed.
“Clearly your judgment is impaired with this bitch—”
“Don’t call her that,” I said sharply. “She’s not just some hanger on club slut walking through the door. She’s different.”
Synister dropped back in his seat and said carefully, “You haven’t defended a woman’s name like that since…”
I raised my hand and said, “Don’t say it.” My expression felt like I just sucked on a lemon. I washed the bitter taste of memory down with a healthy swig of my beer.
“I don’t want to talk about Courtney. That was years ago and I’m over it.”
Synister looked amused by that. “It was almost twenty years ago, maybe even twenty-five and it was basically high school and you’re still not over it. That’s part of why you have your fuckin’ name. A crow never forgets and they hold grudges for generations.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah… I know.”
“I’ma need you to bring her in. See how she handles one of our parties.”
I sighed, and asked, “You just want to get her measure, yeah?”
He grinned. “Among other things.”
“She’s been here once already,” I tried and he shook his head.
“On a fuckin’ Tuesday – when practically no one was here and to blow you downstairs. I know.”
“Specter or Revenant?” I scowled.
“Who do you think?” he demanded.
“Fuckin’ Specter,” I grumbled.
He shrugged, “She pissed him off.”
I smiled at that and said, “I’ll just bet she did. Reject one of his crude advances?”
“Yeah,” he grinned and we shared a laugh.
“I can never tell if he’s trying to be serious with that shit or not,” I said.
“Me either – he has to know it ain’t going to work.”
“You’d think,” I agreed.
“Split the difference?” I asked.
“I’m listening,” he said, one brow raised.
“Dinner at the Manse,” I said.
“Sounds like a formal introduction to me…” he trailed off and I shook my head.
“It’s not like that – she’s legit just my latest plaything.”
“Bullshit,” he said. “Stop playin’ in my face, brother.
You dropped everything for her a few weeks back, brought her by when it was light on traffic to test her loyalty – albeit lightly, you’ve never had Requiem look into or track a plaything before, and you let her into your place not the carriage house apartment.
” He ticked each item off on his fingertips.
“I barely have a finger left over on this hand for how differently you’ve treated her than any other and I’m not hearing a why of it.”
“Why?” I asked. “Let’s try because I’ve never blown a motherfucker’s head off in front of any playmates before her.” He raised a thumb.
“Bingo!” he declared with a gusty sigh. “She’s been different from the word go – and the sooner you stop lying to yourself about it the better. This one is different; why?”
I swiped a hand over my face and beard and sighed.
“I don’t know,” I confessed finally. “I’m still trying to figure that shit out for myself.”
“Well, you better figure it out quick and fuck her on the dining room table like I did Madisyn or you know someone else is going to make a play – them’s the rules.”
I nodded, “I know the fucking rules – I helped you come up with them, remember?” I smirked, “Besides, I already took her out The Olde Pink House and spread her on the dining room table and ate her pussy for dessert, does that count?”
He laughed and slapped the table, and shook his head – “No witnesses, so fuck no it doesn’t count.”
My face lost its slow smile and I said, “She is different…”
Synister’s amusement evaporated and he nodded, “You ain’t telling me nothing I didn’t already know,” he said. “Real deal?” he asked.
I shrugged miserably and said, “I don’t know. As close to it as I’ve come across since Courtney, anyway.”
He was quiet for a time and finally said, “She wasn’t the real deal – not even close, Cor. You’ve always known that.”
I nodded.
I’d been all-in with Courtney. Would have let her dog walk me on a fuckin’ leash if she’d liked… and Savannah was absolutely nothing like her.
If anything, Savannah was light to Courtney’s dark in every way possible… maybe that was the difference. I told Synister as much.
“She’s everything Courtney is not,” I said. “With an air of mystery that’s damn near irresistible.”
“Spill, brother. I’m listening…” he said.
So, I did. I told him everything that I knew.
How her vibe in real estate was just about as cold, cutthroat, and as calculating as mine and how that had been the first thing to attract me – even though it’d pissed me the fuck off because nine times out of ten when I got to witness it, it was being used against me, and easily six times out of those ten she won the bone of contention.
How I’d had myself convinced for a long time that I’d hated everything about her – and how honestly now, after having her in my bed, right where I’d wanted her, I was realizing it wasn’t hate at all.
It was anger – mostly at myself for being attracted in the first place.
For making me feel something, for invoking the desire I had suppressed for so long and for doing it so fucking effortlessly.
About how I’d gone too far the first time we’d fucked with the perverted games and how I’d been able to see the heartbreak and devastation in her brought blue eyes when the blindfold had come off and pretty much all because she hadn’t been able to touch me with the way I’d had her shackled.
About how I’d been swamped with actual guilt for the first time in a long time.
I spilled, because Synister was my brother of the covenant more than any other fucking brother we had in the club. He was my best friend, and my confidant, and the closest thing I had to a motherfucking priest and I knew he would fuckin’ die before he told another single soul any of this shit.
“Conclusion?” he asked when I’d spilled my literal guts across the table.
“I don’t know if she’s the real deal, but she’s the closest thing to it that I’ve ever come across and I’m just not ready to risk parading her in front of the brothers to have them pick her apart – because I know that’s what you motherfuckers will do.”
Synister nodded, “You’re goddamn right we will – we almost lost you to the depression that Courtney caused when she cheated, brother.
You damn well better expect that each and every one of us is going to test anyone you come even close to that depth or level with.
We’ll not see you break that bad a second time. ”
“I have no intention of allowing myself to break like that again,” I said. “I know it was fucked up.”
Synister shook his head, “Nothing fucked up about feeling that hard and that deep for someone. We all just wished that Courtney could have been a better person than she was for you.”
He looked thoughtful and said, “This one’s different – for sure, so yeah, we’ll split the difference. Dinner at the Manse. Thursday night. Most of the boys’ll be there but more importantly there’s a game so Specter won’t. He already shot his shot and lost.”
I shook my head and said, “it’s a wonder he gets any pussy at all with his attitude.”
Synister shrugged. “He is who he is, just like you are who you are.”
I nodded, “True that.”
I took out my phone and texted Savannah: Synister would like an audience. Thursday night at – I checked with Syn.
“Thursday night, what time?”
“Seven o’clock sharp,” he said.
I backtracked on the text, took out the “at” and finished it off with Thursday night. I’ll pick you up at your office at 6:30. This is one of those times that I call and you answer, Bright Eyes. No argument, please.
I sent it.
We sat and chit chatted, waiting for the rest of the boys to filter in for our weekly church meeting, and I felt a lot better for having offloaded what was on my mind to Syn.
My phone buzzed in my hand, just as I was about to drop it in the bag for the prospect to take before we got started.
I’m free was the only thing on the screen under the notification heading, so I dropped it in the bag and let him take it.
“That was easier than I anticipated,” I told Syn and he nodded, catching my drift that we were on for Thursday night.
The meeting was called to order shortly thereafter, and I wondered what Savannah was doing in that moment…