Hotel Noir: Kiss Me to Survive novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Midnight Kiss
Fenella sees the crime boss's son shoot a man, runs into the hotel lobby and kisses the night manager; he calls her kept, and the killers stop at the door.
The Hotel Noir took its linen at eleven-thirty at night, and I was the only driver who didn't mind.
I pushed my cart down the service corridor, past the laundry chute and the dead-end door marked Storage.
The corridor smelled of bleach and old carpet.
It was the quietest place in the whole city, and I liked that.
Then I heard a man say, "Please, Mr. Lasker, the numbers were never meant for anyone."
I stopped the cart.
At the far end, under a bad yellow bulb, a gray-haired man in a rumpled suit stood with his back to the wall.
He held a small black notebook against his chest.
In front of him stood a man in a pale cream suit, tall, blond, with a gold ring on his hand.
He smiled the way people smile at a waiter who spilled something.
"You counted my father's money," the blond man said. "You were told to count it and keep quiet."
"I kept quiet for ten years."
"Then you can keep quiet a little longer."
He lifted a gun and fired.
It was louder than anything I had ever heard.
The gray-haired man folded against the wall and the notebook skidded across the carpet toward my cart.
It stopped against my shoe.
I looked at it.
Then I looked up, and the man in the cream suit was looking at me.
He didn't look surprised.
He looked pleased.
"Don't," he said, and he walked toward me, slowly, as if he had all night.
I did not decide to move.
I grabbed the notebook, shoved it into my coat, and shoved the cart at him as hard as I could.
It hit his knees, and he swore.
I ran.
The corridor door led to the lobby, and I hit it with both hands.
The Hotel Noir lobby was black marble and brass, with a clock as tall as a man standing over the front desk.
The clock said eleven fifty-five.
A few late guests sat in leather chairs.
Behind the desk stood a tall man in a black suit and white gloves, writing in a ledger.
Two porters stood at the lift.
A maid with a gray bun stood by the flowers with her arms full of towels.
Every one of them looked up at me, and nobody said a word.
Behind me the corridor door banged open.
I heard shoes.
Two sets, then three.
I had no plan, and I had about four seconds.
The man at the desk had a scar through his left eyebrow and gray eyes that did not blink.
He didn't look like someone who would help a stranger.
He looked like someone everyone else in the room was careful around.
That was enough.
I crossed the marble, grabbed his lapels, and kissed him.
His mouth was warm and his whole body went still.
For one breath he didn't move at all.
Then his gloved hand came up to the back of my neck.
He kissed me back, slow and sure.
The lobby went completely quiet.
Then he lifted his head, and I felt his voice more than I heard it.
"Kept," he said.
He said it to the room, and it carried.
The two porters straightened.
The maid with the towels set them down and folded her hands.
Behind me the shoes stopped.
I turned around.
The blond man stood at the corridor door with two men in dark coats behind him.
His smile was gone.
One of the men took a step onto the marble, and the woman by the flowers said, very softly, "Sir."
That one word stopped him.
"She's kept," the man in white gloves said.
"Say it again to my face, Enoch," the blond man said.
"She's kept, Lucan. The Truce holds on this floor until midnight tomorrow."
His arm was still around my waist, and I felt how calm he was.
Lucan Lasker looked at me for a long moment.
Then he looked at the clock.
"Midnight tomorrow," he said. "She'd better be kissed again, and I'd better see it."
He turned his gold ring on his finger.
"After that, Enoch, she's mine."
He and his men walked out through the revolving door into the rain.
My knees went, and Enoch's arm kept me up.
I pulled away from him and hissed, "What did you just do to me?"
"Saved your life," he said. He looked down at my coat, where the corner of a small black notebook showed at the pocket.
"Welcome to the Hotel Noir, Miss," he said. "You're not leaving."
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