20. Reva
CHAPTER TWENTY
REVA
Family dinner at Blackwood House should come with weapons instead of cutlery.
At the very least, assigned seats.
Possibly both.
I pause in the doorway and take inventory, not at all sure I’m ready for this.
I’ve been a brat all day, and I’m not ready to not be a brat.
The dining room, where we never eat, actually looks like something designed by dead people with generational wealth and a flair for intimidation—from beyond the grave.
Long mahogany table. High-backed chairs, behind one of which Nash stands, tapping a finger along its edge.
Dark wood trim polished to a shine. Lots of candles, because apparently normal lighting is for people without murder in their family trees.
I look beyond Nash, to the door on the other side of the room. “Is this where a housekeeper bustles in with a warming tray of horse dervers?”
A vein in the center of his forehead twitches. “Sit down, little wolf.”
With a wink, I sit in the chair between Shiloh and Ever, because that is where Nash has decided where I will sit. He doesn’t announce it. He simply pulls out the chair, waits, and looks at me until I sit in it.
Cal sits across from me.
He has changed since this afternoon, though not significantly.
Different dark-colored button-up shirt. Same controlled face.
Same careful hands. Same man who showed up in New Orleans after I told him not to, then looked at a closet full of clothes and called me his girl like nothing inside me had changed.
I am not your little girl.
The sentence still sits in the room with us, even though no one has remarked on it since.
Cal has not tried to touch me. He has not called me kid. He has kept enough distance to prove he heard me, which makes me feel terrible and righteous in equal measure. I hate that. I hate how easily love can turn into a trap if the person holding it has lied long enough.
Delia sits two chairs down from him. She’s the real reason I’m even suffering through this “family” dinner.
My sister.
My dead sister.
My alive sister.
The woman at this table with my mother’s cheekbones, my father’s dark lashes, and rosary marks circling her wrist like she earned them instead of inherited them from the nightmare that tore us apart.
She looks beautiful. That should not bother me, but it does. Her hair is pulled back in a clean, low knot. Her black dress is simple, fitted, expensive. She has the calm posture of someone who knows where every exit is and who might choose violence before dessert.
I keep looking for seven-year-old Delia in her face and failing to find her. Is she doing the same? Does it disturb her the same way it disturbs me, on some deep, foundational level? The un-rightness of it?
I can’t see it on her face if it does. She’s better at hiding things than I am, I think. I stab at my salad, pissed off.
Deacon sits beside her. That also bothers me.
He is angled slightly toward her, not in an obvious way, not enough for anyone normal to notice.
Unfortunately, normal left my life several chapters ago.
He watches the room while appearing to eat.
His forearm rests near Delia’s place setting.
When she shifts, his eyes track the movement.
When a server—we do have fucking servers, what universe have I stumbled into—enters with another bottle of wine, his hand drifts half an inch toward the knife beside his plate.
Protective.
Practiced.
Familiar.
My stomach tightens.
I do not like it.
I also don’t like that I don’t like it.
There are too many reasons to resent Deacon Cross. He wrote me letters under another name. He kissed me in the kitchen like he had some claim he expected my body to recognize before my brain caught up. I have plenty of material. I do not need to add jealousy over my sister to the list.
Shiloh leans toward me. “You are glaring at your salad like it gave the order.”
“I don’t like arugula.”
“Reasonable. It has always struck me as smug.”
Ever reaches for the bread basket and sets a roll on my plate without looking at me. “Eat.”
“I am eating.”
“Have some bread.”
I stare at the roll. My stomach chooses that moment to growl, traitorous and loud.
Shiloh’s mouth curves. He says nothing, which is how I know he is trying very hard to stay alive.
I pick up the roll and take a vicious bite.
Nash sits at the head of the table like a judge presiding over a trial.
He has been cordial in the way men are cordial when they would probably rather order the body be disposed of.
He asked Cal about his flight. He asked Delia whether the drive was difficult.
He asked Deacon nothing, which somehow said more than a question would have.
Dinner moves around me in careful pieces.
No one says anything about my family. No one mentions the Syndicate, or Mother Superior.
No one asks why my sister came back from the dead with rosary marks on her wrist and a face that dares to look at me like I’m the one haunting her.
So I do it. I set my fork down and take a fortifying sip of my wine. It’s more like a fortifying half-glass, but who’s measuring? Then I set the glass down on the table with a quiet click and reach for my rubber bands.
“Is this what we’re doing?”
The table goes quiet. Cal looks at me first. Shiloh sets his fork down. Ever wipes his mouth with his napkin and shakes his head, but his eyes are warm with…pride?
Somehow I know that Ever has my back. It has me straightening in my seat.
Nash leans back in his chair, eyes narrowing. “Clarify.”
I gesture at the table. “This. The dinner. The wine. The polite conversation. Are we pretending this is normal?”
Delia looks at me across the candles, her own wine glass loose between her fingers. “Would you prefer screaming?”
“I prefer answers.”
Deacon’s gaze shifts between us, coming to rest on me. I feel its weight before I let myself meet it.
“Answers rarely improve digestion,” he says.
I smile without warmth. “That must be why everyone around here keeps avoiding them. Very health-conscious. We’ll all live to be a thousand at this rate.”
Shiloh coughs into his napkin. Cal’s mouth tightens.
Delia’s attention slides to Deacon, quick as a blade flash. He gives her nothing visible, but something passes between them anyway.
I point before I can stop myself. “That right there. What was that?”
Delia’s brows lift. “What was what?”
“That look.”
“What look?”
“Don’t be dense. The one where you two silently decide how much of the truth I’m allowed to have before I choke on it.”
Cal says, “Reva.”
I turn on him. “Stay out of it.”
His jaw closes.
Good. Maybe cruel, but still good.
Deacon sets his wineglass down. “No one is deciding what you can handle.”
I laugh. “Do you hear yourself when you talk?”
“I hear you projecting.”
My temper catches fast. “Excuse me? That is some bullshit, Deacon—”
His eyes hold mine, steady and dark, with that infuriating calm that makes me want to throw silverware.
“You are angry with Cal because he kept things from you. Angry with Nash because he manages danger. Angry with me because I did both before you knew my name. Now you are looking at Delia and deciding she is hiding something because it gives your anger somewhere familiar to stand.”
Delia’s face goes still.
Mine gets hot.
I hate him. I really do. Especially because he is not entirely wrong.
“She is hiding something,” I say.
Delia folds her hands in her lap. “Yes.”
That shuts me up.
She looks at me without blinking. “I am. So is he. So is Cal. So is every man at this table except maybe Shiloh, although I suspect he hides things for funsies.”
Shiloh lifts his glass slightly. “I feel seen.”
Delia ignores him. Her eyes stay on me. “The difference is that some secrets belong to people who are not sitting here.”
My throat tightens.
“Convenient,” I say.
“No,” she answers. “Necessary.”
The word is clean. Calm. Infuriating.
I look at her wrist. The marks peek from beneath her sleeve, inked beads and dark gaps. “Did you want the tattoo?”
Her gaze drops to her own wrist. Every man at the table stills. Delia covers the marks with her other hand. Not from shame, I don’t think. From habit.
“That is not dinner conversation.”
“We’re here. At dinner. Having a conversation. I don’t see the problem.”
“Then you are going to be disappointed.”
I push back from the table. Ever’s hand moves under the table, lightly catching my knee. Not stopping me. Just checking.
I look at him. He lets go. That small release is the only reason I stay seated.
Nash speaks before I can start another fire. “We’ll continue this conversation after dinner.”
“Which means never.”
“It means after dinner.”
“You people love scheduling my breakdowns.”
Shiloh leans closer. “To be fair, darling, you have quite a few. A calendar helps.”
I should not laugh.
A tiny sliver of one escapes anyway, and Ever’s hand returns, sliding over my knee and up my thigh to stroke small, soothing circles. Shiloh pushes my chair back in the inch I’d shoved it out, and then settles his hand on my neck, beneath the fall of my hair.
I draw in a deep breath. Beside me, Ever whispers. “One…two…three…”
I let the breath out. Slowly.
The pressure in the room shifts, just enough for everyone to breathe again. Dinner resumes, or pretends to. Plates are cleared. Dessert appears, because Blackwood House apparently believes emotional warfare pairs well with chocolate. I eat three bites because I am furious, not dead.
Cal does not look at me for the rest of the meal. That hurts more than when he does.
Delia speaks to Nash about something related to Noir Night, coded enough that I catch only pieces. Staffing. A shipment. Someone named Pascal who needs watching. Deacon adds little, but when he does, Delia listens.
There is trust there.
History.
A language I do not speak.