Chapter 14 Reva
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
REVA
The first time I see Nash, my body forgets it’s supposed to be wary of men like him.
That’s the first problem.
The second is that once my brain catches up, it could not care less.
I come into Noir on too little sleep, too much caffeine, and the kind of brittle determination that feels a lot like anger if you don’t look at it too closely.
My nerves are scraped raw from last night—storm, darkness, panic, Shiloh in my bed, Shiloh’s hand in mine, Shiloh’s phone light burning beside the lamp that failed me.
I should be ashamed, or at least embarrassed.
I am. I’m both of those things.
And still, under the shame, there’s a traitorous little pulse of heat when I remember his mouth at my throat and the way he didn’t ask questions I didn’t want to answer. The way he left a steaming mug of coffee, weak with cream and sugar the way I like it, on the bedside table.
The lamp was burning.
I didn’t wake to him, but I woke to that, and that’s…something.
It’s the kind of weakness that gets people in trouble. So I come to work spoiling for a fight.
Friday night at Noir is all sharp edges and strong perfume, the room swelling into weekend hunger before the sun has fully gone down.
Thursday was bad. Friday is worse—more bodies, louder laughter, greedier hands, bigger tabs, richer men pretending they’re invisible because they tip well enough to buy silence.
I move through it on autopilot, tray balanced, smile in place, spine straight.
I’ve learned by now to keep my head down, my ears open, and although it goes against my every instinct, to avoid overplaying my hand.
That’s the rule.
Then I walk into the shift and feel it immediately: something is off.
The energy behind the bar is wrong. It’s not chaotic. Ever would never allow chaos. It’s still controlled—but too controlled.
Ever and Shiloh aren’t exactly on their best behavior on a normal day, but tonight they’re different. They’re tighter around the mouth. Quieter in the shoulders. Watchful in a way that reads less like boredom and more like men waiting on impact.
Like they hear thunder the rest of us can’t yet.
The room feels charged with it. Staff picks up on it even if they don’t have words for why. Patrons feel it too. They laugh louder, drink faster, look over their shoulders without knowing the reason.
We’re all breathing in the same shift in the air. We’re all waiting for something.
Then Nash Blackwood appears.
He fills the side entrance before he even steps through it, broad shoulders and sheer presence taking up the frame, and the room doesn’t hush exactly—but it shifts. Like a school of fish changing direction at once.
I’m halfway through entering a whiskey order when I look up and forget to breathe.
Damn.
Despite what his upbringing and his house suggests, there’s nothing polished about him. No sleek suit, no curated charm, no peacocking. It’s as though labor and violence made a man and taught him how to wear denim.
With a vest. He is wearing a vest out of some material—tweed? linen?—that my fingers itch to touch.
But the rest of him is pure working man. Clean jeans. Boots. Pale shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, exposing forearms roped with muscle and old scars the color of pale wire that I can see from across the room. Hands that could rebuild an engine if that’s what he wanted to do.
Or break a neck.
Scruff roughens a hard jaw and pointed chin. Chestnut hair, a little too long on top, pushes back from a widow’s peak like he ran his hand through it on the way in and didn’t care what it looked like after. His eyes are glacial blue and awake in a way that consumes the room.
He’s not flashy. Not pretty, although handsome comes to mind.
He’s arresting. The kind of man people notice before they realize they’ve noticed him.
Even patrons on the near side of the bar straighten as he passes. Not because he asks for space.
Because he takes it without touching anyone.
“Mmm. Daddy Nash is home.” Sonny breezes past me with a low murmur and a quick eyebrow waggle.
Shiloh sees him and goes quiet in a way I haven’t witnessed yet. His usual grin shows up, but it pulls tight at the corners.
“Hey, Nash.”
Nash doesn’t answer. He gives Shiloh a brief look and tip of his chin, then lets his gaze slide to me—one sharp sweep that feels like fingertips on my jaw. Measuring, maybe. Interested enough to make my finger shake above the POS screen before I force it still.
Every rule I’ve set since coming to New Orleans rearranges itself on the spot. I came here to stay in Noir, stay close to the answers, and avoid getting thrown out before I found what I needed. Simple. Or it was, until he walked in and made the whole room feel like a trapdoor.
He heads for the back hallway without another word, pauses at a section of paneling I would’ve sworn was solid, and presses against the wood. A hidden seam opens to let him through. Then it seals behind him, the wood sliding back into place so neatly it looks like I imagined the whole thing.
I stare at the wall for half a beat before I turn to Justine, another server. “Wha…where did he go?”
She’s polishing glasses too hard, mouth pinched in that way people get when they’ve been pretending not to notice something for a long time and resent being asked to name it.
“Downstairs,” she says, aiming for casual and missing. “That’s his thing.”
My curiosity spikes so fast it feels physical. “What do you mean, downstairs? I didn’t know there was anything down there.”
Until now. Almost like he wanted me to.
Or wanted me to know there are doors in this place I haven’t earned.
Shiloh mutters something under his breath and heads for the office, where Ever has mostly been camped since Nash arrived—as if proximity counts as preparedness.
“Yeah, and you’re probably not gonna,” Justine says, recovering enough to give me a sidelong look. “You’re not the kind of person they let down there.”
My eyes narrow. “What kind of person is that?”
She shrugs, but it’s all performance. “Hell if I know. It’s called Noir Night, and they have an entire other entrance on the back side of the building, and an entirely separate staff that runs it. I’ve never even met most of ’em.”
“Noir Night?” I repeat. “That’s really what they call it? Is it like a nightclub or something?”
Before she can answer, Jean Paul shoulders in between us, broad and stocky and smelling like fryer grease and impatience. He’s one of the newer hires, built like a fire hydrant and twice as cheerful.
“She’s messing with you,” he says, dropping his ticket on the bar. “She don’t know what goes on down there.”
“I know enough,” Justine snaps.
Apparently the easiest way to get information around here is to let other people argue over whose ignorance is more informed.
I keep my voice light. “Then enlighten me.”
Justine leans in like she’s sharing gossip, but her eyes dart toward the hallway. “Private gambling. High rollers. Invitation-only. The kind of place rich people go when legal isn’t exclusive enough.”
Jean Paul snorts. “That’s not information. That’s rumor.”
She rolls her eyes. “It’s not rumor if everybody knows it.”
“Everybody doesn’t know it,” he shoots back. “That’s the point.”
I almost smile.
“Fort Knox rules?” I ask, baiting them both.
Justine points at me with the towel. “Exactly. Harder to get into than a bank vault.”
Jean Paul gruffs out a laugh and shoves his ticket closer. “You planning to apply, PYT? We work upstairs. It doesn’t matter.”
He says it like that should comfort me.
How long has that door been there while I walked this floor pretending I was learning the map?
How many times has the answer I need been a wall panel away?
Deacon’s there. I know it. Dollars to donuts he’s one of their ‘high rollers,’ and they’re protecting him.
That’s why they won’t tell me anything. Awareness and anger thrums under my skin, settling alongside the ever-present frustration at my predicament.
I ring in his order and force my hands steady. “How long has it been running?”
Jean Paul’s expression shutters. “Long enough.”
Justine smirks, sensing blood in the water. “Long enough for you to stop asking questions if you like your job.”
And there it is. The warning. Any time I start asking questions, I’m reminded not-so-politely to shut my trap.
It’s fine. I actually learned something today. I file the information away.
Ever returns a minute later with his arms full of restock, expression already set in that blank, unreadable way I’m starting to hate because it means he’s decided to be cagey.
I wait until he sets down the bottles and starts sliding them beneath the bar.
Then I move in close enough he has to acknowledge me.
“So. I saw the elusive Nash. What’s downstairs?”
He doesn’t look up. “Not for you.”
I clamp down on my jaw. “That wasn’t my question.”
Now he glances at me, once, all flinty-eyed irritation. “Ask any question you want; that’s the only answer you’re getting.”
I should back off. I know I should back off. I know enough to know what I need to do now. I should know better than to overplay my hand.
I also know I spent last night shaking in the dark while these men keep folding me deeper into a place I still don’t understand, and I’m done pretending that doesn’t matter.
Still. I kinda like poking Ever the Bear.
I lower my voice. “Is that where he works?”
A muscle jumps in Ever’s jaw. Good.
Shiloh reappears at the far end of the bar and catches the look between us. Whatever passes over his face is gone before anyone else would notice it. I notice, though.
Always.
“So Nash is the boss,” I say, because no one else is going to say it plainly. “Your boss.”
Ever’s mouth flattens. “In some ways.”
In some ways. Not the boss. Maybe not only the boss.
Tasks abandoned, I trail after him when he heads down the hall with another crate. He knows I’m behind him. He doesn’t speed up. Doesn’t issue me an invitation, either.