Chapter 2 Genevieve
Genevieve
Rosebrook Falls, Connecticut, is a town that doesn’t welcome outsiders.
It tolerates them…barely. And only if we keep our heads down and mouths shut.
Luckily, I’m great at both.
Except, it would seem, when it comes to Lance Calloway.
And maybe that’s on me. Maybe I let him under my skin too much. Maybe I’ve been poking at him because it’s easier than acknowledging how he watches me like he’s waiting for me to fuck up.
I don’t like him.
But unfortunately, I do see him.
Hard not to, when I’m barely five-three and he’s well over six feet on a bad day.
I force myself to focus on the man who just walked into the tavern. The man I love, the one I uprooted my entire life in Boston for to come to his small town and build a life with.
Arthur Penngrove.
Art’s brow is furrowed, his shoulders hunched like the weight he’s carrying is too much to bear.
The Round Table has been sluggish for two weeks, ever since Freddy and Marcus died, and honestly, I could have taken some time off, let the other server Rosalie work my shifts instead.
But, if I’m not here, then I’m just a kept woman pretending I’m living a full life, waiting for Art to visit me. A side piece he sneaks away for.
Stop it, Ginny. You love him. He loves you. That’s all that matters.
Art covers his mouth with his hand, then drops it to his side.
My face drops along with it.
“What’s wrong?” I step out from behind the bar and wipe my palms on the front of my jeans.
“I need to talk to Lance.”
“Seriously?” I say. “You’re kicking me out?”
Lance grins. “Don’t get jealous, Genevieve. I’ll give him back.”
My fists clench so tight my nails bite skin, and I hate that I don’t know why his goading works, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing it, so I blink and envision all the ways he could wither away to nothing.
“Fine. I’ll just…go do something else, I guess.”
“Don’t go far,” Art says.
Oh, I won’t.
“Why do you let her treat you like that?” Lance’s voice is dripping with venom, and I hesitate, pressing my back against the kitchen wall.
What does he mean I treat him like that?
Art’s sigh is heavy, and I imagine him sinking into a chair. Running a hand through his gelled hair, or dragging a palm down his face. Maybe he’s relieved I’m gone.
My teeth press together at the thought.
I peer around the corner of the kitchen and into the bar.
Art pulls at his necktie.
“She’s complicated,” he says.
“You all right?”
“Yeah, you know how it is. Parental bullshit.”
“That’s why we’re part of the Silver Spoon Survivors’ Club.”
Art’s mouth curls up. “Founding members.”
“Your dad still pissed you bought this place?”
He cringes, his eyes floating along the back of the bar. “Among other things.”
I know what he isn’t saying. His dad can’t stand me. Won’t let us move in together or even take the time to meet me. As far as Franklin Penngrove’s concerned, I’m just a stain on his son’s reputation.
“I never want to take advantage of our friendship,” Art says. “And I know I promised that I’d…”
He swallows hard.
Lance’s silver chain swings forward as he leans in, resting his elbows on his knees. There’s a beat of silence, and they do that thing they do: communicate without words.
Jealousy cuts through me: sharp and searing.
It’s not Lance’s ego or the way he acts like I’m an inconvenience.
It’s them.
The way they’re family so effortlessly. There for each other without question. Meanwhile, I’m the outsider. The one who showed up and threw off their balance.
“The fights are starting up again.” Lance says it like he already knew.
That makes one of us.
The fights.
Even the thought of them makes me want to scream, but for some reason, I can never find my voice. I don’t have the right to, anyway. I’m just as complicit as the two of them, even if I never asked to be.
Art leads me down an alley to an industrial gray door tucked behind a blue dumpster.
He pulls out a ring of keys and spins them on his finger.
“You need help figuring out which one to use?” I joke. “I thought you owned the place.”
“I’m just debating on whether showing you this is a good idea.”
“Well you’ll have to show me eventually, especially since you said I could bartend.” I try to peer around him.
“If you work here… There are things you’ll see. Things I don’t want to keep from you, because I love you, and our life together here shouldn’t start with secrets. But I don’t know if this will be too much.”
I swallow down the suspicion. “You can trust me.”
And I mean it. I grew up with a defense attorney for a father who taught me how to keep quiet, so there’s nothing I can’t handle.
“Once I show you this, there’s no going back. And I’m serious, Gin, you can’t tell anyone. Not even your dad.”
He says it lightly, but his hand is trembling, and a cold thread pulls at my sternum.
This is Art, I remind myself. I know him, and I love him. So, I lift up on my toes and press a kiss to the corner of his mouth.
He gives a small grin, then opens the doors, dragging me behind him.
We walk through a hallway, with yellow lighting and worn tile that make my footsteps echo. I expect him to take me to the actual bar or maybe lead me to the kitchen, but instead, we head to a door in the back.
He unlocks it, and we go down a flight of stairs until we’re in a small storage area lined with boxes and inventory for the front of house.
“You’re nervous to show me the storage area?” I ask.
He smiles, bouncing in place, then he moves forward and shoves aside the boxes. He taps something on the wall, and the wood swings open to reveal a steel door behind it.
Art puts his thumb on the handle, and it beeps green then opens with a click.
“Fancy. Does everyone need a fingerprint to get through here?”
He doesn’t look at me, just replies in a nonchalant voice, “Either that or a key card.”
“Ah, of course,” I say.
My pulse kicks up when I look at the wooden staircase that leads into an abyss.
“Where the hell are we, Art? What’s going on?”
He’s halfway down the first step, but he glances back and hesitates. “You said I could trust you, right?”
I’m not entirely sure anymore. “Of course.”
“Then I need you to trust me, too.”
The hairs on my arms stand on end. But I do trust Art. Of course I do.
We make it to the bottom of the stairs and enter another hallway lined with acoustic padding on the walls. Our footsteps don’t echo. It’s like the noise gets swallowed before it can escape.
“Soundproofing,” Art says. “The walls are packed with it. You could scream and no one upstairs would hear a thing.”
A tremor scrapes down my spine.
“You’re not planning to kill me down here, are you?”
“Please, we both know your dad would kill me if I thought of hurting you.”
The way he says it—so blasé—makes my skin prickle, but I ignore it because thinking about my dad reminds me I left him alone in Boston, and that hurts too much.
We go down one flight. Then another. The walls change to raw concrete, and I realize we’re deeper underground than I thought.
Three levels at least, maybe more. The air changes immediately as we make our way down.
Cooler for sure, and damper, with an undercurrent of something metallic I can’t quite place.
“How far down does this go?”
“Far enough.” Art’s hand finds the small of my back, guiding me forward. “This place was built on top of a speakeasy. Then Prohibition ended, and someone else expanded it over the years. Added the infrastructure.”
“Infrastructure for what?”
We stop in front of a heavy metal door, reinforced with steel plating.
“Wow, really keeping the door companies in business.”
Art sighs. “I love you, but this is serious.”
I put my hands up, but something small and sharp pinches at his chastisement. “Got it. I’m totally serious. What’s behind door number three?”
“The real reason I bought this place.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I know.”
He wants me to be impressed, I think, or maybe he just needs me to know why this matters to him. It’s clear that it does.
“Art. It’s okay.” I run my hand down the length of his arm. “I’ve got you, I promise. Whatever it is, we’ll be in it together.”
He nods, then does some fancy knock.
A small viewing pane in the metal clicks open, beady eyes shining through.
There’s noise, but it’s muffled like music through water.
Underneath it, there’s a rhythmic vibration…
Cheering.
“Hey, Kay,” Art says.
“Mr. Penngrove.”
The door opens, revealing a man with a tree-trunk neck and a clipboard in his hand who waves us through, and the sound crashes over me like a wave.
It’s a cathedral of violence.
That’s the only way I can think to describe it.
A vast underground chamber, the ceiling arched, the walls lined with black padding that swallows the echo, similar to the basement that’s now above us.
The floor slopes down to a sunken pit at the center, a concrete area wrapped in chain-link fencing from the floor almost to the ceiling.
A cage.
Around it, tiered seating rises like a Roman amphitheater, dark stained wood and leather booths tucked behind tinted glass.
A full bar lines one wall, backlit in red, giving the whole space a hellish glow.
The bartender—a stunning woman with strawberry-red hair—is pouring drinks for men in expensive suits and women draped in silk, none of whom seem disturbed by what’s happening in the center of the room.
Where two men are trying to kill each other.
They’re both shirtless, but have shoes on and dark shorts, their hands wrapped in dirty white tape.
One of them is huge. Jet-black hair, broad shoulders, arm muscles coiled like he was built for this kind of brutality.
There are tattoos on his back and sprinkling down his arms, the most notable one a sword that runs the length of his spine.
And he’s dodging a punch, then countering with a kick that snaps his opponent’s head sideways.
The crowd roars.
“Art,” I breathe through the nausea. “What the hell is this?”
His arm wraps around my shoulders, pulling me close. His lips brush my ear, and the back of my neck prickles.
“A hub for the most exclusive ring of underground fighting on the East Coast.” He squeezes my shoulder. “Welcome to the Lye, Gin.”
My mouth floods with a sour taste, and I swallow twice to keep my expression neutral.
“Why isn’t that guy blocking?”
Art hesitates. “Sometimes the game isn’t about winning.”
The lights flicker, and the tattooed fighter glances up.
His gaze strikes me like someone reached around my heart and squeezed.
Every sound in the room thins to nothing. It’s just the cage, him, and a pull in the center of my chest I can’t explain.
He’s looking at me like he knows me. Like he’s been waiting for me.
Then a fist connects with his jaw, his head snaps sideways, and the spell breaks.
“That’s Lance,” Art says.
“That’s Lance?” I twist to look at him. “As in your best friend?”
“One and the same.”
Lance goes down on the next hit. He doesn’t get back up.
The crowd erupts, and I glance around. Money changes hands. The lights come up, and people move toward the bar, laughing like this is normal.
The room tilts.
“He lost.”
“Yeah.” Art’s jaw tightens. “He does that sometimes.”
Lance is standing now, wiping blood from his mouth. He doesn’t acknowledge the crowd. He just turns toward a tunnel, a guy with pasty skin, and short, wavy blond hair at his side.
Right before he disappears, he stops, his hand gripping the edge of the stone archway. He looks over his shoulder, and his eyes find mine.
I feel it again—that sense of something shifting beneath my feet.
Then he’s gone.
I’m snapped to the present when Art mentions something about my father.
My breath stalls, and then a hand wraps around my mouth and jerks me back.