4

The walk was quite scenic, but I was glad when it ended. It was as if I’d just stepped out of the shower all over again as a mixture of sweat and humidity clung to me.

We reached the club and I looked up at the exterior. It was on a busy street, but nothing called for customers to come in. The sight before me was quite unwelcoming, It was as neglected as Francois’s home, with the paintwork chipped and peeling. Decay was evident even here. The Ricard rule had clearly been on its knees for a long time before Nic made his move. “We need to close it,” I said, certainty tinging in my tone. “For a proper renovation job, we need the building quiet and empty.” I couldn’t half-ass this. It needed to be done correctly.

Kyle nodded without argument and slipped his phone from his pocket before wandering away to have his conversation. After he slid his phone away again, he returned to me. “Contractors are on their way.”

“Do you have anything else you’d rather be doing? Or that you need to do?” I all but made a shooing motion with my hand. It wasn’t that I wasn’t grateful for his help and ability to handle the situation, but…Hell, I wasn’t fucking grateful at all. I wanted to do it myself, without any reliance on anyone else at all.

I didn’t need Kyle liaising with contractors on my behalf. They needed to know I was the new prince in town and that I’d be the one making the decisions.

He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment, his eyes narrowed. Then he nodded. “Yeah, I try to check in with Jason and Temple fairly regularly. See what the general feeling is among the New Orleans vampires and the wolf shifters. Maybe I’ll go do that.”

I nodded too. “Let me know what they say.”

Kyle was already gone before I even finished my statement, his silent feet carrying him down the busy street and away from me. I barely saw him as he wove himself into the crowd then disappeared from view entirely.

I drew a deep breath and looked over the front of The Neutral Zone again. The Z hung crooked, almost tempting me to reach up and rip it off entirely, but I could discuss all the changes with the contractors when they arrived.

“SO, A MONTH, THEN?” Shit, that was a long time. I’d wanted to steam in here and fix things so fast that Nic would wonder why he hadn’t sent me earlier.

The man nodded and made another note in his book. “Yeah, I’d say so.”

If anyone else had used that tone, I wouldn’t have believed him, but I recognized these guys as the ones Ben always contracted. Their work was impeccable, and I’d never known them to run late on any of the projects he’d managed for Nic.

I appreciated Ben sending them my way—it gave me an instant advantage

in impressing my brother, if nothing else. Even if my ultimate plans would be delayed by a month.

“And you said you’d begin tomorrow?” I confirmed.

The foreman opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, the front door burst open, and a young brunette woman rushed inside.

I stepped forward to tell her we were closed, but she narrowed her eyes and settled her hands onto her hips, the fire in her gaze stealing my words.

“What the hell is going on?” she spat. She glanced around. “Fuck. Where are all the customers?”

Wild brown curls and ringlets cascaded over her shoulders and down her back like she was some sort of gorgon come to turn me to stone under her gaze—and I had no doubt she could harden at least one part of me to stone very quickly. Her deep brown eyes were like pools of liquid chocolate. Maybe I’d drown in them.

Her posture emphasized her willowy figure, but she looked strong as she stood before me, like she had a steel inner core and wouldn’t be intimidated by anyone. Maybe that was just a byproduct of living in New Orleans.

Still, something about her made me want to play, to tease, to make her even more fucking angry to see more sparks.

Whatever happened, I had to be careful; this woman could be my end.

My beginning and my end, and I didn’t want it any other way.

I stepped closer to her. I probably couldn’t get close enough. The desire to hold her to me, to feel her body pressed against mine, crashed over me, and I swallowed. She was a whirlwind, fierce and dangerous… So dangerous. Could I control this whirlwind? Hell, could I control my own damn self around her?

For fuck’s sake, I needed to. It shouldn’t even have been a question.

Except she was determined and thrilling… things I craved as mine.

But I’d been down this dark road before.

“And who…who are you?” Even with halting speech, I sounded imperious and snooty, and the fire in her eyes blazed harder.

“I’m the singer. Booked to sing here today. Who the hell are you?”

Ah, a question I could do something with. I reached into my back pocket and extracted a business card.

“Sebastian Dupont,” I said. “Representative of the new king of New

Orleans, and I’m now the owner here.”

Her mouth fell open. “You own The Neutral Zone now?”

I grimaced. “It’s called Allécher now.” I wanted something that both spoke to our French roots and followed Nic’s conventions for naming his businesses. Plus, I wanted to give customers a heads-up about the seduction and enticement they could find within these doors.

Allécher…It meant to tempt or to entice.

The woman in front of me wrinkled her nose. “You gave it some new fancy French name?” She shook her head. “Good luck with that being enough to improve the place.”

I chuckled. “That won’t be the only change now that Francois’s gone.”

“He’s gone?” Her words were a whisper, and she lifted her hand so her fingers clawed briefly at the base of her throat before she seemed to make a conscious effort to lower her hand to her side again. “Francois is dead? What about Émile?”

I shook my head. “Francois isn’t dead, but he’s no longer in power. Émile, however, is very dead indeed.”

She closed her eyes briefly and blew out a sigh then seemed to recover herself and focused back on me, her gaze steely again.

“Who are you?” I shouldn’t have cared. She was just a club singer— someone Francois paid to entertain his customers.

There was no guarantee she was even any good. But I held my hand out anyway, wanting to feel hers clasped in mine.

She hesitated, but I willed her forward, almost holding my breath as I waited to touch her skin.

“Kayla McKenna,” she murmured as I finally curved my fingers over the back of her hand.

“Kayla.” I smiled. I couldn’t help it. Her name brought me inexplicable joy even as she continued to view me with suspicion and actual animosity.