30. Reva
CHAPTER THIRTY
REVA
Noir looks different with the lights up.
Less sinful.
More tired.
Also damp.
The front room survived the fire, mostly. That is what everyone keeps saying, as if mostly is supposed to make the smell of smoke any less permanent. Industrial fans squat along the walls, growling loud enough to make the whole room feel impatient. A dehumidifier hums near the bathrooms.
The bar itself gleams beneath a fresh polish, but there are faint shadows near the rear hallway where smoke tried to climb the walls before the sprinklers won. The glossy floor has been mopped so many times it reflects the weak morning light leaking through the front windows in wavering streaks.
Noir isn’t ruined. It’s wounded. I don’t know which is worse.
Shiloh is near the stage, supervising one of the cleaners with the careful expression of a man trying very hard not to be an asshole.
“No,” he tells the guy reaching toward a panel box. “Absolutely not. If you touch that without Ever present, I can guarantee he will shoot your dick off.”
The cleaner lowers his hand.
“Good choice,” Shiloh adds, then sets another chair on the floor like reopening a bar after a cartel fire is normal housekeeping.
Ever is behind the bar, unloading a case of bourbon from a smoke-free delivery box with the grim focus of a man who would rather be setting traps.
He checks every bottle before placing it on the shelf.
Label. Seal. Neck. Bottom. As if Isabel might have figured out how to poison glass through spite alone.
Honestly, she probably has a guy for that.
Nash is in his office.
Deacon is somewhere near the rear entrance, dealing with the new lock system and whatever remains of the alley door. I heard him tell a contractor, very quietly, that if another person used the phrase good enough near this building, they were going to leave in the dumpster.
The contractor has since become highly motivated.
Delia is perched on the edge of a table with one leg tucked carefully beneath her, nursing a coffee she hasn’t touched.
Shiloh delivered clothing for her this morning, and she looks better in her own clothes.
More at home and assured of herself. She’s wearing black trousers and a soft gray sweater, her hair twisted at the nape of her neck.
The bandages are still visible at her wrists.
Not hidden.
That seems deliberate.
I’m wiping the bar with a rag and contributing nothing to society.
The rag is damp. The bar is already clean. Professionally clean, in fact. Someone probably charged Nash an offensive amount of money to make it this clean, and I’m still polishing the same twelve inches because my hands need motion and the bar has become my victim.
Marisol is coming here.
I try again.
My mother is coming to Noir.
The words still don’t belong together. She sent Delia one message before dawn.
St. Agnes moved up. East gate. Thirty minutes.
After that, the suite turned into controlled violence.
Men moving. Phones buzzing. Nash making calls in a voice that stripped the air of argument.
Delia giving directions with her lips pressed white.
Deacon leaving first because he knew the gate.
Shiloh packing medical supplies nobody admitted might be needed.
Ever building routes through cameras and dead spots and service doors.
I was told to wait.
Naturally, I handled that with grace, patience, and only three threats.
Now we’re at Noir because Nash decided a closed bar with public frontage, private exits, reinforced back rooms, staff presence, and familiar geography was better than another pretty box where Isabel could guess we were hiding.
Semi-public, he called it.
I call it standing inside one of the first places that ruined my life and waiting for my dead mother to walk through the back.
The rag squeaks against the bar.
Ever glances over.
“Don’t say it.”
He lifts both hands, one still wrapped around a bourbon bottle. “I didn’t.”
“You considered it.”
“No, I considered taking that rag away before you ruin my polish job.”
I clutch it tighter. “Touch this rag and lose a finger.”
Shiloh sets another chair down. “They’re trauma bonded.”
I glance down at the gray cloth. “This rag understands my pain.”
Delia looks into her coffee. “It’s a rag, Reva.”
“It’s been more emotionally available than several people in this room.”
Shiloh puts a hand to his chest. “That surely wasn’t directed at me. I’m a treasure.”
Ever snorts once.
I wipe the same spot again and try not to look at the back hallway.
The old one behind Nash’s office, the one staff use when they don’t want to cross the main floor.
The one that still smells faintly charred beneath the bleach and lemon oil.
Deacon disappeared that way ten minutes ago after one short call.
He didn’t announce that she was close. He only looked at Nash and walked.
I know what his silence means.
Delia slides off the table, leaving her coffee untouched behind her. The door in the back opens.
No one speaks.
The bar goes still in pieces. Shiloh pauses with one hand on the back of a chair. Ever sets a bottle down without a sound. Nash appears in the office doorway as if he’s been waiting with his hand on the knob.
I turn toward the hallway.
Deacon comes in first.
Then Marisol.
She is wearing a navy dress beneath a beige coat, both too neat for a woman who just slipped out of a cartel’s reach before breakfast. Her dark hair is pinned low, loose strands around her face, and shadows sit beneath her eyes in a way makeup hasn’t fully hidden.
She stops at the edge of the barroom like crossing the threshold might change something she can’t change back.
For one second, I see her only as I saw her in the hospital. A woman with my face. A stranger holding Cal’s hand.
Then Delia makes a sound. It’s small and broken and barely anything, but Marisol hears it. Her eyes move to my sister.
Everything else disappears.
Delia crosses the room so fast she almost stumbles.
Marisol meets her halfway, and then they’re holding each other, hard and silent.
Delia’s face buries against our mother’s shoulder.
Marisol’s hands spread over Delia’s back like she’s counting bones, checking proof, making sure the daughter in her arms is solid.
My throat closes—with emotion. With jealousy.
The second one is uglier, so I want to deny it.
I don’t. It rises anyway, hot and bitter under my ribs, because Delia knows where to put her hands.
Marisol knows how to hold her. There is history in the way they fit together.
Terrible history, yes. History built inside a house with Isabel’s shadow over every corner, but history all the same.
I have no history, none after the age of seven, anyway. I have a hospital chapel and a name that doesn’t sound like Mom.
A hand settles between my shoulder and neck.
Ever.
He doesn’t pull me back or turn me away. He only squeezes once, thumb pressing into the tight muscle there. Steady. Present. A reminder that jealousy is a feeling, not a crime.
The burn in my throat settles enough for me to breathe.
Marisol opens her eyes over Delia’s shoulder, her gaze fixing on me. The room shifts again.
Delia doesn’t let go at first. Maybe she feels Marisol’s body change. Maybe she knows this part is harder. Slowly, she steps back, wiping beneath one eye with an angry little motion that dares anyone to mention it.
No one does.
Marisol starts toward me, but Nash moves first.
“Let’s do this in my office.”
The words are calm, but they stop her before she takes a third step.
Marisol looks at him. So do I.
For half a second, irritation sparks. I want to ask who died and made him emotional traffic control, except the answer is almost Cal, and that shuts the thought down before it reaches my mouth.
Nash’s gaze flicks to mine. Privacy, it says. Security too.
Fine.
We file into his office in a line that feels too much like a funeral procession for people who are all still breathing. Nash first. Then Marisol and Delia. Me behind them, with Ever at my shoulder. Shiloh follows. Deacon closes the door.
The office is smaller with all of us in it.
The fire barely touched this room, but the smoke got greedy. The shelves have been wiped clean, and a faint strip of soot still shadows the ceiling near the vent. A fan mutters in the corner, pointed toward the hallway. Nash’s desk smells like wood polish and smoke, old whiskey and newer bleach.
I remember the first time I sat here, pretending I could hold my own against Nash Blackwood with a fake name and a death wish. I remember the desk—and Deacon fucking me on it—the shelves, the dark leather chair, the smell of secrets older than me.
Now my mother stands near that same desk, and the only person missing is Cal.
Cal, guarded at the hospital by men with guns while machines breathe near him. His absence takes up the most space.
Marisol looks at each of us before settling on Delia, then me. Her hands fold in front of her. They tremble once before she stills them.
Deacon doesn’t sit. Neither does Nash. That tells me what kind of meeting this is.
“We don’t have time to make this gentle,” Deacon begins.
Marisol’s mouth curves without humor. “Then don’t.”
His face gives nothing away. “We intend to remove Isabel.”
The words are so blunt even I feel them. Marisol looks down at her hands.
Nash stands beside the desk, arms loose at his sides, gaze locked on her face. “She can hand power over gracefully, or she can do it violently. Her choice.”
Something in Deacon’s expression says everyone in the room knows which Isabel will choose, and nobody’s losing sleep over it.
Marisol closes her eyes for a second. When she opens them, she looks older than she did in the barroom holding Delia. “I suppose it’s no secret that I have no interest in ruling La Rosa. That’s the reason all of this started in the first place.”
Deacon glances at me.
His voice cuts cleaner than a knife. “Explain that. For Reva’s sake.”