I tap the bandage again, gentler this time. “Shower,” I remind her. “Keep it dry. Pat around it. Then get some rest.”
Reva slides off the table carefully, her face set. She pauses in the doorway.
“Whoever sent me here…whatever game this is…I just want to let you know that I plan on winning it.”
Good. Because I’m not quite ready to lose her. Not just yet.
Not when she didn’t come here by accident.
Not when someone put Noir in her hands like a match and watched to see what she’d burn.
And not when the three of us—whether we want to admit it or not—are already standing too close to the flame.
Ash? I asked you a question.
—Reva
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
REVA
“This isabsolute 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 worsebecause 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.
