Vengeful (Villains #2)(33)
Marcella resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Of course she knew. People looked at her and assumed a whole lot. That a pretty face meant an empty head, that a girl like her was only after an easy life, that she would be satisfied with luxury, instead of power—as if you couldn’t want both.
Her own mother had told her to aim high, that she should never sell herself cheap. (The correct saying, of course, was short. As in, don’t sell yourself short.) But Marcella hadn’t sold herself cheap or short. She’d chosen Marcus Riggins. And he was going to choose this.
The phone rang on, and on.
“Take the call.”
“If I take the call,” he said, “I take the job. If I take the job, I’m in. There’s no getting back out.”
Marcella caught him by the shoulder, interrupting the pendulum of his movement. He faltered, drew up short as she wrapped her fingers around his silk tie, and pulled him toward her. Something flashed in Marcus’s eyes, anger, and fear, and violence, and Marcella knew that he could do this job, and do it well. Marcus wasn’t weak, wasn’t soft. He was simply stubborn. Which was why he needed her. Because where he saw a trap, she saw an opportunity.
“What do you want to be?” asked Marcella. The same question he’d asked her the night they met. One Marcus himself had never answered.
Now he looked at her, his eyes dark. “I want to be more.”
“Then be more. That,” she said, turning his face toward the phone, “is just a door. A way in.” Her nails scraped against his cheek. “You want to be more, Marcus? Prove it. Pick up the phone and walk through the goddamn door.”
The ringing stopped, and in the silence she could hear her quickening pulse, and his unsteady breath. The moment stretched taut, and then collapsed. They collided, Marcus kissing her, hard, and deep, one hand already sliding between her legs, the other dragging the nails from his cheek. He spun her around, bent her over the bed.
He was already hard.
She was already wet.
Marcella stifled a gasp of pleasure, triumph, as he pressed himself against her—into her—her fingers knotting in the sheets, her gaze drifting to the cell phone beside her on the bed.
And when it rang again, Marcus answered.
IV
FOUR WEEKS AGO
THE HEIGHTS
MARCELLA longed for a hot shower, but the first touch of water sent a searing pain over her tender skin, so instead she settled for a damp cloth, drawing lukewarm water from the bathroom sink.
The edges of her hair were singed beyond repair, so she took up the sharpest scissors she could find and started to cut. When she was done, her black waves ended just above her shoulders. A thick coil swept across her brow, hiding the fresh scar above her left temple and framing her face.
Her face, which had miraculously escaped the worst of the fight and the fire. She brushed mascara along her lashes and painted a fresh coat of red on her lips. Pain followed every gesture—each stretch and bend of tender skin a reminder in the shape of her husband’s name—but through it all, Marcella’s mind felt . . . quiet. Smooth. Silk ribbons, instead of knotted rope.
She returned to the closet, running her fingers lightly along the symphony of clothes that made up her wardrobe. A small, vindictive part of her wanted to choose something revealing, to put her injuries on display, but she knew better. Weakness was a thing best concealed. In the end she chose a pair of elegant black slacks, a silk blouse that wrapped around her sleek frame, and a pair of black stilettos, the heels as thin and chrome as switchblades.
She was just fastening the buckles on her second shoe when a newscaster’s voice rose from the television in the other room.
“New developments in the case of the house fire that raged through the upscale Brighton development last week . . .”
She stepped out into the hall in time to see her own face on the screen.
“. . . resulting in the death of Marcella Renee Riggins . . .”
She’d been right, then. The police obviously wanted Marcus to believe she was dead. Which was probably the only reason she wasn’t. Marcella took up the remote, turning up the volume as the camera cut to a shot of their house, the exterior charred and smoldering.
“Officials have yet to determine the cause of the fire, but it’s believed to be an accident.”
Marcella’s grip tightened on the remote as the camera cut to a shot of Marcus running his hands through his hair, the picture of grief.
“Husband Marcus Riggins admitted to police that the two had quarreled earlier that night, and that his wife was prone to outbursts, but adamantly denied the suggestion that she’d set the fire herself, saying that she had never been violent or destructive—”
The remote crumbled in her hand, batteries liquefying as the plastic warped and melted.
Marcella let the mess fall from her fingers, and went to find her husband.
V
THREE YEARS AGO
DOWNTOWN MERIT
MARCELLA had always liked the National building. It was a feat of glass and steel, a thirty-story prism at the heart of the city. She’d coveted it, the way one might a diamond, and Tony Hutch owned the whole thing, from the marble lobby all the way to the rooftop gardens where he threw his parties.
They stepped through the front doors arm in arm, Marcus in a trim black suit, Marcella in a gold dress. She caught sight of a plainclothes cop lounging in the lobby, and shot him a toying wink. Half the Merit PD was in Hutch’s pocket. The other half couldn’t get close enough to do a damn thing.