Hart of Darkness

by S. B. Alexander

  I ground my back teeth together. The night was turning out to be epic. Grace was living at Dom’s. He’d seen her only two weeks ago. He’d then confirmed Maggie’s suspicion that Cory Calderon was one of the Black Knights, and now grandpa with the receiver to his ear knew my sister. Not to mention, Maggie wanted a relationship. She wouldn’t admit that, but I could tell she was changing her tune about having a steady man in her life.

  I was on the verge of a temper tantrum. I shoved a hand in the pocket of my jeans as a savage laugh broke out in my head. Maggie thought I was a saint. Saints didn’t lose their shit and destroy things, and I was so fucking primed to shatter all the glass in the lobby. More than that, I was ready to rip Duke to shreds.

  Maggie latched on to my hand. “I think this tops the night.”

  I squeezed her hand, silently thanking her for being with me. If she weren’t, no doubt I would be a lunatic.

  “Mr. Hart,” Daniels said into the phone. “I’m sorry to wake you, but your brother is here with news that Grace is in the hospital. I see. Yes. Yes. Sure will.” He lowered the receiver, regret coloring his mocha complexion.

  I marched over to Daniels. “Get my brother on the phone.”

  “I haven’t told you what he said yet.” Daniels’s tired eyes held fear.

  I wouldn’t hurt the man, or maybe I would if he didn’t get Duke back on the phone. “You don’t have to. Your face says it all.” I bared my teeth. “Now get him on the phone.”

  “But sir, he says Grace isn’t in the hospital.”

  “Yeah? Then where is she?” If he so much as says she’s upstairs or some crap like that, Maggie will have to pry me off him.

  Daniels shrugged. “All he said was if Grace was in the hospital, then he would know.”

  Maggie glided up to my side. “Please get Duke on the phone. We don’t want trouble.” Her melodic voice tempered my rage for the moment.

  Grandpa considered us. Well, he considered Maggie. Then he lifted the receiver, pressed four digits, and handed me the phone.

  “I told you. I don’t want to see my brother.” Duke’s voice was rough.

  “Is that any way to welcome me?” I returned in a cocky tone.

  “It’s three thirty in the morning,” Duke almost yelled. “Grace isn’t in the hospital.”

  “I would suggest you let me come up, or I might have to tell the Boston Eagle that you’re into money laundering and maybe sex trafficking.”

  Maggie beamed. Daniels didn’t.

  Duke growled. “Put the guard on.”

  I handed the phone to Daniels.

  Within seconds, Daniels was escorting Maggie and me to the elevators, where he swiped a keycard over the panel below the numbers. Then he went back to his post.

  As soon as the doors closed, I growled so loudly that I probably woke up everyone on the eighth floor.

  Maggie hit the stop button, the bell ringing as the car halted. “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.”

  I pushed the button, and the car moved again. “This needs to be done.” I’d waited too long to talk to Duke. Grace was alive, and he was going to tell me where she was.

  “Then don’t get yourself killed, because I like you a lot, Dillon Hart.” For the first time since Maggie had shown up at the shelter, I didn’t see her bubbly personality or that badass woman I knew her to be. I saw what she’d been trying to hide in my kitchen earlier—she cared for me. She was revealing herself to me, one layer at a time.

  I didn’t have time to ponder, question, or analyze Maggie’s feelings or what was going on between her and me. The elevator dinged.

  We arrived right into Duke’s penthouse. The cityscape twinkled in the wall of windows behind my brother.

  He stood bare-chested and barefoot in the aisle that separated his kitchen from his massive living room, with the scowl of the century ruining his good looks.

  I dove at him, fists first. “Where is she?”

  He darted out of the way. Duke had always had quick reflexes. “Grace isn’t here.”

  I tried to punch him again, when Maggie stepped in between us, holding up her hands. Her narrowed green gaze focused on me. “Fighting isn’t going to get you answers.”

  No, but I would feel so much better.

  She eased out of the way then addressed Duke. “I suggest you start speaking.”

  His forehead wrinkled. “Who the fuck are you?”

  I lunged this time. “Don’t speak to my girl like she’s one of your whores.” We both fell to the white-carpeted floor, punching each other, grunting, and swearing left and right.

  “Are you fucked up, Dillon?” he shouted. “Get off me. I’m your brother for Christ sakes.”

  He blocked every one of my punches like he’d done many times when we had wrestled as kids in our bedroom. He’d been bigger than me then, but now we matched each other in height and muscle. Still, he was proving to be the victor until I straddled him and jammed my knees into his sides.

  “Where’s Grace?” I yelled, my knuckles connecting with his jaw.

  “Dillon,” Maggie protested. “He’s your brother.”

  He could be my savior. I wasn’t letting up until he talked. Four solid years of grief, fear, rage, depression, and hopelessness was bottled inside me. Damn Duke to hell if he didn’t start spilling his guts, or I would spill them for him.

  He had his arms crisscrossed, blocking his face. “Listen to your girl.”

  Maggie grasped my arm, which was ready to deliver another blow. “Baby,” she said in a soft voice.

  A stream of goose bumps shot down my arms at her pet name for me, and it seemed to be all I needed to climb off Duke.

  When he was upright, he rubbed his jaw then licked the blood off his lip. “Why do you insist that I know where Grace is?”

  I walked down the aisle to admire the view of Boston. “The fucking guard downstairs knows Grace. When was she here last? And if you tell me you don’t know, I’m sending you through this window. It’s a mighty drop down from the eighteenth floor.”

  He shoved his middle finger in the air before he padded over to the bar tucked between the fireplace and the window.

  Maggie whistled. “Nice digs you have here, Duke.” I suspected she was trying to change the subject, even for a minute, to give me time to calm down.

  Glasses clinked. “Do I know you?”

  Maggie made herself at home by sitting on the plush couch facing the marble fireplace. The penthouse belonged in some home magazine. Expensive art hung on the walls, the furniture was in pristine condition, and the red-and-black kitchen had high-end appliances that I would have loved to have in the shelter. I could steal the restaurant-size fridge right now.

  I smoothed a hand over my hair. “Duke, meet Maggie Marx, the reporter from the Boston Eagle.” I didn’t know if Duke would remember Maggie from our teenage years. “Maggie was the girl in the Bloodhounds. Remember?”

  He whipped around, a glass of whiskey in hand and horror in his chestnut-brown eyes, making him appear older than his twenty-seven years. Crime did fuck up a person in more ways than one.

  I couldn’t tell if he was surprised that Maggie was a reporter or a blast from the past.

  Nevertheless, Maggie removed her scarf. “Lou was the leader, and I was the girl others whispered about.” She pulled down the collar of her shirt, exposing her scar.

  Duke combed his fingers through his short brown hair. “Yeah, it’s all coming back. So you’re really a reporter?”

  Maggie got out a pad and pen. “Seems to me, Duke Hart, you’ve done well for yourself. Tell me how you’ve managed to amass such a fortune that you could afford to live in a penthouse in the Back Bay. What does this place go for on the open market? Two mil?”

  He knocked back the whiskey, grimacing at Maggie. “Get out.”

  “You were an asshole when you broke Lou’s nose, but now you’re a dick. How can you not tell your own family your sister is alive?”

  Man, my dick got hard. Maggie was o
n a roll, and I loved every minute of watching my brother flip through every furious expression he could muster.

  I sauntered over to the couch and plopped down next to my girl. My girl had a nice ring to it. I was beginning to warm to the idea of Maggie and me as boyfriend and girlfriend. But I would deal with that later. Right now, Duke was going to talk.

  “Have a seat, brother,” I said.

  His eyes became pinheads. He poured himself another glass of booze, not even offering us any. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t about to touch the stuff.

  I hung my arms over the back of the couch. “Pop was in the hospital for alcohol poisoning recently.”

  “So the fuck what? Are you trying to tell me I’m an alcoholic?” With his glass filled to the brim, he sat down on a lone chair across from Maggie and me.

  If he was or wasn’t, I didn’t know, but if he kept drinking, the possibility existed that he could take after our old man.

  Maggie positioned her pen over her notepad. I had a feeling she was messing with his head, although I couldn’t be sure since she was a reporter.

  “Let’s cut to the chase. Grace is alive, and I want to know where she is.” I pursed my lips. “Don’t deny it. I met someone who Grace has been living with. He brought up your name.”

  Duke downed half the glass of amber liquid, not showing his cards. He’d always been good at poker.

  Duke stuck out his chin. “You still owe me money, brother.”

  True fact. I’d borrowed some money from him when Lizzie wanted to get in on an illegal, underground poker game. I’d never paid him back because he had never asked and I needed my money for the shelter. “Seems to me you don’t need it. Now tell me about Grace.”

  Maggie was writing something down.

  Duke finished off the whiskey. “Grace is alive. The last time I saw her was three weeks ago.” He scratched his unshaven jaw.

  I growled. Hearing him say the words “Grace is alive” felt like a bullet penetrating my skin. I knew what one felt like too—burning and searing pain that gripped me so hard I couldn’t breathe. All thanks to a gang fight gone wrong.

  “I promise, Dillon, I searched for Grace when she first took off. I know you don’t believe me.”

  I motioned to stand, but Maggie stopped me with a give him a chance look. So I pushed my elbows into my thighs.

  “About eight months ago, she found me,” Duke said. “She walked into my club and asked me for money. I was shocked as hell. Pissed like a motherfucker too. I all but forced her to tell me where she’d been all these years, but she wouldn’t talk. She didn’t look like she was on drugs. She was well-groomed. She appeared to be healthy. So I gave her the money. My only requirement was she had to check in with me on a monthly basis. If she did and showed me she was alive and well and not doing drugs, then I would continue to give her money.”

  I was calculating the timeline in my head. Dom had said he found Grace nine months ago. Duke mentioned eight. When Dom had found her, she was bruised and bloody, but a month had passed before she showed up at Duke’s club. So the bruises would’ve been mostly healed. “No signs of bruises on her, then?”

  He shook his head. “Not that I could see.”

  “Do you know what she does during the day? Does she work?” Maggie asked. “Is she a prostitute?”

  Duke and I muttered curses at the same time.

  Dom had said Grace would leave early and not return until later in the evening.

  Duke sucked on his lip. “Don’t know.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” I asked.

  “She came to me a week after you and I talked. Plus, I promised Grace. She asked me not to say anything to you.”

  I slid to the edge of the cushion, ready to dive at him again. The only thing that stopped me was his last statement, which felt as if a blade was slicing me over and over again. “I’ve been searching high and low and in every alley, abandoned building, and crevice in this fucking city for years, and you’re telling me she doesn’t want me to know? Why?”

  Duke’s features softened. “She has her reasons. What they are, she wouldn’t tell me. Brother, she only came to me because I have money.”

  That didn’t make me feel any better. “What about Denim?” I would feel less hurt if she didn’t want Denim to know either.

  “His name didn’t come up. Probably because he’s in the slammer.”

  I had the urge to ask why he hadn’t been down to see Denim, but the conversation was about Grace.

  “So she checks in with you monthly,” I said. “When is she due to check in?”

  “If she sticks to her monthly visits like she has been, then I don’t expect to see her for another week.”

  What made me shiver, though, was that Grace had been showing up every night at Dom’s up until two weeks ago. “I think she’s in trouble. The brother-and-sister duo Grace is staying with hasn’t seen her in a couple of weeks.”

  Duke unfolded his body. “I give her money, so I don’t believe she’s selling her body. I can have my men scour all the hot spots where the prostitutes hang out, though.” He seemed a tad worried now.

  The important question was, where was she?

  “Maybe Grace got her own place,” Maggie said. “Maybe she decided to move out of Dom’s.”

  While that was plausible, my gut was telling me differently. Dom seemed to have a good relationship with Grace.

  I believed Duke had told me everything he knew, so I wasn’t going to get much more out of him.

  Duke escorted us to the elevator.

  Maggie tucked her pad and pen into her bag. “Do you know the Black Knights, Miguel Rivera, Dan Silva, Cory Calderon, or a Dallas?”

  I wanted to laugh at how persistent she was, but I didn’t want my action to come off as trivial, because one, sex trafficking was far from trivial; and two, considering Duke’s status in the world of crime, he might know something about the Black Knights.

  Duke’s features darkened to match the sky outside his window. “My gang days are over. But anyone tied to the streets knows of the Black Knights and how their main operation is sex trafficking. Is that why you’re really here?” He was talking directly to Maggie. “Do you think I could be involved in sex trafficking?”

  Maggie stood up pin straight.

  I placed my hand on Maggie’s lower back. “It’s a simple question, man.”

  He groaned. “Do you really think, Dillon, that I could prey on women?”

  Raking my gaze over his face, I could see the boy in the man. The boy I knew had protected me from our father. That boy was the brother who had ripped our father off our mother a time or two when she’d been cowering in a corner, taking blows from her husband. I didn’t want to believe Duke could hurt a woman, let alone sell her on the open market. As I stood in the quietness of his penthouse, the city lights dimming to the waning night sky, I saw the boy more than the man Duke had become. I saw my brother, the one I loved, the one I blamed for Grace’s disappearance.

  I left Maggie and went over to Duke, who was holding on to the back of the couch not far from the elevator. He jerked back as though I were going to punch him again.

  I stopped when we were eye to eye. “We’ve been through hell as kids, brother. We’ve endured so fucking much. I do blame you for Grace taking off, but not as much as I blame myself. But let’s be real, Duke. You’re into some illegal shit. I mean, look at your expensive digs.” I waved my hand around. “Maggie is only asking you about the Black Knights because you have ties to the underworld. She’s not insinuating anything. But I get the feeling you’re avoiding her question for some reason. Are you involved in sex trafficking?” I wanted to believe he wasn’t, but he was not giving me a warm and fuzzy.

  A muscle in his jaw acted like a jumping bean as he flared his nostrils. “Get out. You of all people should know that I hated when Dad beat Mom. I hated when Dad laid a hand on Grace. I love our sister more than you know.”

  I got in his face. “Then fuc
king show it. You didn’t bother to call me when you knew Grace was alive. You knew I put my heart and soul into finding her. Who the fuck does that in a family? Don’t answer that.” I knew who. He did. My old man did. “Father dearest saw Grace too, you know.”

  His jaw came unhinged.

  “Yeah. Shocking, huh? He didn’t bother to call me either. He only calls when his ass is in jail.” At least my father had the excuse that he could’ve been drunk when he saw Grace in her room. I started for Maggie, who was wearing a pity mask and some other emotion I couldn’t quite make out. “You have one week. I expect a call from you when Grace shows up. If not, I’ll make sure the cops know that you’re using your club for money laundering.” I didn’t know that he was. I was pulling very short straws.

  Fear blinked from him like a neon sign in the dark of night. “You wouldn’t.”

  I silently shouted Bingo!

  Nevertheless, I stabbed the elevator button, and the doors slid open. I walked inside, not waiting for Maggie nor responding to Duke.

  Maggie finally got in as the doors were closing. She had even more pity dripping from her. When the car started to move, I did punch the wall.

  “Dillon.” Maggie said my name in a tender and sad tone. “You’re lucky you have a family. You’re lucky you can argue with your brother and worry over your sister and hurt for a brother in jail and even spit at your alcoholic father.” She gulped in air. “I wish I had one tenth of what you have, no matter how dysfunctional your family is. Cherish what you have.”

  In that moment, I was the biggest self-absorbed asshole in the world.

  25

  Maggie

  The muted noises of the newsroom played in the background while I typed away. Almost a week had gone by since the night Dillon and I had paid Duke a visit. That night had shaken the cobwebs loose for me.

  I decided that the revenge I’d been so hung up on wasn’t burning inside me as much. I did want Cory to pay for what he’d done to me. But I wanted him along with Miguel and any others to suffer more for what they were doing to other girls out there.