My palms hit the desk before I could stop myself, metal ringing under the impact. That got a reaction.
Not much—but enough. His gaze lifted, slow and direct, and the room tightened around me. The air changed. His shoulders didn’t move, his face barely shifted, but the stillness in him went from patient to dangerous.
“Look,” I said, voice tight, “I work in your bar. I live in your house. If there’s a threat here—ifhe’sa threat—then that counts for something.”
His eyes darkened, giving meaning to the phrase I’d seen in romance novels all of a sudden. I was fascinated by the shift, my attention caught on how the light seemed to disappear from his irises. “Unless you want a firsthand lesson in what happens to little brats in my bar, you’re dismissed, Reva.”
I swallowed back the heat that surged in my veins at his reply. Final answer. Last warning.
Fuck him. Fuck that.
I shoved off the desk, my lungs burning and my skin too hot under my clothes. Up close, he was worse—more compelling, more infuriating. The lines at the corners of his eyes. The full lower lip under the scruff that was more of a neatly trimmed beard. The clean male scent of him.
My body was picking a hell of a time to notice. I hated that almost as much as I hated him.
I backed toward the door before I said something that got me fired for real. “Fine,” I snapped. “Enjoy your little man cave.”
His mouth moved at one corner—barely there, gone before I could decide if it was annoyance or amusement.
I fled.
* * *
The rest of my shift breaks apart in my hands.
The trays sit too heavy on one arm. There are too many tables, too many people wanting another round. Jean Paul’s barking for limes; Sonny’s asking if I’m sick because my resting bitch face looks “meaner than usual.”
The Friday night noise swells bigger and louder while my head feels packed with static.
I work on fumes and spite.
Ever avoids me so thoroughly it becomes its own statement. He refuses eye contact unless he absolutely has to make it. Doesn’t linger in my orbit. Doesn’t give any sign at all that he just kissed me in a stockroom and then left me to choke on what it might mean.
Nothing, I guess.
Shiloh is worse in a different way. He watches me.
Not enough to make a scene. Just enough that I catch it in flashes—his gaze snagging on me when I pass, thetension in his mouth when I drift too close to the back hall, the way he goes quiet if somebody says something that lands too close to a bruise I’m still trying to hide.
It scrapes every nerve I’ve got left.
Every once in a while my mind jumps sideways—to the kitten. To that little white cross between its eyes. To the way it climbed my boot like it already knew me.
Shiloh took him before I walked into Nash’s office. He said he’d take care of him and not to worry, but I can’t help it—I’m worrying.
God only knows what they’re doing with him.
Are they going to let me keep him? If they’re not…I won’t go back. I’ll find somewhere else. Somewhere we’re both welcome, somewhere I can do what I want to do, what I need to do.
By the time I clock out, I’m done. Just…done. I’ve come all the way here, abandoned everything I had, fornothing. No answers. No help. No…killer…from my list.
That’s fine. If no one’s willing to help me, I’ll do what I should’ve done from the start. I’ll find Deacon myself, and I’ll end him myself.
The thought settles into me, like a blade sliding home where it belongs.
* **
The house is dark when I pull in. Shiloh’s truck is absent, along with Ever’s bike, which I’ve caught glimpses of him riding a time or two. No light spills from between the curtains that cover any of the front windows.
