PITCH BLACK: A DARK MAFIA BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE

by Vi Carter

  My mother has changed and is waiting for me in the kitchen. She gives me a nod of approval as she scans me from my beige trousers all the way up to my gray polo neck jumper. My hair is neatly tied back. I stay still as she approaches me and pulls the silver chain so the cross isn’t hidden under my jumper.

  “Now, you look perfect.” She smiles, and I mirror the action.

  ***

  “Do you ever think of Aran?”

  The car swerves, and the oncoming traffic sits on their horns. My mother straightens the car up. “Why would you ask me that?” Her clipped words and reaction make more shame burn through me.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t know why I just asked you that.” I take a quick peek at my mother. Her red nails are wrapped around the steering wheel. That’s twice I’ve noticed her wearing red nail polish.

  “I think about him every day.”

  My heart breaks even further, and even though I just told her I didn’t know why I asked her that, I do know. I need to see the hate in her eyes. I need a reminder of all she lost for me. So I continue to pick the scab.

  “His birthday is next month.”

  The car doesn’t swerve, but we move faster down the road.

  “What, he’ll be twenty-six?”

  “Stop.” My mother’s voice is pained.

  I need the wound to gape wide open. “Do you wonder if he ever thinks about us?”

  This time I meet my mother’s eyes, and I see what I am looking for. All the hate in the world rolled up tightly and delivered to me in a bow. “Never mind,” I add quickly.

  The silence on the drive to the hospital is strained and heavy. This I understand. I face forward, sitting rod straight, and I try not to blink as buildings move past us.

  My mother is still rattled as we get out of the car and make our way to see Chad. We stop at one of the small hospital shops, and my mother gets a bunch of flowers. She doesn’t say anything as she hands them to me. I take them and pace down the corridor like a bride. The thought makes me giddy. Chad, my poor husband, dying in the hospital bed.

  “Why are you smiling?” My mother talks from the side of her mouth, and I quickly lose the smile before I push her too far.

  Facing forward, my feet slow down when Blitz and Detective Lacy come into view. This isn’t going to be easy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  WILLOW

  “Detective Lacy.” My mother takes the detective’s outstretched hand.

  “Catherine. This is a surprise.”

  My focus is on Blitz’s back as he walks down the corridor. I keep waiting for him to glance back and look at me, but he doesn’t.

  My mother clears her throat, and my smile is instant. “Detective Lacy.” He doesn’t offer his hand, and I step around him and my mother and look in through the large pane of glass—my stomach twists. Chad is lying still, his face unrecognizable, a brace circles his neck. He’s hooked up to monitors. I’m watching the one that registers his heart move in a consistent rhythm across the screen.

  Lacy moves up beside me. “He was a football star. Hoping to play for O’Maghonies next year. If he wakes up, the doctors aren’t sure he’ll ever walk again.”

  “It’s terrible,” I say automatically.

  “Willow is devastated and insisted on seeing Chad,” My mother whispers the words like I’m not here. Her voice trembles with a heartache that sounds real, and I’m wondering if her mind is still stuck on Aran.

  “He made an impression on my daughter.”

  My stomach twists again. He tried to hurt me. I can’t find Chad under the swollen and colored tissue that once showcased a handsome face, but not as handsome as Rian. No one has ever come close to that level. I swallow that thought and the silence of my mother and Lacy registers.

  “I liked him,” I say before turning to the detective.

  “Is it okay to go in?” I’m praying he says no visitors. His kind blue eyes smile at me.

  “Of course, Willow.”

  I’m waiting for my mother to join me, but she doesn’t. When I pause at the door for her, she ushers me on with a flick of her long red nails. “Go ahead. I just want to have a word with Detective Lacy.” I have the most bizarre moment where I fear she’s going to sell me out and tell him what kind of person I am. Fear starts to take root deep in my belly, and I let my eyelids flutter closed, so they don’t see it in my eyes.

  The room seems quieter now that I’m in it. I don’t see a vase, so I place the flowers on a tray at the foot of Chad’s bed. I know they are watching me, so I drag a chair up to the top of the bed and sit down. I can’t look at him. The fear and anger that he ignited in me that night returns along with a sense of guilt that he’s lying here because of what he did to me. I know how messed up all this is.

  He had no right putting his hands on me, but that didn’t mean he deserved to be lying here like this. I think if I was ever placed in a coma, I would want my family to let me go. I wouldn’t want to wake up not able to walk or be like a vegetable.

  I sit until it’s hard to sit still any longer. Turning my head, my gaze clashes with Detective Lacy’s. My mother isn’t there anymore, and something in his intelligent eyes that makes me face forward.

  “Your mother is gone to get a coffee.” He pulls up a chair and sits beside me.

  I was waiting for the questions to start, and I didn’t have to wait long. “How many times had you met Chad?”

  “The night of the party was my first time.” I focus on Chad like his face is recognizable to me.

  “You never bumped into him at a party before?” I hate how he asks the question. It’s like he already knows the answer, and he’s leading me down a path I don’t want to go down.

  “I don’t go to parties.”

  “A girl who doesn’t drink and party? It’s unusual for your age.”

  I glance at Detective Lacy and force a smile. “I’m shy.”

  “That night, there were several conflicting reports about you and Chad.”

  “Alcohol can really alter everyone’s point of view, so I’m not surprised there were conflicting reports.” I lean forward, and my heart pounds as I spot the indent of a ring along Chad’s jaw. There is no way they haven’t spotted that.

  Rian’s fingers coated in rings spring to mind; surely I’m not the only one putting this all together.

  This time when I glance at Detective Lacy, he’s smiling at me, and I don’t like it one bit. Coming here was a very bad idea.

  “Your mother tells me you are in Bible school, and sometimes you do readings in the church.”

  My mother was telling him a lot. “Yes.”

  “Reading in front of hundreds of people would be frightening, even nerve-wrecking for a shy girl.”

  My stomach clenches. “I’m spreading the word of God, so I don’t mind. I get shy when it’s about me.”

  He nods like he understands.

  “Do you want me to give you time with Chad?” I ask, rising, wondering what the hell he’s doing here, anyway.

  He holds up a hand, stopping me from leaving, and stands. “No. We have someone stationed here all day. We got a tip that his life is still at risk. So I’m covering the shift today.”

  My heart pounds as I slowly descend back into the chair.

  “Coffee, Detective Lacy?” My mother arrives into the room, and the smell of her perfume pollutes the space. After she hands Lacy his coffee, she drinks her own. None for me. She doesn’t look at me but stands at the foot of Chad’s bed, and the smile on her face terrifies me. Bringing up Aran was foolish. What if I have pushed her so far that I can’t pull her back?

  “He’s someone’s son. That’s the hard part.” She sips her coffee.

  “How many children do you have, Catherine?”

  My heart is telling me that my mother walked into that one on purpose.

  “Two. Willow and Aran.”

  The air catches in my chest.

  “I haven’t met Aran.”
/>
  “He’s off living his life.” My mother hasn’t taken her eyes off Chad. “Unlike this poor soul.” My mother turns to Lacy now. “Any updates on the person who committed this terrible crime?”

  This time I do look at Detective Lacy. Once again, those soft blue eyes are focused on me. “He had no enemies. He was truly loved by all. A star football player with a bright future. We have a few leads but nothing concrete yet.” He says the ‘yet’ with an assurity. I needed to calm down and remember I hadn’t done this to Chad.

  I rise slowly, and my mother’s sharp eye swings in my direction. With raised eyebrows, she’s asking me what I’m doing.

  “Excuse me while I go to the bathroom.”

  “You want me to show you where it is?”

  “No, thank you, Detective Lacy. I’m sure I can find it.” I leave the room and slowly let the air filter back into my lungs. Each door I pass, I’m wondering who’s fighting for their lives behind it. Some doors are open, and I glance into an empty room.

  It’s easy to find the bathrooms. The whole hospital is sign posted. The toilets are located beside the coffee dock. I’m tempted to go in and get a coffee. The smell is enticing. Turning back to the bathrooms, I enter the small two stall space. No one else is here, so I relieve myself and spend a bit longer washing my hands than necessary. I don’t want to go back upstairs. I don’t want to go with the bible group.

  I want to run away from all this, run until my memory starts to fade, and maybe I can start over. If I could be anyone, I would be that girl that has crinkles around her eyes from laughing, the one whose eyes always shine, like she is on the brink of bursting out in laughter. Yeah, I want to be that girl. I meet my muddy brown eyes, and I look …. dead. I feel dead inside. My fingers push down on my bandaged wrist, and the pain races up my arm. The door to the bathroom opens and I walk away from the mirror and dry my hands. I meet the gaze of the elderly woman and give her a smile. She smiles back and disappears into one of the stalls.

  “Blitz.” I pause outside the bathroom. It looks like he was waiting for someone. He could have been waiting for me.

  “Willow.” He pushes his dark glasses up on his broad nose. He slightly resembles Clark Kent. Maybe the glasses were a look and not a necessity.

  “Does Rian know you’re here?” The question is delivered with hostility.

  I wait until a couple walks past us and step up to Blitz. “I don’t work for Rian, so my whereabouts is none of his business.”

  The smile that tugs at Blitz's lips isn’t friendly.

  “I’m here at my mother’s request to visit Chad. I don’t want to be here.” I lower my voice as I speak.

  “Take care, Willow.” Blitz walks away, and a panic has me wanting to race after him and demand that he tell me what he means by taking care. Is it a threat?

  I don’t linger but return to the hospital room. I’ve ended up coming down the corridor in the opposite direction. The glass mirror comes into view, and my mother is sitting in my seat beside Detective Lacy. They are both facing forward, but it’s in the small movements that I can tell they are speaking to each other.

  My heart is telling me to stay put or knock against the glass so they know I’m here, but my head has me stepping closer to the open door, making sure I’m as light as possible on my feet.

  “The hand?” My mother’s voice holds humor. “That I can’t deliver.”

  “We will have to come up with some alternative.” Detective Lacy has the words out of his mouth when his head snaps in my direction. Both he and my mother turn in my direction, and I have no idea what I have stumbled upon, but everything in me hollows out.

  Detective Lacy rises slowly and throws his coffee cup into the bin.

  “I’ll give you both some time with Chad.”

  I can’t look at my mother. My heart drums too heavily in my chest. Lacy leaves, and I close the door after him before I sit down in the seat he just vacated.

  “You want to tell me what that was about?”

  I glance at my mother, and she still sips her coffee. “What?”

  I want to bark at her not to lie to me, but her eyes still hold the hate that I had placed there.

  “What you were talking about with Detective Lacy.”

  “What is it exactly that you think you heard?” My mother raises a brow, and I see the challenge in her stare.

  Was she selling me out? “A hand.” My voice is so low I’m surprised she heard me, but her paling face and the alarm in her eyes tells me she heard me.

  “Whatever you think you heard, you didn’t.” My mother reaches for me; her nails dig painfully into my hands.

  “Willow, you heard nothing.”

  I’m nodding because the fear on my mother’s face is leaping off her and spreading through my system. “I heard nothing.” I want to reassure her, but I can’t unhear it, previous conversations start to rise, and I’m getting a horrible sinking feeling.

  “Please tell me this hasn’t got to do with Rian.”

  Her nails sink further into my hand and my mother looks around us. “Are you trying to get me in trouble?” She frowns like she can’t believe I would say such a thing. “If he thought for one second… I would be dead, Willow. Dead.” She releases my aching hands. She sits back and closes her eyes. “Maybe that’s what you want. Maybe you would be happy then.”

  I’m reaching across to my mother. “I would never. Don’t ever say that. I chose you.”

  The panic that claws inside me has my voice rising, and my mother sits forward. Her face has softened, and she takes my hand gently in hers.

  “Let's pretend this conversation never took place. We can pretend, can’t we?” I hear the words she doesn’t say. ‘Like we pretend every day.’

  I try to swallow the bitterness. “I’m good at pretending,” I say, and she lets me go.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  RIAN

  “Where is Catherine?”

  My father pours out a glass of brandy. The glass top has a tassel on it, and it bounces around as he places it back on the bottle. That’s not my father’s taste; it’s Catherine’s. Her touches are everywhere throughout the house. It has never bothered me before, but lately, the woman has managed to find herself on my radar, and that’s not always a good thing.

  “Helping out with a fundraiser for the church.” My father sounds proud. Proud that she was spending his money believing she could buy her way into heaven.

  “Anything I can help with, Son? You looked troubled.”

  Willow had avoided me for a full day. Now I couldn’t find her. Blitz had said she had been visiting Chad at her mother’s request. My father loved Catherine; I had no doubt about that. I loved my father, so I would give a level of respect here that I didn’t feel.

  “It’s actually Willow.”

  My father takes a drink before sitting down. “I should have gotten some ice,” he says holding the glass up.

  “She seems withdrawn.” I sit down in one of the brown leather armchairs. Its cold material takes some of the burn out of my system. My hand throbs, and the idea of it being infected, crosses my mind more than once.

  “She isn’t chatty.” My father smiles. “But I agree, lately she seems quieter.” He drinks, and I try to keep my irritation at bay. I really needed to know why my Willow was cutting herself, and everything in me was pointing at Catherine. Talking to my father was already proving to be fruitless.

  “No worries. I’ll ask Catherine later.” I’m ready to leave. I’ve missed a call from Fox. I hope he has found the water pipes so we can flush out the rats beneath our feet.

  “I’d prefer if you didn’t.”

  My father’s words are careful, and I sit back down.

  “This isn’t my place, but your concern for Willow means a lot.” He pauses and crosses his legs. His silver suit sits perfectly on his frame. My father keeps watching me, and I don’t blink. He should know that once I had something in my sights I would get it, with or without him. He must c
ome to that conclusion because he speaks.

  “Catherine’s husband took his life when Willow was only ten. It might be close to the anniversary.”

  Did that mean that Willow had some part of her father in her since she was cutting herself? She had told me it wasn’t about ending her life. Jesus. I run a hand across my face.

  My father uncrosses his legs and sits forward. His next words are heavy on his lips. “Willow found him.”

  I’m picturing a small Willow, with billowing white hair, finding her father dead.

  “How did he do it?” Some weird part of me doesn’t want it to be him cutting himself.

  “He shot himself.” Relief is brief when I think of Willow finding her father like that.

  “She’s never been…” My father once again is being careful with his words. “Stable since then. Catherine said she has episodes.”

  “Why didn’t she get her daughter help?” Anger starts to bubble through my veins.

  “She did, Rian. Willow is fragile.”

  That’s bullshit to me. She isn’t fragile. She is brimming for release under all that control. She is fucking drowning. Why hadn’t she told me?

  “So, you see why I don’t want you questioning Catherine. She blames herself.”

  So she should. I want to ask where she was when Willow found her father. My question isn’t justified, but anger is making me want to blame someone.

  “Didn’t you think I had a right to know?” I’m feeling pissed at my father.

  My father isn’t taken by my anger. He rotates the glass in his hands. “Honestly, Rian, you never showed an interest. I could never have imagined you would. But it’s nice that you are now.”

  I can’t stop the grin that tugs at my lips. My interest is not for the reasons he thinks. I’m looking into my father’s eyes, wondering what he would say if he knew I had slept with her. I didn’t give a fuck. It wouldn’t stop me, but for the first time, I wonder how he would react.

  “Thanks for telling me.” I get up as my phone buzzes in my pocket again.