Stolen Hearts (Hearts 1)

One thing was clear – he was the danger. Ronan was the unknown. The new monster in my life. And I’d learned some valuable lessons from my last one. Information was key. I wouldn’t be walking into anything blindly. Not again.

Once I was out of sight of the compound, I opened my purse and pulled out my phone.

Four texts from Zilla. A missed call. I had enough battery left to call her back.

“Hey!” She answered halfway through the first ring, and it did not escape me that our roles for the moment were reversed. “You had me worried.”

“Sorry, I left my phone at a gala. I just got it back.”

“A gala,” she said. “Sounds awful.”

“It was. It really . . . was.”

“What’s wrong, Poppy?”

I bit my lip and stared up at the sky. This was a big dangerous step. “If you needed to find out something about a Constantine, how would you find it?”

“None of this sounds like a good idea.”

“There’s a guy working for Caroline, and I just need to know his story.”

“Have you tried asking him?”

“You’re hilarious.” This was crossing a line; I was well aware of that. But I couldn’t live like this anymore. The girl left in the dark. And I couldn’t wait for people to decide to tell me what I needed to know.

I had to get my own answers.

“Well, you won’t like my answer,” Zilla said.

“What would you do?”

“Call a Morelli.”

“I don’t know any,” I said.

“I do. But, Poppy, are you sure you want to do this? You might start another Morelli and Constantine war, and you’ll be right in the middle of it.”

“Zilla,” I said, stepping through the tall grass. I hit the top of the hill. The senator’s house . . . my house, down below. “I don’t have that kind of power.”

“Well, you’ve never been a good judge of how much power you have, Poppy. But stay by your phone. I’ll be in touch.”

10

“Another?” the bartender at the Red Hook dive bar asked me. He had a t-shirt on with the sleeves cut out. I could see his armpit hair. It was revolting. And fascinating.

“No, thank you,” I said, thinking I needed to be on top of my game. Whatever game that was. One very cheap Pinot Grigio was all I was going to have before meeting my sister’s mysterious Morelli.

This was a bad idea. I could see that from my vantage spot on this hard stool in this shabby bar. But since the second I decided to find out what I could about Ronan, I’d been obsessed. What happened the night of the gala had been running through my mind on a loop, forcing me to live in this sort of anguished, disbelieving and constantly turned-on place.

And I didn’t know a single thing about the guy other than how his hand felt against my throat. What his voice sounded like in my ear. How his wrist felt against the bare skin of my belly.

Sex wasn’t something I thought about. Not for a long, long time. And now, the brush of my clothes against my skin put me on edge. The seam of my jeans between my legs had me halfway to orgasm. I wanted to forget everything he did to me. But I replayed every moment like my sister played Pink’s Greatest Hits when she was eleven. Nonstop.

“You want food or something?” the bartender asked, sliding a plastic menu at me. He could not seem less invested in me wanting food.

“I’m fine. I’m just meeting someone.”

“Whatever,” he said and turned back to the baseball game playing on the television over the bar.

I’d never been in a bar like this. Sticky floor. Neon signs. There were bowls of peanuts, and people just threw the shells on the floor. It was unhygienic, disrespectful, and dangerous for people with allergies and . . . amazing.

All these people who just did not give a shit? I mean . . . I didn’t want to know them, but it was fun to see it happening.

Zilla had told me to dress down. To try and not stand out, so I wore jeans I hadn’t worn in years and a sweatshirt from Union College, my alma mater. My hair was back in a ponytail, and I had no makeup on my face. Not even mascara. I found an old pair of Converse tennis shoes in the back of my closet from my days before Jim, and they fit just like they used to.

I felt like a kid doing something really wrong.

And I kind of liked it.

The bell over the door rang out, and the bartender looked over and threw his hands up in the air.

“No way, man,” he said. “Again?”

I turned as a man walked in wearing a suit and a do-not-fuck-with-me expression. His silence was seriously the most threatening thing I’d ever experienced, and he just stared at the bartender and his armpit hair.