The Nightingale Trilogy: An Alpha Billionaire Romantic Suspense

by Cynthia Dane

  “Damn straight. It’s amazing to see how things have changed around here in the past ten years alone. I remember when the Pearl was… well, not as nice as it is now.”

  They dropped that part of the conversation after that. Nala was content to finish her drink and leave, but then…

  “All right. Let’s talk about him. Xavier Crow, the man who owns half of Portland and developed half the medicine in your bathroom cabinet.” The younger man sounded sarcastic enough to annoy even Nala, who usually loved a healthy dose of sarcasm. “He loves to take over half. Why is that? Is he only half good at what he does?”

  The older man smiled again. “You really don’t like him, huh?”

  “What’s to like about him? He’s a narcissistic megalomaniac with a God complex. What is there to like about him?”

  “Yet you’re here.”

  “Well, it’s like you said. I need to be mindful of my business pursuits.” The younger man snorted into his glass. “Don’t think we’ll see Crow around here for me to butter up, huh?”

  “I hear he comes here a lot, but nobody ever actually sees him. Sounds like shit to me. If I were him, I’d build an exclusive club to hang out in. Or stay home. He’s got a beautiful place up in the West Hills. Was there for a soiree a few months ago. The man knows how to throw a party to please the people.”

  “I bet.” The younger man turned his head away. “Thanks for having a drink with me, by the way. I know you didn’t have to.”

  “And give up a chance to relax with my favorite young entrepreneur? Please, Vince, I’ll pick you over my wife at home any day.”

  “Around this town someone might take that statement the wrong way…”

  “Oh, I know.”

  They switched to talk about the older man’s wife and kids, thereby losing Nala’s interest. She slammed down her drink, feeling the liquor warm her body and help her relax. Not that she wanted to relax. What else was there to do? These strangers all but confirmed that she would not see Xavier Crow around there anytime soon. Her best bet was to do her reconnaissance elsewhere. Build up some evidence that the man had something to do with her sister’s death…

  Who was she fucking kidding? No one. The more the weeks went by and nothing happened, Nala considered moving elsewhere. Maybe not back to Carson City, but somewhere it didn’t rain nine months out of the year and the sun could shine on her pale skin.

  “Was everything to your… liking?”

  It was the hostess in flannel and fishnets. At first Nala thought she was being spoken to, but when she craned her head around she saw a couple emerging from a back room. The man, also dressed in a pristine suit, had a lovely young woman on his arm. A woman wearing nothing more than a slinky red dress and a black mask on her face.

  The way she curled her hand around the man’s arm and batted her eyelashes at him said she worshipped the ground he walked on. Gag. Yet Nala couldn’t look away. There was contentment to the woman’s demeanor that Nala envied. She wished she could look so happy about her life. So… in love.

  Ha. Love. Nala had a boyfriend once. Before Tasha died and took over her sister’s psyche. That man? Nala thought she loved him. Then she realized that what she thought was love was merely a forced emotion that didn’t mean anything at all. I’m not suited for those sorts of emotions. She both envied women in love and feared for their souls. Maybe they knew something she didn’t.

  “Everything was wonderful,” the man said with a silky voice. “Starling and I will be returning soon, for sure.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, sir. If there’s anything I can do for you in the future, please do not hesitate to ask.”

  “Oh, if you could go down and tell Mr. Crow that I’ll be calling him about business tomorrow, that would be helpful. We were so… distracted… that I completely forgot.”

  The hostess chuckled. “I will do so. He will want his ten o’clock Chardonnay anyway.”

  The couple left. Although the men beside Nala continued to speak of mundane matters, she ignored them, her mind focused on only one thing.

  Crow is here. He’s behind that door over there. I could go find him right now.

  Find him and do what? Ha! That didn’t matter. Nala was young – and dumb. She may have more life experience and be more jaded than the average twenty-one-year-old, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel that rush of sheer invincibility that told her to take over the world with her mind and body alone. If she owned a car, she would be exposed to bouts of reckless driving for the sake of it. If she were a partier, she would be in and out of hospitals with alcohol poisoning. If she had casual sex… well, that was neither here nor there. Point was, Nala had her stupidity vices like anyone else her age. Vices pinpointed on vengeance.

  In her mind, she entertained images of stabbing Xavier Crow right in the heart. Bashing his head in with a club. Lighting his shoelaces on fire and watching him burn. When she had these fantasies, her blood rushed, adrenaline pumping in her veins like gas pumped into semis. Propane tanks. Exploding. Fire and brimstone raining upon the man who killed her sister and knew how many other people because… well, she still didn’t know the details. All Nala had was her gut, and her gut told her to find Crow. The rest would fall into place after that.

  Maybe I’ll play the plucky young and driven gal who wants a job. Infiltrate his company. Lure him out of his shell. I’ll… She stood up, stumbling from the whole glass of rum and Coke. She wasn’t drunk, but she was definitely tipsy. I’ll fall down.

  There was one problem. The door said “Private,” and it was not a large room full of shadows to lurk in. If Nala got up and tried to go in, someone would certainly spot her. This wasn’t a dive bar where the worst that happened was getting a stern talking to. If Xavier Crow, resident billionaire who owned half of a major city, lurked behind that door, then… well, Nala could probably kiss her life in Portland goodbye.

  I won’t know if I don’t try.

  Maybe it was the alcohol that made her so brazen. If she were 100% sober, she may go home and regroup with her new information, but she wanted to find out now. So she went to a table by the door, stocked with water in a dispenser and many small glasses. She picked one up and slowly filled it with water, biding her time until nobody looked at her. The place wasn’t busy. That meant she didn’t have to wait long, but it also meant she was so conspicuous that a blind man could spot her.

  The bartender was washing glasses at the far end of the bar. The hostess played coy with a single man in another corner. The two men in suits at the bar were getting up and shaking hands, paying her no mind. Now was the time to go for it. She could regret it later.

  There were many things she could regret later.

  Nala slipped her hand over the handle and found it deceptively unlocked. It opened, slowly, shadows filtering into the lounge. Good. It was a hallway. An unlit hallway she could fumble around in. Good thing I wore a black dress and have dark hair. While everyone in the lounge was still distracted, Nala ducked behind the door and shut it behind her.

  Regret.

  She waited. Assessed her environment. Listened for someone coming after her. Nothing happened. The hall was boring. More shadows. A long, long tunnel with a staircase at the bottom. Nala felt a lock on the handle behind her and wondered if that man and his little Starling were supposed to turn it on their way out.

  She stepped forward, slowly. Each step was heavier, as if every one of those steps attached five more pounds of weight to her flats. This is wrong. She was trespassing now. One thing to go to Crow’s lounge and order a drink. This? This wasn’t legal.

  Nala didn’t care.

  Although she didn’t care, that didn’t mean she wasn’t aware of her heart fluttering in her chest and her forehead sweating. Crow was somewhere around here. Probably at the bottom of those stairs. Sure enough, as she advanced down the hallway as if she trudged through molasses, she began to hear the sounds of a party. Laughter. Shouts of glee. Applause. Any private party Xavier Crow thr
ew was probably full of the Pacific elite. She didn’t want to know them.

  “Thatta girl!” she vaguely heard. Whispers in the constricted air. “Enjoy that!”

  Smack.

  Smack.

  Nala didn’t know what she heard, but people were having a good time. A better time than her, anyway. Something about that genuinely irked her. Why do they get to have a good time while I…

  She didn’t see the first step. Not in those shadows. So when her foot took an unceremonious step over the edge without her permission, Nala suddenly felt her beating heart surge into her throat and threaten to jump out of her mouth, bounce on the steps, and land dead at the bottom.

  Or maybe that was her.

  “Ah!” She was falling. Fell. Fallen. Her body lurched forward, arms shooting out to catch her fall, for all the good it would do her. I’m going to die. Or break my arms. Amazing what people thought when they were in the middle of falling down some stairs. It almost felt commonplace. Like it was naturally something one did every day. Brush teeth. Check mail. Fall down stairs. Okay, ready for bed! Nala wanted to berate herself, but she was sort of busy falling down some forbidden stairs.

  Before her hands could catch on a narrow step and take the rest of her body with her, however, something miraculous happened. Or at least it felt miraculous when it happened. When one was in the midst of falling down some stairs, having a strong hand snatch out and grab said faller was definitely miraculous at the time.

  “Oh my God!” Nala stared into the dark maw of the staircase, frozen in time and space. A man’s hand was around her wrist, slowly pulling her back up to the top of the stairs as her feet tripped again and her heart gradually slowed down. “Oh my God, thank y…”

  She whipped her head around and looked straight into the soft countenance of the younger man from the bar.

  For some reason, she wanted to vomit.

  Chapter 2

  “You should be careful,” the man said, his voice steady. “It’s dark here.”

  Nala stepped onto the top landing, her wrist still in the man’s grip. “I’m sorry…” What was she apologizing for? For trespassing? For needing saving? Both? She wanted to cry. Her bones were saved, but she was also in a shitton of trouble! “I don’t know what else to say.”

  Finally, the man released her, holding his hand up so he could yet again readjust his cufflinks as if it were a nervous tic. Perhaps beneath that cool exterior was a man as neurotic as everyone else.

  The man stepped back. “You could thank me.”

  Nala looked back up with a start. What in the… “Uh, thanks?”

  His reaction was… well, there was no reaction. Just a stoic look that said absolutely nothing at all. Oh, he was a good looking man. Even in those shadows Nala saw all the markings of a handsome specimen waiting for women to devour him. In another life, where she was both interested in such things and not busy sneaking around in the name of vengeance, she would be attracted to him. His demure, musky cologne did relax her, however. Not that she wanted it to.

  “You’re welcome.” Just as Nala thought the man would turn around and leave as mysteriously as he appeared, he said, “You’re not supposed to be back here.”

  Caught! Twice! “Er… I got lost?”

  By some divine intervention, the man’s face softened and he smiled, wanly. It would’ve been reassuring if he wasn’t so… standoffish. “I saw you in there,” he said, gesturing to the door Nala snuck through. “You were making sure the coast was clear before coming in. You’re not supposed to be here.”

  No matter how many times he reiterated that, it didn’t sink into Nala’s brain. She could be stubborn that way. “Please don’t tell on me,” she hissed, her fight or flight senses taking over. She couldn’t be caught and thrown out. Not like this. Not before she saw a glimpse of Xavier Crow resting on his laurels stained in blood. “I had to see him for myself.”

  The man cocked his head in curiosity, his hands disappearing into his trouser pockets. “See who? You’ve got me intrigued now.”

  Nala looked down the stairs. “Xavier Crow. I heard he’s in there.”

  They were silent. Music from both doors filtered into the hall. One was classical. The other was jazzy. Together they were noise. “What business do you have with Crow?” the man asked.

  Nala looked back to him and the impeccable hair on his head. “My business is none of your business.”

  Her voice, unlike his, was laced in anger. She didn’t mean to do it. She didn’t mean to betray her own cool exterior. How could it be avoided when images of her sister lying still and dead in her casket flooded her mind? I can remember that day. Standing there. Staring at Tasha’s lifeless face, surrounded by fresh daisies, her favorite flower. Tasha was dead. The flowers were dying. They died to be buried with her, long before their time was due to be over. The world – and nature – was cruel that way.

  Any sense of feeling, especially negative, was the wrong thing to use in this situation. Nala needed to be as lifeless as her dead sister. If she were going to be emotional, then fuck it, she needed to be giddy and stupid. “Oh, haha, I’m so stupid, L O L.” Yet she couldn’t fake that if she tried. Nala couldn’t act. She was a creature who only knew how to act on instinct, and right now her instincts weren’t giving her good advice at all.

  “Hm.” The man pulled his hands out of his pockets. “Perhaps it is my business. I’m going down to see Mr. Crow myself. Except I have an appointment. I doubt you do.”

  Nala was taken aback. She expected this type of attitude from this man, but nevertheless, she didn’t like being on the brunt end of it. “Well…”

  The man looked her up and down. Scoped her out. Checked her out. Nala crossed her arms over her modest chest and summoned the best death glare she had. If the man noticed, he didn’t let on, or at least wasn’t fazed.

  “I could get you in to see him.”

  Those words danced in Nala’s brain, but barely registered. It was like she heard them, but they were so preposterous, so improbable that she wouldn’t allow herself to hear them. See… him? “How so? You his friend or something?”

  “Like I said, I have an appointment.” The man looked at the door they came through. “Or I could go tell that nice, flirty bartender that I caught you back here where you don’t belong. I doubt you’d be able to see Mr. Crow at all after that.”

  “Blackmail, huh?”

  “Hardly. I’m giving you a fair choice.”

  “What do you want in return, Mister…”

  The man snorted. “Lane. Vincent Lane. Doubt you’ve ever heard of me.”

  “Should I have?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Good. Because I haven’t heard of you before.”

  “You’re caustic.”

  “And you’re creeping me out.” Nala shrugged. “I appreciate you saving my neck, quite literally, but I’m not sure if I’m interested.”

  “How badly do you want to see Xavier Crow? I don’t care what your business is with him. I’ll get you in. You only have to pretend you know me.”

  Pretend? This was sounding less than ideal. “I’m not a good actress.”

  “Then don’t tell him we met because you were sneaking down to see him. Don’t think of it as acting. Think of it as lying. Anyone can lie.”

  What a strange thing to say.

  “Hey, this might be your only chance to see Xavier Crow up close and personal. All I ask is that you don’t go in there as my guest and embarrass me.”

  Nala looked around the hall, as if a trap were about to be sprung and catch her in its grip. “I see,” she muttered. What was more important to her? Walking out of there unscathed, or accomplishing part of what she set out to do – namely, see the man who killed her sister?

  She didn’t know who this Vincent was, other than he wore expensive suits and cologne, but right now he was her only chance to not make the last few months in Portland a total wash.

  “All right,” she tried to say with c
onviction. “I’ll go with you. As your guest. In exchange for you doing this and not telling on me – and I guess for saving my bones – I’ll try not to humiliate you since that’s what you’re most worried about.”

  The corner of Vincent’s mouth twitched. “Should I be worried about something else?”

  Nala faced the staircase that tried to kill her. “Let’s do this before I lose my gumption.”

  She didn’t wait for Vincent to ask what she meant by that. Having to answer such a question wouldn’t put her in the best corner – and Nala was already in a shitty corner.

  “Well,” Vincent said after her, when she was already halfway down the stairs. “I should still probably lead. I’m the one he’s expecting, after all.”

  Nala stopped on a narrow step, but did not look over her shoulder as she listened to and felt him descend the stairs.

  Vincent passed her. When he was one step beneath her, he extended his arm and looked up at her. He did not look any friendlier.

  Nala raised her eyebrows.

  “Take my arm. Try to look sociable.”

  Hesitantly, Nala wrapped her hand beneath his elbow and wrapped her arm around his. Sheesh, he was strong beneath this suit. It almost threw Nala off her game, and she was not a woman who fell for a man’s charms – particularly when he wasn’t exuding charm to begin with!

  As they stepped down the staircase, side by side with Nala’s head held high, she wondered what the fuck she was doing. I met this man a minute ago when he was catching me on these stairs. She didn’t know him. Maybe he was lying. Maybe the moment they stepped through that bottom door he would do something sinister.

  But Nala couldn’t think that way. She relied on her instincts and gut feelings. Although her gut was currently occupied by a bevy of butterflies, she would listen to their vibrations. Go with him, they said. Your sister sends her regards.

  Could butterflies talk to the dead? In her stomach?

  If this was what Nala was thinking as she went on to an uncertain future, then what was Vincent thinking? That my ass is hot. She expected no less.