Hart of Darkness

by S. B. Alexander

  I should’ve worn a high-neck shirt like I usually did. But I didn’t have any clean ones. The only shirts left in my wardrobe were V-necks.

  He dragged a rough finger down the length of my scar, eliciting an array of tingles that chugged their way south as if they had a mind of their own. “This right here is part of who you are. Don’t hide it.”

  My breathing ramped up. A man had never said a word about my scar except Ted, but he’d said something in a fatherly sort of way, not raspy and breathy like Dillon had. Then again, I didn’t like to show off my disfigurement. It prompted too many questions that only brought up the past.

  Slowly, Dillon’s long lashes swept down across his strong cheekbones as his gaze fell to my lips. His hand was still on my scar, which meant it was very close to my cleavage.

  Damn.

  “Battle scars are beautiful,” he rasped.

  I jumped up, my pulse off the charts. This time, my excitement was vastly different than it was when I was thinking about sticking Cory in a jail cell. I’d come to the shelter to help someone in need, not have sex with the owner, although that wasn’t such a bad idea. What worried me, though, was my heart. I could fall for Dillon in a flash, and I wasn’t ready to go steady with anyone. Frankly, I didn’t know if I would ever settle down, at least not until I accomplished my mission of exacting my revenge on Cory.

  Dillon chuckled, his deep timbre licking across my skin. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. You’re more beautiful than I remembered.”

  Yikes! My throat was as dry as the Sahara Desert.

  I moved to the ping-pong table. “Do you play?” Nothing like deflecting.

  He stalked toward me with a sense of purpose as if he were planning to lay me out on top of the smooth green surface.

  I might have let him.

  His mouth curled on one side. His hair was untamed and silky around his shoulders, and his swagger screamed that he knew how to handle a woman in bed.

  Kill me now.

  I was tempted to hop up on the table and open my legs, but that wouldn’t be ladylike.

  Dillon’s arm went around my side, and I froze as if I’d never been kissed by a boy before. Now that I thought about it, I’d never had a mind-blowing kiss that made my toes curl. Nevertheless, just when I thought he was going to pull me to him, he snagged a paddle off the table instead.

  Images of him using that paddle on me only made me cross one leg over the other.

  He edged back, examining the paddle as though he were looking for cracks. “My brothers and I played as kids.”

  I let out a quiet sigh, thankful he didn’t kiss me or that our bodies didn’t touch. I wasn’t sure what I would’ve done. Scratch that, I was ready to rip my clothes off for him.

  Vibrator, here I come.

  His biceps bunched as he rubbed a hand over the surface of the paddle.

  Say something. “I heard your brother Denim is in jail.”

  In a flash, Dillon was on the other side of the enormous table, not showing me his cards, so to speak. “I really don’t want to talk about my brother. I was hoping I could ask you about the sex-trafficking story.”

  I was hoping I could ask you for one night of unadulterated passion.

  He traded the paddle for his wallet. “My sister, Grace, went missing four years ago at the age of sixteen, but it’s been much longer than that since I’ve seen her.” He swaggered back and handed me her picture.

  I studied the young girl but didn’t recognize her. When I’d been in a gang, I’d only heard of Grace but had never seen her.

  “It’s a shot in the dark, but I thought that with the stories you work on, that maybe Grace Hart was one of those stories.”

  If she had been, I would’ve remembered the name. Yet sometimes faces didn’t come with names other than Jane Doe.

  His hand brushed mine. When it did, I freaking whimpered.

  He cocked his head.

  Busted.

  “She’s young.” My voice cracked as I studied the girl who resembled Dillon. She had warm brown eyes like he did, and her hair was a smidge lighter than his dark brown. I dipped back to some of the stories I’d done on girls of the night or even dead girls who’d had a sad story to tell. I couldn’t recall anyone resembling Grace.

  Craning my neck to look up at him, I handed Dillon her photo as my heart severed at the misery that lived deep in his eyes.

  “I haven’t done any stories on a Grace Hart, nor have I seen anyone like her. She’s young in this picture.”

  “She’s fourteen in that photo,” he said. “I don’t have a more recent one. I was gone so much for the merchant marines that I hardly came home much. Anyway, she’s twenty now.”

  “I hate to be blunt, but—”

  He held up his hand, sadness oozing from him in buckets. “Don’t say it. I’ve heard a million times that she’s probably dead.” He touched his heart. “In here, I don’t believe she is.”

  I admired him for having hope. “Why not?”

  His long fingers disappeared in his unruly locks as he began pacing. “Over a year ago, I talked to a woman on the street who claimed she saw Grace at a soup kitchen down on Asher Street. I watched the joint for days but never got anywhere.” Desperation weaved through his words.

  I couldn’t fault him for that. I was itching to find Cory, of course for different reasons. I studied Grace a little more closely. “Is that a birthmark on her neck?” Of all the stories I’d done, I couldn’t recall a female with a birthmark that resembled a broken star.

  Dillon stopped dead in his tracks, drawing in an audible breath. “Have you seen her?”

  I rested my butt lightly against the ping-pong table, holding on to the edge. “Again, I haven’t. I can check my files, though, and I’ll talk to Ted. He’s seen a lot on the streets.” That was the least I could do.

  Dillon came up to me, and again my pulse became erratic, even more so when he settled next to me, his leg grazing mine. “Thank you. You can keep the picture. I have a few.”

  As much as I wanted him to touch me again, I couldn’t get involved with him. I was afraid he would take me on a journey I would never recover from, one that had love somewhere in there along the way, and that scared me to no end. I was afraid I would end up in a strained or nonexistent relationship in which the husband and wife argued constantly, much like the foster families I’d been in.

  I had a long day at work tomorrow anyway. I grabbed my scarf and secured it around my neck.

  Dillon made some sort of low noise.

  I didn’t know if he was trying to tell me not to put on the scarf, but I said, “Habit. I’ll be back tomorrow to check on Nadine.”

  As Dillon walked me out, an idea bloomed.

  “I want to find dirt on the guy who gave me this scar. You want to find your sister.” I shrugged. “Maybe we can help each other out.” Personally, I wanted to get to know the real Dillon Hart and not the rival gang member I knew long ago.

  Professionally, as a reporter, I wanted stories, good, bad, or indifferent. And Dillon had a story to tell, particularly because he’d started a refuge for battered women. Former Gang Member Turned Entrepreneur Gives His Heart To Helping Women In Dire Straits. Now that was a headline, although not one that would put Cory behind bars.

  Intrigue flashed in his eyes. “What do you have in mind?”

  Aside from the thought of him running those rough, calloused hands all over me, kissing me, and giving me a night to remember, I had another idea. “Can you introduce me to your financial advisor?”

  We lingered on the porch, the heat of the night hotter than a bonfire.

  “I’m not sure you’ll learn much about Cory by talking to my financial advisor. But I can do something better.”

  I held my breath, my mind blank on what he could offer me other than his hot bod.

  “Denim might be able to give us some dirt on the Black Knights. Prisons are notorious with gangs. I know the cops won’t tell you jack, but does your det
ective friend know who’s running the show?”

  “Ted says whoever is at the helm of the Black Knights is a ghost. If gang members are caught, they don’t talk. They’d rather rot in jail.”

  “All the more reason for me to reach out to Denim,” Dillon added. “Give me a few days.”

  I lifted up on my toes and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.” I didn’t know much about gangs in prison, but if they were anything like the ones on the streets—closed mouth and protective of their people—then Denim might not be able to learn anything.

  I waved as I hurried to my car.

  He watched me until I got to the driver’s side door.

  “Dillon, again, I’m sorry about your sister.” I truly was.

  His heated gaze caressed my face, slowly and oh-so-sensually, before I ducked into my VW and sped away. A block down, a giddy feeling tickled me. I’d reunited with a man who made my stomach do somersaults and backflips. More importantly, I was blanketed by a renewed sense of hope that I might get some info on the Black Knights.

  7

  Dillon

  I sat at a table in the visitor’s room, waiting for the guard to get Denim, as I replayed the night before, or hours before, in my head. I hadn’t been able to sleep a wink, not with Maggie on my brain. I’d snapped about twenty imaginary shots of her from the time she’d sashayed into the shelter until the time she’d driven away. I’d bitten my tongue when she walked to her car. I’d been a second away from asking her to stay the night. All those visions of her I’d had as a teenager paled in comparison to my thoughts of her now and what I itched to do. We were no longer enemies. She no longer had Lou watching over her. We were adults and had free rein to do as we pleased.

  My lack of sleep, however, was from more than a blonde with long wavy hair and a body that made me harder than stone. My gut was signaling to me that something big was about to happen. I couldn’t pinpoint what yet. I believed that every person I came into contact with played a role in my life somehow.

  Maggie was going to play a role, maybe to test my resolve not to get serious with anyone. Or maybe she would be essential in leading me to Grace. Or maybe I was in her life to help her slay her demon named Cory Calderon. I certainly wanted to cut the fucker’s head off for what he’d done to her, and the same went for the asshole who had taken his hands to Nadine, who had still been tucked into a bed when I’d left at the crack of dawn that morning. I’d made a point to check. Maggie and I both knew she would go back to her pimp, but I was praying she wouldn’t.

  Aside from all that, those snapshots in my head had Maggie and me beneath the sheets, her soft skin against mine. Man, I didn’t know what had come over me when I decided to touch her scar. I hadn’t been prepared for the jolt of electricity that fired through me either. The heat was unbearable and in a good fucking way.

  All I knew was that I had to get close to her. I hated that she was self-conscious about her scar. The more my finger had traveled down the length of her scar, the more my groin had pulsed. I’d been ready to explode when my eyes landed on her large, round breasts. I wanted to suck, lick, and play with them as well as her wide hips, her toes, and everywhere in between.

  Focus, man. You’re at a prison to talk to your brother, not to get a boner over a woman who all but ran from you. I did like how she’d squirmed and her breathing had ramped up and how goose bumps had popped up on her arms the more my finger danced along her skin. She wasn’t running from me, but herself. I had no doubt she wanted me as much as I wanted her.

  Sadly, thoughts of Maggie vanished when the door to the room squeaked open. My brother sauntered in, wearing his normal cocky grin. Nothing seemed to bother him. Even as a kid, Denim used to laugh at our old man when the bastard had lashed out at him.

  “Give it your best shot,” Denim would say to dear old dad before he broke out in a fit of laughter. Our father would stumble toward Denim, waver, then swing his fists, at times missing his mark, which was Denim’s face.

  Duke and I had gotten pretty good at shielding ourselves after years of taking his beatings, but we hadn’t been laughing. We would seethe and spit fire at the man we couldn’t believe was our kin. I made it my mission to never ever become the man he was.

  I stood up to give my brother a hug. The last time I’d seen him was a week after I’d spoken to Duke, which was eight months ago. I tried to see Denim on occasion, but once I’d purchased the shelter, my time had been limited.

  Denim and I went in for a manly hug until the guard piped up. “No touching.”

  My brother rolled his eyes before he dropped his big body into the chair across from me.

  The guard said, “You got fifteen minutes, Hart.” Then he took up a position at the door he and Denim had emerged from.

  I slid back into my seat.

  A beat of silence stretched around the empty room that was filled with other tables and chairs.

  I swept my gaze over my brother, who was wearing a white T-shirt and an orange jumpsuit folded down to the waist. His blond hair was tied back in a low ponytail, his blue eyes were bright, and his jaw was littered with stubble. He seemed happy. “You look well.”

  “You look like shit. What brings you here? Did you find a crack in my case to get me out of this fucked-up hell?”

  I’d never believed my brother would murder anyone intentionally. Self-defense was a different story, and the potential of dying came with being in a gang. But Denim had been accused of murdering a notorious member of the Southside Creepers. It had shocked the hell out of me when I learned he’d been arrested for killing someone.

  “How many times do I have to tell you, a lawyer won’t touch your case?” I’d spoken to an attorney right after I returned home from the merchant marines. The high-priced lawyer wouldn’t touch Denim’s case for all the money in the world. The man was into winning, not losing.

  Fucker.

  “Didn’t you tell me you’re friends with a lawyer? A Maxwell or some name like that?”

  I laughed at the notion that I would bring Kelton Maxwell into the picture to retry Denim’s case. Not that I was laughing at Kelton. He was sharp as a whip and was studying criminal law. “Kelton is in law school.”

  “So? He can take a look at my file. It would be a good learning experience for him. Maybe he knows a good lawyer. Look, the public defender I had was worthless.”

  We were getting off track, yet I couldn’t help but feel my brother’s pain and frustration. “Bro, I’m here because I need your help.”

  He smirked. “I can’t imagine how I can help you. Remember, I’m in prison.”

  “Do you remember Maggie Marx from the Bloodhounds?”

  He let out a low whistle. “How can I forget her? You had a major boner for that chick. Have you finally got her in the sack?”

  I had no reason to turn red. I was talking to my brother, the same one who had asked about sex nonstop when he was going through puberty. Hell, most of us in the house had had to take cold showers and not because we’d been jacking off. But Denim had been.

  “Aw, my brother is blushing.”

  I flipped him off. “She’s a crime reporter for the Boston Eagle, and she’s working on a story. She believes that the Black Knights have a stronghold on sex trafficking.”

  The light in his eyes snuffed out in a matter of seconds. He gave the guard a cursory glance before he leaned over the scratched table. “That gang is badass motherfuckers that you don’t want to get involved with. I mean, they wouldn’t think twice about ripping your insides out if you even breathe in their direction.”

  The word gang held fear for most of the general population, but not anyone who had been in one, or so I’d thought. Denim was visibly shaken at the mere mention of the gang’s name.

  “Did you have a run-in with them?” I couldn’t help but ask. Normally, he wasn’t fearful of much, at least he hadn’t been when we were causing all kinds of trouble as kids.

  “I would love to get my hands on one of them and te
ar off his head, but I suggest you stay away from them. You’ve got things in your life where you want them. So don’t go poking the bear.”

  I slapped a hand over my heart. “You care.” I seriously was touched. As brothers, we’d grown apart after I left for the merchant marines. “I’m trying to help Maggie out. She believes the dude who gave her that scar on her neck is with the Black Knights.”

  He shook his head, his expression still cautionary. “Revenge will get her killed, and maybe you too.”

  “I only want to find Grace or find out what happened to her, and Maggie might be able to help me. Aside from that, think for a minute if Grace ended up in a sex-trafficking ring and was sold to some fat fuck.”

  He winced as he clenched his fist. “Are you saying the Black Knights could be responsible for Grace’s disappearance?”

  I shrugged. “Not at all.” I prayed not. I didn’t know much about what the Black Knights were into or if what Maggie believed about them held any truth. “Look, you told me the last time I was here that the Black Knights ruled E block. So can you put feelers out and find out what the gang is up to and who runs the show?”

  His lips formed a thin line. “I’m not in E block, but for Grace, I’ll see what I can dig up.”

  He loved our sister as much as me. I knew Duke did too, though Duke had a funny way of showing it.

  “You blame yourself for Grace taking off, don’t you?” Denim asked. “I do too, brother. I do too. I’m really sorry that I didn’t pay more attention before I got busted.”

  All of us had had our own way of dealing with our father. Duke had never been home, and when he was, he’d hidden in his room in the basement. Denim and I had hidden in the treehouse in the backyard. As drunk as our old man had gotten, he couldn’t climb up the ladder without falling, and he’d tried several times.