Chapter 6 #2
Narrow streets. One-ways designed to confuse.
Buildings pressed shoulder to shoulder like they’re whispering secrets.
Iron balconies draped in ferns and beads and wind chimes that clink soft as laughter.
People everywhere—tourists with plastic cups, locals with that purposeful stride, artists smoking in doorways.
The whole place breathes, slow and shameless, just waiting for you to slip and fall from grace.
I guess I did that last night, so I’m good.
My mind flickers to the bathroom. The missing pieces. The dark. The lock. I try to string memory together with fury, because I want—I need—to find the motherfucker. Do him bodily harm.
But fuck. If I never even saw the man’s face, how am I supposed to do that?
The thought turns colder before it has time to become fear. He’s not the priority. Deacon is. He’s the target. The point. The whole damn reason I’m here.
Once he’s handled—
It’s called prioritizing. I don’t have to like it. I just have to do it.
I turn down Toulouse Street. The buildings here are older, darker, prettier in a way that’s muted. The street’s packed—cars wedged into impossible spaces, delivery trucks half blocking lanes, pedestrians stepping out with a death wish and full faith you’ll stop.
I’m moving at a crawl anyway, eyes scanning storefronts, signs, doorways.
A group of women power-walks past me on the sidewalk—no strollers, no suburban softness.
These are Quarter women: leggings and tank tops, hair pulled high, sunglasses even though the sun’s starting to slide behind clouds in the sky.
One of them has a lanyard and a key ring clipped to her waistband. Service industry.
Their heads are bent together, their lips moving with rapid-fire gossip.
Not trusting my GPS—it has betrayed me before—I pull to the curb and throw my hazards on.
“Sorry—excuse me,” I call out, bright and chipper, “I’m lookin’ for Noir?”
They slow just enough to side-eye me. I plaster on my best I’m-not-a-criminal and definitely not a Yankee smile, the one that only works half the time unless you know me.
The woman with the highest ponytail drags her gaze over me, cataloging my sins. Then she jerks her chin down the street. “Keep goin’. It’s a couple blocks down...brick buildin’ with an iron balcony. You’ll see it.”
Her voice is sweet the way saccharine is sweet in tea.
I tip my chin. “Thanks.”
My hands tighten on the wheel as I creep down the block, then another, the buildings crowding closer to each other the nearer I get.
Heat seeps in through the open window and spreads over my skin like a film. I’m too hot in all the wrong places and the closer I get to whatever Noir is, the harder it is to breathe.
Then I see it. A two-story brick building with an iron balcony ringing the upper level, dark windows like eyes.
And I forget how to breathe entirely.
Because something in my bones recognizes danger even when my brain is still trying to pretend this is a normal day. If I’m going to find answers, this is the place.
This is the first step.
Hesitation gnaws as I pull into a tiny, crowded lot and find a spot along the side. I sit there with my hands on the wheel, listening to Lucille’s engine tick as she cools.
The rubber bands bite my wrist. I snap them once.
Just once. Then I look at the door, at a discreet sign that reads ‘HELP WANTED, INQUIRE WITHIN,’ and I make myself move.
The air shifts the second I step through the door. It’s cooler inside. Dimmer. Not quiet exactly—just…contained.
A few patrons line the bar, and a few of the tables are occupied. Not nearly as many as I expected, but enough that the room feels busy.
Most of the patrons keep their voices low, revealing an unspoken kinship that I’m intruding on—rules that have nothing to do with posted signs.
My stomach dips. If Noir has a code, I need to learn it fast.
The man behind the bar marks me the second I step into his space. His hands pause mid-wipe. His eyes lock on mine, his focus latching on like a surveillance camera catching motion.
I look away first, because I’m not stupid.
He’s the most dangerous man in the room, and he knows it. Tattoos dust his forearms beneath a sprinkling of dark hair like they’re just as much a part of his DNA as his eye color. Nothing about him says welcome, from the uncompromising line of his mouth to the unblinking stare.
Nothing about him says cruelty either. Just competence.
And those eyes…dark brown or gray—hard to tell in the dim light of the bar—with long lashes I’m immediately jealous of… They’re neither warm nor cruel. They drag up and down my length, assessing.
I take a deep breath and cross the room anyway, shoulders squared as though I’m walking into a predator’s den. Resignation and dread and hope churn together in my stomach.
“Hey.” I give the bartender a bright smile. “I saw you had a sign about a job. I’m here to apply.”
He doesn’t blink. “No.”
My brain stutters, and my brows pull together. “What do you mean, no?”
“Exactly what I said.”
His voice is a smooth baritone that has no business coming out of a real man behind a real bar. It belongs to a faceless voice reading sexy audiobooks on my Kindle. It slides into the spaces between my ribs and makes my body register him in every cell before my mind can keep up.
I clamp down on the reaction and grind my back teeth together.
“Look, I could really use the position. I’m here for a fresh start.” I glance around me. “Boyfriend trouble. I needed a place to get away, and this town looked like—”
His face stays blank. His rag keeps moving, methodical, polishing the same spot over and over.
“Sorry. Can’t help you.”
My smile drops another inch. “If you want references, I can get them. I’ve worked in bars and restaurants off and on. I know my way around patrons. I just need a shot.”
“No.”
I might as well be begging a wall. If the sob story isn’t moving him, what will? Anger spikes.
Men are usually easy in one specific way—they want to be needed. They want to be the hero. They want the pretty girl to look at them like they matter.
Apparently, I’ve found the one man who doesn’t fit the mold.
“Why not?” I press. “You have a help wanted sign in your window…?”
And because I can’t help myself—because last night taught me what happens when I stop paying attention—I clock the layout the way I would on the scene of an accident. The way I’ve been subconsciously doing ever since I was a little girl who woke up to intruders in her house.
Exit to the right. Another door down the bar—kitchen, maybe. Hallway beyond that. Bathroom probably back there. Staircase curling up to the balcony at my spine.
Plenty of dark corners and blind spots.
The bathroom taught me this: darkness is a weapon.
Goosebumps lift along my arms. I breathe in deep through my nose and look back at the bartender, who’s simply watching me, silent. “Answer me,” I demand.
“‘No’ is an answer.”
He holds my stare like he’s done this a thousand times and never lost. Like I’m the unreasonable one.
No, that is not an answer. Not the one I want, anyway. I drum my fingers impatiently on the bar. How far to push?
The back door swings open. Movement flashes in my periphery, and my whole body reacts before I can stop it.
Broad shoulders. Familiar gait. Charming smile.
Shiloh.
An ugly flash of relief slices through me—and it’s ugly because I hate that I feel it. Hate that my body decides safe because I recognize him.
Resentment follows right behind. Because I don’t need backup. I need answers. And the second Shiloh is in the room, the questions multiply.
What the actual fuck?
Shiloh’s recognition shows only in the curve of his lips. The smile stops below his nose, and his eyes narrow on me before he closes the distance and stops with inches to spare.
“Reva.” His voice drops, amused. “As I live and breathe.”
From the corner of my eye, I see the bartender go still. It’s only for a second, and then his hands continue swiping the rag lazily across the top of the bar.
Shiloh’s twang lands two different ways—raises my hackles and sends warmth to a place I don’t want to acknowledge today.
“Shiloh,” I reply. “My disappearing dinner and dancing date.”
“Look at that alliteration. Spare me, Yank…you know I didn’t run out on you.”
I cross my arms over my chest and glance away, knowing he’s right.
“If I’d have known Noir was your destination,” he continues, “hell, I’d have saved you the ride and that little pit stop at Murray’s.”
I say nothing.
Shiloh jerks his chin toward the man behind the bar. “I see you’ve met Ever.” He glances at him like this is an old, tired argument. “He’s a decent enough guy if you ignore the caveman way he talks.”
Ever. So that’s his name.
I keep my gaze on Ever and aim my words at Shiloh. “Apparently I’m not good enough for a position here.” My voice stays even. “He won’t tell me why.”
Ever shrugs. “Sign’s old.”
Quiet fury settles into my bones—cleaner than panic, more useful.
So far, it’s been one hell of a long, strange trip.
I’ve had to deal with my truck breaking down, a charming playboy, a stranger who took it upon himself to touch me in the dark and take what wasn’t his to take…
and now this asshole who apparently doesn’t think I’m good enough for a job in a fucking bar.
My gaze flicks from Shiloh to Ever, and I hitch a hip onto a barstool. “Pour me a Guinness,” I tell Ever.
He blinks, the first sign of…anything…and inwardly I cheer. I can’t stand a fucking Guinness, but I’ll sit here and drink ten of them if I have to in order to prove myself.
I’m going to have to learn how to take myself back.
Step one: get inside Noir.
Step two: find Midnight.
Step three: hire him to kill Deacon without alerting him that I’m hunting him.
I’m not asking any man for permission for what comes next. But first, I need this job.
I’m not leaving without it.