5. Shiloh
CHAPTER FIVE
SHILOH
God have mercy, she’s breaking my fucking heart.
Reva stands in the middle of Nash’s beautiful marsh fortress with a dead woman’s anger on her face and a child’s grief trapped behind her eyes.
Her hands keep going to her wrist. Snap.
Pause. Snap again. Each little sting lands in my own skin because I know what she’s doing. I know what she’s trying to hold back.
Cal in a hospital bed.
Delia dragged away.
Isabel’s name turning from villain to blood.
Nash sits on the sectional like a man ready to take a knife because he earned it. Ever has gone still beside me, every piece of him aimed at her, waiting for the threat to show him where to strike. There is no threat in this room he can put down. That’s the problem. Reva’s pain has nowhere to go.
She paces toward the windows, stops, turns. Her reflection moves with her in the glass, pale and wild-eyed under the soft recessed lights. The marsh beyond her stays quiet, brightening steadily but still dim in the early morning light.
“I need a drink, and I need to break something,” she says.
I’m on my feet before the last word finishes. “I can make that happen.”
Three faces turn toward me.
Reva’s eyes narrow. “Okay, then.”
“Shiloh,” Nash says, warning tucked neatly beneath my name.
I ignore him and look at Ever.
Watch her.
I don’t say it. I don’t need to. Ever reads the plea anyway. His chin dips once.
I head for the kitchen, then past it, opening the first pantry cabinet door and finding dry goods, paper towels, a first-aid kit, two flashlights, and the kind of emergency rations that make a man question whether survival is worth the texture.
Second door gives me cleaning supplies, batteries, and three neatly labeled plastic bins.
The third door gives me a wooden crate full of ugly floral plates.
Perfect.
I drag it out with both hands. Dust ghosts up from the slats. Somewhere in the afterlife, Aunt Mildred Blackwood probably clutches pearls and insults my breeding.
I carry the crate into the living room and set it down with enough force to rattle porcelain.
Nash is standing near the bar cart, pouring lowballs of bourbon. He pauses mid-pour and looks at the crate.
His expression changes from controlled guilt to offended disbelief. It is the most alive he’s looked since the hospital.
“What the hell are you doing with my aunt Mildred’s china?”
Reva looks down at the crate.
I lift one plate and peer at the cream-colored, scalloped edge with its tiny pink roses crawling around the rim like a rash. “This is china?”
“It was imported.”
“From where, a funeral home?”
Nash’s eyes cut to mine.
I shrug. “She hated everyone, including you. She’s gone, the plates are ugly, and Reva needs to destroy something that won’t bleed.”
Nash stares at me for three seconds.
Four.
Then he leans back and waves one hand. “Fine.”
“Very gracious.”
“If you chip the island, I’m taking it out of your hide.”
“Strange time to flirt, but I’m flattered.”
Reva makes a sound.
Small. Broken around the edges. Almost a laugh, if a laugh got dragged through gravel first.
I take it like a medal.
“Come on, sweetheart.”
She does not move. “Where?”
“Outside.”
Ever steps forward. “Range first?”
I nod.
Reva looks between us. “There’s a shooting range?”
“It’s Nash,” I say. “I’m surprised there isn’t a moat with sharks.”
Nash rises. “No firearms until she can listen.”
Reva’s spine stiffens. “I can listen.”
“You’re shaking.”
“Great observational skills.”
“You will follow safety rules,” Nash says. His tone could carve stone. “Or we find another way for you to break things.”
For a second I think she’ll throw the nearest plate at his head, which I think has real merit. Instead, she pulls in a breath through her nose and looks away.
“I’ll follow the rules.”
The agreement costs her. I see it in her jaw.
I carry the crate. Ever collects ear protection from a cabinet hidden behind a smooth panel near the back door. Nash retrieves a locked metal case and keys in a code. I watch Reva watch him. She is cataloging every lock, every hidden compartment, every secret she can.
Outside, the marsh air wraps around us warm and damp.
The range sits behind the cabin, tucked between a wall of cypress and a raised berm that blends into the landscape until the lights come on.
Ever triggers them from his phone. Low amber strips cut along the ground, and targets stand at different distances, most folded flat.
We won’t use the paper tonight. No silhouettes shaped like bodies.
I set Aunt Mildred’s china on a weatherproof bench and start lining plates along a rail about ten yards out. A saucer with pink roses. A teacup with gold trim. One little gravy boat with the face of a smug Victorian cherub.
“This one looks judgmental,” I call back.
“It was probably her favorite,” Nash says.
“I’ll put it in the middle.”
Reva watches with her arms wrapped around herself, rubber bands stark against one wrist. Ever hands her the ear protection, and she puts it on, then looks at the gun in Nash’s hand.
The pistol is compact enough for her grip, heavy enough to remind her it matters. Nash checks it, then hands it to me. I check it too, because trust is healthy and bullets are not philosophical.
I turn to Reva.
“Before you touch it, rules.”
“I know how guns work. I shot one earlier.” Her voice cracks.
“Humor me.” I keep my voice light and my eyes steady.
Her mouth tightens, but she nods.
“Muzzle stays downrange. Finger off the trigger until you’re ready. If you want to stop, you stop. If one of us says stop, you stop. You don’t turn with it. You don’t wave it around because one of us says something charming and deserves murder.”
“You always deserve murder.”
“That’s why the rule made the list.”
Her eyes hold mine for one beat longer than the joke requires; then she reaches for the gun.
I place it in her hands and fold her fingers around the grip. Her skin is cold. The tremor starts in her wrists and travels up her arms, fine and relentless. She can’t stand that I feel it. I know because her chin lifts.
I step beside her instead of behind her at first. “Two hands. Lock your wrists less than you think. You’re fighting the gun before it’s done anything.”
“I’m angry.”
“I noticed.”
“I don’t want to be calm.”
“Not trying to calm you. Just help you aim.”
That gets through. Her shoulders lower a fraction.
Ever stands a few feet back, angled so he can see the range and the tree line.
Nash is near the door, silent, arms crossed.
He should look ridiculous guarding a shooting lesson in the middle of the night while his aunt’s china waits for execution.
He doesn’t. He looks like a man preparing to let the woman he loves rage without making it useful to him.
That might be the closest Nash comes to prayer.
Reva raises the gun, a smidge too fast. The barrel wavers.
“Breathe,” I say.
“I am breathing.”
“You’re panting.”
She fires. The shot cracks across the marsh. One plate jumps where the bullet hits the rail beneath it, wobbles, and stays whole.
Reva swears. Homer startles inside and launches off the glass.
I keep my mouth shut.
She fires again—a miss.
Again.
A chip flies from the edge of a plate, barely enough to count, though I’d count it if she asked me what I thought. She doesn’t ask. She lowers the gun, jaw tight, eyes wet with frustration.
“I can’t even do this right.”
I move then.
Slowly enough that she has time to refuse, I step behind her. My hands settle over hers, not taking the gun from her, only lending steadiness where anger has made her body unkind. My chest comes close to her back. Not touching at first. Then she sways, just a little, and I close the distance.
Her breath catches. So does mine.
This is a terrible moment to notice the heat of her through a stolen hospital sweatshirt. I notice anyway. I notice the curve of her shoulder beneath the fabric, the loose strands of hair against her neck, the way she holds herself like she would rather splinter than lean.
“Feet,” I say, voice lower now.
She shifts them.
“Again. Shoulder width. There. Lean forward a little.”
“I know.”
“Your brain knows. Help your body remember.”
Her hands are still shaking. I wrap my fingers around her grip, thumb alongside hers, guiding instead of owning. “You’re yanking because you want the bullet to arrive before the feeling does.”
She goes still.
The words are too close…too much. I feel it in the way her spine tightens against my chest.
I wish I could take them back. I don’t, because they’re true, and she deserves truth from someone tonight.
“Sight,” I murmur. “Front one. Don’t stare at the plate like it owes you blood. Press the trigger. Don’t punish it.”
A rough breath leaves her.
The rubber bands slide against her wrist beneath my hand.
“Shiloh.”
“I’ve got you.”
“I’m so mad.”
“I know.”
“It hurts.”
The confession barely makes sound. It guts me anyway.
I touch my mouth to her hair, quick and soft enough that no one can accuse the moment of becoming something else.
“Use it,” I say.
Her finger moves, and the shot breaks, sound reverberating over the bayou around us.
The middle plate explodes. Porcelain snaps into white fragments, scattering across the dirt in a bright little burst.
Reva freezes. Then she laughs.
It is not pretty. It is wet and furious and half-choked, but it is a laugh, and for one second the marsh gives it back to us like an answer.
“There,” I say.
She fires again. Another plate breaks.
The next shot misses. Ever moves in with a quiet adjustment to her elbow, one hand touching only as long as necessary.
“Less tension here,” he says.
Reva’s mouth twists. “That’s ambitious.”
His eyes meet hers. “Try anyway.”
She does. The next plate shatters.
She aims again, her breathing changing under my hands. Still uneven. Still full of everything no one can fix. But better.
This time she shoots Aunt Mildred’s favorite gravy boat straight through its smug little belly.
Nash sighs.
Shiloh Lafitte, emotional genius and destroyer of heirlooms, wisely does not cheer.
By the time the last plate breaks, Reva’s cheeks are streaked with drying tears. Her hands have stopped shaking as badly. Mine are still over hers, though I could have let go three shots ago. She knows. I know. Neither of us mentions it.
She lowers the gun, and I step back. The absence of her body against mine feels colder than the morning has any right to.
She turns and offers me the pistol grip-first, muzzle down like she promised. “I’m done.”
“You did good.”
Her eyes warn me not to make that soft.
I take the gun. “Aunt Mildred is devastated.”
That earns me a glare with the tiniest bit of life in it.
I unload and clear the weapon, then pass it to Nash. Ever goes downrange after giving us a sharp look to stay put, checking fragments, rail, berm, corners. He cannot stop being Ever. I hope he never does.
Reva watches me gather the ruined pieces into a bucket. After a few seconds, she kneels and helps, picking up a shard with pink roses along the edge.
“This was ugly,” she says.
“Deeply.”
“Your aunt had terrible taste,” she tells Nash.
His mouth moves like he might smile. Then his phone vibrates, and whatever almost lived there dies. He steps away to answer it, voice low.
The silence settles after that. Real silence this time. No gunshots. No breaking porcelain. No jokes trying to bridge it all. Only frogs, wind, distant insects, and the quiet breathing of the woman crouched beside me with grief drying on her face.
She drops the last shard into the bucket and sits back on her heels.
“What do we do now?” she asks.
Ever returns from the range, carrying the last unbroken sliver in one gloved hand. “What do you mean?”
“I mean what comes next.” She looks at him, then at me, then toward Nash’s shadow near the dock. “We need to get Delia out. Cal’s laid up in ICU. Isabel knows where he is. She knows he’s important to me. We need to do something.”
“We are doing something,” Ever says. His voice is rough. Too rough.
Reva hears it too. Her eyes sharpen.
“We’re hiding,” he says. “Which I hate. But you don’t go after the fucking cartel, Reva.”
The air tightens. I close my eyes for half a second.
Wrong words, brother.
Reva rises slowly. Ever knows it the instant he sees her face.
“If anything,” I say, trying to get between the spark and the match, “we find somewhere tighter until Nash has a better read on—”
“No.”