Page 20 of Rolling 75 (The Noire Brothers #1)
RYKER
M ost people have a life splintered by fault-line incidents, the kind of days that forever divide your existence into a before and after.
I’m no exception, but fault line is too fucking weak for a couple of mine.
Those were cyclones, ripping through everything I’d ever known and leaving nothing but shreds in their wake.
The gateway to hell.
My mother dying in our house fire with my two-timing father was the first. Those flames scorched any shiny veneer I had hoped my life would hold and plummeted me into the thick of darkness.
It was compounded by the heart-wrenching aftermath of my siblings growing up without her, by the cognizance that nothing could ever heal that wound.
Axel and I had little time to lament those embers because of all the responsibilities we inherited.
Still, the ever-lasting burns were there.
Ashes and lies.
That was devastating, but nothing compared to finding Mercy’s lifeless body—bruised, bloody, broken, and listless—on a living room floor I’d never set foot on. Aged white oak, stained with crimson and slaughtered dreams.
Remy—Jett at the time—was only a few months old. He was screaming in his crib, wailing so violently that I assumed he sensed his mother was leaving this world and was determined to do whatever the hell he could to stop it. That same rage surged through me.
She coded twice over the next twenty-four hours—as hell-bent to die as she claimed yesterday in the stairwell.
And after weeks of sleepless nights with my heart outside of my body, when she finally started to turn a corner, I knew that even though she had survived and my mother hadn’t, this would be the tragedy that never stopped shredding me.
And that was before I woke to find she’d disappeared.
White oak and screams.
But there is one day I now consider a fault-line incident, even though I didn’t recognize it at the time. It cracked through my grip on reality in a different way than the others. This one offered the sparkly side of hope.
Champagne and delusions.
While Mercy was in her senior year of college, her mother died. And a week after she graduated, her father drove into a tree.
I hadn’t stayed in touch with Mercy during her college years. She was safer that way. The closer we were, the more she’d be seen as a pawn by someone my family and I had pissed off. So, once Axel and I were running La Lune Noire, I distanced myself.
But then she was back, claiming I was the only one who could possibly understand her pain, that she needed a friend, that losing both parents had wrecked her in ways no one else could relate to.
Once she flashed her doe-eyed pout, there was no turning her away.
I nursed her through those early days of grief, assuming she’d eventually dust herself off and be on her way to brighter pastures.
She did some impressive dusting, like the badass she was, but she insisted that she couldn’t leave again, that my family was her family, that New Orleans and La Lune Noire were home.
And that I was her best friend, the wingman she wanted beside her in the nursing home someday.
She acted it out as if we’d be fucking gluing in our teeth, arm in arm, on the prowl.
Adorable and … irksome.
It rubbed me the wrong way for multiple reasons, but I wouldn’t outwardly admit to it. There was always a part of me that wondered about us being more .
She’s fucking … Mercy. Smart. Sexy. Strong. I think it’s the quirkiness that comes out of nowhere that has always gotten me most though—equal measures of exasperating and enchanting.
Anyway, at the time of this fault-line incident, she was attending law school in New Orleans and sowing her wild oats.
I think she told me she was getting her oats on or something equally absurd, but uninterested in digging too deep, I let her have that one.
Plus, she backed it up with some nerdy explanation. Because … Mercy .
She was doing her thing, and I was doing mine. Neither of us got serious with anyone else. We had flings, and we had each other. Sometimes, it bothered me when she shared details, but I’m not sure I even understood how much, until one night.
It was her twenty-fourth birthday, and I shut down the Blind Tiger—the original speakeasy that my great-grandfather had opened—so we could celebrate, just the two of us.
She was gorgeous that night, as always. The dim amber bulb lights made her brown eyes shine with a caramel hue.
Her smattering of freckles was more pronounced against her pale winter skin.
Her lips were fucking strawberry pillows.
She’d finally regained some of her exuberance.
And she knew it. The sexy confidence that had always captivated me was back.
Mercy raps a drumbeat on the bar top, her eyes gleaming. “So, what’s on the menu, barkeep? Something fancy?”
I chuckle, already knowing what I’m going to serve her. It will be far better than the two lemon drop shots she downed when we stopped off in the high-rollers lounge. “Fancy … sure. I bet you’ll love the French 75.”
“Ooh.” She hops off the stool and sashays over to the antique phonograph, perusing the albums. “Champagne and gin, right?”
A scoff flies out of my lungs as I shake the cognac, fresh-squeezed lemon juice, and simple syrup on ice. “Champagne? Yes. Gin? Not in my goddamn establishment.”
She glances back over her shoulder. “So uppity, Noire. Isn’t gin a staple of a speakeasy?”
“Other speakeasies,” I volley, setting the chilled champagne flutes out on the shiny wooden counter to pour all the ingredients together. “We always sold gin, but my great-grandfather hated the shit, so he built his bootlegger’s paradise on cognac.”
“Hmm, French,” she muses as Bob Dylan’s “Just Like a Woman” blares from the record player. “I really should’ve seen that one coming.”
Plucking both filled glasses off the bar, I swagger over to her, handing her one. “I’ll give you a free pass. It’s your birthday.”
Her mouth tips into a lopsided smile as she sips the drink, those beautiful brown eyes shimmering with approval. “So much better with cognac.”
I wink. “Only degenerates use gin.”
She laughs, not missing a beat. “Filthy gin joints.”
Fuck, I love that she always has something smart to say. It’s what I adored about her that first day on the playground, and it never ceases to impress me. I’ve never known anyone who could bounce off anything I threw at them so seamlessly.
“That’s my girl,” I praise without a second thought, clinking my glass with hers.
Her chest heaves for a few beats as she bites her lip and considers me. “Your girl, huh?”
“Of course,” I return, though I’m not sure what to make of how thick the air is, but I muddle my way through. “And tonight, you’re my birthday girl. My kingdom is your kingdom. So, if I could grant you a wish for the future, what would it be?”
She sways to the music, flipping through more albums and sipping her champagne cocktail. “Handing me the keys to the Noire kingdom is a mighty birthday gift. Too bad it’s one of those sell-your-soul kind of presents.”
“Are you subtly labeling me a devil, Viper?”
“Nothing subtle about it. If the horns fit …” She pauses, assessing me. “Let’s say I didn’t care about keeping my parents from rolling over in their early graves, what would I ask the Noire dev—king for?”
She slides her index finger across her lips like she’s searching hard for the answer, but it’s clear when it emerges that she’s had it stored up for some time.
“I want the highlight reel. To be top of my class, followed by a successful law career, putting loads of your members behind bars. Since I’ll be busy, I don’t want to meet the right guy until I’m about thirty-three or thirty-four, but then I’d like a whirlwind romance, complete with a marriage by the time I’m thirty-five, and a cozy life of having it all.
A wraparound porch and kids running in my big backyard with hundred-year-old oaks when I get home from winning a name-making case.
” She bats her lashes. “Is that too much to ask?”
That’s Mercy, never shooting low, even after being knocked down and losing everything.
After refilling her half-depleted glass from my own, I saunter back to the bar to make myself another.
“It won’t take a wish to be top of your class.
Your big brain and tenacity will accomplish that.
No problem. You won’t be putting my clientele away because I’ll lure you to the dark side eventually.
But I’m sure I can manage the rest.” The words are out before I can catch them, and as I lift my gaze, I notice the hitch in her breath, so I quickly amend.
“We’ll get you the right guy at the right time, and the rest will fall into place. ”
She nods, drinking her champagne and swaying with the music.
I finish making the cocktail and take a seat at the bar, not wanting to make things awkward.
The avalanche of confusing emotions crashing into me is terrifying, so I ingest a hefty swill, plaster on my friend hat, and nag her for more information.
“You’ll be playing the field for the next decade because … ”
Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” filters through the speaker, ushering her answer.
“I don’t want to get derailed. Even if I meet the right guy before then, I’ll tell him the timing is off.
If I get involved earlier, I’ll sacrifice my career because new relationships are hard.
And I can’t do needy. I can barely manage time to eat breakfast. But honestly, I will be excited to find someone I can stop being vanilla with someday. ”
What’s that now?
The avalanche of emotion melds into a gigantic boulder of curiosity—lust-fueled intrigue that has no business being in my mind with Mercy. “Vanilla?”