Shadowed Heart: A Dark Reverse Harem Romance (A Death So Sweet Book 1)

by Candace Wondrak

I was measured in slipping out of my heels, my height lowering four inches, mimicked in the mirror. After that, I reached for my dress, untying it behind my neck and letting the fabric fall to the floor. My breasts hung free, my nipples hardening into points at the swift change of temperature. Or, hell, maybe they were still a little hard after that quickie with Sylvester.

  My hands reached for my hair, for the pins sticking in its length, holding the curled length up and pinning its tresses to the back of my head. Once the pins were out, I dropped them on the counter, letting my hair fall down, cascading over my shoulders in gentle waves.

  I stood there in only my panties, nothing else. The air was cool on my skin, and yet I hardly felt it. I hardly felt anything anymore. Staring at myself in the mirror, I barely blinked, unable to tear my gaze away, lest the reflection change, lest she morph into something else. The twenty-two-year-old staring back at me was an angel.

  But she wasn’t. She was no more an angel than the devil was a man who fed and clothed and housed the homeless. She was not sent from God, for surely, if she was, he wouldn’t have sent her to the Hardings. Why would God ever send one of his angels into hell when that poor angel could never fight back?

  No, the girl staring back at me was nothing more than a fucking liar. A whore. A demon with a pretty face. She was nothing but a bloodthirsty killer whose appetite would never be sated.

  My heart beat too fast in my chest, my head feeling light. The room almost seemed to spin around me, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I stumbled back, away from the counter, backing myself up to the wall behind me a few feet away. The girl in the mirror did the same thing, and with the added distance between us, I could see the scar lining her stomach.

  My stomach. From my belly button to my panty line. Thick and ugly, a type of scar you only got when someone peeled you open without caring what you’d look like after they sewed you back up.

  They didn’t have to do it like that. There were other ways to do what they did, and yet they did it this way to remind me—me, as if I was the one doing it, as if I was the one who’d asked for it time and time again. Like I was the sinner.

  It wasn’t me. None of it was for me. My parents only wanted a body, they didn’t want me. They wanted my face, my voice… and as for my body, well, someone else had decided he’d wanted that.

  My eyes closed, and my head lifted, turning toward the sky. Every single part of me felt wrong, like I was in the wrong body, like this wasn’t really me. I wanted to get a knife and cut myself out of this prison of flesh, give myself the sweet release only death could bring. I wasn’t suicidal—but fuck it all to hell and back, I just wanted it to end.

  Though I stood there, alone in the bathroom, though I knew I was by myself, it didn’t matter. The memories were too real, too thick and stifling in the worst of ways. My lungs felt heavy, an invisible weight pressed on my chest, and there was nothing I could do other than let myself be swallowed by it all.

  The feelings. The memories. The touch of those hands on my body, the words whispered into my ear. Anything and everything, it all came back to me, clawing to the surface like a zombie rising from the grave.

  I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t do anything.

  Stumbling forward, I nearly fell, but I managed to grip the edge of the counter before falling. My eyes were hazy, strange things gathering in their corners: tears. Involuntary in every way. I lifted my gaze to the girl in the mirror, to her pretty, soft, beautiful face. If she wasn’t so beautiful, maybe things would’ve been different.

  My breath came out short and erratic, the world swaying around me, but I pushed myself to stand, glaring at the girl in the mirror. She was a fucking joke, and I hated her. I hated her with the intensity of a thousand suns, hated her more than anything else in this world. It was all her fault. If it wasn’t for her, he never would’ve done what he did.

  Nothing in my mind made sense, but I knew one thing: I hated that girl in the mirror. I wanted her dead. I didn’t want to see those blue eyes anymore, didn’t want to look upon her heart-shaped face any longer. Fuck that girl. Fuck me.

  My fingers curled into fists, rage pumping through my body, and though I still couldn’t breathe, though I couldn’t see straight, I didn’t care. I did the one thing I had to: I punched the mirror, cracking it. I hit it with my fists against and again, tearing at the shards on the wall, causing the glass to break off and fall into the sink and onto the countertop.

  I screamed at my broken reflection through the cracks and missing pieces, a single tear falling down my face. There might’ve been a commotion in the hall, shouting for me, for me to open the door, for me to stop doing whatever it was I was doing, but I couldn’t.

  I couldn’t stop, because that girl was me, and I hated myself for it.

  My face. My body. My scar. My weakness. How I’d let it go on for so long, thinking it would stop, hoping someone would save me. Not my family, not my doctors, not any of my teachers. No one had stopped it, no one had swooped in to save me from my misery. I’d been left in the dark, in the mud and the shit, my angel wings torn from me just as my innocence was.

  Blood smeared on what still hung of the mirror, cuts on my knuckles and my hands, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. How could I stop when it was all too much? Why bother stopping now, when it was too late? It was all too late… and this was where I ended up; a serial killer, caught by some mafia family, fucking the brothers of one of the men I killed, desperately hoping they could make me feel alive in a way I’d never felt before.

  Too much pressure to put on anyone, especially someone connected to one of my victims. These guys, no matter what they said or did, only wanted me dead.

  I grabbed one of the mirror shards in the sink, lifting it up to my face. If they wanted me dead, why not give it to them? Why not do their job for them and save us all the trouble and the time? It’d be the one good thing I could do right now.

  My hand curled around the mirror shard, blood oozing from new cuts as I gripped it hard. Someone kicked down the door at that second, and I whirled on them, pointing the tip of the shard at them.

  Maddox had kicked it down, his angry frame rising and falling with heavy breaths. Sylvester stood just behind him, his eyes widening when he saw the state of the bathroom and me, the blood dripping from my hands and onto the floor. Pretty sure Tony and Mike were there, too. Maybe even Viper. It was a whole fucking party, but I didn’t feel like playing right now.

  “What the fuck is going on here?” Maddox growled out, his dark eyes full of rage.

  No one could match the rage I felt inside, though, not even Mad Maddox.

  I thought about threatening them, but it would be pointless. There were a whole lot more of them than there were of me, so instead of saying anything, I simply took the mirror shard to my own neck.

  Everything happened fast after that. The guys piled in the bathroom, grabbing me. So many hands grabbing me. Maddox held onto the wrist that gripped the shard, bending my wrist backward enough and forcing me to drop it, getting my blood all over his hand in the process. Sylvester took my other hand, but that didn’t stop me from struggling, from fighting, from kicking and screaming and trying to get out.

  I wasn’t thinking straight. That much I knew, but I couldn’t calm myself down, either. It was like I was stuck in limbo, in this halfway state, unable to do anything but fight.

  The last thing I wanted to do was have them calm me down, to let them overpower me; it was just another reason why this body was useless. When it came to sheer, brute force, a man would always win. Always. To get the better of them, especially when multiple enemies were involved, I had to have surprise on my side.

  Right now, I couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t fight back, couldn’t get them off me. They all crowded inside the bathroom, funneling toward me, and even though I fought as wildly as I could, it was all for naught.

  Tony and Mike took Maddox’s place on my right arm, holding me steady, while M
addox moved behind me, wrapping my neck in his arm and pulling, flexing the muscles under me and making it so I literally couldn’t breathe. My struggling ceased almost instantly, my body growing woozy. The world stopped spinning, sure, but that was only because everything turned black as I was welcomed into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness.

  Well.

  Fuck.

  Chapter Fifteen – Sylvester

  I’d taken off my suit jacket and draped it around her shoulders to cover Lola’s nakedness before she was tied to one of the chairs we’d brought in from the kitchen. Her head hung low, still passed out, Mike working on tying the rope around her midsection. We were in the same room we’d brought her in all that time ago, only this felt different.

  Because it was different.

  Lola was still my brother’s murderer, but I’d come to appreciate her other qualities lately, along with accepting how perfectly she fit here. A pretty face with a crazy attitude; she was more like Maddox than anything, but I still couldn’t help the way she made my mind and body react. Even my heart, I’d go so far to say.

  Her hands were bleeding, blood oozing from the numerous cuts and wounds on her knuckles, fingers and palms. She’d destroyed the mirror in the bathroom, and when we’d come in, she’d turned a shard onto herself, as if she was about to end her own life.

  That, or she wordlessly begged us to stop her, which was what we did. Even Maddox had worked to keep her from hurting herself.

  Viper and Tony had left to get some bandages, a bowl of water to clean her wounds with, and the first aid kit. Some of the wounds on her hands might need stitches; we wouldn’t know until we got them clean and really looked at them.

  I stood near Maddox, my arms folded over my chest as I watched Mike tie her up. My suit jacket covered her upper body, but her legs were bare, dotted with blood that had fallen from her hands during her freak-out. My heart had hurt when I’d seen her like that, frantic and almost scared. It was not the Lola I knew, but with how she’d been acting lately… I knew we couldn’t let this continue. We had to get to the bottom of it, otherwise our father would force us to get rid of her.

  Couldn’t have someone who freaked out and did their own thing all the time. When you had a job to do, you had to do it.

  “She’s fucking lucky father isn’t home,” Maddox hissed, frowning at her, as if Lola was awake to see it. “This would be the last straw for him.”

  Technically, the one and only straw for our father would’ve been Lola killing Mario, but that was beside the point. As I gazed down at her, as Mike finished with the rope and stood off to the side, I nodded with my brother.

  “You’re right,” I said. “Something’s going on with her. This isn’t normal.”

  Maddox scoffed. “How the fuck do you know what’s normal for her? You don’t know her. As much as you’d like to know her, you don’t.” I glared at him, and all he did was shrug. “What? I’m just telling you the truth. She’s a fucking timebomb ready to explode, clearly. We can’t send her to do anything for us when she might go nuts again.”

  I refused to make any decisions until I spoke with her. I would not sentence her to die right now without letting her explain what the hell was up with her lately. Was it the birth control? I’d thought it was a smart thing to do, considering how often one of us was with her, but maybe not.

  Then again, she had gone a little crazy when I’d told her about the singing. Lola hadn’t liked that, either.

  “I want to talk to her,” I muttered.

  Maddox let out an annoyed growl, but he said nothing, knowing he could not sway me from what I wanted. He was just as stubborn as I was, but I’d bet, with no uncertainty, he was as torn as me when it came to her, too. Going off and disappearing for days… he wouldn’t do that unless he was wrestling with something in his head. I’d bet any money that something was Lola and the budding feelings he had for her.

  Tony and Viper returned shortly, everything they’d need to clean her up in their hands. I kept away from her slouched figure, letting them clean her up. Her knuckles were torn to shreds, her hands all cut up, everywhere. The cut in her palm was especially deep, where she’d gripped the mirror shard tightly, the one she’d turned upon herself.

  It took them a while, but they cleaned her up, bandaged her hands, and stitched up the deeper ones. The bowl of water Tony had brought in was now red, a stained pink towel hanging into it.

  Lola started to come to while they fixed her up, but it took her a while to fully awaken and be aware of where she was: tied to a chair, a callback to our first encounter. Although, instead of being dressed up to go clubbing and claim her next victim, she wore my suit top and panties, nothing else.

  She leaned her blonde head back, groaning as her eyes fought to open. Viper went to stand near Big Mike, while Tony folded his arms over his chest and moved to stand behind me. They knew this, whatever would come of this, would be up to Maddox and me. We were the Lucianos here, not them. She was ours.

  Her hands flexed, and she frowned, though she did not wince. It was almost like Lola didn’t feel the pain in her hands, and when those blue eyes focused on us, I figured that was the case. Tied to the chair, wearing my suit jacket, she was still a stunner like no other, a gorgeous girl who wasn’t quite right in the head.

  But were any of us?

  “I like being tied up as much as the next kinky bitch,” Lola spoke, her voice a bit raspy, “but why?” She chuckled, mostly to herself as she shook her head and asked again, “Why? Why all of this? Come on. I killed your baby bro, if you’ve forgotten. Don’t you want to see me bleeding out?”

  That egged Maddox on sufficiently, for he pushed past me, leaning down over her as he growled out, “If you’re dying, I want to be the one to do it to you.”

  “Understood, boss,” she muttered, sarcasm laced in her reply.

  I pulled Maddox back before he could say or do anything else that would rile her up again. The last thing we needed was to send her spiraling. I remembered how she’d looked in the bathroom, bleeding and broken, wearing nothing but her black panties, clutching that bloodied mirror shard as if it was her lifeline. I also remembered the thick scar lining her abdomen, the only part of her that wasn’t perfect.

  “I think,” I spoke slowly, cautiously, not wanting to overstep but at the same time knowing I had to, “there’s something bothering you, Lola.” That was probably the year’s biggest understatement, but I didn’t know how else to say it.

  This girl… just looking at her, you’d never know she was a serial killer, never know the crimes she was capable of. Lola was not as innocent as her face might suggest, but that might be the point. You didn’t become a serial killer overnight. A serial killer and a mass murderer were two different types of people. She didn’t kill just to kill; she had a preferred target.

  Lola smiled at me, but I could tell it was a fake smile, the kind of smile you wore when you really felt like screaming. “Do you want to hear a story?” she asked in a whisper, tilting her head back, her blonde hair a mess. “Well, buckle up, buttercups, because I’ll tell you a story. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t have a happy ending, so don’t go telling this to any kiddies, okay?”

  I glanced at my brother, but Maddox’s black stare was too focused on Lola. A quick glimpse around the room told me every single pair of eyes was on her, that Tony, Viper, and Big Mike all waited with bated breath to hear this story.

  Me? I didn’t know whether or not I wanted to hear this story, but at this point, what choice did I have? What choice did any of us have?

  “Once upon a time, in a land far away, where the houses are just as big as this one, if not bigger, there lived a mommy and a daddy,” Lola began, her voice taking on an overly sugary tone, venom just behind it. “They had everything they wanted—the money, the house, the friends—but one day they realized their lives were empty. This mommy and daddy wanted nothing more than to have their own angel, someone they could put all of their hopes and dreams onto, push ou
t into the world, and tell everyone with a proud smile, that one’s mine.”

  So far the story didn’t sound bad, but I knew it was only the beginning.

  She continued, “They had one, and she was everything. A beautiful girl who they taught manners to, who, as it turned out, could sing like an angel. They hired a piano instructor to come to the house every week and teach her all she’d need to know. They dressed her up and paraded her around, their own personal doll.”

  I ground my teeth, knowing the angel she spoke of was her.

  “But she could not be everything to them, for she was a girl. Their name would die out once she got married, so they tried for another. They had another angel, and this time, it was a boy. A boy who was more than everything, a boy who had mommy and daddy’s heart from day one, while the girl tried desperately to impress them. She never did, and she watched her brother grow up, wondering what he had that she didn’t.”

  Beside me, Maddox shifted his weight. I could practically feel him seething, though I did not know if he seethed at her story, or at her still, for what she’d said before. With Maddox, you never knew.

  Lola went on, “The two angels grew up, but things turned black for her. Her brother, he could do no wrong, decided he wanted something one night, and he came into her room to get it. Told her that everything would be okay, if she would just hush and close her eyes, it would be over soon.” Her voice had started to shake there, but then she pushed the emotion down, whispering, “He lied to her, because, even when he was gone, he was there, in her head, invading her space and her mind just as he’d done to her body. He’d taken away something she didn’t even know she’d had, torn her innocence to shreds.”

  Rage boiled inside of me. Her brother had… it was almost too much to think about. No wonder Lola had issues; who could fucking blame her? But, as much as I wanted that to be the end of the story, it wasn’t.

  “He made it out like it was her fault, that she was too perfect, shamed her into silence. But then the girl started to get sick, and her parents took her to a doctor, who told them she was pregnant.” Lola flashed us her teeth, grinning as she said, “But don’t worry, because her parents took care of it all. Well, her parents and the doctor. They didn’t ask her where the baby came from, and she was too embarrassed to tell them.