31. Deacon
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
DEACON
I stand inside Beauregard House wearing a black suit, an earpiece, and the wrong loyalty.
On paper, I am security.
That’s how Isabel Rosario wants her guests to see me.
A familiar shadow near the receiving line.
A man close enough to mean danger, distant enough not to interrupt the flow of champagne.
People who know her understand what my presence means.
People who do not assume I am another expensive piece of the room.
Both assumptions are useful to Isabel. Neither is true anymore.
I wasn’t wholly surprised when she told me to be here.
I figured she’d want me to be here to act as witness to whatever she had planned for Reva.
She’d want me to writhe in guilt and shame for what I couldn’t prevent, and then fear of the unknown before she acted upon whatever she had planned for me, next.
That’s not going to happen. I’ll play my part. I’ll act like her perfect soldier. I’ll make her question whether her suspicions are founded or unfounded, even.
And then I’ll fucking strike.
That’s the only way to win with someone like Isabel.
The ballroom is already filling. Old New Orleans draped in silk, lace, masks, money, and rot.
Chandeliers burn above polished floors. Musicians play at the far end of the room.
Women laugh behind jeweled half-masks while men lean close enough to hear secrets and pretend they are compliments.
Waiters move through the crowd with silver trays.
Everything smells of flowers, wax, expensive liquor, and blood that has not yet been spilled.
I watch the doors. I know when Reva arrives before I see her.
Nash comes through first, tall, dark, severe enough to make a funeral look casual. He wears a black mask that does nothing to soften him. He gives the room one look and dismisses most of it. Typical Blackwood arrogance. Useful tonight, though.
Then Reva steps beside him.
The green dress was a mistake. It’s too beautiful, too much of a target.
She looks alive, and she’s not supposed to be alive.
That is the danger of it. Against all this staged elegance, all this manufactured mystery, Reva looks like something real enough to ruin us all.
Emerald satin. Gold mask. Dark hair pinned on one side with Ever’s little surveillance rose catching the light above her ear.
Shiloh’s bracelet at her wrist. Nash’s hand at the small of her back.
Mine is not on her anywhere, a fact I dislike more than I should.
Her eyes move over the room, taking inventory. Exits. Faces. Distance. Threats. She is frightened. She is angry too, which helps. Anger keeps her chin up as she and Nash join the receiving line.
Isabel stands at the head of it, dressed in ivory and gold, pearls at her throat, dark hair swept back from a face arranged into perfect hospitality. Small and elegant in her satin and lace. A woman strangers underestimate exactly once.
She smiles when Nash and Reva reach her.
“Mr. Blackwood,” she says, extending a hand. “You honor us.”
Nash takes it, just barely allowing the tips of his fingers to graze hers. His silence is almost vulgar.
Isabel’s smile does not flicker. She turns to Reva with all the warmth of a blade left in the snow. “And Miss Hart. What a pleasure.”
Reva’s lips tremble beneath the edge of the gold mask.
Only once, and then she tightens them firmly into something that passes for a thin smile. Most people would miss it. I do not.
She inclines her head. “Mrs. Rosario.”
“Isabel, please. Tonight is for friends.”
Nash’s hand settles more firmly at Reva’s back.
Reva’s mouth curves. It costs her.
“How generous.”
Isabel’s eyes brighten. “I do try.”
The moment lasts no more than ten seconds. An eternity, given the weapons involved.
Reva tugs at her hand, and Isabel releases it.
Nash moves her away before anyone can call it rude, guiding her toward the far side of the ballroom where the shadows are useful and the wall is at their back. Reva walks beside him without looking over her shoulder.
I watch for her.
Isabel watches them go, the smile lingering on her lips. I have seen men die with kinder expressions.
Inwardly, I curse New Orleans and all its ghosts.
Until last night, there were possibilities. Bad ones, but possibilities. Isabel knew something. Suspected more. Wanted to test the shape of an old rumor that had begun breathing in her city.
Now I know better.
There is no shadow of doubt, now. She knows Reva is alive. She knows I kept her that way. She has decided survival is an insult that requires correction.
For the first time in years, I feel the edge of helplessness.
I don’t like it.
Helplessness is a child’s condition. A thing to outgrow or kill. Men who survive in El Sindicato de la Rosa learn quickly that fear is only useful if it becomes action.
My trouble is not fear; it is scale.
I know Isabel’s reach. The money. The judges. The police captains. The old family debt. The priests who hear confessions and report the ones that matter. The girls raised in pretty houses to become knives. The men raised to believe dying for the Order is less costly than disappointing it.
I know her intelligence. Worse, I know her patience.
Isabel doesn’t strike because she can. She strikes when the wound will teach a lesson to everyone watching.
Reva is not only a loose end. She is moral theater.
Nash takes Reva into a dance. I nearly move before I stop myself.
He is supposed to. That was the plan. Stay visible. Give the room a story they understand. Blackwood escorting a beautiful woman at a society event. Nothing to see. Nothing to fear. The earpiece in my ear remains silent, except for the low static of the channel Ever is monitoring outside.
Reva follows Nash’s lead well enough. Better than I expected. He keeps one hand at her waist, the other holding hers, body angled so he can see behind her shoulder. She looks up at him once, says something, and Nash almost smiles.
Isabel watches from the receiving line, and I step into her line of sight. Instead of moving her head, her eyes lift to mine.
“Deacon,” she says. “You are blocking the entertainment.”
“Sorry.” I’m not sorry. I don’t move. “Why did you bring her here? What’s the plan?”
She laughs, a little tinkle of sound. “Oh, you are amusing. Do you really think you still have my confidence, after everything?”
I stare at her, at the look of smug satisfaction spreading across her face. “The granddaughter I told you to kill is waltzing across that ballroom floor, very much alive. There aren’t many explanations for that, other than you betrayed me, or you fucked up, Deacon.”
She lifts a soft, manicured palm, and pats my cheek. I remain silent.
“I sincerely hope it’s that you simply fucked up. I can make your punishment a bit less painful if that’s what it was. But make no mistake, I will find out what happened fifteen years ago.”
I swallow back everything I want to say and force myself to stand ramrod straight. “I promise I will take care of the matter, ma’am.”
“That is why this disappoints me.” She lifts one hand and brushes an invisible speck from my lapel. The gesture looks affectionate to anyone watching. “I can’t trust you to do that for me anymore, Deacon. Now I am forced to do your job for you.”
The ballroom keeps moving behind me. Music. Laughter. Glasses. Silk over skin.
Nothing changes.
Everything changes.
My breath stays even by force alone.
Isabel steps back, her smile returning as a couple approaches to greet her. “Try to enjoy the evening, Deacon. It may be one of the last uncomplicated ones any of us have.”
Then she turns away, dismissing me.
Warning me. Sentence passed. For a moment, I do not move.
I stand in a ballroom built on old money and older sins, wearing her earpiece, her approval revoked, her order confirmed.
If I want to gain her trust back, get back in her good graces, I’m going to have to kill Reva.
Not that I would, but it’s not implied any longer. Not wrapped in philosophy about mistakes. Not hidden behind the language of loose ends and old stories.
The order is alive again. Worse, she fully suspects I will oppose it.
That means she’s not going to move through me if she can avoid it.
She will move around me. Through the spaces I cannot fill.
Through society doors and old favors, servants, drivers, mask makers, perfume, wine, flowers, gifts, invitations.
Through every soft opening rich people pretend cannot bleed.
I look across the ballroom.
Reva has stepped out of the dance with Nash. She stands near the far wall, gold mask catching the light, mouth set, eyes searching the room.
She finds me. For one second, I let her see too much. Her expression behind the mask changes. Then Nash says something, and her attention snaps back to him.
That’s good. Stay with him. Stay visible. Stay alive.
The earpiece crackles, and Ever’s voice comes through, low and controlled. “Deacon.”
I touch two fingers lightly to the device. “I’m here.”
“You moved off post.”
“I’m returning.”
A pause.
“You see something?”
I look at Isabel. She is laughing with a senator’s wife now, one hand on the woman’s arm, face gracious enough to belong in a church window.
“Yes,” I say.
“What?”
I start moving toward the edge of the ballroom, keeping Reva in sight.
“The end of patience.”