Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
REVA
“This is absolute bullshit and you know it.” I don’t know who I’m arguing with because the two men getting ready to walk out the front door are steadfastly refusing to discuss me returning to work.
My voice comes out sharper than I intend, but everything in me feels like it’s been stretched too tight—skin, nerves, patience. Like one more push and something’s going to snap.
“Don’t wait up, Yank.” Shiloh offers me a wink while Ever glares.
“I will murder you.” The threat comes out as a warning more than anything. “If you leave me locked up alone here, I will slip into your room when you’re asleep and murder you in the most creative way I can.”
And I mean it. Not entirely, maybe—but enough that the threat satisfies something ugly and restless inside me that hasn’t settled since yesterday.
“You’re not going to be alone, little wolf.” Nash leans against the doorjamb, a cup of coffee in his hand. “I’ll be here to watch your every move and make sure you don’t…aggravate your injury.”
“You.” I turn to glare at the man who somehow makes me want to bash him in his knees and get on my knees at the same time. “You do not count. You have barely acknowledged my existence since you got here.”
Which shouldn’t bother me. It absolutely should not bother me. And yet it does—more than I want to admit—because I’ve gotten used to the way these men look at me. The weight of it. The awareness of it. And Nash pretending I don’t exist feels like a deliberate choice.
Pouting to three men who actually appear to be trying to help me is a terrible idea, and I know it.
But everything fucking hurts this morning, and I’m no closer to the reason I came to New Orleans in the first place.
Yet, all three of them want me to trust them.
With my life and with the only thing that still means anything to me.
Trust.
The word scrapes across something raw inside me. Ash’s letters flicker through my mind—ink on paper, quiet understanding, distance that somehow felt safer than this. I trusted a man I’ve never seen more than the three standing in front of me now.
Ever doesn’t even look at me when he stoically marches out the door, and that just makes everything worse because we haven’t even discussed what went on between us in the woods.
The way his hands felt. The way I let him touch me like I wasn’t already broken open.
The way I want more of it. Of him. And Shiloh. Maybe Nash too, if I’m being honest with myself.
Fuck my life. I don’t know what the hell is happening right now. When did I turn into a horny bitch?
When was the last time I wanted anything that wasn’t revenge?
“I’m fine to work at the bar, you know.”
“No.” Nash doesn’t elaborate further until he’s pouring himself a fresh cup of coffee with his back turned to me. “You were assaulted and stabbed yesterday, in case you’ve forgotten. You’re not going to work.”
The word stabbed hits heavier than everything else. It’s a reminder. A warning. A promise of how close I am to the thing I came here for—and how easily I could end up dead before I ever get it.
As much as I really want to argue with his logic, Nash isn’t wrong. I was hurt yesterday. I’m exhausted, and I’d love nothing more than to sleep for a week.
But there’s no rest for the wicked. Not when I’m still on a mission for revenge and no one seems to feel the same burning urge to get it done as quickly as I do.
Because they didn’t watch their lives burn down. They didn’t stand there and survive it.
It’s all a bunch of hurry up and wait. Of being forced to play it safe. Waiting to see what’s going to happen, instead of making a move, and that’s my biggest problem here.
I need to do something.
I’m so close, and yet every day that passes makes me feel like I’m further away than I was yesterday.
A small scar on the edge of the wooden kitchen table draws my attention the same way the rubber bands on my wrist do. I pick at it with my thumb while I try to figure out my next step, tracing the slight groove over and over.
Getting here, finding Midnight, and killing Deacon.
I had a plan. I was going to do this on my own. I needed to do this on my own. Except they put the kibosh on that, and now I’m stuck. Floundering.
Ash would tell me I’m being predictable. That anger without direction is just noise.
Maybe that’s what I need.
I need to start thinking about a new plan and what I can do now. I’m not useless. I’m not stupid. I’m not going to fail. I just need a new plan. One that’s foolproof. One that takes into consideration the knowledge that I was essentially summoned to New Orleans.
Someone sent me that photograph. They wanted to bring me here. For a reason.
But ever since I got here, I’ve hidden in the shadows of my goal, and I’ve let things happen to me. I’m not that girl. I don’t just…exist.
“Here.”
I look up from the table to see Nash sliding a plate in front of me. On it, there’s a piece of toast with peanut butter on it.
The smell hits me first—warm bread, sweet honey—and my stomach twists hard enough to make me realize just how long it’s been since I ate anything that wasn’t shoved down out of necessity.
“What’s this?”
“You spaced out, and you haven’t eaten since yesterday. You’re hungry, even if you won’t admit it. And planning—because we both know that’s what you’re sitting there doing—is easier on a full stomach.”
He says it like he knows me. Like he’s already figured out the patterns I haven’t even realized I have yet.
I really want to refuse, but my mouth is watering at the sight of the honey glistening on top of the peanut butter.
“This doesn’t mean anything. I’m still mad at you.” I lift a haughty brow and take a giant bite. My mumbling is only slightly spoiled by the peanut butter sticking to the roof of my mouth.
“I don’t care, little wolf.” Nash gives me a brief glance and then turns to put the bread away. “You can be as mad as you want, but you’re not going to work.”
I stick a peanut-butter-covered tongue out at him, just in time for him to turn around and catch me.
For a second, I feel ridiculous. Normal. Like this is just…life. Breakfast. Banter. Not blood and revenge and ghosts of the past breathing down my neck.
He chuckles, low and dark, right before he circles the counter to lean behind me and press his lips to my ear. “Be careful, Reva. You’re already tempting me with your attitude. Acting like a brat will only end with you over my lap and your ass red from my hand. Keep pushing.”
Heat flashes through me, sharp and immediate, cutting straight through the exhaustion and anger like it belongs there.
I choke, peanut butter and honey stuck in my throat as that image plays on repeat in my mind. I should be outraged, but instead…it’s a damn good thing I’m choking and have an excuse for the pink staining my cheeks, because there’s no way I can hide my blush.
His breath is still right there, dancing across the sensitive skin of my neck, while I try to catch my breath.
“That’s it, little wolf.” I can feel his smile even if I can’t see it. “Breathe through it. And maybe if you’re good today while I get some work done, I’ll give you another reason to blush.”
Like a whisper, his gentle nip against my ear is there one moment and gone the next.
“I can’t even get in the pool!” My frustrated shout follows Nash down the hall and into his office. “Stupid stitches.” I mumble to myself, the door closing on whatever reply he might have made.
Somewhere in the house, I swear I hear a faint, high-pitched meow.
The kitten.
Right. I forgot about him for all of five minutes. I click my tongue against the roof of my mouth until a little bundle of fur comes flying around the corner, red fluff sticking out in all directions and a mew trailing for a full thirty seconds. I pluck the little bugger up and hug him to my chest.
“Aw. Did you get lost in this big ole house? Let’s go find a sunny spot.”
Rather than spend all day inside and miserable, I decide to take a nap by the pool. The stitches are in my stomach, not my legs.
And a day relaxing? I can’t even remember the last time I took a full day off, let alone relaxing.
Even when I try, my brain doesn’t shut off. It just circles the same thoughts until they burn.
I strip down to my underwear—if I’m staying here, I have to buy a bathing suit—and sit right on the edge of the pool with my feet dangling in the water.
The kitten, after dipping a testing paw right above the water, circles a couple of times and lies down next to me.
The tip of his tail drags in the water, but he doesn’t seem to notice or mind as he closes his eyes and begins to purr.
When the heat starts to press against my skin, I lay back and close my eyes. The events of the last few weeks start to filter through my mind.
First, my monthly check in with Joss where I finally asked him to look into the letters that I’ve been getting for years from Ash. Who was Ash, beyond a name in a letter? It was time I knew.
It was time I stopped trusting a ghost.
Then, maybe a week or so later, the picture was delivered to me at work that ultimately brought me to New Orleans.
I don’t believe in coincidences in the best of circumstances. This? These aren’t even remotely close to the best of circumstances.
Since I’ve been here, I’ve made zero progress finding Deacon, but I have been attacked and stabbed, prompting Shiloh to stitch me up.
My eyes snap open.
“Shiloh, you asshole.” I mutter to the pool, since the man in question isn’t here.
He used my real name last night.
Which I guess I should have realized they knew, seeing as how Shiloh had admitted to going through my bag and finding my DCPS paperwork.
I should have been more careful. Made it harder for them to get information on me. But to be fair, I didn’t exactly ask for them to pretty much kidnap me and refuse to let me leave the property.
I sigh. I told them pretty much everything yesterday, anyway. It doesn’t matter anymore.
“Time’s up, little wolf.” Nash appears at my side, forcing me to squint up at him in the sunlight. “You’re getting pink. You need to get some food in your stomach and something other than underwear on that delectable ass.”
“Please go away.” I shoo at him. “Everytime I turn around one of you is up in my business. It’s exhausting.”
He squats down so I don’t have to crane to stare up at him and cocks his head to the side. “It wouldn’t be so exhausting if you’d just give in to the inevitable.”
I snort. “The inevitable. I just want some freaking privacy.”
“No. You want to keep holding yourself back from us. Maintaining distance where there doesn’t need to be any. Believe it or not we just want to help you.”
Is that what I’m doing? Holding myself back?
Yes. From you. From all of you. From whatever this is trying to become.
His shrewd expression tears away at my nerves until there’s nothing left. “Absolutely.” I admit. “I don’t owe you or anyone else all of the parts of me. I don’t trust you. Or your merry band of men who appear to be doing their best to take over my life.”
“Yet.” He reaches out to brush a strand of hair off my cheek, and something low in my gut curls tight with tension.
“You shouldn’t trust us blindly, Reva. Not yet.
You don’t know any of us well enough to.
But you will. And until you’re ready to show me the hidden parts of yourself, I’ll take what I can get. ”
Piece by piece. Like I’m something to be uncovered instead of something already broken open.
“So what? You’re going to keep me here knowing that I’m holding back and have every intention of leaving and killing Deacon on my own since you won’t help me?”
He shrugs, stands, and offers me his hand. “I don’t need to control you to own you.”
My mouth goes dry, and my pulse kicks. Something in me—something traitorous and dangerous—leans toward that instead of away from it.
Mouth hanging open at his audacity, and a little bit turned on by the confidence in his tone, I take Nash’s hand.
A prison made of glitter and gold is still a prison.
But prison or not, it’s the first place in a long time that doesn’t feel empty.