14. Reva
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
REVA
There was zero question of me remaining behind. I scrambled into the boat and the only way I was getting out was if someone threw me over their shoulder—which they could have done, let’s make no mistake.
But Ever just sighed and looked at Nash. “I’ll watch her.”
There was no discussion after that.
By the time we reach Noir, there are no flames.
Smoke hangs over Lasalle Street in a greasy gray veil, turning the streetlights blurry and mean.
A fire truck blocks half the road, red lights pulsing over wet pavement, over brick, over the black-painted doors that once looked sinful and untouchable and now look like somebody tried to pry them open with heat.
The front windows are intact. The sign still glows.
NOIR, in sleek white letters, flickering at the edges because water has gotten somewhere electricity doesn’t appreciate.
I stand on the sidewalk with my arms wrapped around myself and stare at the building where I came looking for a killer and found the rest of my life instead.
A firefighter comes out through the front door carrying a coil of hose.
Smoke rolls out behind him. It’s paler now, tired.
The smell hits a second later, wet ash, and burned fabric and chemical foam, layered over the ghosts of liquor, perfume, old wood, and the sweet bite of whatever they use to polish the bar.
Shiloh steps past me first.
His face is wrong.
There’s no smile. No easy mouth. No careless comment tossed into the smoke to make the night less awful. He moves toward the door, and Nash catches him by the arm before he gets two steps.
“Wait.”
Shiloh looks at him. For one second, I think he might swing. Then his jaw flexes, and he stops.
Ever is already talking to a firefighter near the curb, phone in one hand, tablet in the other. His shoulders are rigid beneath his jacket. He keeps glancing at the building like he’d like to take the whole thing apart piece by piece and interrogate the walls.
Deacon stands at my back, close enough that I feel his presence, far enough that I don’t feel held in place. He’s been quiet since Nash said the words.
Noir is on fire.
Sonny pushes through a cluster of people near the next storefront and comes toward us fast, her hair shoved into a messy bun, eyes red, hoodie half-zipped over pajama pants patterned with tiny skulls.
I don’t remember moving, but then she’s in front of me and I’m grabbing her.
“You’re okay?” I demand.
She squeezes me hard. “I’m okay.”
“You called Nash.”
“I called you first, but Ever has your phone doing Fort Knox things, so it went straight to doom voicemail.”
“So rude; I’m sorry.”
“I know. I left an emotional message.”
That should make me smile, but it’s like my mouth doesn’t remember how.
I pull back and look her over. No burns. No soot except a smear near her jaw. No blood.
“What happened?”
Her face crumples a little before she gets control of it.
“Alarm company called. I’m still on the emergency contact list from the last time I helped Shiloh with vendor invoices, because apparently none of you criminals understand paperwork.
I got here before the trucks.” She looks at the building, throat working.
“There was smoke coming from the back. Not a lot at first. Then a lot.”
Shiloh’s eyes close. Just once. When they open, whatever was in them is gone.
“Staff?” he asks.
“Gone before it started,” Sonny says. “There were no customers, no…clients. No one inside.”
The relief that moves through the men is silent and violent.
Nash nods toward the building. “Source?”
Ever answers from the curb. “Back hallway. Storage area outside the old VIP corridor. Sprinklers caught it fast. Fire department says mostly smoke damage, some heat damage along the rear wall.”
“Accidental?” I ask, though the answer is already standing in the smoke with us, draped in pearls.
A muscle jumps in Ever’s jaw. “No.”
Deacon’s gaze moves to the blackened edge of the rear alley door visible through the narrow gap between buildings. “Isabel.”
The name falls flat on the sidewalk. No drama. No surprise. Just another fact we have to survive.
Nash releases Shiloh’s arm. “We need to get inside.”
The firefighter objects for about eight seconds.
Nash handles it with his wallet, his name, and the cold authority of a man who makes people abandon policies they believed in moments before. We are allowed through the front door in a small group, masks pressed into our hands, warnings delivered and ignored with varying levels of politeness.
Inside, Noir looks bruised.
That’s the word my mind chooses, and it sticks.
The bar looks relatively untouched…just wet and faintly dirty. The bar still gleams beneath streaks of dirty water. Tables stand where they belong, chairs stacked on top from closing, leather seating dark and damp.
Everything smells wrong.
The air is wet and charred, thick enough to taste. I pull the mask higher over my nose and still cough.
Shiloh looks around the room like he’s counting wounds.
His fingers brush the back of a chair as he passes it, then the edge of the bar, then a leather booth. Small touches. Quiet ones. I remember him here with music low and wicked, smile bright, body loose, making the whole room feel like a secret he was letting me in on.
Tonight he looks like the secret got kicked in the ribs.
Ever heads for the hall with Deacon. Nash follows. I go too because nobody tells me not to fast enough.
The damage worsens past the main bar.
The back corridor is blackened near the baseboards, smoke crawling up the walls in ugly fingers.
Water drips from the ceiling in steady little ticks.
A storage room door hangs open, its frame blistered, boxes inside soaked and collapsed.
The smell is sharper back here. Accelerant, maybe.
I know that from television and bad nights and the way Deacon’s mouth flattens when he crouches near a scorched patch of floor.
Shiloh stops beside me.
“Could’ve been worse,” he says.
His voice is too light.
“Don’t,” I tell him. “Don’t act like it’s fine if you’re trying to make me feel better. None of this would’ve happened if it wasn’t for me.”
His throat moves. For a second, I’m sure he’ll joke anyway.
“This is not your fault,” he says quietly.
Nash crouches beside Deacon. Ever shines the phone light along the wall. The burn pattern is worst near the rear door, then up and across like someone wanted smoke to travel more than flame. Like the fire was meant to mark, frighten, ruin, and stop just short of destroying.
A lesson. That’s what she wanted. My stomach twists.
“She could’ve burned it down,” I say.
Deacon looks back at me. “Definitely.”
“Why didn’t she?”
Nash rises slowly. Water drips from his cuff onto the floor. “She wants us angry.”
“Good news for her,” Shiloh says. “I am.”
Nash’s gaze cuts to him. “She also wants us reckless.”
Shiloh smiles then, a terrible smile. “I contain multitudes.”
Ever turns his tablet around. “Camera feeds cut twelve minutes before the alarm triggered. Exterior camera looped. Interior system disabled from inside the network.”
The hallway feels colder.
I look at him. “From inside?”
“Someone had credentials.”
“Staff?”
“Or someone using staff credentials.”
Sonny mutters from behind me, “I’m going to start making name tags that just say Probably a Murderer.”
Nash looks at Ever. “Can you trace?”
“Already started.”
Deacon’s gaze stays on the floor, following the burned trail. “This wasn’t rushed.”
“No,” Ever says. “They knew the alarm schedule, sprinkler zones, camera layout, and the least populated time window.”
“They knew exactly how to hurt it without losing the building,” Nash says.
His voice is so controlled it raises the hair along my arms.
I look past him, toward the office door at the far end of the hall. Nash’s office. The place where so much of this started for me. Where I demanded an assassin and got a map of my own past instead.
The door is smoke-stained but intact.
I hate how relieved I am that the structure is okay.
Noir shouldn’t matter this much. It’s a bar. A building. Wood, glass, velvet, liquor, locks. It’s also the first place in New Orleans that felt safe enough to tell the truth. The first place where I saw Nash’s control, Shiloh’s charm, Ever’s stillness, Deacon’s shadow.
Isabel touched it because she wanted all of them to feel her hand close around something they claimed.
I walk back to the main room before anyone can stop me.
The floor squishes under my shoes in places.
Dirty water streaks across black tile. A line of smoke marks the wall behind the bar, reaching up like fingers toward the shelves.
Bottles glitter through the haze, some cracked from heat, some standing perfectly straight like they’ve decided dignity is their final act.
I grab a towel from behind the bar and start wiping.
The towel turns gray immediately. Completely useless. I keep going.
Sonny comes around the other side and takes another towel. She starts on a lower shelf without asking.
“You don’t have to,” I say.
“Neither do you.”
Fair.
We clean one tiny, stupid patch of bar while firefighters move in and out, while Nash and Ever speak in low voices near the hall, while Deacon disappears outside and comes back with more bad silence on his face.
Shiloh watches us for a minute. Then he climbs over a puddle, grabs a third towel, and joins us.
“Nash is going to say this is evidence,” he says.
“Probably,” I tell him.
“Ever will agree.”
“Definitely.”
“So we should stop?”
I look at the black streak beneath my hand.
“No.”
His mouth curves faintly. “Thank God. I hate being sensible during emotional property damage.”
We clean until Nash comes back and takes the towel from my hand.
I glare at him.
He lifts one brow. “The fire marshal is five seconds from arresting you for contaminating a scene.”
“Tell him to get in line.”
“Little wolf.”
The softness under it lands harder than the warning. My grip loosens.