Absently, I stroked the necklace, hanging around my neck. I didn’t know how many times a day I touched it. I knew that when I did, I felt an easiness, as if it was a fresh wound all over again. It was the only connection to Knight I had. It was proof that there was something tangible between us. Although, the more days that passed between the last time I saw him, I began to doubt myself. Doubt the memories. Sometimes at night I would turn the pearl over and read the inscription Knight had chosen: carpe noctem.
When I stepped inside the hotel, I worried the landmark would be a more permanent reminder. One that highlighted the pain. The deep fracture created by our fathers. The mistakes and the sins we had committed. My decision to bid on the building. It was our ultimate undoing, one I was complicit in.
“Do you know how to access the tunnels?” I asked Kimble. I wanted a minute alone. I felt his eyes on me constantly. I needed a second to breathe.
“The only way down there is by elevator,” he replied.
My fingers curled by my sides. “Right, do you know if that elevator is operating?”
“I’m familiar with the elevator system.”
“That’s something,” I snapped. I closed my eyes. It was becoming easier to bark orders. “I’m sorry. Can you make sure we can walk the tunnels?”
He nodded, unfazed by my demeanor. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back after I check out the settings in the electrical room. I think I can get it running.”
“Thank you.”
I knew there was no other way to the lowest level of the hotel. Not a safe one at least. I waited while Kimble fumbled with the controls down the hall.
I glanced up at the chandelier overhead. The crystals were caked in dust. They barely glimmered. I rubbed my shoulders. The hotel felt haunted, but I knew it wasn’t a ghost that made me shiver. It was the chill of what this meant. My training. My acceptance of this life. Becoming my father’s protégé. Turning down Knight.
I trembled. It was too late to go back now. He was gone. He had become untouchable. As haunting as this damn hotel. There was no way for him to know I couldn’t sleep. I drank at Marguerite’s during the day. Huge goblets of red wine. I couldn’t tell him how big my regret was for not taking the first plane ticket he offered to Bali. I should have accepted all the tickets. Did it really matter if we ended up in Scottsdale, Arizona or Portland, Maine? We would have been together. We could have left this behind us.
I couldn’t rewrite history, but I learned there was something I could do. Something that pushed Knight into the farthest corner of my mind, only released when I felt the pearl between my fingers. I could work. I could study under the mob boss. I could take advantage of my front-row access. Soak up his knowledge. Charm his contacts. I could become the smartest, richest, and most admired woman in New Orleans.
I would be the one to make the acquisition of the Vieux Carre worth the suffering it caused Knight.
“Okay. I’ve got the lower level access ready,” Kimble announced. “We can go down to the tunnels now.” I jumped when he walked briskly from the dark hallway. I had lingered too long thinking about Knight.
“Great.” I smiled.
I brushed over the pendant once more. Maybe one day Knight would know what I had done. Maybe one day he would know it was for him. Maybe there was a way we could heal our families. Make the changes no one else could. Modernize the organizations. Right now, he had to pay his penance and I had to pay mine.
It was hard to imagine a time when I’d ever be able to tell him. I knew he had flown home for Seraphina’s wedding. His picture was posted everywhere. I stopped looking at my phone for a week, just to avoid seeing his eyes in someone else’s snap story. It didn’t keep me from waiting for him to call, but I never heard from him. Not a text. Not a DM. Nothing. Neither my father nor I received an invite to the ceremony or the reception. It was obvious that the Corbans were sending a clear signal. There was no way it could be muddled. We weren’t welcome. The damage was done.
I didn’t sleep the night of the wedding. I thought Knight would show up in a red sports car and try to convince me to leave one more time. That didn’t happen either.
It was over. He was gone.
The elevator door closed, and I descended beneath the street. Absorbed by the darkness and the cold. Shielded from the sunlight and plunged into the damp earthy scent of the tunnels. For now, I knew this was where I belonged.