CHAPTER NINETEEN
ZARA
I’m perched at a high-top table in a bar with the wrong Noire.
He isn’t bad company. He seems to enjoy mine, though I’m guessing he enjoys any woman.
He’s attractive. Smart. Funny. Somewhat magical and impressively dexterous with the way he mindlessly handles a deck of cards.
A bit too cocky for my liking—in an I-know-you-want-to-fuck-me, get-in-line kind of way. Though it’s also oddly mesmerizing.
I’d like to study him in the wild. Maybe watch him fall for a woman who wasn’t easily wooed by his arrogance.
When Axel struts around here—or even in the city for that matter—people instinctually give him a wide berth. Everyone views him as an intimidating king. They gawk, like someone would when ogling royalty.
Ten minutes with Cash, and it’s evident that he gets gawked at plenty, but it’s more due to his impish haughtiness.
He has a bravado that convinces people he’s all they should want, but not something they could have.
Still, there’s a glimmer of possibility lurking around him, and they seem to clutch that hope.
It must speak to the preoccupation that most have with an underdog story.
Sipping my marasca fizz with extra cherries, I soak in the rustic atmosphere that is becoming a place of comfort for me. “Is there a reason you asked me to go to dinner and then escorted me twenty yards to the Underground bar?”
“Yes.” He smiles and takes a pull of his Westvleteren 12 beer.
A laugh bursts out of me. “I might be feeling slighted. I didn’t even warrant a trip upstairs to one of the resort restaurants?”
He shuffles his cards with one hand, sliding them between his fingers as if they were connected by an invisible string, while his baby blues are set on me. “Not tonight.”
I hum, waving my hand over his card trick, his flawlessly messy blond hair, his extremely rare beer, and his sexy smirk. “Is this your routine?”
He arches a brow, leaning forward, like he didn’t quite hear me. “My routine?”
“Yeah.” I nod, sip my drink, and relish the hint of curiosity creasing his eyes. “Guys like you always have their thing that works—a line, a look, a place that never fails.”
“Guys like me? You must be confused or”—he snaps his attention to an incoming text on his phone, his eyes flashing with mischief before returning to me—“having a stroke. I’m one of a kind.”
As if to prove that, he pulls a cherry out of the mouth of his beer. Even I have to admit, that’s astounding. I had three left in my drink, and now there are two. But I never saw him take it, and he never stopped his shuffling trick.
I shake my head, watching more employees pour into the bar, the gambling corner, and an area that seems to be set up for dancing. “That’s one of a kind all right.”
He takes another pull of his beer, amused. “And none of this works for you?”
In truth, if I were attracted to him, even the simple gesture of him moving closer to me so I got a whiff of his cologne would have been gold, but alas …
“Not to do the whole it’s-not-you, it’s-me thing before we even get appetizers, but no. I’m … particular.”
“Particular?” he muses, swiping out a quick response to the text. “Is that code for snooty?”
It’s code for: completely entranced by your brother, who smells of snow and strength and spiked apple cider. Who handles me with authority and tenderness at once. Who wants to see the best in me, even though I’m deceiving him and he’s justified to assume the worst.
There are a million reasons to stay away from Axel, but only one is a glaring red flag.
The desire to explore anything beyond a passing infatuation is clearly one-sided since he wants to marry me off to a mobster.
The thought of him with someone else fills my stomach with bile, so we’re definitely not on the same page.
I almost forgot I’m hating him. I should make a note somewhere.
That probably won’t be necessary since things are likely going to get ugly.
I overheard him and Bernard discussing the media conglomerate and the Gurkha Black Dragon cigar, which is Lev Popov’s favorite.
I’ve been doing recon on most of the members staying here—some I already had knowledge about.
For instance, I knew that Angelo Barone was Lev Popov’s greatest enemy.
He’s here, too, so I’m assuming that was who was in arbitration.
If I dismiss all the other confusing thoughts in my head and focus on my job, I know that might be enough to appease the client for now. It’s a good-faith downpayment to staying alive. Which is the only thing that should matter.
But if anything comes of it, Axel will know it was me who leaked the information.
I’d been hiding in the same alcove he stuffed me in because I’d planned to speak with Bernard about my pending membership.
He holds several La Lune Noire keys, so I need to bridge things with him, and that was a valid excuse.
When Axel took off in the other direction, I left, only to hear someone approaching behind me less than a minute later.
When I spun and nearly crashed into him, anxiety, adrenaline, and elation washed over me in equal measure.
Romantic relationships are strongly discouraged among assassins. I thought it was simply because it would be harder to work, to risk your life, to hide a part of who you were from someone you were supposed to be attached to.
“Love, home, and family are the bullets you never see coming,” is the way my father often phrases how treacherous leading that double life is.
Now I’m wondering if it’s because everything feels murky.
I’m not even involved with Axel, but I think if he’d kissed me in the hallway and asked me to promise not to report that Lev Popov, Angelo Barone, or this mysterious contact were connected to a media conglomerate, I would have agreed to it.
I think I’d be tempted to agree to anything if I were his, which makes him the most dangerous person I’ve ever encountered.
“I’m not particular with the setting,” I clarify to Cash. “A great date can happen anywhere. It’s just rare that I meet someone I feel a magnetic connection to, no matter how wildly attractive and good with his hands he happens to be.”
He chuckles and seamlessly drops the cards into a bridge that spans from the table to above his head, all while winking at me. “At least you admit there’s something fundamentally wrong with you.”
A table of female employees is unashamedly watching him, giggling and blushing and feeding that cockiness.
Actually, as I scan the bar, nearly every woman has her eyes glued to him.
Although the same was true of Axel in the Italian restaurant and the high-rollers lounge. It’s probably true of all the Noires.
“Yep,” Cash declares, noticing my revelation, regarding him anyway. “It’s just you. And they aren’t being rude. They assume this isn’t anything because we have a rule against dating employees.”
One more reason for Axel to steer clear of me.
“Maddox is married to Tessa, a tattoo artist,” I counter as “Losing My Religion” by R.E.M. booms from the loudspeaker. “And Ryker is married to Mercy, a lawyer on Axel’s executive staff.”
“Noires aren’t known for following rules, but what’s more intriguing is that you seem to have a vested interest in breaking that one”—he peruses the crowded bar and cocks an eyebrow—“despite getting your share of looks from every man here. Why’s that, Zara?”
Breezing past his probing, I put the spotlight back on him, where he likes it. “So, this is how you feed the ego, huh? Anyone uninterested is defective.”
He shrugs. “I’ve never had anyone uninterested.”
“Really?”
“Other than you, but that was expected.” He pauses there, extracting another cherry from the mouth of his beer. “If I wanted to make your knees weak, I could, but I had other reasons for the invite.”
“I gotta tell ya, I get really pissed about people stealing my cherries. Why was me having zero interest in you expected?”
He narrows his eyes, but pushes past that. “There was one girl, who was very interested, but got scared away by the dueling-pianist witchcraft in Café L’Ambroisie. A fluke.”
“A fluke? That’s endearing.” I sip my cocktail, gathering some sugar off the rim—in part because I’m starving—while he leers at me. “To be fair, I’m not the kind of woman you need either.”
He peers at his vibrating phone, texting something before planting his curious gaze on me. “This should be good. What kind of woman do I need?”
“One who will rob you blind.”
His forehead wrinkles, like he’s considering that, though he still decides to challenge me as he performs another trick with his card deck. “Why would I—or anyone—need that?”
I gesture to the evidence supporting my claim. “The guy who holds all the cards won’t pay attention until someone steals them.”
He dips his chin in what appears to be concession. “And that’s not you?”
“Definitely not.” I pluck the last cherry out of my drink and set him straight before devouring it. “I’m not much of a thief. I’d be more likely to shoot the dealer.”
“Good to know.” His whole face brightens, and again, he punches something into his phone—working maybe or conversing with the next gal in line. “I’ve seen you tackle one.”
And there it is. I knew when he asked me to have dinner with him that it was connected to the video of me and Axel.
“I figured since you alluded to the video the other day.” I don’t divulge that I read their family text thread because I don’t want to out Mercy and Tessa.
“About that”—he swigs his beer, making me wait until he sets it down—“our night is going to take a shift in less than ten minutes.”
“A shift?” My eyes widen. “Oh no. You don’t have some elaborate, last-ditch effort—”
“You’re starting to insult me,” he grumbles.
I bet I am. Cash Noire doesn’t chase anyone.
“My apologies.” I stifle a laugh but lean forward to convey the gravity of my next request. “Before the shift, can we eat?”
“No,” he says plainly.
A hangry beast pounds her chest inside me. “You might actually be the worst date I’ve had in a long time.”
I can’t say ever because I did actually have to kill one of them. Although we were having dinner at the time, so …
Cash claps his hands, more entertained than he should be. “Because I won’t feed you?”
“Yes.” I lift my dwindling cocktail. “I’m starving because I was lured here under the pretense of a meal, and I’m surviving on a depleted cherry stash, sugar, and liquor.”
“Sounds like the beginning of an amazing date,” he quips before appeasing me. “You’ll be fed in the near future.”
“When the food arrives, I’ll take back the worst-date and one-of-those-guys remarks.”
“Tough crowd.” He checks his cell again and moves closer, like he’s sharing a secret. “I think we’ll be even soon, but in case I misread things, you have my apologies too.”
His eyes flit to the far corner over my shoulder, but when I follow his line of sight, I don’t find anything out of the ordinary.
Until an alarm sounds. I reach for my gun, and Cash grips my shoulder.
“Well, fuck. Four minutes,” he mutters.