by Violet Paige
“We need to talk,” he hissed.
“I’m here to offer my sympathies to your mother and your sister,” I whispered, desperately trying not to make a scene.
“No.” He gritted his teeth. “You’re coming with me.”
I squeezed my eyes tightly. “Knight, this isn’t the place.”
“I’m making it the place. I insist.”
I thought I was quicker than him, but he wound his hand through mine. My body reacted to the contact, when it shouldn’t have. He tugged me away from the line. Kimble instantly reached inside his jacket. I put my hand up to stop him from following us.
I wasn’t familiar with the maze of back offices in the church. Knight shoved open a door. I realized it was one of the confessional rooms. He locked the dark mahogany door behind us. It smelled like incense and velvet. The wall was lit with red votive candles.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” he growled.
“This isn’t the place to discuss business.” I realized my mistake when his eyes clouded with venom and fury. We should be kneeling. Praying. Begging for forgiveness in this room.
“Business?” he huffed.
“Look, Knight. You’ve been gone a long time.” He wasn’t the first angry organization member I’d had to settle, but he was the first one that made me want to beg to erase the last five years of our lives. To undo the hurt. To lace it back together like it was never ripped.
I kept my voice steady. “We could set up a meeting once you’ve had a chance to finalize all of the funeral plans and events. I’ll give you as much time as you need.” Forty-eight hours was ungenerous. I could extend the grace period.
His hand extended toward me and my breath caught. I didn’t know if he was going to grab me and pull me toward him or strike me. The fire in his eyes was a mix of hate and lust. Instead he turned with little space to move in the confessional.
“You are going to give me time?” he mocked me.
I nodded. “Whatever you need. Really. I remember how hard it was when my father died.” I didn’t mention that he never contacted me. My father died from complications from pneumonia only a year after Knight was shipped to Paris. I had stared at my phone for weeks, hoping, praying, begging he would reach out to me.
“I had a meeting with Paul last night,” he explained. “I know everything, Kennedy. I know what you own. Who you have deals with. What you stole from my family.”
“I’ve stolen nothing.”
He shook his head. “Who are you? What happened to that girl I met?”
I sighed. “The girl in the pool house?”
“Yes.” His eyes softened briefly. “Why are they calling you the queen of the Crescent City? How the fuck did that happen?”
“You make it sound like a bad thing.” My eyes narrowed. He had no idea how hard I worked to earn the respect of our fathers’ peers.
“You’re proud of it?”
I shook my head. “You grew up mafia royalty. Don’t judge me.”
“But this? How?”
I started to realize he had been kept in the dark. Raphael hadn’t told Knight anything about our arrangements. I was as shocked as he was.
“You could have stayed in touch,” I whispered.
“I stayed away because—” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. You need to understand something. I’m taking it all back. Every damn thing you wrenched away from my family.”
“Knight, it’s business. You know that.”
“Don’t!” he yelled. The growl in his voice echoed around the small chamber. The candles on the wall shook. I expected Kimble to rush in, but the confessional was soundproof. “You don’t get to lecture me about business. About families. About organizations. About deals and negotiations you knew nothing about. You were a college grad lounging at the pool. Drinking on Instagram. What the hell, Kennedy?”
I slid the glove over my right hand, taking my time to make sure my fingers fit securely. I’d met with impatience and rage for years.
I met his eyes.
“Trust me, I’m not the girl who drinks on Instagram anymore.” I stepped closer so he could hear my whispers. I inhaled his cologne. His masculine scent that I’d dreamed about almost every night since he left. Nights I’d shot straight up in bed, wishing I could get on a plane to Paris. I wanted to hear his voice. I wanted to look in his eyes. I wanted to see his sexy grin and laugh with him about something utterly ridiculous. This version of Knight was foreign to me. He was angry. Bitter. Soulless.
“That’s fucking clear,” he spat.
I unlocked the latch. “Have Paul call Renee. She’ll set up a meeting for our legal teams.” I closed the door and walked into the hall.
Kimble instinctively wrapped an arm around me as soon as I appeared. My knees shook and my palms were sweaty inside the gloves. I believed I had masked it all from Knight.
“We’re leaving now,” he stated.
I nodded my head. “Okay.” I couldn’t argue. I had to get as far away from Knight as I could.
17
Knight
Twelve hours earlier
Paul looked as if he had aged like a president in the five years I’d been gone. His hair was gone from the top and there were heavy lines around his eyes. Deep crevices from stress. Lines that developed from the dark secrets he kept for my family. I knew the man had been working around the clock since my father died, but it was more than black circles under his eyes.
“We need to move quickly,” I stated. “Dad always wanted me to run the organization from here once I moved from Paris. Are there papers to sign? Just put them here.” I tapped the top of my father’s desk. I was impatient. I was unsteady from running into Kennedy.
I reached for the crystal decanter on the corner of the desk. I poured a rich bourbon. I wasn’t going to let it register that I was the man sitting behind the desk now.
“Knight, we have a lot to discuss about your father’s estate.” I saw the weariness blanket him.
“Is there a question about the will?” I asked. “A dispute? I thought that was rock solid.”
“No. nothing like that. You are the sole heir with specific requests on behalf of your mother and Seraphina. There are notes to set up a trust to keep the Castilles from receiving anything.”
“Of course,” I muttered. Family had boundaries.
“Is it the off-shore accounts?”
He sighed. “I think I should start with these.” He shoved a file across the desk. I opened the top flap.
“What the hell is this?” I saw the ledgers. The numbers. The property listings. “This is the warehouse district. And the distillery.” I glared at Paul.
“There are more.” He handed me a second file thicker than the first.
I shook my head. “I don’t understand. There are second mortgages. Third mortgages. Losses. On every single fucking property.” I skimmed the notes. “What organization is this? Who does my dad owe this money to?” I gulped the bourbon, trying to decide what was fact or fiction. “Is this a real company?”
Paul crossed his leg over his knee. “It’s very real.”
“Carpe Noctem, LLC?” I closed my eyes as the pain of a knife sliding between my ribs might feel. “It’s not possible. It can’t be.” I shook my head.
“It’s Kennedy Martin. You should know she has notes like this all over town. She owns New Orleans now.”
“Kennedy? The girl I dated?”
“She studied furiously under her father before his passing,” Paul explained. “He taught her his own techniques. They’ve worked for her.”
“What the actual fuck, Paul?”
“She’s fair. Respected. But she’s not backing down or going away. She’s made a mark here. Most of the organizations like doing business with her.”
“Why?” I was fucking dumbfounded.
He shrugged. “A pretty face, but a lethal business mind. It has its draws.”
“What do I do? How to get the properties back? I want the distillery.
”
“You’d have to exceed your projected profits for the next three quarters. She already takes a hefty share of all the revenue.”
I ran my hands through my hair. “How did my father allow this to happen? He never mentioned one damn word to me about this.”
Paul expected the questions. He was the only one who knew. “He tried to expand in shipping to beat out Lucien Martin. He overspent. He didn’t know the market well enough. When things floundered, Kennedy set up a meeting and offered to bail Raphael out.”
I blinked. “And he accepted her offer?”
“He did. And more than once. It’s been going on for three years. She became his bank. It’s all here in the files. She has a hold on almost everything in the Corban Organization.”
“Fuck,” I muttered, refilling my glass.
Paul cleared his throat. “But there is one corner of the business she doesn’t own.”
“What is it?”
“Well, Seraphina and Brandon came to your father a few months ago. One of Seraphina’s friends wanted a financial backer to start her company. Your father offered to fund it a hundred percent. He is the sole investor.”
“Oh shit. Tell me it’s not a bridal shop.”
“It’s not.” Paul unclipped his leather binder and retrieved a file. “It’s a small tech company.”
I felt the pit in my stomach rise to my throat. What was my dad doing in tech?
“This is what I have? A tech company?”
“You still have all the other properties, but you no longer own a majority in any of them. Kennedy Martin does.”
“Stop saying her name.” I waved my hand in the air.
“Well, most people do call her queen of the Crescent City.”
I stared at him. “I didn’t need that.”
“Sorry. It’s been a long few days.”
“Why don’t you go home. I’ll read these and we’ll meet again after the funeral service.”
“Yes, sir.” Paul rose to his feet.
I was about to correct him. My father was the sir. But he was gone. I was the head of the Corbans. “Good night, Paul. Thank you.”
“I’ll see you at the church in the morning.”
I leaned into the chair, prepared for a moment alone when my mother walked into the study.
“You’re done with your meeting.”
I looked up from the statement on the tech company. “Yes.”
She looked happier. Lighter. She carried a glass of wine with her. “Your father would be pleased to see you sitting there.” It wasn’t sentimental the way she said it. Just a matter of observation.
“Maybe.” I kicked away from the desk and stood. “I thought you had gone to bed.”
“I changed my mind.” The glass dangled in her hand. I wondered how many she’d had. “It’s strange upstairs.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t thought about her sleeping in the room she shared with my father. “Why don’t you move across the hall? We could have that taken care of for you tomorrow.”
She shuddered. “What? You think I’m afraid of your father’s ghost or something?”
I eyed her. My mother, Felicia Corban, an anomaly to all mothers. Graceful and beautiful. But cold and unaffectionate where her children were concerned. Her moods were hard to read. Her thoughts even harder.
“I have no idea. It would be understandable.”
“We haven’t slept together in years.” She sank onto the small loveseat. “We haven’t shared a bed, much less a room. Your father’s ghost can try to haunt me all the fuck he wants.”
She was drunk. I had to listen closely for the way she began to slur the end of her words.
“Mother, why don’t I get one of the maids to help you to your room?” I realized I didn’t know where that was. I didn’t know shit about my family. My parents hadn’t shared a room in years? What the fuck? It was bombshell after bombshell tonight. I didn’t want to know more. I couldn’t.
Maybe the light in all of this was Seraphina. She and Brandon were expecting a baby. They had their own house now and were out from under the Castilles’ roof. She was the only sane one left.
“Did Paul tell you about her?” she carried on.
“About who?”
“You know who,” she hissed. “That whore you used to follow around with puppy dog eyes.”
I grimaced. “Kennedy.”
“Yes.” Her expression changed. Her smile curled like Maleficient’s would. “She’s the queen now. Taking things. Ruling them. Spitting in the faces of good families. Our families. Our people, Knight.”
“I heard.” I didn’t want to acknowledge much when my mother was like this.
“But she’s beautiful. That’s what they say. So gorgeous.” Her words ran together from the wine. “They just want to fuck her.”
“Okay. I need to get you upstairs,” I cut her off. There was a button on the desk that would ring for one of the house managers. I pressed it, counting the seconds until someone carted her out of here.
“You still can’t have her.” Her finger extended in my direction. “You can never her.”
“And why is that?” I took the bait.
“She doesn’t think you’re good enough for her.” My mother shrugged when one of the new servants entered. “Are you, Knight? Are you good enough for the queen? Do you ask yourself that? Is that what you’re wondering?”
I shook my head. “Good night. I’ll see you at breakfast.”
This was a damn nightmare. A family saga torn from a Greek tragedy.
“Good night.” She held onto the man’s arm and I was glad when I couldn’t hear her voice any longer.
I took my glass and wandered the grounds of the compound. It was aimless, pointless walking. From outside, things seemed the same as my last visit home. That had been for Seraphina’s wedding. The lawn was manicured. The fountains churned. The hedges were in neat rows. It appeared as if nothing had changed. I climbed the stairs to the pool deck. I stared at my reflection in the pool.
I couldn’t admit it to anyone. I couldn’t utter the words. Or let them see the cracks. Fuck. I wanted to jump in the deep end. Stay under a little too long. Hide under the diving board. Let pain consume my body. Make my lungs burn. My muscles ache. Anything, but to feel what I felt. I didn’t want to swim or float. I couldn’t keep treading water like this.
I crouched next to the water, skimming the top with my palm.
I walked back into the house and laid out my suit for my father’s funeral.
18
Kennedy
It had been a week since Raphael’s funeral. In that time, it felt as if another five years had passed. The door opened and I stepped into the heat. My high heel landing on a pile of crushed gravel. The air conditioning in the car hummed.
“Ms. Martin, we weren’t expecting you.” The foreman on the high-rise project gripped the blueprints under his arm.
Kimble guided me to the makeshift table where the crew gathered to go over the plans. The bobcats and forklifts made it almost impossible to hear anything they had said before they realized I had snuck up behind them.
I smiled. “Hi, boys. Just checking in on your progress.”
Harry Sallow wiped the sweat from his brow. He was the construction manager. “We’re making headway.”
“Good. Would anyone like to show me around?”
“I can, if you’d like,” he volunteered.
“Yes. I would like to see what you’ve done since my last visit.”
The shell of the building was constructed. If anyone hadn’t noticed the tallest building in New Orleans by now, they weren’t paying attention. The hotel was unlike anything the city had seen before. It was dominant. Classy. A beacon for the city.
“Right this way.” Harry stepped over a block of concrete and handed me a hard hat.
“Thank you.” It fit awkwardly on my head. I didn’t have time to adjust the strap before he had jogged into the front entrance.
“As you can s
ee, we have the wiring in for both the lobby and the casino.” I approved of the work so far.
He walked around the lower level, pointing out prominent features. “The two restaurants are this way.” I followed him through metal barricades and caution tape. “See? It’s coming along.”
“No electrical work here, though?”
“Not yet.”
“Hmm.” I glanced at the ceiling. It was monstrous. A giant chandelier was going to hang in this exact spot. “Thank you, Harry.”
“Sure thing, Ms. Martin.”
We returned to the others, waiting outside of the construction zone.
“We could go in the trailer if you’d like, Ms. Martin,” one of the crewmen offered.
“That’s okay.” I had been in the trailer before. It smelled like stale sweat, old coffee, and tobacco. “Thank you, boys.”
I climbed into the car and Kimble drove me back to the office.
“I need to see Renee this afternoon,” I announced from the back of the SUV. I scrolled through my phone. I didn’t have an update from our state lobbyist on the casino rights.
“I’ll make sure she’s in your office today.”
“Thank you.”
I stopped when an email popped up on the screen. There was a congressional meeting tonight on Louisiana’s gambling statues, specifically the Crescent Towers proposal.
“I can’t wait until this afternoon. Take me straight to her office. Now.” I had a bad feeling about the alert. We had been working with local and state officials for months.
I sent my attorney a quick text. I hoped she was prepared to give me answers.
“But you can fix this,” I pressed. It wasn’t often I made office visits. I did the summoning. A lesson my father taught me. Make people come to you.
Renee hesitated. “I’m working on it. I’m as surprised as you are about the special committee hearing tonight.”