Hearts of Darkness: A Valentine's Day Bully Romance Collection

by Joanna Mazurkiewicz

  The roar of a motorcycle swelled behind her, getting louder as it glided to a stop curbside. She knew who it was before he took off the helmet and when he turned in the saddle, desire thrummed within her. “Need a ride?”

  “I’m only a block from home.” She’d never ridden a motorcycle and had never wanted to until now.

  “I could take you the long way.” He held out a hand.

  She felt relentlessly pulled toward him and wondered if that was yet another thing the river had ‘gifted’ her. Without thinking too hard about it, she braided back her hair and then slid onto the seat behind him. It was warm. He was warm and she pressed up against him without hesitation. He’d been an ass to her, so she wasn’t sure why she was sitting here now. Because he’d also been kind? Because he danced like he was fucking with his clothes on? Because she wanted to see what was underneath?

  “Hang on tight,” he said. He shifted as he put the helmet back on and then she pressed her cheek against his leather-clad back. The motorcycle’s engine was loud, the seat vibrating underneath her as he pulled them into traffic.

  Cars whizzed by them as he weaved in and out, taking turns too fast, whipping through intersections, playing with their lives. Everything about it made her wish she’d let go sooner, wish she had been brave enough to stand up for herself long ago.

  He was chasing the devil and taking her along for the ride and she fucking loved it.

  She loved being pressed against him more. Something inside her—she would blame the river—ached for him. Was this how magic always worked? Unruly, unwanted, and completely inappropriate? It had always been a background hum to her, a strange little quirk that rarely touched her and now she’d been baptized in its chaos and her life would never be the same.

  When they finally stopped, it wasn’t at her building but the Red Span. She didn’t move for a long moment and he sat with her without saying a word, one of his hands laid atop hers where they rested on his belly. She didn’t need to know why they were here and the reason didn’t matter—it was just right.

  “Come on.” He tugged her free of the bike and they climbed over the supports to the far outside cables. The moon sat half-formed in the sky and tinged in pink. New Orion lay sprawled before them, all twinkling lights and silhouettes. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

  “She’s deadly.”

  “That holds its own kind of beauty, does it not?”

  She supposed it did. “When I was little, I pretended I was a black widow spider. I would hide in the dark and watch my parents, the servants as they worked, and I’d imagine myself scurrying out to bite them. Then I’d picture them writhing on the floor in agony before they stopped moving.” She’d forgotten about that until just now. “Gods, I was a strange kid.”

  He laughed and there wasn’t anything but delight in the sound, so she allowed herself to return a smile. “Better than me.”

  “Oh yeah? What weird thing did you do as a kid?”

  “I wanted to be a waiter.”

  “A waiter?”

  He grinned. “Yeah. Drove my dad crazy. ‘Bust my nuts running the Glass crew and you want to wait tables?’ But I liked carrying around a notepad and writing down what people wanted to eat, then bringing it to them. I’d usually make mud pies and stuff them full of rocks and take them to my dad’s crew and those big guys would sit there and pretend to eat it. All the while my dad would moan, ‘Don’t encourage him, fellas!’” His smile faded as he stared down at her. “Why did you want to kill your family?”

  The question, serious as it was, caught her off guard. Her voice was too high, too bright, when she answered. “I didn’t. It was just a stupid game.” Her breath caught and she looked away from him before he saw something in her eyes she didn’t want him to see. “Just a stupid game.”

  He leaned on the railing next to her and gazed down into the river. “Why do you think it let us live? Let us live and then connected us?”

  She’d been asking herself that ever since she’d woken up puking in that alley. Then she thought about how free she’d felt staring at the tattoo above her eyebrow. “I don’t know,” she whispered, a little ashamed of herself for saying it. She thought she did know, but she couldn’t tell him about it. Not Beckett Glass, not the guy who thought she was nothing but a little girl.

  After another long moment of gazing at the city, they made their way back to his bike and he took her home. She hoped he would insist on walking her up, insist on coming inside, insist on kissing her again ...

  “Good night,” he said instead.

  Disappointment thrummed through her. “Thanks for the ride.”

  His damned dimple flashed. “Anytime.”

  She watched him ride off with a flush of irritation at herself. Once again, she’d played the good girl and once again she was left wanting.

  When would she learn?

  When would she truly be free?

  ELEVEN

  Her parents were out for the day; she knew this because she’d called ahead and drilled the maid who’d answered. After covering her tattoos and dressing in yet another turtleneck—thank goodness it was winter—she drove over to the Montgomery estate.

  George had slipped her the note about Rhys, so she started at the gatehouse, asking George’s assistant to pull up the security footage from the night Rhys disappeared. “My engagement party. One of the guests swears one of the maids stole her sweater that night and I just want to vindicate our staff, you know?”

  Peter didn’t seem surprised and she hated herself a little for lying, but she wanted to know if Eric leaving with Rhys driving had been caught on tape. Had he looked calm or scared? Had they argued at some point and Eric coerced him into driving?

  She wasn’t super hopeful, but it was a place to start.

  All of the security footage was backed up to a server in the main house and archived for at least five years. Something to do with the insurance on all the valuables, according to her father. Marlowe tucked her feet underneath her as she scrolled through the timestamps, looking for the date and time in question. She couldn’t remember exactly when the party ended and Eric had left—midnight sometime.

  She ran through each camera’s feed, a little squicked out at just how much of the house was covered. She got to watch Eric propose to her all over again, and tried to remember if she’d even been excited when it happened. It had been a play for the media and a way to win over more support for his run for mayor, but had she been the least bit happy?

  That she couldn’t remember made her hate herself just a little.

  Just then, she saw Rhys step out of the guardhouse. The footage was crystal clear and she was struck by how much Rhys looked like Beckett. Younger, not tattooed, but he had the same build, the same face-shape. “Is there sound, Peter?”

  He shook his head and she sighed as she watched him walk to the house. She switched cameras and followed him to the kitchen. He picked up a plate—something all the employees could do while on shift—and hung out in the hall off the kitchen to eat. A door was open nearby. He started off engrossed in the food, but soon he was inching toward the open door, obviously listening to whatever was being said in the room beyond.

  “Does that room have cameras?”

  Peter leaned in, studying the hall, then said, “No. But you should be able to see who went in if you watch camera B-3.”

  “Good idea.”

  She paused Rhys as he eavesdropped and scrolled through the footage on B-3. Her father, mother, and Eric went into the room a few minutes before Rhys got his plate and took up his spot in the hallway. She unpaused the other and watched Rhys listen in, feeling a growing sense of dread as she did. Did they catch him? Was that why Eric had him drive him home that night?

  Sure enough, Eric came out of the room. They exchanged words—angry ones on Eric’s part—while Rhys raised his hands in placation. Her parents joined in, then her father jabbed a finger at the door. Rhys handed him his hat and left.

  She frowned. It lo
oked as though they’d fired him, but if that were the case, why would he go with Eric?

  Sometime between his walk from the house to the guardhouse, Rhys disappeared. She watched the few minutes of video over and over, trying to figure out where he’d gone and finally saw the dull shine of moonlight off something metal at the far top corner of the screen. “What about this? Any other angles?”

  Peter took over, scrolling through footage, searching for anything that would tell them what the metal was and where it was. “What about camera D-7?” he said to himself, then switched over to a view of the garage. “Top right corner.”

  She peered at the spot. A car sat there, Eric’s? She couldn’t tell for certain, but she saw a figure walk in front of it and another figure swing something long and slender at him. The first figure went down. The second opened the trunk and put it inside.

  “Shit.” Peter had gone pale. Marlowe didn’t blame him; she felt a little sick too.

  “Can you get me a copy of that? Send it to my email?”

  “Ms Montgomery, if he finds out I saw that—” He didn’t have to finish the sentence. She knew.

  “It’s important. If he killed that driver, he needs to go to jail for it.”

  “He’s your fiancé.”

  She glanced back at the picture, freeze-framed on the moment when the second figure turned away from the car to see if he was being observed. She wouldn’t 100% swear to it, but she was willing to bet it was Eric. Rhys had overheard him talking to her parents about something and Eric had cold-cocked him for it.

  Had Eric killed him for it too?

  Dear gods, who the hell was this man she’d agreed to marry?

  “Please.”

  Looking sick, he copied the footage onto a thumb drive instead of emailing it. “Don’t tell them you got it from me.”

  “I won’t. Thank you, Peter.” She left him hoping he wouldn’t pay for her nosiness and went straight to her car to call Beckett. “I have video footage of Eric hitting Rhys and putting him in his trunk.”

  There was a long silence. “I thought you said someone saw Rhys drive Eric away from the party that night.”

  “The note said Rhys left with Eric that night. If Eric knocked him out and stuffed him in the trunk, that counts as leaving with him.”

  “Shit. Shit!”

  She pulled back from the phone, a little taken aback by his emotion. Then she realized that he hadn’t really believed his brother was dead, but now ...

  Now it didn’t look likely he was alive. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  “Sorry?” His laugh was bitter. “As if that will change things.”

  She curled her fingers around her phone and listened to him grieve. No sobs, but she heard the ragged sound of his breathing and knew he was hurting. “I’ll go.”

  “No.”

  His vehemence startled her ... and also made her wary. “No?”

  “You need to walk away from this. Right now. It’s too dangerous. Get the hell away from Eric, from your parents. Move to another gods damned town, but get away. Or this city will kill you. They will kill you. I’ll help you with the tattoos, but get out.”

  ‘And go where?’ she wanted to ask. And with what money? And live how? “I’m going over to Eric’s parent’s house next. The car he used the night of our engagement was his father’s. If there’s something Rhys left behind to indicate he was there, proof, anything, I’ll find it. I told you I keep my promises.”

  “Marlowe, don’t you dare go over to the Lightbourne’s home. They are fucking smugglers. Ice cold. They’ll disappear you faster than you can say, ‘Don’t kill me’ and they’ll do it with smiles on their fake, plastic faces.”

  “I’m sorry about your brother. I really am.”

  “Marlowe—”

  She hung up and turned off her phone, then slipped it into her pocket. Although intellectually she knew he was telling her the truth, she couldn’t honestly picture Eric’s sweet mother as the head of a major smuggling enterprise. His father, maybe, though he’d never been anything but nice to her whenever she’d visited their home. Eric, she was coming to believe, was cold enough to do just that. She’d been ready to marry the bastard, had looked past his chilliness and coldness not because she loved him, but because her parents had strongly suggested she should.

  She was an utter fool and a coward to boot. But no more. She would figure out what happened to Rhys. If Eric had been the one to knock him out and stuff him in the trunk of his father’s car, then she would turn him over to the police. It was the right thing to do.

  Her gaze landed on the ring Eric had given her that same night. She slipped it off as she drove the five miles to the Lightbourne estate. For a moment, she considered everything it stood for, then rolled down the window and tossed it out.

  “Fuck you, Eric,” she said into the brisk January wind, and then she laughed.

  TWELVE

  After getting to the Lightbourne estate, she’d bypassed the house and let herself into the garage. She’d told the gate guard her visit was a surprise and asked him to keep it secret. “I want to surprise Eric,” she’d said, smiling her prettiest debutante’s smile. “Don’t tell him you saw me when he gets home, okay?”

  He’d nodded, looking bored and she hoped that meant he wouldn’t call up to the house to announce her.

  A Ferrari, a BMW, a Rolls Royce, and a Lexus sat inside the large garage, each car gleaming. The Lexus was the car Eric had driven that night, so she popped the trunk and stared into its cavernous depths.

  There was certainly enough room to hold a grown man comfortably.

  She leaned in, despairing at the immaculate interior. Of course it had been cleaned. There wasn’t even a leaf or dusting of dirt inside to indicate that the trunk was used for anything but carrying around air. She lifted up the carpet covering the spare, felt around the edges, and finally crawled inside to check out the interior from a different perspective.

  That’s when she found the driver’s license, wedged in a fold of metal near the driver’s side of the car. She took a picture of it with her phone first before trying to pluck it free. It took her several tries to get it out because he’d really jammed it in tight.

  Good thing, probably. If he hadn’t, they would have found it and even that small bit of proof that he’d been in the trunk would have vanished.

  Rhys Glass smiled at her from the laminated card. He looked like a younger, happier version of Beckett, his grin so eerily similar that it made her feel sad she hadn’t really ever noticed him. She wasn’t supposed to talk with the servants in any capacity, that lesson drilled into her since she was little. Talking to him would have drawn her parent’s wrath and anyway, by the time he had hired on, she’d been busy with her own life.

  “What happened to you?” she asked the picture, then inspected the rest of the nooks and crannies for anything else.

  Nothing.

  She crawled out and tucked the license in her bra. She’d show it to Beckett later but now she needed to leave. Honestly, she hadn’t believed him when he said the Lightbournes were smugglers. It had been a ridiculous thought. They had money; surely they didn’t need to break the law to get more, but apparently they were willing to do whatever they needed to keep someone quiet about their crimes.

  What had Rhys overheard Eric talking about with her parents?

  Did they know what the Lightbournes did? Were they working with them?

  She eased the trunk shut, but when she slipped out of the garage, a guard was waiting for her. “Oh! I was um, looking for my—”

  “Come with me, please,” the man said. “Mrs Lightbourne wishes to speak with you down at the stables.”

  She’d walked with the man, heart hammering, to the large exercise area where Regina was talking with one of the stable hands. When she saw Marlowe, she gave the same warm, welcoming smile she always gave. “Marlowe! What a pleasant surprise.”

  Unsure if Regina knew she’d been snooping in the garage or n
ot—but then why the guard—Marlowe gave her a hug and the perfunctory air kisses.

  “Eric isn’t here right now, darling, but he should be getting home any moment. Were you here to see him?” Her eyes dropped to Marlowe’s hand. “Where’s your ring?”

  Marlowe stared down at her hand, then laughed weakly. “Out for cleaning. It had gotten a little dingy.”

  “Ah.” Regina’s smile didn’t quite go to her eyes, or was Marlowe imagining the frosty look? “They do get so dirty, don’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  Regina held a pair of gloves in her hand which she slapped into her left palm. “Come with me, darling. I want to show you our newest horse.”

  She almost said yes, almost went along with her as if she hadn’t just found a missing man’s license in the trunk of one of her cars. “No.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “What do you know about Rhys Glass?”

  “Who?”

  She knew. Marlowe saw it, but damned if the woman was going to admit it. “He was a driver for my father?”

  “Sorry, I don’t usually take notice of the staff.”

  Sure she didn’t. Marlowe tried again, “On the night of the engagement party, he disappeared. He was last seen with Eric.”

  Regina let the gloves slide off her palm and then smacked them into it again. “What exactly are you insinuating, Marlowe?” Her face remained pleasant, even her tone of voice, but there was something underneath, something almost fearful that made Marlowe wonder if the woman was afraid of her own son.

  “There’s security footage,” she said, her mouth dry, “of Eric hitting Rhys over the head and stuffing him in the trunk of Mr. Lightbourne’s car.”

  “Eric would never do something like that. You must be mistaken.” Her words were light, but didn’t she look worried? Scared, even?

  Footsteps behind her made her turn. It was Eric coming down the hill, Eric with a couple more men in intimidating suits and dour expressions on their faces. “I didn’t know you were going to drop by for a visit, Marlowe. I would have been home sooner.”