32. Reva
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
REVA
The masquerade is beautiful in the way venomous things are beautiful. All shine and color and careful distance.
Masks glitter beneath the chandeliers. Jewels flash at throats and wrists. Men in tuxedos murmur behind their champagne flutes. Women laugh behind fans, lips painted red, eyes sliding over every corner of the room as if they are shopping for weaknesses.
Nash keeps one hand at my back.
Not low enough to scandalize anyone. Not high enough to look paternal. A reminder and a claim, placed exactly where I can feel the heat of his palm through the green satin.
I should hate needing it. Tonight, I don’t.
Isabel Rosario stands near the far end of the ballroom, surrounded by admirers and predators pretending to be donors. Ivory gown. Pearls. Smooth dark hair streaked with silver. She smiles like a woman gracious enough to forgive sins she ordered herself.
Mother Superior.
The name sits badly in my head.
I keep looking at her hands.
Small hands. Elegant hands. Hands that maybe never held the gun, only pointed toward the person who should.
I can’t shake the thought that there’s something familiar about them.
Deacon is near one of the side arches, wearing black and pretending to belong to her. He looks like security to anyone who does not know him. To me, he looks like a blade laid flat on a table, waiting for someone to reach.
His eyes find mine once. Something in his face makes my stomach tighten.
“Something’s happening,” I tell Nash.
He does not pretend not to know what I mean. “Stay close.”
“Planning on it.”
“Closer.”
I glance up at him. “Such a romantic.”
He snorts. “Not hardly.”
“Self-aware, at least.”
His mouth almost moves. Then the music changes, and he turns me into the next step.
Nash dances like he does everything else: control first, elegance by accident. He does not sweep me around the floor. He places me where he wants me, guides without apology, watches the room over my shoulder.
I follow because fighting him here would be stupid.
Also because some part of me likes being handled by a man who would burn the ballroom down before letting the floor give way beneath me.
That is a concerning thought, so I leave it alone.
We make one slow turn near the edge of the dancers.
Then Delia appears. She does not cut in. That would be too normal. She steps into our path with a gold mask over her face and panic badly hidden in the pinched lines of her mouth.
“Nash,” she says.
He stops moving, his hand tightening at my back.
Delia looks at me. “I need to speak with you.”
“No,” Nash says.
I look up at him. “I can answer for myself.”
“You can. The answer is still no.”
Delia’s jaw tightens. “This is important.”
“Everything is important tonight,” Nash says.
Her gaze flicks past us. Toward Isabel. Toward two men standing near the chapel arch at the back of the ballroom. They wear formal black like everyone else, but the roses pinned to their lapels are the same deep red as the wax seal on the invitation.
Their attention is on Delia. Then on me. A cold line moves down my spine.
Delia leans closer, voice barely moving her lips. “If I wanted to hurt her, I already would have.”
Nash says nothing. Delia swallows. That’s what decides me. Not the words. The swallow.
My sister is afraid.
I step out of Nash’s hold. His hand catches my wrist.
“Nash.”
His eyes stay on Delia. “Where?”
“Chapel?”
One of the exits off the ballroom leads to a small chapel. It’s quiet, private—a good spot to talk.
“No,” Delia says too quickly.
Nash’s gaze sharpens.
She recovers, but not well enough. “The sidewalk out front. Come out in a few and take her home.”
“Visible?”
“Yes.”
I look between them. “Do you two want to finish negotiating my kidnapping route, or can we go?”
Nash bends close to my ear. “Two minutes. You stay where I can see you.”
Delia’s face tightens.
I answer him anyway. “Fine.”
He releases me. The loss of his hand at my back feels immediate and wrong.
Delia turns before I can rethink it. I follow her through the edge of the dancers, past a woman in a silver mask laughing too loudly, past a waiter with a tray of champagne, past the chapel arch where the two red-rose guards shift their attention with us.
I see it. Delia sees that I see it.
“Keep walking,” she says under her breath.
“That is not comforting.”
“It is not meant to be.”
“Great. Love the sisterly warmth.”
Her mouth flinches. There and gone, but it makes me feel like shit for some reason.
We do not go into the chapel. She passes it, heading for the main entrance.
“Delia.”
“Shit.”
Her whispered curse, coupled with the icy tone behind us, makes my skin prickle. Delia’s hand squeezes mine and she stops. “Follow my lead,” she grits out, before turning around to face Isabel Rosario. “Hello, Nana.”
Nana.
The floor drops out beneath me.
Nana. Nana. Nana. I physically feel my eyes widen, feel my lips parting, my mouth drying. This woman is my grandmother. This woman wants to kill me. My grandmother wants to kill me.
“Where are you going?”
“Reva and I are taking a stroll.”
“I thought you were going to stroll the chapel path?”
Quick squeeze of my hand. “It looked a bit crowded. I thought we’d walk the front garden path, instead.”
“I see.” Isabel’s attention refocuses on me. “How are you enjoying your evening, Reva?”
“I…” I swallow desperately, trying to make saliva form. “It’s been illuminating.”
Her gaze sharpens. “Lovely.”
She turns to walk away.
“Ma’am?” She pauses, looking back. “May I ask why?”
“Why what, dear?”
Why you want to kill me. Why you had to kill my family. Why you felt the need to bring me to Louuisiana.
I give her a shaky smile. “Why the invitation?”
She lifts a shoulder in a half-shrug. “Because it’s just the way of things, dear. Enjoy your walk.”
She walks away. Delia practically yanks me along the same route and through the doors.
“I can’t believe this. Our grandmother…I can’t believe you didn’t tell me she was our grandmother—”
“Quiet.”
“No!”
She grabs my hand.
I let her because the hallway turns, and behind us, the two guards have entered the corridor.
Not rushing.
Just following.
Delia pushes open a narrow door at the end of the hall and pulls me outside.
Warm air hits my face. We come out on a side terrace overlooking a service drive, not the formal garden where people smoke and take elegant photographs.
It’s all stone, with an iron railing, and potted citrus trees.
Beyond it is a low brick wall, a black gate built into it.
A narrow street beyond it lit by old lamps and the occasional sweep of headlights.
“Shit…I came out the wrong doors. Shit, shit, shit.” She paces forward a few steps, then back. “Okay, if we go down this street, then that way, we’ll be at the front of the building. Come on.”
I yank my hand free. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Getting you out of the chapel path.”
“Meaning?”
She turns on me, eyes bright behind the mask. “Meaning she told me to bring you there.”
My pulse stumbles.
“Isabel.”
“Do not say her name like she is a mere person.”
“What was supposed to happen in the chapel?”
Delia looks toward the door. She doesn’t answer fast enough.
My stomach turns. “Delia.”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re a damn liar.”
“I don’t know all of it.” Her voice cracks at the edges, and that makes me angrier because I can hear the girl underneath. “I have a pretty good idea, though.”
The door behind us opens. One of the red-rose guards steps onto the terrace. The other stays inside, blocking the hall. Delia’s spine goes rigid.
The man outside smiles politely. “Ms. Rosario requested you both return.”
Delia lifts her chin. “Tell her we are getting some air.”
“She was very specific.”
“I said no.”
His gaze shifts to me. “Miss Hart.”
I take one step back. “I’m fine here, thanks.”
Delia moves between us. That surprises me. It surprises him too; I can see it on his face.
“She’s coming back inside with me,” Delia says. “Not with you.”
The guard’s smile fades. He doesn’t look large until he decides to. Broad shoulders under a clean tuxedo. Hand near his jacket. Eyes empty enough to make my mouth go dry.
The service gate at the edge of the terrace creaks. All three of us turn. Cal steps through from the street.
My heart stops clean.
He’s in a dark suit, tie crooked, hair windblown like he came fast. His eyes find me first, then Delia, then the guard.
“You can’t be here, sir. Please return to your vehicle.”
“Fuck off. Reva, come with me. Delia, you too, if you want to.”
“What are you doing here?” I demand.
He looks at the guard again. His right hand moves beneath his jacket.
No.
No, no, no.
“I got a message,” he says. “Said you needed me.”
Delia makes a sound. A small, terrified sound.
The guard is raising a gun. Everything narrows.
Cal is already moving, drawing his own weapon, stepping between me and the barrel because that is what Cal has always done. He has always put his body where the danger wanted mine.
The shot is too loud.
Cal jerks and fires in return. I think he hits the guard; I’m not sure. There’s a curse, and he ducks for cover.
For half a second, I don’t understand what I am seeing. His shoulder twists. His hand flies to his side. The gun slips but doesn’t fall. Blood darkens his shirt beneath his ribs, spreading fast, obscene against white cotton.
“No.”
I move toward him. Delia grabs me. Another shot cracks against the stone near my feet, shards biting my ankle.
“Reva, down,” Cal snaps.
He still sounds like Cal. That is the worst part. Hurt, furious, issuing orders like this is a bad day in Chicago and not the end of the world opening on a side terrace in New Orleans.
The guard turns the gun toward me.
I freeze.
Not because I want to, but because every nightmare I have ever had finds a body in front of me.
Delia shoves me, hard. I hit the stone on my hip. Pain flashes white. The bullet strikes the iron railing where my chest had been and screams off into the night.
The second guard comes through the doorway and grabs Delia from behind.
She fights. For one second, she fights like my sister.