29. Ever
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
EVER
I don’t like this.
I don’t like that fancy invitation.
I don’t like the paper. I don’t like the wax seal. Don’t like the way Nash’s name sits beside Reva’s in black raised ink, as if Mother Superior has any right to put them together on anything she controls.
I especially don’t like that line at the bottom.
No guests. No substitutes.
That’s a threat if ever I saw one.
The masquerade with its charity front. Isabel Rosario smiling behind old money and Catholic guilt while El Sindicato de la Rosa fills the room with people who know how to hide knives under formalwear…all of it.
But most especially the exclusion. Getting her alone.
Nash will stand beside Reva.
I won’t be able to. Neither will Shiloh, nor Deacon. Not even Cal. She’s taking away her entire army, and I don’t fucking like it.
Reva will walk into the center of the Syndicate’s web with one man at her side and a tracker under her skin that tells me where she is, not what is happening to her.
Location is useful after something goes wrong, but it’s not going to stop a knife at her back.
It’s not going to catch a whispered threat, a forced drink, a door closing between her and Nash.
I spend most of the next morning in my equipment room, building around the parameters of what I know and don’t trust.
The chip in her arm stays active. That’s baseline.
I add a second layer anyway, small enough to hide in plain sight, strong enough to give me sound, position, and limited visual if she keeps it where I put it.
It’s not perfect. Nothing is. A ballroom full of old plaster, mirrors, and people wearing masks is bad terrain.
Too much movement. Too many blind spots.
I make it better.
Then better again.
By noon, I have a black enamel hairpin on the table in front of me, shaped like a rosebud with a tiny dark stone at the center. Pretty enough for a masquerade. Small enough not to draw attention. Useful enough that my hands stop wanting to break things for three whole minutes.
Shiloh would call that progress. He would also make a joke. Something about romance, probably. Or paranoia as a love language.
He wouldn’t be wrong. Fucker irritates me.
I test the feed one more time, pair it to the receiver, then to the secure phone I will keep on me outside the venue. The audio comes through clean when I tap the workbench. The visual is narrow but usable. Not ideal. Usable.
I put the pin in a small velvet pouch and head for the carriage house.
Reva is inside with Shiloh.
The double doors are open to let in the afternoon heat. Fans turn overhead. Training mats cover the center floor, and the heavy bag hangs quiet in the corner, no longer carrying the damage she tried to beat into it a few mornings ago.
She is barefoot on the mats, hair tied up, wearing black leggings and a cropped shirt from the new closet. Sweat darkens the fabric at her spine. Shiloh circles her with his hands loose at his sides, smiling in a way that usually means he is about to be either helpful or insufferable.
“Again,” he says.
Reva exhales hard. “This is bullshit, you know that.”
“Everything that makes you better is bullshit.”
“I hate you.”
“All I heard was blah blah blah, I’m a little teapot—.”
She lunges for him. Shiloh sidesteps, catches her wrist, and turns her momentum against her. He does not throw her. He guides her, firm and clean, until she lands on one knee with a string of curses that would make Cal develop another gray hair on the spot.
Shiloh offers a hand. She slaps it away, gets up on her own, and looks pleased with herself for the rejection.
I should be reveling in that. Instead, I look at the open doors, the windows, the shadows behind the racks, the distance from here to the main house, the line of trees beyond the drive. My body keeps measuring exits.
Reva notices first. Her eyes move from the pouch in my hand to my face.
“What is it?”
Shiloh turns. His smirk fades a fraction.
I step onto the mat. “I made something.”
Reva wipes her forearm across her forehead. “That sentence could go in a lot of directions.”
I hold out the pouch.
She takes it, watching me instead of the object, then loosens the drawstring and tips the hairpin into her palm.
Her expression shifts, and her breath leaves in a little sigh. It bothers me that she likes it. It bothers me more that I made it pretty on purpose.
“A rose,” she says.
I cross my arms over my chest. “It’s actually a small camera. It has audio. And a secondary location signal.”
The softness disappears from her face.
Shiloh’s brows lift. “Ever, darling, you do know most men open with how nice it would look in her hair.”
“She knows what it is.”
“Yes, but occasionally we pretend to be civilized.”
Reva rolls the pin between her fingers. “You want me to wear this to the masquerade.”
“Yes.”
“So you can watch.”
“So I can see what Nash can’t.”
“And hear.”
“Yes.”
Her gaze stays on mine. “In case something happens.”
“In case anything happens.”
The words come out too hard.
I hear it. So does she.
Shiloh steps closer, voice lighter but careful. “It’s a good piece. Elegant, discreet, only mildly terrifying.”
Reva ignores him. “You’re scared.”
“No.”
She gives me a look. I close my mouth. Bad lie. No reason to stick with it.
“Yes.”
Her hand closes around the pin. “Ever.”
“I will be outside the venue with Shiloh. Deacon will have men placed two blocks out, assuming he does not decide to ignore the plan and make himself a bigger problem. We don’t know yet if Deacon will be…
inside…with Mother. Nash will be inside with you.
The chip stays active. The pin gives me eyes and ears.
If signal drops, if your pulse spikes, if you say the wrong word, if you disappear from feed for more than twenty seconds—”
“Breathe,” Shiloh says.
I stop. My jaw hurts.
Reva walks toward me slowly. Bare feet on black mats. Hair coming loose around her face. She stops close enough to put one hand on my chest.
My pulse is wrong. She feels it, her expression changing.
“I’m not going alone,” she says.
“You are going somewhere I can’t get to you fast enough.”
“You’ll be outside.”
“Outside is not beside you.”
Shiloh comes to my other side, not touching me, which is smart. “Nash will be beside her.”
“I know.”
“He is very large.”
“I know.”
“And rude enough to ruin a charity event if required.”
“I know this, damn it.”
Reva’s hand presses firmer against my chest. “Do you trust him?”
“Yes.”
“Do you trust me?”
The question does what she meant it to do.
It forces me to look at her instead of the ballroom I’ve built in my head. Her eyes are steady. Not fearless. Reva is rarely fearless. She is afraid and moving anyway, which is harder.
“Yes,” I say.
She doesn’t let go of me.
Her hand slides down from my chest to my wrist, and for one stupid second, I think she is only touching me because she wants to. Then her fingers press over my pulse.
I go still, but she feels it. The too-fast beat. The wrong rhythm. The part of me I can hide from everyone else because no one gets close enough to check.
Her expression changes, just a little.
“In for four,” she says.
My jaw tightens. “Firefly.”
“Don’t Firefly me. You started this annoying breathing shit.”
Shiloh makes a quiet sound beside us. Smart man that he is, he doesn’t try to turn it into a joke.
Reva keeps her fingers on my pulse. “In.”
I could refuse. Instead, I breathe in.
“One,” she says. “Two. Three. Four.”
The air moves into my lungs wrong at first. Too tight. Too shallow. Then deeper, because she is watching me and because, somehow, disobeying her feels worse than letting her see I need this.
“Hold.”
I hold. Her thumb presses once against my wrist.
“Out.”
I exhale.
The ballroom does not disappear. The exits stay where they are. The threat remains. Mother Superior remains. The distance between outside and beside her remains.
But Reva is in front of me. Her hand is on my pulse.
And for one breath, I am not the only one keeping count.
“Again,” she says.
So I do it again.
When I finish the second breath, she looks up at me.
“Now give me the pin,” she says, “and stop trying to predict every possible future before we get there.”
“I can’t.”
Her thumb moves once against my wrist. “I know.”
Shiloh tilts his head. “This is the part where I would usually suggest a drink, a nap, or some other kind of coping strategy.”
Reva looks at him. Then at me. Something shifts in her expression. Heat moves in before I can name it.
“No drink,” she says.
Shiloh’s mouth curves. “No?”
“No nap either.”
My body understands before my head catches up.
“Reva.”
She lifts the hairpin and sets it carefully on the nearest bench. Then she reaches for the hem of her shirt and pulls it over her head.
My thoughts stutter to a halt. Shiloh inhales softly beside me.
Reva drops the shirt onto the mat and stands there in a black sports bra and leggings, cheeks flushed from training, eyes fixed on mine.
“You’re spiraling,” she says.
“I’m managing risk.”
“You’re spiraling.”
Shiloh’s voice goes lower. “She may be right.”
I shoot him a look.
He smiles. “Tragic when it happens.”
Reva steps closer again. “The tag team thing.”
Shiloh goes still.
So do I.
She looks between us, embarrassment and challenge tangled together on her face. “I brought it up. Everyone got weird. Then everyone pretended not to think about it, loudly.”
Shiloh recovers first. “I didn’t pretend.”
“No. You leered with subtext.”
“I’m an artist.”
I keep my eyes on Reva. “Are you asking?”
Her throat works. She nods once.
“Words.”
Color rises in her face, but she holds my gaze. “I want both of you. Now. Together.”
The training hall goes quiet around us. No fans. No birds outside. No distant house sounds.
Only Reva’s breathing. Only mine turning rough.
Shiloh moves behind her, slow enough that she can step away. She does not. He brushes her hair off one shoulder and looks at me over her head.
“This about distraction?” he asks her.
“Maybe.”
His hand settles at her waist. “That’s not enough.”