Page 29 of Blacklist

“Do you have dinner plans?” He thinks I’m extending an olive branch. He’s too greedy to pause and investigate. He’ll have it in his grubby little hands before he realizes that it’s poison ivy. That’s exactly what I want.

“Tonight?”

“Unless it’s too last minute,” Malcolm says. I imagine him squirming in his Aeron chair, loosening his tie, checking his own calendar.

I enjoy it, but playing coy is a woman’s game. “I was going to grab Hennie’s and head back to the Eaton.”

“I think we can do better than that,” he says.

I seriously doubt he can beat the best hot chicken in Nashville—one of the few reasons I’m actually enjoy being back in the city. But rich people love their pageantry and place settings. Real people prefer good eats. “When?”

“Say seven o’clock at the house?”

“I’ll be there.” I cut off the call and look down to the city below the window. Nashville stretches before me like an old friend. From here I can see all of Broadway from the Art Deco lines of the Frist down to the bars. There’s hardly any foot traffic at this hour as the street rests up for another raucous night. When the moon takes over for the day shift, the world below will be a neon blur of life and music. There’s a lot to love about the city. It’s not New York, but in some ways it’s more of a home than I ever knew there. But I’m not looking for a home, I’m looking for a kingdom. I’m going to be the law of this land. This is the perfect castle in the sky.

Ms. Summers drops her lipstick back into her purse when I return to the kitchen. “Would you like me to show you the joint amenities”—

“I’ll take it,” I cut her off. I’d known I would before I scheduled the showing, but I’m not one to pay commission without making an agent work for it.

“I will start all the paperwork and I assume you have financing in place?” She chews on her lipstick as if she’s been burned at this point before.

I’m about to make her year. “It’s a cash purchase,” I correct her, checking my watch to discover this took longer than expected. “Text me when you’re ready for me to sign. I need to get to an appointment.”

She blinks rapidly like she’s about to pass out. Her fingers search for the printed listing she left on the counter when we arrived. When they find it, she holds it out to me. “It’s three million dollars.”

“I can read,” I say coolly. It’s not the first time a person has assumed my bank balance based on my age.

“Who are you?” she asks before quickly recovering her wits, “I mean, what do you do? I’ll need to know where the funds come from for the paperwork.”

She needs to know because she’s dying to find out how a 24 year-old has three million to drop on a penthouse.

“I manage bank portfolios, personal assets,” I tell her. She doesn’t need to know more than that.

And her first question? Who I am? That’s something I don’t show anyone.

* * *

The Barrelhouse is empty at ten o’clock in the morning. The lights are off, chairs still on the tables, and its famous stage empty. The glow from a large neon music note casts a blue hue over the dark space. Its hum fills the quiet with unmistakable tension as though any moment the silence will shatter and spill over with life. At night, it transforms into a blues club that’s equal parts rowdy and respectable. Everyone—and I mean everyone—has played the Barrelhouse. It’s the kind of place where Mick Jagger might stop in and jump on stage for a set unannounced. The place is a landmark in the music industry, and the first club where I ever heard the blues played when I arrived in Tennessee five years ago. Then I was a kid being dragged to hear a musician I’d never heard of in a place I didn’t know existed. Today, its new owner is an old friend.

A man bustles from the back kitchen, a bottle of whiskey in each hand. Even here in his own club, Jack Archer moves like the military—efficient but aware of the entire room, his broad shoulders squared and ready for anything. That’s probably why he instantly spots me, a wide grin splitting his brown face, and holds up a bottle. “Took you long enough. The hard stuff?”

He knows better than to ask. I shake my head anyway. “It’s not even noon.”

“Luca will be disappointed,” he says. “Coffee it is.”

“Luca should have gotten here first.”

“I did,” Luca says sourly behind me.

Turning, I find Luca DeAngelo sitting in the shadows. Jack might move like a lion surveying his kingdom for potential threats, but Luca sticks to the dark corners. He waits in the shadows for the right moment to strike. Individually, we all have our strengths. Now that we’re all here together, we can relax. The tension fades as we drop our collective guard. Jack retrieves ceramic mugs from below the bar and Luca stretches his arms overhead before lounging back lazily in his chair.

“I told you he wouldn’t drink with us,” Luca says. “This isn’t Cairo, after all.”

“Cairo was a different story.” I grab a chair and spin it around. Straddling it, I drop into the chair and wish he hadn’t brought that particular mistake up.

“Most people don’t start their day with a shot of West,” Jack defends me as he pulls a shot from the La Marzocco. The espresso machine is a concession to the number of people who need coffee when a long night of drinking turns into a mad rush home as dawn breaks. “Still take it black?”

I nod.