Chapter 1
The first thing Nala noticed wasn’t the body odor vs. over-spiced perfume menagerie, but that women were capable of pairing flannel with lacy lingerie.
“Welcome to The Raven,” a woman dressed in black and white plaid with matching fishnet stockings said. “Would you like something to drink?”
Nala, spying on a bearded man trying his luck with a woman bursting from a tight bustier, whipped her head around. “I’m sorry?” Her voice cracked in her throat.
The hostess’s practiced smile faltered. “I asked if you would like a drink, Miss.”
“Uh, sure. Rum and Coke.”
“Right away. Please find a seat to enjoy. I’ll be right over with your drink.”
Plaid cotton sauntered away. Nala was left standing in the middle of the dimly lit and quiet lounge, a brand-new staple of Portland’s illustrious Pearl District.
The Raven was a marriage of Pacific Northwest sensibilities and hoity-toity expectations.
Craft beer, wrought iron umbrella stands, flannel and hoodies for days…
and enough expensive perfume to kill a beaver,
That related to a question Nala heard the moment she sat at the bar. “Ducks or Beavers?”
“Excuse me?” She looked up, meeting a hairy bartender’s eyes. His skinny jeans slipped effortlessly beneath his red and blue plaid shirt.
His smile broadened. “You like the Ducks or the Beavers? Football.”
“Oh!” Nala nearly dropped her clutch. “Timbers?”
“Ha! I like that one. Prefer the futbol over the football?”
“Sure.”
The bartender disappeared to the other end of the bar.
Nala was left alone, wondering what the fuck she had gotten herself into.
Ducks, Beavers, Timbers, Blazers… Fifteen years ago, when she was a child living in Portland with her mother and sister, nobody asked her such inane sports questions.
Portland was a haven for people who didn’t give a shit about sports.
That was for the Texans and North Carolinians.
Although so many of them had moved to Oregon in Nala’s fifteen-year absence that maybe they changed the game – literally.
Tasha would have said she liked the Ducks because her favorite color was yellow.
It was those details Nala remembered. Details that made her bite her lip and wave away the hostess as she brought that rum and Coke.
Focus, idiot. You’re not here to have a drink.
Nevertheless, she had to part with her precious money so she could access one of the richest men in the Pacific Northwest… no, America.
Maybe the world.
She pulled out her notepad and double-checked her research.
Xan Ravenwood, founder and CEO of Black Crow Pharmaceuticals, is also an avid real estate developer who owns many high-rises and businesses throughout Oregon and Washington.
His latest addition to his empire is The Raven lounge, located on a block he owns in its entirety.
The picture in one of the articles she pasted into her notepad showed the fifty-five-year-old Xan Ravenwood sitting on the stool next to where Nala was now.
He was surrounded by his flannel-clad servers and bartenders, all smiling above a caption that read, “Mr. Ravenwood intends to make the lounge his second home in Portland.”
He had to be around here somewhere. It was a slow night, but Nala had no choice but to come on Tuesday when the line wasn’t halfway around the block. Without any great connections, there was no hope of getting a glimpse of her sister’s killer.
“Nala,
I hope this letter gets to you in time. I don’t dare email or call. I don’t know who might be tracking me.
There may not be much time left. I know I’m not crazy. Men are following me. There was blood left on my apartment door yesterday. I don’t say these things to scare you. I say them to warn you. If they come for me, they may come for you next. Don’t tell Mom.”
Nala remembered the day she received that letter.
She stood outside the dusty mailbox in Carson City, Nevada, wondering what she should do.
For weeks, her older sister told her that she was becoming paranoid.
Cars. Men in ski masks lurking in the shadows.
Threatening notes. She went to the police, but all they said was that Tasha needed to be less “hysterical.”
Two days after Nala received that final letter, Tasha was found dead in her Seattle apartment.
Heart attack, the coroner said. Ridiculous. Tasha was still in her twenties. She exercised and was a vegetarian. Out of the three of them, Tasha had the best health while Nala ate like a dumbass and their mother smoked fifty packs a day.
So to say Tasha had a heart attack at her age was like saying Nala would choose a salad over a hamburger.
It had to be murder. It wasn’t farfetched.
Not in Tasha’s line of work. She was a lead researcher for Black Crow Pharmaceuticals.
Cancer cures. Medications. The type of shit every pharmaceutical company said they poured millions of money into research but always came up short.
Not Tasha. She was brilliant. Determined.
If anyone in the country was going to find some cancer breakthrough, it would be her, one of the greatest medical researchers anyone knew.
Xan Ravenwood may not have given Tasha her heart attack, but he surely made sure somebody did. Nala would bet her life on it. Since moving to Portland, Ravenwood’s newest home, she sort of had to bet her life on it.
She didn’t know what she would do.
She didn’t know what she could do.
But she would find the bastard.
And she would make him pay for his crimes.
“You look lonely.”
Nala jerked up. There was that bartender again, this time with a beanie on his head.
Did he think that made him look cool? Did he like being a hipster stereotype?
Nala furrowed her brows. Whenever she started thinking about her sister’s death, she got angry.
Easily. This man was one more condescending comment away from getting a fist through his man-bun.
“I’m relaxing.” Please go away. For your own good.
“What’s your name?”
Nala bit back a testy reply. “Na… Natasha.” That was a convenient go-to name. It’s what her mother bellowed whenever she wanted both her daughters to come into the room.
“Natasha, huh?” What a chill-inducing smirk. “I thought you looked Russian.”
What the fuck did that mean? “Interesting. I thought I left my ushanka at home.” Damnit. She should have mispronounced it on purpose. Or said something maybe not, oh, Russian.
The bartender’s smile disappeared, but he remained in front of her. “Uh… what’s that?”
“Imagine a very cold Russian woman. She’s wearing one on her head.”
“Oh. Those fluffy hats?”
“Yes. Those fluffy hats.”
He raised his hands in mock defeat. “Hey, this is a chill place. No need to be uptight. Enjoy your drink.” He walked away. A bit too late to escape Nala’s chilling glare.
No matter where she went in the country, people were the same, especially when they found out she was Russian.
The idea of the feisty Eastern European sexpot was alive and well.
Joke was on them. Nala was no sexpot. And her idea of feisty was slamming idiots in the balls, not teasing them with a thong on her way out the door. They all need to leave me alone.
“I’ve never even been to Russia…” she muttered.
Her parents immigrated in the early ‘90s.
Heard that there was a sizable Russian population in Portland.
Here we are. Tasha was born in the Motherland, but Nala was born at the same hospital as her kindergarten classmates.
The only Russian she remembered was whatever her mother muttered the most.
Tasha was the one with an interest. Nala spent her life ignoring her heritage while Tasha taught herself Cyrillic… for fun.
So, great. Here she was, stalking a man she had no idea what to do with, and being propositioned by hipster bartenders who thought Kseniya Onatopp was hot in that one Bond film.
Nala stretched her arms across the bar and tapped her forehead against the counter.
I’m so stupid. Once again, her anger got the best of her.
Yeah, she moved to Portland to “get justice,” or at least discover the truth behind her sister’s death, but that was as far as her mind ever let her get.
Stupid Nala. Shot first, asked questions later.
Now she was paying for it. Literally. At least in Carson City, her part-time job helped her pay her share of the rent.
Rent that went toward a whole bedroom in a sizable apartment she shared with a quiet girl her age.
In Portland? Ha! Nala rented a closet. An actual closet.
She could squeeze a twin mattress in there, but she had to hang her clothes above her and put her meager belongings on the top shelf.
She could spring for a bedroom somewhere farther out if she could get a damned full-time job.
Maybe it was a good thing she had this drink.
First, thinking about her sister, and now her living situation?
Nala needed to get drunk, and quick. Get drunk, go home to her closet, and lick her wounds.
Who was she kidding? Of course, Xan Ravenwood didn’t hang out here on his nights off.
That was publicity. This lounge was small.
Maybe it seated thirty people comfortably.
It was meant to feel intimate, not like a sprawling mess of stools and drunk people.
Nala hated the bastard, but at least he had some taste.
She was woefully overdressed anyway. Her little black dress, the only nice outfit she owned, was too much for this plaid paradise. I forgot that’s considered formalwear here.
“…Tell Chester that we still have the ten o’clock meeting.” Two people in suits sauntered in. Nala barely noticed them… would’ve been happy to completely ignore their existence if they didn’t sit one stool away from her and ordered a couple of Old Fashioneds.
“All right. Thanks.” The man on the phone shut it off and tucked it into his front pocket. “Finally, we can relax.”
He had salt-and-pepper hair, muted cologne, and one of the finest business suits Nala had ever seen.
The kind of person Tasha would have said belonged at the altar with her.
She always had lofty ambitions. Nala’s sister was married to her work while in her 20s, but she said she wanted to establish her career and then find a husband.
“I don’t mind Mistress Medicine if she’ll have me.”
“This place ain’t bad. One of the better lounges in this area.”