Chapter 12 Reva
CHAPTER TWELVE
REVA
One week later, my training is officially over and I’m going stir-crazy.
It’s not that I don’t have enough to do, or the bar isn’t keeping me busy. I officially have an all-new respect for wait staff after attempting to keep up with those at Noir who know what they’re doing.
So it’s not that.
It’s that nothing’s happening. I’ve been in New Orleans now for…two weeks? Three? And I’m still no closer to finding Deacon or Midnight.
In my back pocket, my phone buzzes for the fourth time in as many minutes. Sending a surreptitious glance at the bar to make sure Ever and Shiloh’s attention is elsewhere, I dig it out.
Cal
I’m starting to lose patience, Reva. When are you coming home?
If you don’t answer me, I’m coming down there.
Goddamnit, Reva.
ANSWER YOUR FUCKING PHONE
I sigh and hastily type out a return message.
Reva
Everything is fine! I’m working right now, which is why I cannot answer you IMMEDIATELY. Jeeeeeeez.
Go get laid. Get less grumpy.
I’ll be home when I get there.
I haven’t killed anyone. Yet.
It buzzes again almost immediately.
Cal
Reva Leigh! What the hell do you mean, you haven’t killed anyone yet? What are you doing down there?
Okay, so maybe my stab at humor is not a good idea.
Reva
Joking, old man. Joking.
Even though I’m kinda not. I need to find Midnight and hire him to fucking kill Deacon.
Across the bar, my gaze finds Ever’s for a long moment before I look away and move off to one of my tables. He mans the bar with an effortless flow, never appearing rushed, his hands moving without conscious direction.
I feel his eyes on me as I move away, threaded through every step I take. It makes me self-conscious. Where some women would put a little extra sway into their step, I find myself stumbling and awkward.
My mouth goes dry. My brain wants to shut off and give into the rhythm.
Take an order. Fulfill. Rinse. Repeat.
But I’m not here to be a waitress. That’s just an excuse. I’m here to find a door, one that leads to Midnight, which means I’m going to have to ask again.
The thought of doing that makes me nervous.
Now that I’ve been shoved into their house and fed their coffee and walked their property barefoot like I belong there, I’m realizing something that sits ugly in my chest—I can’t get to Midnight without them.
Not if Midnight is real. Not if Midnight is a word you whisper to the right person. Not if the wrong person hearing it gets you buried, the way Shiloh and Ever are acting.
I take an order, deliver two beers, smile, move. I clear plates and dodge elbows and keep my tone bright enough to keep people from asking questions.
The first time I try to ask Ever about him again, it happens without any real plan.
I swing behind the bar for napkins—Sonny’s at the other end and I’m not walking a mile through bodies for a stack of paper—when Ever’s hand shoots out and catches my wrist before I can take two steps.
He’s not rough. His thumb makes a precise sort of swipe over my pulse before it goes still, a stop sign made of flesh.
“You need something?” he says, not looking at me. He’s pouring at the same time, a multitasking machine.
“Napkins.”
“Up front. You don’t need to be back here.”
The grip on my wrist doesn’t loosen. His thumb just maintains that pressure against my pulse.
Heat flashes in my bloodstream, and for a second my brain goes blank. Then I force myself to remember why I’m here. Get your shit together, Reva.
“Okay.” I clear my throat. “Does he come here? To the bar?”
His eyes flick up, dismantling me from the inside out. He shakes his head. “Don’t.”
I swallow. “Ever...”
His jaw ticks. “Just. Don’t.”
That’s it. That’s his answer. No explanation. No warnings wrapped in polite kindness. Just a wall.
I pinch my lips closed and back out into the crowd, napkin-less and cheeks burning.
Shiloh is waiting for me at the edge of my section, watching the whole thing.
He leans close, voice low enough to be for my ears only. “Stop pushing him.”
“But he’s so easy to push. I breathe and he’s pushed.”
Shiloh’s mouth curves. “He’s just being careful.”
“Same thing,” I mutter, passing him with a tray balanced in my hand.
“Not even close,” he calls after me, amused. Then, as I keep walking, his voice drops. “Stop cornerin’ him just because you want somethin’, Reva.”
I freeze for half a second, then I keep moving. Because I do want something. And the clock ticking in my gut tells me I’m running out of time I can’t measure.
* * *
Shiloh can’t leave it alone. He slides into my section mid-rush like he belongs there—which I suppose he does—and takes an empty tray off my hands as if it weighs nothing.
He nods at my hands. “Your hands are shakin’, Yank.”
They are.
Not from work, though. From the constant restraint. From the fact I’m standing in the center of the one place that might lead me to Deacon and I have to smile pretty at strangers while my insides itch with the need to scream.
I clamp my fingers around the edge of the tray, trying to tug it back. “I’m fine.”
“Mm.” Shiloh’s gaze drags over my face. “You’re on edge. You didn’t eat lunch, you had four cups of coffee, and I don’t think you’re sleeping, Yank.”
“I slept.”
He gives me a look like he knows better. Like he knows exactly where I slept and how well. I spent most of last night sitting on the swing on their back porch, listening to the cicadas. It was an unusually warm autumn, and there was a rare group of stragglers.
I haven’t heard them since I was a child.
“Why don’t you tell me why you want to hire a contract killer?” he asks, voice soft.
“I can’t tell you that. You don’t need to know anything more than what I’ve told you,” I bite out.
“Can’t or won’t?” he says.
I slide around him, keeping my smile for the table that’s waving like I owe them a kidney. “One’s as good as the other. Move, Shiloh.”
His hand catches my elbow, light but unyielding. “Answer me.”
I swallow. My eyes flick toward Ever behind the bar, where he’s watching and pretending he isn’t. I step back. “I have a table I need to take care of.”
“You’re done when I say you’re done,” he says, and I hate that it’s true. Here, time belongs to them.
I lean in, close enough that my voice won’t carry. “Fine. You want the truth?”
His eyes hold mine. “That’s all I’ve been asking for.”
“The truth is, I don’t know who I can trust,” I say. “I don’t know if I can trust you, or Ever, or anyone else in this city. So that’s why I’m not going to give you all my truths. Not just yet.”
Something in his expression shifts.
“But you think you can trust a contract killer,” he murmurs.
My breath catches. Shiloh’s gaze flicks to Ever, and it’s fast—so fast a normal person wouldn’t clock it. I do.
Awareness passes between them, electric.
“I think I can pay one,” I say finally. “And if I can pay him, I don’t need to trust him.”
I turn away before my face tells anything more I’m unprepared to part with and walk straight to my table with my heart in my throat.
* * *
Shiloh’s probing gives me a brief flare of hope, but they both ignore me so deliberately for the rest of the evening, I decide nothing has changed.
And nothing will change. I’m going to have to find Midnight some other way.
Near closing, the crowd has thinned enough that the room breathes differently. The laughter is looser. The floor stickier. The air thicker.
Sonny hands me a pair of bulging trash bags with a grin. I take one in each hand, staggering under their weight.
“Your turn.”
“Your glee is malicious and unwelcome after the night we had,” I mutter.
“Nah, just rotation. Fair is fair,” she says. “Off you go.”
I glance toward the back hallway, steeped in shadow, and a cold ribbon slides down my spine. Unbidden, the memory of footsteps on a staircase surges, then the sound of fists against flesh.
I push it down and start dragging the bags toward the rear, shoulders tight and jaw clenched. I refuse to look over my shoulder even though my skin begs me to do otherwise.
The hall is cooler. Quieter. The light dimmer.
I reach the rear door, set one of the bags down, and fumble with the latch with my free hand. A shadow detaches itself from the wall, making me yelp.
Ever. He’s there like he belongs to the dark.
He steps in, close enough that the other trash bag slips from my fingers and hits the floor with a heavy thud. Without speaking, he picks it up and reaches past me to open the door and carry the bag outside to the dumpster.
I’m still there when he returns.
“I could have done that.”
“‘Thank you’ works,” he returns.
I lift my chin. “That too, I guess.”
He can take the other bag out, too. I turn to walk away, but his arm lands heavy on the wall in front of me, stopping me. Caging me in without touching. His breath fans the hair at my temple when he speaks.
“I just need you to stop,” he mutters. “Can you just stop?”
My breath catches. “Stop what?”
His eyes cut to my mouth. Then back to my eyes.
His voice is controlled but something in his expression is not.
His shoulder lifts in a tiny shrug. “Stop hunting for whatever it is you think you’re going to find.
Stop running from whatever you’re running from, maybe.
Stop looking for Midnight. Stop being so damn… under my skin.”
“Then tell me what I want to know,” I snap.
Ever’s jaw flexes. “Tell us why you want him.”
My heart stutters. Would it be such a bad thing to tell them who I am? What happened to my family? Why I want a killer?
Maybe not. The problem lies on the potential flip side—the what if yes, it turns out it definitely is a bad thing to tell them these things.
“You don’t get to ask that,” I say, voice low.
His gaze doesn’t move. “You walked into our bar, firefly. You asked the wrong question. You’re sleeping in our house. That gives me every right to ask.”
Firefly. I swallow. “I can change any of that at any time.”
He leans closer, just enough that his chest brushes mine and nudges me flat against the wall. “You keep telling yourself that.”
Heat jolts through me so hard it makes me dizzy.
I hate my body. I hate it for wanting him. For responding to him. For lighting up when I should be cold.
My pulse slams. The words hang between us.
So does the space. So does the heat. Ever’s gaze drops to my lips again, and my thoughts skid.
Then he kisses me. It’s no gentle test. No slow build.
Ever doesn’t seduce.
Ever takes.
Demands.
His mouth crashes into mine like a warning, like punishment, like he’s tired of holding himself back. I make a sound I don’t mean to make, and my hands fist his shirt, pulling him closer like I have the right.
His tongue slides against mine, claiming space like it’s his. Like I’m his.
My knees go weak. I moan, the sound soft and wrecked, and it vibrates between us. The hard press of his cock against my thigh turns my blood into fire.
More.
The thought hits like a punch. Then—
A soft chuckle breaks the ragged sounds of our breaths. I jerk back, breathless.
Shiloh leans at the mouth of the hallway, shoulders relaxed, eyes bright with amusement. Not jealousy. That’s what shocks me most.
“Don’t stop on my account,” he says. “This was just getting interesting.”
Horror blooms for half a second. It can’t compete with the lust still churning inside me.
I scrub my forearm across my lips like I can wipe it away. Like I can wipe away what my body just admitted.
Shiloh chuckles again, low and pleased. “There she is.”
I glare at him. “Go to hell.”
“Probably later,” he says lightly.
Ever doesn’t move. He stays close, breath against mine, eyes holding mine like a promise and a threat at the same time.
Shiloh’s voice drops, and the amusement sharpens into something else. “You gonna tell us now?”
My throat closes. Tell them what?
My name?
My past?
The truth?
That I came here to find Midnight. That I came here because I think Deacon is here. That I don’t know if they’re the lock or the key.
I don’t know what the hell they want from me. I grab the second trash bag and jerk it up, using the motion to step out of Ever’s cage.
“I’m taking this trash out,” I bite out, voice shaking with anger I refuse to name.
Shiloh’s chuckle follows me as I shove open the rear door. Instantly, the muggy night wraps around my overheated skin. I throw the bag into the dumpster hard enough to make it slap metal. My hands shake, and my breath comes too fast.
Ever kissed me like a warning. Shiloh watched like it was his right.
And my body—
My body voted yes.
Every single time.