Mount tastes his whiskey again before replying. “He’s been moving a lot of money around in ways that particularly interest them, except they can’t seem to find him. He’s been MIA, and now his money is too. Hence, their interest in the house.”
“Fuck,” I whisper this time. “Do you think they’ll bust it?”
He replies with a lift of his shoulders, as if he’s not willing to say I don’t know out loud.
I release a rush of breath and jam my fingers into my hair. “I’ll tell Desiree. She’ll have to be careful until the heat’s gone.”
When I mention the name of the girl who is buying the place from me through a bond for deed, Mount shakes his head.
“Not just careful. She needs to relocate for a while if you don’t want her exposed.”
“Shit. That bad?”
Mount’s expression never changes. “Would I be telling you this if it wasn’t?”
Slightly mortified, I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Of course not. You wouldn’t waste your time. Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll help Desiree deal with it.”
“Good.”
When Mount doesn’t say more, I study him for a beat. “Is that all, sir?”
He meets my gaze for a long moment. “For now.”
Even though I want to hug my arms around my middle so damn bad, I rise with my shoulders straight and my chin held high. “Thank you. I’ll show myself out if we’re done.”
Something unsettling flashes in his dark eyes. “Done? Not by a long shot. But you can go. Keira wants to see you.” He moves his hand and the fireplace turns, revealing his silent right-hand man who is built like a bull. “V will take you to her.”
I rise, wishing Señor Sycamore from downstairs had let me bring my purse. But as soon as I have that thought, V lifts a hand, and I see the red leather strap dangling from his fingertips.
Fucking creepy how they read my goddamned mind.
There’s a knock on the door through which I entered the room only minutes ago.
Mount meets my gaze. “That’s my next appointment. Have a good one, Magnolia.”
The unease that’s followed me all day ramps up again as I walk toward the hidden passage. As soon as I step through it, the fireplace slowly spins. I turn toward V, but one sentence stops me cold.
No. Not the words. The voice.
Deep and rich with a hint of Creole flavor.
“You’re a right hard man to find, Mount.”
I whip around to stare through the crack that’s narrowing with every passing second and catch a glimpse of those eyes that have haunted me for fifteen years.
“It’s been a long time, Moses. Welcome back to New Orleans. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Three
Magnolia
Oh. My. God.
What in the actual fuck is happening right now?
Moses Gaspard did not just walk into Mount’s office behind me. Did he?
My breath catches, and my heart rate kicks up like I’ve just sprinted a hundred flights of stairs. I turn to stare at V with my mouth hanging open from the shock. “Did I just . . . Was he . . .”
V watches me like he’s not certain what I’m about to do. That’s fine, because I sure as hell don’t know.
Even though the man rarely speaks, I point at the fireplace and ask, “Did you just see him? Did you? Tell me I’m not crazy right now.”
V’s gaze flicks to the fireplace and then back to my face, and I wait for him to give me a sign that I’m not hallucinating. He gives me a short nod as he hands me my purse.
“Jesus fucking Christ. What in God’s name is going on here?”
V doesn’t answer that question, but the little nod he gave me before was plenty.
Moses is back.
The memory of the eyes I thought I saw in the Quarter on my way here resurfaces. Did I enter another dimension when I woke up this morning? How is this happening now?
Because Moses Gaspard left New Orleans a decade and a half ago and never looked back. Never called. Never wrote. Never kept the promises he made to me.
So, why the hell is he here now? And meeting with Mount?
V moves through the room, signaling with an arm that I should follow him, but my brain is scattered like broken Mardi Gras beads left in the gutters on Bourbon Street after a night of partying.
What is happening right now?
He grunts at me, clearly impatient with my lack of response to his gesture, but too damn bad. The man doesn’t understand that my past just crashed into my present with the subtlety of a Mack truck slamming into a brick wall at full speed.
“Give me a minute, okay? Jesus.”
He emits a low growl as I gather myself, glaring at the fucking fireplace. Goddamn Mount and all his hidey-holes and secret passages. I’m tempted to beat at that thing until I figure out how to open it back up and get the answers I’m owed.
But do I really want to see Moses? After all this time?
The pounding in my chest tells me I’m all too affected. I take a long, slow breath, hold it for a few beats, and release it. I repeat that again and again until V taps me on the arm.
I whip around to look at him. “Can’t you see I’m dealing with some shit?”
He points in the opposite direction I’m facing and finally speaks. “Keira.”
Fuck. That’s right. He’s taking me to see Keira.
Keira, who doesn’t know about Moses. Because I never told her. Because I never told anyone what happened between us.
At first, I kept it to myself because I wanted to have something special that was just mine. And when he never came back or got in touch, I realized it wasn’t worth the breath to tell anyone. Because it apparently didn’t mean shit to him, so I started believing it didn’t mean shit to me either. I decided he was basically a figment of my imagination, because nothing could be that good in real life.
As I give the fireplace one last hard look, I know something with certainty.
Mount did this on purpose. That motherfucker.
How could he know? I snort. That’s right. I’m forgetting that Mount knows everything.
I haul in another breath and nod at V. “Lead the way. I’m ready. We’ll forget this little episode ever happened. Deal?”
He lifts his chin, which I decide to take as a yes, especially since he walks away from me. I follow him, but can’t help looking over my shoulder one more time at the fireplace standing between me and the man I’m pretty sure I could strangle with my bare hands right now.
How dare he just show up in my town after all this time like he’s welcome?
Another thought nearly stops me in my tracks.
Why would Moses request an audience with the king first? What does that mean? Is he staying? Asking for permission to set up shop here?
I don’t know what Moses has done for the last fifteen years, but after the first month of him being gone, I refused to let myself look for him. I did everything I could to erase him from my memory and scrub the phantom feeling of him from my skin.
When he didn’t come back for me, his message was loud and clear. So I threw myself into building my empire so I could have what I wanted most—freedom and power.
To this day, I remember telling Moses how I was going to make enough money that no man could ever tell me what to do again. Short of answering Mount’s summonses, I made that happen.