Page 91 of The Final Cut

There is a difference.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

DEACON

The catering van smells like coffee, grease, and old sugar.

Sainte Aurelia’s staff uses it for foundation events when wealthy women want charity to arrive with petit fours and polished silver. Tonight, the back holds two rolling racks of covered trays, three white jackets, a box of folded linens, and enough empty space for Nash Blackwood to stand in silence while deciding whether he trusts me enough to keep breathing at his back.

He hasn’t asked that question out loud. He won’t.

He sits on the bench opposite me with one hand braced near his knee and a pistol under his jacket. Another rests in the small of his back. A knife is tucked in his boot. The man dresses like a banker but prepares like a siege.

Rain taps lightly against the roof as the van turns off Magazine and slows near the service lane behind the old convent. Sainte Aurelia rises beyond the windshield in pale stone and dark iron, its arched windows lit from within, its courtyard trimmed and waiting for donors who prefer their benevolence served under chandeliers. The building used to house nuns and orphaned girls. Now it hosts foundation luncheons, private auctions, and social committees that raise money while never asking too closely where money comes from in the first place.

Isabel likes that.

Old walls. Public virtue. Women trained to lower their eyes.

I hate this place.

The driver, one of Blackwood’s men, parks near the service entrance without asking for instruction. He already has his apron on, head down, shoulders rounded into harmlessness. Good man. Better actor than most.

Nash checks his comm. “Ever.”

“Clean on exterior for now,” Ever says in my ear. “I have eyes on service lane, main courtyard, and south garden. Interior is spotty. That old stone is chewing the signal in the chapel wing.”

“That was anticipated,” I say.

Ever’s silence tells me he dislikes expected problems as much as surprises.

“Reva?” Nash asks.

“Watching the feeds with me. Pissy. Present. Still in the cabin.”

That last part carries more relief than Ever would ever allow into clearer words.

Nash’s gaze flicks to mine. We both hear what he does not say. Reva stayed.

I told her I would get Delia.

Promises made to Reva Hart don’t feel like words after they leave the mouth. They feel like brands.

The side door opens before Nash reaches for the handle.

Sabine Martel stands outside in a black security coat, hair pinned tightly at her nape, radio at her shoulder, face set into the blank competence La Rosa rewards. Her eyes move once over Nash, then me, then the catering racks behind us.

“You are late,” she says.

“We are early,” Nash answers.

“For the event.” Her gaze cuts to me. “Late for her.”

That does something unpleasant under my ribs.

I step down from the van. “Where is she?”

“In a private chapel off the east corridor. Isabel took her there two hours ago.”