22. Deacon
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
DEACON
The first thing I see is Reva going under.
The second is Delia’s hand still tangled in the front of her shirt.
I’m moving before either of them breaks the surface, Nash behind me.
Nash reaches the pool from the opposite side, coat already off, shoes hitting stone.
He goes in without hesitation, one clean dive that sends water over the edge and across the patio.
I hit the coping a second later, grab Delia by the back of her dress when she surfaces cursing, and haul her toward the shallow end before she can shove Reva under again.
She fights me. Naturally. She’s just like Reva.
“Let go of me.”
“Stop clawing at your sister.”
“She hit me!”
“You deserved it.”
That gets her attention. Her head whips around, hair plastered to her face, eyes dark with outrage. “Excuse me?”
I drag her the last few feet and lift her out of the pool. She lands on the patio in a wet heap, then scrambles upright with enough fury to power half the city.
Behind me, Nash has Reva. She’s mad enough to power the other half.
He pulls her out under the arms and sets her on her feet. She coughs, shoves hair out of her face, and immediately tries to move around him toward Delia.
Nash catches her around the waist. “Enough, little wolf.”
Her arm swings out, finger extended in accusation. “Did you hear her? She said I should have stayed dead.”
The words cut across the patio. Delia goes still.
We all do.
Reva is soaked, shaking, furious enough to burn the water dripping from her clothes into steam. Her cheek bears a red mark where Delia must have caught her. One elbow is scraped, her hair hangs in dark ropes around her face, and her eyes are full of something far worse than anger.
Hurt. It’s almost childish in how raw and unfiltered it is.
It hits me low in the throat and stays there, an uncomfortable lump. Delia sees it too. I know because she looks away.
Coward.
Nash wraps a towel around Reva’s shoulders and turns her toward the house. She resists for one second, then goes with him, stiff and silent. At the sliding doors, he stops and looks back at me.
Water runs from his hair into the collar of his shirt. He is breathing hard. The look on his face is not friendly.
“Keep on,” he says, voice carrying across the patio, “and you’re gonna lose her before you ever really have her.”
Reva turns her head, just enough to acknowledge hearing. Then she lifts her chin and lets Nash guide her inside.
I lift a hand in answer because anything else will start a fight I don’t have time to finish. Nash is right. That irritates me more than the warning.
Delia wrings water from the end of her hair and makes a sharp sound under her breath. “He talks too much.”
“He talks when someone needs to hear it.”
“I didn’t ask for a lecture.”
“You earned one.”
Her glare could peel paint. “She doesn’t belong here.”
“You don’t get to say where she belongs or doesn’t belong,” I say. “She belongs alive.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
I step close enough that she has to tip her head back to keep glaring at me. “You do not say that to her again. That was ugly, Delia.”
Something flickers in her eyes. Pain...shame. Something. Whatever it was…good. Let it hurt.
She has spent too many years turning her own pain outward because no one taught her where else to put it. I understand why. I’m still finished tolerating it.
“She ruined everything,” Delia says.
“She survived. And she came looking for revenge. There’s a difference.”
Delia’s mouth twists. “Same result.”
I catch her arm before she can walk away.
She looks down at my hand. “Don’t.”
“Then stop acting like a child.”
Her face goes cold.
That is dangerous ground with her. I step on it anyway.
“You wanted her gone before she saw too much. She’s here now. She’s already seen enough to make leaving impossible. So now it’s time to adjust your expectations.”
“I don’t take orders from you, Deacon.”
“Time you started.”
Her nostrils flare.
For one second, I think she may hit me. Her eyes narrow as she thinks about it. Then the moment passes, and she jerks her arm free.
“I want to go home.”
“Good.”
“Not with you.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate for you.”
I look toward the house. Through the glass, I can see Shiloh in the hall with Homer clutched against his chest like a tiny hostage. Reva is gone from view. Nash must have taken her upstairs.
That’s for the best.
If I follow now, she will either throw something or let me kiss the wound closed before it has bled enough to cleanse. Neither will fix the problem.
Nash’s warning stays under my skin.
You’re gonna lose her before you ever really have her.
I already lost her once. On paper. In a house full of blood. In every year I let distance pretend it was mercy.
I won’t do it again because Delia cannot keep her teeth behind her lips.
I grab my jacket from the back of a chair and look at Delia. “Move it.”
She stalks past me toward the side gate, wet dress clinging to her legs, chin high, pride louder than her shoes. She does not look back.
That, at least, is familiar.
The drive to her house is silent.
Delia sits in the passenger seat and stares out the window, arms crossed, water pooling beneath her on the leather. I say nothing about the upholstery. She wants me to. She wants something small to bite. I refuse to give it to her.
Her home sits in the Garden District behind iron gates and old oaks, a grand white mansion with wide galleries, tall windows, and columns that make it look more respectable than anything connected to the Syndicate has a right to look. The lights are on in the foyer when I pull into the drive.
Delia opens the door before the car stops fully.
“Wait.”
She does not. She slams the door, marches up the steps, and lets herself inside without a word.
I follow at my own measured pace.
The foyer is marble, walnut, and money old enough to have manners.
I watch Delia stomp across the foyer, water squelching, and shake my head. Just goes to show money can’t buy class.
A curved staircase rises along one wall. Fresh flowers sit on a carved table beneath a gilt mirror. Nothing in the house is out of place. Nothing ever is.
Isabel Rosario, also known as Mother Superior in certain circles, stands near the base of the stairs.
She’s a small, deceptively fragile-looking woman in her late sixties, with long, dark hair going to silver at the temples. Tonight, despite the late hour, she wears a perfectly pressed cream silk blouse, tailored black trousers, and a single, very special strand of pearls at her throat.
I have experience enough to know she could remove that strand of pearls and use it as a garrote in under ten seconds if she had the inclination.
She lifts one eyebrow at the sight of Delia dripping water across her marble. Delia lifts her chin higher in response.
“I fell in a pool.”
Isabel’s gaze moves to me.
I say, “She was technically pushed.”
Delia turns on me. “I was not.”
“You were dragged down by consequences.”
Her eyes narrow.
Isabel’s mouth barely moves. On another woman, it might be amusement. On her, it is a warning light.
“Go change,” she tells Delia.
Delia looks as though she might argue but sense prevails. She turns and heads up the stairs, each wet step a small act of rebellion.
Isabel watches until she disappears. Then she looks at the trail of water.
“She was wearing silk.”
I shrug. “She chose violence in silk.”
“That sounds like her.”
“Apple doesn’t fall far.”
“Careful, Deacon.”
The way she says my name is almost fond.
I cross the foyer and head for the side room without waiting to be invited.
The decanter sits where it always sits on the bar cart, because Isabel believes in hospitality the way other people believe in knives.
Even if they are both double-edged. I pour two fingers of whiskey and drink half before turning.
She follows me in, her leisurely pace marked by neither hurry nor fear. She has never needed either.
“You’re wet, also,” she says.
“I did notice that.”
“Was Blackwood inhospitable?”
“Blackwood is always inhospitable.”
“And yet you keep visiting.”
I take another sip. “I have interests there.”
Her gaze settles on me, sharp beneath the polish. “Do you?”
This is the dance. She knows something. I know she knows something. Neither of us names the thing first unless we want to give the other a blade.
The answer is too smooth. Too ready. I keep my face still.
“Every now and then,” I say.
She moves to the chair near the fireplace and sits with the slow grace of a woman who has never once hurried because of anyone else’s urgency. Back straight. Ankles crossed. Hands folded loosely in her lap.
A queen receiving a report.
That is the part I cannot forget. She is the queen.
Whatever else has shifted, I am still standing in her house with her whiskey in my throat, wearing the place she gave me like a collar beneath my skin.
“Why did Delia take a dip in the Blackwood pool?” she asks.
“She and Reva Hart fought.”
I use the name deliberately. If she reacts, I need to see it.
She does not react. This tells me she knew Reva was alive. She knew she was in New Orleans and at Blackwood House. She knew I knew.
“And why would Delia fight with Nash Blackwood’s houseguest?”
“Delia fights with anyone who stands close enough.”
“That is true.” Her smile is faint. “But she seemed…shaken.”
“She does not like surprises.”
“No,” Isabel says. “And yet that should have been trained out of her by now.”
Something cold moves through me.
“Well,” I say. “She saw a sister she thought was buried. It unsettled her.”
“Did it unsettle you?”
“Of course.”
Her eyebrow lifts by a fraction. I keep my expression impassive, letting the lie stand. She lets me.
For several seconds, the only sound in the room is the faint tick of the mantel clock and the muted movement of the house beyond the doors. Delia upstairs. Servants keeping out of sight. Men posted along the grounds who know better than to enter unless blood is called for.
Isabel looks toward the fire that’s always burning in the grate. She wants me to speak. To ramble. I stay quiet.