Chapter 16 Nash #2
Ever looks at me. “So what exactly did she tell you, other than she wanted Midnight to kill Deacon?”
I give them the shape of it. “Sounds about the same as what she told you. Runaway story. Ex-boyfriend. Needed distance. Needed work. Most of it felt practiced.” I shift my weight and glance at Shiloh. “I asked if she wanted protection.”
Shiloh’s eyes lift first. Ever’s a second later.
“She said she didn’t want the strings that would come with protection,” I tell them.
Ever goes colder. Shiloh gets quieter. They both know what that kind of answer sounds like.
It doesn’t come from a woman looking for a bodyguard.
It comes from someone who’s built herself around the soul-deep lust for a blade and doesn’t know how to stand any other way.
Someone who’s already had her trust shattered more than once and had to rebuild those walls brick by brick.
I look at Ever. “Then she got mad.”
A flicker in his eyes. He knows exactly how fast she burns when she’s cornered.
“Did she explain why she wants him killed?” Shiloh asks.
I look at him, then at Ever. I know what he’s asking. He wants to know what Reva knows. We can’t really ask that without revealing our own part in things, our own knowledge of the past.
And that’s not something we’re ready to do just yet.
“Not in full. She said she’d been hurt, and she wanted to take care of him before he decided to come back.”
Ever’s jaw locks. I can almost see the memory behind his eyes, the same one scraping at mine.
A job we refused to take. Orders we should never have been given in the first place. A family in the wind. A child—two children, actually—too young for the punishment attached to their family’s name.
Deacon making a choice that saved us and damned him in ways I still don’t think he anticipated. Or maybe he did, and that was the point of it all. That he’d be the damned, and not us.
I don’t hand them that thought. I keep it in my own mouth and taste the bitterness of it.
“Here’s the thing…this isn’t just about Deacon,” I say.
Ever nods once, slow. “No.”
Shiloh leans forward in the chair, humor finally gone for good. The cat gives a protesting mew. “It’s the Syndicate.”
Ever huffs. “Give me that thing.”
Without waiting for permission, he takes the cat from Shiloh’s hands and tucks it into his T-shirt, against his chest. The kitten pops his head up through the neck, nuzzles into Ever’s skin, and goes to sleep within seconds. I shake my head. Fucking saps.
I pull my focus back to the matter at hand. Mother Superior’s name doesn’t need saying. We know who the Syndicate really is.
I start pacing before I mean to—two steps, turn, two steps back. The office isn’t big enough for what I’m thinking through, but movement keeps me from putting my fist through the shelving.
Reva is under my roof. She came here hunting a man tied to our past. She’s asking questions in a place built on walls and favors and old loyalties, and she doesn’t know how many wires she’s already brushing with bare hands, just waiting to spark to life and end hers.
She has no idea the frail margins she’s dodging. If she keeps pulling, she won’t just find Deacon. She’ll find the rest of it.
And the rest of it will not leave her breathing out of mercy.
I stop pacing and plant both palms on the desk. “We keep her alive.”
Ever’s answer comes fast. “So we keep her away from Deacon.”
“And from what follows him,” I say, looking at both of them.
Shiloh lets out a grim little sound. “That list ain’t short.”
“No,” I say. “It isn’t.”
Ever pushes away from the wall and starts to move the way he does when he’s trying not to grab the wheel from everybody in the room. “Then we lock it down. She stops asking questions. She stays where we can see her.”
Shiloh laughs, and this time there’s real edge in it. “You planning to tell her that? I’d pay to watch.”
Ever’s eyes flash. “You got a better idea?”
“Yeah.” Shiloh points at him. “Don’t treat her like a prisoner if you don’t want her looking for escape routes.”
“So what’s your big idea?” Ever asks. “Because she’s down here asking Nash for a killer while sleeping in our house.”
Shiloh doesn’t blink. “I’m not sure yet. Maybe…we start by making her feel a little more like invited guest and less like a reluctant detainee.”
That earns the smallest twitch at the corner of my mouth. I let it go before either of them sees it and decides to enjoy themselves.
“We keep her close,” Shiloh says, looking at me now. “We shut down the gossip upstairs. We figure out what she knows about Deacon. And we stop pretending she’s just some runaway waitress.”
My stare cuts sideways to him. “You done?”
“You know I’m never done,” Shiloh says.
I fold my arms. “Well, shut up a second and answer me something useful. Which one of you is she sleeping with?”
The silence that follows is almost worth the night full of stress and trouble.
Shiloh breaks first, barking out a laugh that bounces off the metal shelves. Ever looks like he wants to put him through the wall.
I wait.
Shiloh wipes his hand over his mouth and grins despite the tension still hanging off him. “That would be me.”
Ever mutters a curse.
Shiloh swings his head toward him, eyes bright now because he can’t help himself. “But then our boy here kissed her hard enough to make tweety birds and puddy cats spin over her head, so I’d say the scoreboard’s fuzzy.”
I look at Ever and let a slow smile ghost over my lips. “So you’re saying there’s a chance.”
Even he almost smiles. It’s gone in a blink, but I catch it.
“Jesus,” he mutters, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “You gotta be kidding.”
Shiloh’s grin fades as quickly as it came. He leans forward again, elbows on his knees, and when he speaks this time there’s no show in him at all.
“She’s not just some chick,” he says, eyes moving from me to Ever. “You know that.”
Ever’s face closes off, which on him means he heard every word. His fingers tense the smallest bit over the kitten tucked under his T-shirt.
Shiloh keeps going, quieter now. “The way she looks at people… it gets under your skin. She looks straight through the bullshit. Through the jokes. Through the ugly parts.” His mouth twists like he doesn’t quite trust what he’s saying, but he says it anyway.
“Makes a man think maybe he ain’t only the things he’s done. ”
The words settle heavy in the office. I don’t move. I don’t say a damn thing. I feel them anyway.
I’ve spent most of my life being useful first and human second. People look at me and see what I can do, what I control, what I’ll allow. They don’t usually bother looking past that unless they want leverage.
The way Reva looked at me was different. Fascination and fear and the transparent urge to sass me, all rolled together.
The impulse to put her across my knee and lay my hand on her ass was immediate, as was the hardening cock in my pants. I’d never been so glad to have a desk between me and a woman as I was right then.
The way she stood in front of my desk, angry and scared and refusing to fold. The way she gave me Deacon’s name like she was done bargaining with fear. The way she held my stare as if she’d rather die than bow.
That kind of woman changes the shape of a room. Makes it and everyone in it hers to do with as she wishes.
She’s young, and I don’t even give a shit. I don’t see those ten…okay, fifteen…years when I look at her.
Shiloh’s chin is jutted out, his gaze moving between me and Ever. “So don’t mess with her if you don’t mean it.”
Ever’s jaw hardens. “You think I’m playing?”
“I genuinely don’t know what you’re doing,” Shiloh says. “You’ve got her about as twisted as a damn pretzel wondering where the hell you stand.”
I look at Shiloh. “And what about me?”
He snorts, some of the old grin coming back at the edges. “What do you mean, what about you? Are you asking my permission to…go after her? Reva’s not my property.”
“I just wasn’t clear if either of you had staked a claim.
” I push a hand through my hair, aware suddenly that this is not a conversation we’ve ever had.
We’ve never fought over a woman before. Never even really been interested in pursuing the same one at the same time.
If one of us showed interest, the others just backed off.
It was never significant.
I don’t know why, but something about this feels significant. None of us really seem to want to back off.
“Reva’s not the kind of woman you stake a claim on,” Shiloh’s saying. “I get the impression she’ll stake her own claim when she’s ready.”
“And what happens if she…stakes a claim…on one or the other of us? What happens then?” I ask.
We’re quiet a moment, all of us processing the question. Ever finally breaks the silence.
“What happens if she doesn’t?”
I run a hand over the scruff on my jaw, eyeing them both, these men, these brothers I’d kill for—these men I have killed for before. And then I hold out my hand to Ever.
“Give me the cat,” I tell him. “If he’s coming to my house, he needs a fucking bath first.”