Crooked Heart (A Death So Sweet Book 2)

by Candace Wondrak

  “I don’t have friends.” That much was true. Not growing up, and certainly not now.

  Bianca’s smile faded only a little at that. “You’ll find it does you well to have friends in high places here, Lola.” She ran a hand through her hair, and I noticed she wore no rings; she wasn’t married. The last DeLuca heir was unwed, and I wondered if that meant if she died, the DeLuca bloodline would die out, too.

  For all their talk about being more powerful than the Lucianos… was she all that was left?

  “I knew Tony was trying to use me, of course,” she went on, “but that was all right, because, as you’ve probably guessed, I was using him as well. Had to test his loyalty, and he pulled it off. He convinced you to poison my father.”

  “Why?” I asked, not that I cared much at this point. The DeLucas, the Lucianos… it wasn’t my fight. I didn’t care about the bad blood between them. “Why do you want your father dead, Bianca?”

  A bitter grin graced her lips, and she was quiet for a few moments. I could tell by the way her eyes shifted to the side she was lost in the past. “There was a time,” she began, “when my father was the most feared man in the city. He was vicious and violent, but then… then his oldest daughter fell in love with the enemy, and it made him soft.”

  Oh, God. Fuck me. This little chat of ours was going to last for hours, wasn’t it? I didn’t care about the backstory, I just wanted… well, at this point, I didn’t know what I wanted, but listening to Bianca go on and on was not it.

  When I said nothing, when my expression didn’t change, Bianca paused to ask, “They never told you the whole story, did they? I guess I’m not surprised. The Lucianos always had a way of sweeping things under the rug and not wanting to address them. I mean, look at you. You killed Mario DeLuca and you’re still walking around, unharmed. If that doesn’t show how weak and soft-hearted they’ve gotten, I don’t know what would.”

  My teeth ground. Even though I told myself I didn’t care, I felt the innate urge to slap this bitch for how disrespectful she was being of the Lucianos. That was just stupid, wasn’t it? The Lucianos weren’t my family, so why did I care?

  “My sister fell in love with Richard Luciano, and together they had two sons, adopted a third off the street. Things were quiet between our families for the first time in years, until she was shot and killed.” Bianca smiled, waving a hand in the air. “My first move, you see. My sister was weak. My mother was weak, though she needed no help from me—she died a few months after my sister, from a broken heart they say.” She scoffed. “How ridiculous.”

  Shit. So, technically, Maddox had both DeLuca and Luciano blood in him. Wouldn’t that make him the heir of the DeLuca family if something should happen to Bianca?

  “I waited for years for my father to take back the city, but he moped around, saying he was tired, so I did. I made the rounds. I earned myself the name Bloody Princess. I turned countless of people against the Lucianos. This city is mine, Lola, but I needed my father out of the way before I could truly take control. That’s where you came in.”

  “Technically I didn’t kill your father,” I stated. “The poison did.” Killing Carl DeLuca was suddenly not something I wanted credit for, not in Bianca’s eyes. I knew crazy bitches because I was one, and she was almost at my level, it sounded like.

  “Oh, well, the poison got the word out about his pending death—and it started the pointing at the Lucianos, but as for what killed my father… well, that honor belongs to me.”

  I blinked. So Carl was dead?

  “I wanted him to know it was me,” Bianca spoke, quite proud of it all. Okay, maybe the bitch was on my level. “I wanted him to know I’d stolen the city out from under him before I cut his throat and watched him bleed out.” She laughed quietly. “The look on his face when he knew, the look in his eyes when he realized he was too weak to stop me—I will remember that moment for the rest of my life, and I owe it to you, so thank you.”

  My jaw was too tense for me to tell her she was welcome. This whole thing… it was too much. And, fuck me in the ass with an alien dildo, there were no weapons in the room, nothing I could use to escape this place and this woman—who had earned her nickname, as much as I didn’t want to admit it. The Bloody Princess was fitting for someone who’d spent years conniving and planning and killing.

  “You’re probably wondering why you’re here,” Bianca said. She leaned back a bit, relaxing her posture somewhat. “I bet you’re wondering if I’m going to kill you now.”

  “Not gonna lie,” I found my voice, “I’ve been waiting for someone to kill me for years. The Lucianos, the police—no one seems capable of killing the Night Slayer.” I decided to name drop the fun little moniker the media had given me, just to see her reaction.

  Her eyebrows moved a hair, but otherwise she was just as she was before: staring intently at me, as if she was proud of me. As if she was my own mother or something. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one bit.

  “You’ve been through a lot in your life, I can tell,” Bianca said. “We’re both similar in that way, and I think you and I could have quite the partnership once the Lucianos are gone.”

  “What are you proposing?”

  “I want you to do what you do best, Lola. I want you to kill the last two Luciano boys. I want Richard to realize how bad he fucked up and that it’s too late.”

  Kill… she wanted me to kill Maddox and Sylvester? I couldn’t—I mean, I’d killed Dickless, but that wasn’t because I was purposefully going after the Lucianos. That had been an accident. Not an accident in the choosing of my victim, but him being a Luciano was pure happenstance. I couldn’t kill Maddox and Sylvester all for this woman, just so she could rid the city of the Lucianos.

  I… I couldn’t kill them. I cared about them too much, or as much as my broken, twisted heart could allow.

  “Now, I’ve heard you’ve been… entangling yourself with them, and I don’t blame you one bit for that. I know how hormones are. Still, it would behoove you to do as I ask.”

  Blinking, I stared at her. “And if I say no? If I tell you I won’t do it?” That I would rather die instead of killing Sylvester and Maddox? It was bad enough that Viper and Mike might’ve met their ends because of me tonight—I didn’t want any more of their blood to be spilled because of me.

  “You put on a show that says you aren’t afraid of anything,” Bianca spoke, knowing me too well. She definitely had an advantage there, thanks to Tony the Traitor. “But I know what you’re afraid of, Lola. I know that the threat of death slides right off you. No, what you fear is something much worse than death.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Helplessness.”

  Though she’d only spoken a single word, it was a word that could mean so much. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, she was right. That was what I feared. Death wasn’t frightening to me at all, because then the pain I carried with me would end… but to be helpless again? To be unable to fight back and stop bad things from happening to me, to others? That was a fate worse than death.

  I didn’t like this bitch. I didn’t like that she thought she knew everything about me. I didn’t appreciate her trying to tell me what to do, nor did I like the fact she’d used Tony to get me to poison her father. I didn’t like being a goddamned pawn in a game I didn’t know how to play.

  My games? My games were always bloody. If this lady, if the fucking Bloody Princess thought she’d be able to control me, she had another thing coming. Bianca DeLuca wasn’t ready for the games I played. She cut her father’s throat? Congrats. I stabbed mine dozens of times. There was no comparison.

  We weren’t alike. She was a manipulative bitch who wanted power, who wanted to see everyone kneeling at her feet. Me? I wanted to rid the world of people who thought they could use others, I took out the sleazebags and the men who would abuse and rape. I was more like a protector than anything else; a twisted, crazy protector, but a protector all the same.

  No, Bian
ca and I were nothing alike, and if she thought she could use me, she had another thing coming.

  “If you make the rather poor choice of not doing as I ask, then I’ll have no choice but to remind you of how cruel the world can truly be.” Bianca spoke so evenly, so seriously; she was a monster and she wasn’t afraid to show it. Cruel and calculating. She was nothing like me and my craziness. “Trust me, dear, I hate to threaten such things, but sometimes the situation calls for violence.”

  Oh, didn’t I know that. In fact, I knew it all too well.

  I said nothing, continuing to stare at her because I could say nothing. My tongue refused to work. If I didn’t kill Sylvester or Maddox… she would take my choice away from me. She would make me as helpless as a newborn babe, and I could not imagine the horrors she would put me through.

  It would be like my childhood, I imagined, never knowing a peaceful night again. Never being able to fully be in control. Bianca, the absolute bitch, was right. It was a fate worse than death and the only thing I feared in this life, for all the bravado I pretended to have.

  As I stared into her warm brown eyes, their hue alive with power and emotion, I couldn’t help but think one particular thought. It was a thought that would surely get me into trouble, especially if Bianca heard it.

  I couldn’t wait to kill her. I couldn’t wait to end this bitch’s life and hear her screams. She thought she could intimidate me into being her bitch? She had the balls to threaten me, Lola fucking Harding, the goddamned Night Slayer? I’d lived through awful things in my past, and if push came to shove, I’d weather it again.

  It didn’t matter what she said or did; not anymore. Bianca, on this night, dragging me here and threatening me—me—had sealed her own death warrant. I would become her judge, her jury, and her executioner. I would kill her in such a way she would regret ever thinking she could use me.

  Everyone wanted me to be a pawn. Everyone wanted to use me. Fuck that.

  Fuck all of this.

  “Don’t worry,” Bianca went on, either choosing to ignore the death stare I currently gave her or not seeing it, “I’m aware what I’m asking of you is a lot. It’s a lot to you, which is why I’m prepared to give you one week to make your decision. If, in seven days, the Luciano sons are still alive, I’ll know what your choice was.”

  “How the hell do you expect me to be able to kill them both and walk away from it?” Even as I asked, I knew the answer: she wasn’t. Bianca DeLuca didn’t expect me to walk away from the encounter with the Lucianos. She assumed I would die. And if I didn’t, by some miracle, then she could just find a way to use me more.

  Needless to say, after years upon years of being used up, I did not like it. I would not be used like a fucking pawn, mark my words.

  Bianca gave me a smile that, unlike her eyes, did not deceive me. It was a vicious smile hidden behind red lipstick, a smile that would’ve sent a shiver up my spine if I never would’ve gazed into the devil’s eyes as I grew up. But I did, so I was not affected at all by that cruel grin. “I’m sure you’ll figure something out, Lola.”

  I felt my lips curling into a smile, a smile that put hers to shame. Mine was not cruel or vicious; mine was simply wild and rash, crazy and unpredictable. She’d see that soon enough. “I always do,” I whispered, smiling hard. So hard my cheeks hurt, but the pain was nothing.

  This idiot bitch. She’d get what was coming to her.

  “Of that, I have no doubt,” Bianca said, and that was the last thing she said to me. It wouldn’t be the last I would hear from her, and it wouldn’t be the last time I’d see her face. No, Bianca and I had a lot of unfinished business, and even after the driver of the limo came to get me, corralling me from the room, I couldn’t help but feel like a new page was turning.

  A new chapter, if you will.

  Things were about to get crazy.

  Chapter Thirteen – Lola

  The driver took me back to the city, dropping me off on what I must assume was one of the main streets of the entire place. All bright lights and wide sidewalks, signs flashing almost blindingly in the night air.

  A crisp, cool night, an omen of what just happened. This entire night had turned to shit.

  I didn’t say goodbye as I got out, didn’t say a single word to the driver as I watched him pull away. He left me alone, in a city surrounded by strangers, on a street corner that was not my usual place. Nothing here was familiar. I had no idea where I was and no phone to call.

  Hell, even if I did have a phone, I didn’t know the Luciano’s number, and at this point, I refused to ask a stranger because they’d probably be loyal to the DeLucas, or at the very least look at me like I was crazy because they had no idea who or what I was talking about.

  No, until I found my way back home, I was alone. Alone in this big, dark, cold place.

  Not alone completely, mind you. Dozens of people walked around me on the sidewalk as I watched the limo disappear into traffic. I still wore the dress I’d worn at the Gilded Rose, my gloves pulled up and the soles of my feet starting to ache after a long night of wearing the tall heels.

  So many people were out, going about their lives, unaware that everything was unraveling for me. Everything I thought I had, everything I wanted, everything I felt… none of it mattered. This I’d known before, but tonight had given me the reminder I needed.

  I might care for those guys, sure. They might’ve awoken something in me I thought was long dead, but in the end none of it would matter, because it would be either me or them. And it would always be me. I would be the odd one out, the one who never got what she wanted. I would be the loser, the one who never crossed the finish line, watching from a distance as the winners partied it up and went on without me.

  They would choose family, of course. I wasn’t family. I was their brother’s killer, and for that I would get my comeuppance.

  But, if I had anything to say about it, so would Bianca. I might not leave a lasting impression on the Lucianos, no more than my killing of Dickless had left, but I would do my best to take out their enemy. It was the least I could do for them. I wasn’t going to say I owed them shit, but… but I was thankful for the time I’d had with them. It was good to feel again, as fleeting as all those feelings were.

  I took a step away from the road, instantly bumping into a guy who was walking on the sidewalk behind me. He snapped a harsh “Watch it,” and I gave him my middle finger. He didn’t stop, which was good, for I felt the need to itch a scratch only a good beating would quench. I wanted to kill.

  I think I needed to, actually. It’d been so long, so unbelievably long since that night near the water, when I’d killed Danny boy. After everything that had happened tonight—my performance at the Gilded Rose, Tony, and meeting Bianca and hearing her out—I think I deserved a night to myself, a night where I could give in to the instincts inside and let the monster in me come out and play.

  Let the devil out. Let him grow stronger. Let him flex his muscles before setting him loose on Bianca DeLuca and her brood.

  Glancing around, I figured it wouldn’t take me long to find a club. Or a bar. I’d take any place where singles gathered in hopes of finding another and taking them home. Hell, I’d take a random guy off the street, let him think I was a hooker or something. Tonight I would not be picky.

  Anyone, everyone. I kind of felt like painting the whole city red. After all, there was nothing like blood. So pretty, so pure when it was freshly spilled. Warm and dark but bright and gaudy all the same. Blood was what kept your body up and running, and it was amazing to see how much could be spilled from a single body.

  I started walking, eyes darting all around as I went. I did pass a trashcan, and I stopped to pull off my gloves, tossing them in the can without a care. They weren’t mine. I didn’t give a shit about them.

  It looked like a fancy hotel stood two blocks away, and judging by its exterior, I’d say it had to have a concierge in its lobby, a worker whose job it was to know the city and the su
rrounding area for anyone staying at the hotel. I looked a cut above everyone else on the street, so it wasn’t far-fetched that I’d be staying at the local Ritz.

  It took me five minutes to reach the front glass doors of the hotel, five minutes because there was still so much traffic about that I had to wait with the other pedestrians for the crosswalk lights to change and allow us to cross. I know, how annoying. For a city that was basically run by two crime families, the normal folk seemed to obey all the laws.

  How maddening. And not fun.

  The inside of the hotel was nice, I had to hand it to them. Brightly lit, everything decked in gold and velvet. It looked like a hotel that belonged in Vegas, a place that catered to the movie stars.

  There were no movie stars here. Just little ole me.

  I was seconds from going to the front desk, but I saw a cute stand that held flyers and brochures, things to do in the city while you were here. My heeled feet steered me right to it, and thankfully it was off to the side enough in the lobby that the people going in and out didn’t walk near me.

  Anyone who stepped within six inches of me was liable to get a heel in the leg.

  If only I had a knife on me… alas, I did not, so I’d have to make do. But I always did. It’s how I became the Night Slayer, you know. It wasn’t like I brought my own weapons to every apartment and house I was taken home to. No, no, I used their own weapons, and then I left them at the scene. No point in taking them. The police didn’t have my fingerprints in their databases or my DNA, so I really didn’t care.

  Plus, you know me. I was always kind of hoping they’d catch me, that my name would go down in history and cause the sleazebags to stop and think about what they were doing to the drunk girls they were taking advantage of.