15. Deacon
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
DEACON
“And just so you’re aware, you’re not alone here, either. Nash loves you.”
She flinches. Interesting. “I don’t need you to give me a declaration of love for another man—”
“Ever and Shiloh would both tear this city to the ground for you, for any reason.”
“And you? What would you do for me, Deacon?”
The question comes too fast. Like she didn’t mean to ask it and is almost irritated by it.
“I would not tear the city down,” I say. “I would start with the people in it.”
She stares at me, the pulse in her throat jumping.
“Who is trying to kill me?” she asks.
“Not kill.”
Her brows pull together.
“Not primarily. At least, I don’t think so. I guess it’s a possibility.”
“All that is truly comforting, Deacon.”
“I would guess she wants you found, first and foremost.”
“Who is ‘she’? And I would argue that she does want me dead, because she’s tried pretty damn hard a couple of times.”
Yeah. I’ve heard, and I need to find out what the hell is going on.
Because after all this time, trying to kill Reva just doesn’t make sense.
“Someone who believes you should not have survived. And…I’ve heard.
I’m hoping it’s just someone who got a little…
excitable. I’ll have to dig a little further. ”
“The Syndicate?”
I do not react.
Her gaze sharpens. “That’s who Nash and Cal said. The Syndicate is who ordered the assignment in the first place.”
“Yes.”
“Who is ‘she’ to the Syndicate?”
“Someone you should not meet unprepared.”
“Deacon.”
“No.”
Her hands curl into fists. “You don’t get to decide what I know.”
“Yes,” I say. “I do.”
She takes one step toward me. Brave girl. Foolish, but brave. Everything about her makes my control feel temporary.
She turns as if she needs to move or she will come apart, then remembers I am still between her and the door.
“Delia,” she says.
My chest tightens. “What about her?”
“How is she alive?”
“You want the full truth, I’m assuming.”
“No, I want you to continue lying to me for my own fucking good. What do you think, Deacon?”
I give her a clipped nod. “It’s not pretty.”
“I didn’t figure it would be.”
“I was given an assignment by the Syndicate: punish the Hart family. They had done something—I wasn’t sure what, didn’t matter. The punishment was the only thing I was concerned with. If I didn’t do it, it was my neck.”
I pull my sleeve up, drawing her attention to the tattoo faded on my forearm. She pales but doesn’t otherwise respond.
“This meant one thing and one thing only—complete, unswerving loyalty to the Syndicate. You fail the Syndicate, you pay with blood. It was the reason, I’m sure, your family was being punished. With me so far?”
She nods.
“The assignment was to kill your father. Kill one child. Retrieve one child. Ensure the house burned. The assignment did not exactly go as it was supposed to.”
I smile grimly. “Mainly because I made sure that it didn’t.
I’m not a child-killer, Reva. The others weren’t either, and they broke ties with the Syndicate because they refused to wear the rosary on their arms and take the risk they’d be sent on a similar assignment.
I was already in too deep, and I had to work a little harder, be a little sneakier about things. ”
“You…someone did kill a child, though. Delia’s friend was there that night, and she was killed?”
A stab of sadness pierces me. “Yes. One of the other Syndicate men killed her before I could prevent it. He’s the one who killed your father, as well.
I killed him before he could find and kill you, made it look like the cops got him, and then made it look as though that little girl was you, Reva.
And then I made damn sure Cal was able to get to you and adopt you as soon as it could be arranged. It was all I could do.”
Reva taps a finger against her bottom lip. “And you had to take Delia back with you to the Syndicate…”
“Exactly. I had to choose how to best protect both of you.”
Her eyes close. When they open, something in them has gone very quiet. That is the part I do not like.
Her rage I can handle. Her teeth. Her insults. Her reckless little stunts with weaponized fruit. The quiet is what people fall into when the floor beneath their feet disappears.
I reach for her. She slaps my hand away.
“Do not.”
I stop.
“You said you would have left me alone if I stayed in Chicago.”
“I would have tried. You make it difficult.”
Her laugh breaks this time. “That is such a non-answer. And now?” she asks.
“Now you are here.”
“Brilliant observation.”
“Now the people who wanted you gone know you are not.”
Her throat works.
“Now Delia has seen you. Nash has claimed you. Cal is rattled. Mother Superior’s old assignment is breathing again.” I step closer. “Now every buried thing in this city is starting to turn over.”
Her voice drops. “And you?”
I look at her mouth. That’s a mistake. Then at her eyes. That’s an even worse one.
“Now,” I say, “you are mine.”
She stares at me. Then she shakes her head once. Slowly.
“No, I am not.”
“You are.”
“No.” Her voice rises. “I am not yours. I am not Nash’s. I am not Ever’s. I am not Shiloh’s. I am not Cal’s kept secret or Delia’s dead sister or some unfinished assignment with legs. I am not property, Deacon.”
“No,” I say.
Her chest heaves.
“You are not property.”
“Then stop saying I’m yours.”
“I can’t do that.”
Her eyes flash. “Try harder.”
“I have been trying since I saw you in that bar in Florette, Little Ghost. It’s not going to work out.”
“The…bar…?”
She looks at me like she wants to stab me. I would hand her the knife if it would help.
“I hate you,” she says.
“I know. It’s okay. You’re not alone.”
“I came here to kill you.”
“I know that, too.”
“I should still want to.”
“Yes.”
Her voice drops to a whisper. “But I don’t know what I want anymore.”
That is the most honest thing she has said tonight. I close the distance before either of us can make it safer.
My hand cups the side of her face, and she freezes.
“Tell me no,” I say.
Her lips part but no sound comes out. I wait. I have done many unforgivable things in my life. I’ll not add failing to wait for her to make her choice right now, right this second, to the list.
Her fingers close around my wrist. For one second, I think she will push me away.
She does not.
So I kiss her.
Not gently. Gently would be another lie, and I think I have enough lies between us.
I kiss her like I haven’t spent the last couple of years reading her handwriting and pretending ink was enough. Like every report with her name on it didn’t burn a hole through my hands. Like every mile between Chicago and New Orleans wasn’t both mercy and punishment.
She goes still at first. Then she comes alive all at once.
Her fist catches the front of my shirt. Her mouth opens under mine with a broken sound that nearly unmans me. Anger is in it. Grief. Curiosity. Want she’ll punish herself for later.
I take none of it softly. She wouldn’t believe soft from me. That would be another lie.
My other hand slides into her hair, holding her exactly where I want her. She bites my lower lip hard enough to draw blood.
I groan against her mouth.
She kisses like she is trying to win a fight. Like surrender is acceptable only if she leaves marks on the way down. Her small hands are vicious in my shirt. Her body presses against mine, then jerks back half an inch as if she remembers who I am and hates herself for forgetting.
I let her have the retreat, for a breath.
Then I follow, crowding her against the island until the edge catches at the small of her back. She makes a sound into my mouth that is half protest, half need.
I could keep going. God help me, I could.
I have built entire rooms inside myself to hold the things I would not take from her. Tonight, though, every door in me stands open.
So I stop. Abruptly. Savagely. Because one of us has to.
I pull back, breathing harder than I should be.
Her eyes open slowly. Her mouth is swollen. Her cheeks flushed. Her fingers are still fisted in my shirt, like her body has not gotten the same message as her mind.
Good. Let her remember that too.
“You just haven’t come to terms with it yet,” I say.
Her brows pull together. “With what?”
I brush my thumb once over her lower lip. The smear of blood there is mine.
“That you came here looking for a monster,” I say, “and found the one that belongs to you. The one you made, little ghost.”
She shoves me. It barely moves me, but I get a perverse kick out of it.
“You are unbelievable.”
“Yes.”
“Arrogant.”
“Keep going.”
“Deranged.”
“Frequently.”
“I hate you.”
“You said that already.”
“I’m saying it again for emphasis.”
I release her and step back before I forget why I stopped.
Her hands fall to her sides. The room feels colder without them on me.
I look toward the doorway. There’s more I could tell her, but I won’t. Not tonight. Too much truth at once makes people stupid. Reva is already dangerous enough without being broken open in the kitchen over a banana carcass and fifteen years of ghosts.
“I will arrange a meeting with Delia when it can be done safely,” I say.
Her face changes instantly, reminding me that hope can be more dangerous than anger.
“When?”
“When I know you’ll both survive it.”
“I want to see her.”
“I know.”
“No, you do not know.” Her voice cracks, then hardens around the break. “You don’t get to keep her from me too.”
I say nothing.
Because she is right. But I’m still going to do it if that’s what keeps her alive. Being hated by Reva is not the worst thing I have survived.
I turn and walk toward the hall. Behind me, she moves.
“Deacon.”
I stop.
Do not look back. If I look back, I will go to her. And if I go to her, I may tell her everything.
“What?”
Her voice is hoarse when she answers.
“I want to see my sister.”
I close my eyes. For one heartbeat, the past stands in the kitchen with us. Two little girls. One assignment. One choice made in blood and confusion and the kind of fear men like me are not supposed to feel.
Then I open them.
“You will,” I say.
“When?”
I look back then.
She stands in the kitchen wearing another man’s hoodie, cheeks flushed, eyes wet and furious, mouth still swollen from mine. Behind her, the ruined banana lies half under the island with thumbtacks glittering around it like evidence from a crime scene no one will ever know how to explain.
Beautiful, impossible girl.
“Soon,” I say. “I’ll arrange it.”
She hates that answer. I don’t blame her. I leave before she can ask any more questions, the house releasing me with a snick of the door and groan of old wood.
Outside, the night is thick and wet. I cross the drive without looking back at the windows.
I can still feel her mouth. Still taste blood. Still hear the word sister in her ruined voice.
I came to Blackwood House because I was tired of waiting. Now Reva is done waiting too. That will be a problem—for all of us.
Mostly for the woman who still thinks belonging is the same thing as being owned.
She will learn the difference.
Or she will burn us all down refusing.