Leather & Lark: The Ruinous Love Trilogy (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, 2)

When I enter the living space of our apartment, I stand for a long moment in the center of the room, trying to see it through a different set of eyes. Bentley watches from the couch in stark judgment of what I’m about to do.

“I don’t like it either,” I say to him, though he doesn’t seem convinced. “But she’s going to get herself into the kind of trouble I can’t bail her out of if I don’t find what she’s hiding.”

I don’t even take off my jacket before I start looking. For what, I’m not sure. I just feel as though if I’ve been missing pieces of this woman for so long, maybe there are treasures she doesn’t want anyone to find.

I open cupboards. I pull out drawers and run my fingers over their underbellies. I hunt in places I’ve purposely avoided the last two days out of respect for Lark’s privacy. Her en suite. Her bedroom. If she believes I despise her, maybe she thinks I’d never want to see her lingerie drawer? I could easily prove her otherwise as I shift through lace and silk and thin dangling straps. My cock feckin’ aches with every piece of material I touch as I picture Lark in each one. I get a little derailed by a certain deep blue corset that ignites all the fantasies of Duchess Lark that I’ve been trying and failing to suppress. I stare at that fabric in my hands for longer than I probably should, imagining how it might skim Lark’s curves, how her skin might look covered with lace.

Though I have the urge to steal it to fuel my fantasies in the privacy of my room across the hall, I set the corset back down and press my eyes closed as I shut the drawer.

With a deep breath, I turn and head back to the living room.

“Feckin’ hell,” I say to the dog, who heaves a disinterested sigh. “What does she see?”

She sees the city from her round chair as she counts the hours between dusk and dawn. She sees photos of friends and family and places she’s traveled. She sees the gold table she made and a macrame wall hanging of tiny stars. She sees huge movie posters printed on canvas. The Life Aquatic. Beetlejuice. Sharknado. Constantine.

Constantine.

I inhale a sharp breath and march over to the poster, lifting it gently from the wall. Behind it, I finally find what I was looking for. A thin sheet over a ragged hole in the drywall.

By the time Lark returns to the apartment an hour later, I’ve cleared out the hole and replaced the poster on the wall. But now I’m left with a small cardboard box containing far more questions than I started with. I want answers. And the only woman who can give them to me walks in with a cutting glare, suspicion a heavy note in the tense beat of quiet between us.

“Hey,” I say when the silence in the room grows to the size of a black hole.

Balancing a covered tray with one hand, Lark glances up and places her bag down with the other. She says nothing, just casts me a brief, exhausted look as though she knows something is coming but is too weak to avoid the collision.

“We need to talk, Lark. Really.”

She sighs and rubs her forehead with her free hand. “Lachlan, honestly, I don’t want to talk about Claire right now or any of that shit. I just want to exist in a place of caffeine and butter and sugar.” Lark sets a tray of muffins onto the counter and lifts the plastic lid. The scent of apple and cinnamon drifts toward me. “I volunteered to teach music lessons this afternoon and this kid Hugo literally tries to gnaw on the cello every single time. He is so fucking weird.”

“This is important.”

“Is it about the mystery murderer?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then it’s not more important than the caffeine I need to survive Hugo’s mouth-splinter fixation.”

“It’s about you.”

Lark glances at me, wariness filtering into her eyes. “Since that is your least favorite topic and I’ve made it a personal life goal to cause you the most misery humanly possible,” she says as she takes a little bow and gracefully sweeps her hand before her, “please, do continue.”

Normally, I would reply with a diabolical grin. Maybe a jab or two to rile her up. But this time, my stomach flips uncomfortably as I reach into the cardboard box tucked beneath my arm to pull out the first item in question.

“What’s this?” I ask as I hold up a flat disc of fabric.

The flash of shock in her expression snuffs out as quickly as it appears. She clears her throat. “It appears to be a coaster.”

“Not quite,” I reply as I take a step closer. “It’s a coaster made from an extra-thick, aftermarket, corded boot lace. One with a suspicious stain on the fibers.”

Lark huffs a dismissive laugh, but there’s a spark of trepidation in her gaze when it flicks from the string in my hand to my face. “An aftermarket boot lace? Did it come with a spoiler and muffler package?” She rolls her eyes and pads away toward the kitchen as I trail behind her like a joyless specter. “It’s a wine stain on a coaster, Lachlan. You could have gotten it anywhere.”

“I could have, but I didn’t. I got it from right here in the apartment.”

She scoffs but doesn’t look at me.

Next, I take two sticks with brightly painted bulbous ends from the box. “And what are these?”

Her focus darts to the items in my hand. She avoids my eyes. “Maracas, clearly.”

I clear my throat for dramatic effect. “Maracas …” Lark nods. “And what would they be made of, exactly?”

Lark turns to the fridge for butter. “How am I supposed to know?”

I rattle them, the objects inside hitting the lacquered walls of what looks suspiciously like skin. “You know I’m a leatherworker, Lark. Want to try again?”

She refuses to acknowledge me.

“What do you think would happen if I …” My words evaporate as I crush one of the bulbs in a fist. Human teeth fall into my waiting palm, several falling to the floor as Bentley rushes over to investigate the possibility of wayward food. “Somehow, that’s what I expected, and yet I’m still surprised. What a feckin’ conundrum.”

Lark pretends to focus on the muffin she pops into the microwave.

“Okay …” I tilt my hand and let the teeth fall into the box. “We’ll come back to that one. In the meantime,” I say as I hold up my final prize, “what is this …?”

Lark’s eyes flick from the item on the table and back to the microwave as it dings. She shrugs. “A ring …?”

I let the weight of my gaze hammer into the side of her head, and even though she fidgets, she resists the urge to turn around. “A ring,” I repeat.

She nods.

“Did you happen to notice it’s attached to a finger in a feckin’ jar?”

A nervous laugh trails behind her as Lark moves toward the sink. She grips the stainless-steel edge as though she hopes it might suck her down the drain. When she finally turns to face me, she’s biting her lower lip, unable to control the cringe that creases her features.

“Ha … yeah …” Lark’s half-hearted laugh disintegrates as I set the mason jar down on the table with a damning thunk. A little shiver racks her body as she shores herself up and raises her head, readying herself for a confrontation. “Well, there’s a very straightforward explanation.”

“Which is?”

“I couldn’t get it off. His fingers were too thick.”

I clear my throat, every carefully curated word a proclamation when I ask, “So you took the whole finger?”

A flare of irritation bursts in her eyes. “Seems to be the case, genius. I see your observational skills haven’t improved with the presence of glasses.”

I let out a long, slow breath. “Let’s try this another way. Why did you feel compelled to take this combination of finger and ring and then save it in a jar? It was shockingly easy to find, by the way. For future, I suggest a safe, not a literal hole in the wall.”

“It’s not like I asked you to go nosing around in my business.”

“Protecting you is my business. That was part of the deal you proposed at the wedding, remember? And I draw no distinction between keeping you safe from outside parties and keeping you safe from yourself.” I take one step closer and raise the jar between us. “So? Any explanation …?”

“He didn’t deserve to wear it. Clearly.”

I haven’t had time to look up the crest on the signet ring, but obviously it has significant meaning to her that I don’t yet understand. Perhaps there’s even a clue on the inner surface, and I start to spin the lid to open it up so I can try pulling the ring free of the waxy gray flesh.

“No,” Lark says. There’s utter panic in her eyes. Her skin goes instantly pale. “Don’t open it, please, Lachlan.” When I raise a brow in a silent question, she shakes her head. “Seriously. The formalin. I hate the smell. I nearly puked like five times just pouring it in there. If you open it, I’ll definitely hurl.”

“Well, I’m glad you managed at least long enough to put glitter in the jar.”

Lark mutters something that sounds like snuffluk as she scratches her head and trains her gaze toward the floor.

“Didn’t quite catch that, duchess.”

“Snowflakes,” she repeats a little louder, then flicks a hand in my direction without meeting my eyes. “Shake it.”

I glance from her to the jar and back again before I pick it up to give it a shake. The ring clanks against the glass and the finger taps the steel lid. When I set it back down, tiny, glittering snowflakes swirl around the severed digit before they slowly fall toward the base of the jar.

“A snow globe,” I say slowly, waiting for her to look up, which she doesn’t do. “You made a severed finger into a feckin’ snow globe.”

“It was almost Christmas,” she says with a shrug. “It felt … festive.”

“F … fest …” I blow out a long, thin stream of a breath and set the jar back down with numb fingers. “I just … what the fuck, Lark … Are you …”

Lark tilts her head, her brows raised as she waits for me to continue. Her shoulders go rigid, and I know she’s arming herself for battle, so I might as well just spit it out before she puts the last of her psychological chain mail on.

“Are you a serial killer?”

“No.” She scoffs. It’s entirely forced. “Of course not. No. I’m more like a …” She drifts off into thought as she seems to weigh several possible responses. Dread sinks into my guts as her brow furrows and then smooths. A heartbeat later, a vibrant smile erupts on her face. “I’m more like a multiple deleter.”

Lark gives a single, decisive nod, the glossy blond waves of her ponytail bouncing across her shoulder. I don’t think I’ve even blinked yet but she looks like she’s just had ten shots of espresso when she beams a bright smile and says, “Honestly, it feels so much better to finally tell someone.”

Lark pivots on her heel to face the espresso machine.

Silence descends. Unsurprisingly, she fills it with humming.

She grinds beans. Grabs a pink mug shaped like a skull. Pours milk into the stainless-steel pitcher and turns on the machine. She doesn’t seem to notice that I’m staring at her the whole time with my mouth agape.

“‘Multiple … deleter’?” I finally say. Lark doesn’t look up as she grins and nods. “A ‘multiple deleter,’ Lark? What in the Christ Jesus is that?”

“What in the Christ Jesus is ‘Christ Jesus’?” she fires back on the heels of a giggle as she presses a button and the espresso machine whirs to life. “Is this Jesus’s roll call in school? ‘Christ-comma-Jesus, please put your hand up if you’re in class.’”

Dumbfounded. I’m bloody dumbfounded. I don’t even know what to say.

Not that it matters, because Lark just keeps going.

“Bueller … Bueller … Bueller … nope, he passed out at Thirty-One Flavors last night. Christ … Christ … Christ …”

“The fuck …?”

“Oh my God, have you never seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off?” Lark’s crystalline eyes shine with amusement. “Oh, a classic comedy marathon, that’s what you need to pry that broomstick out of your ass. I need to get popcorn. Immediately. I have such a great lineup in mind—”

“Back the fuck up,” I interrupt, my voice low and stern as I take a step closer. The change in Lark is instantaneous. Amusement evaporates from her expression.

No, I realize. The other way around.

It’s like a sudden fog that rolls in from the sea to obscure the sun.

Light dulls in her eyes as she squares her shoulders. She holds the pitcher clutched between her palms, the milk not yet frothed, her knuckles bleached with the force of her grip. By the look of determination on her face, I figure I’ll be wearing that milk if I take another step closer.

But it’s not just determination. I can see it in the way her pulse drums within the smooth column of her neck.

I know fear. And I know it better than most.

I try to relax my stance, though judging by the way her eyes dart from my face to my shoulders to my balled fists and back again, I’m not very feckin’ successful at coming off as reassuring.

When I struggle to keep my hands loose, I slide them into my pockets, then say, “How about we go back to the ‘multiple deleter’ part for a second.”

Lark swallows.

“How many … deletions … are we talking about, exactly?”

“Umm.” Lark’s gaze shifts to the ceiling. “I think … seven?”

“Seven?”

“No, eight. Definitely eight.”

“You cannot be serious.”

“Well, there was this one guy who died in the hospital maybe, like, four days later. Does he really count?”

My reply is a silent, dead-eyed glare.

“He could have died from medical incompetence,” she barrels on, tapping her calloused fingertips on the metal jug. “Or maybe he choked on a bagel. The food in the hospital is pretty bad, you know? Could have been anything, really. Yeah, I don’t think he counts. Four days has gotta be past the grace period.”

“There’s no grace period, Lark.”

She sighs. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Make it nine.”

“You’re telling me you’ve killed—”

Lark growls.

“Fine, you deleted nine people,” I say, pulling a hand from my pocket to wave it in her direction. “You. Lark feckin’ Montague.”

Eyes molten with a dare, she gives me a sardonic smile. “Kane. Lark feckin’ Kane.”

Her words smack me like a fist to the face.

Whether our vows were real or not, whether she believes them or not, whether she uses her name or mine, she’s deftly reminded me of the ultimate truth: for better or worse, we are stitched together.

The Montague and Covaci dynasties have kept her safe, at least from law enforcement. I might have experience traversing her world, even thriving in it, but I don’t have the means to offer the same protection. Even worse, I come with another set of targets and vendettas and baggage that could put her in danger. If someone else finds out what she’s done …

I’m still caught in the grip of this new fear when she tilts her head and inhales a sharp breath.

“So there was this guy—”

“Lark.”

“Ten,” she whispers.

We stand in silence as I try to pick through the thousand questions that compete for top spot in my short-circuiting brain. She watches me with wide, innocent eyes, and even hearing it from her own mouth, I have a hard time believing it’s possible. The Lark Montague I know is annoyingly kind, at least to everyone but me. She’s unfailingly loyal. Empathetic to her own detriment.Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

And she’s … a serial killer …?

One question finally works its way to the top.

“Why, Lark? Why would you kill ten people?”

She swallows, her lips pressed tight in a resolved line. I’ve seen her fierce. I’ve seen her determined. I’ve seen her full of light, beaming with joy. I’ve seen her bite and tease. Adoration and defeat, resignation and heartbreak and hope. I’ve seen them all in Lark. But there’s something in her eyes now, buried deep beneath all her layers, hidden in the shadows of music and chaos and movie quotes and all the sunshine she wears like blinding armor.

The armor is the Lark I thought I knew.

And though I’ve glimpsed it before, this is the first time I’ve truly looked beneath her shield and I see someone else entirely. I see pain that festers in the dark.

Lark might fear me, but she doesn’t back down, doesn’t let her eyes shift from mine when she says, “So that no one I love has to do it for me ever again.”

Her words are a blade that slips between my ribs.

“Sloane …?” I ask, my voice low. “Did she … is that what happened at the boarding school …?”

Lark’s only admission is the shine in her eyes, and I stop myself before I push her too far.

When was the last time I felt this way? I can’t even remember. I’ve left only enough room to worry about my brothers and business and my psycho boss and nothing else, no one else. And suddenly there’s Lark, who was never meant to be here, was never meant to shine light into places I thought could only stay dark. But with those words she manages to reach right inside and ignite something I never thought I’d feel. Pain and loss and heartache for someone standing on the outside of my tiny sphere.

I clear my throat. “Lark …”

All it takes is one bright smile, and everything I think she wants to say disappears.

“Anyway,” she chimes as she thrusts the jug in my direction, “I should probably get going.”

“But—”

“Gotta run.” In a single spin she grabs her bag off the couch and steps toward the door, the dog trailing at her heels. She stumbles and I instinctively take a step closer but she puts her hand up and I stop short.

“Goddammit, woman, where—”

“Bye.”

The door slams shut.

I stand for a long moment in the space between the rooms. Not quite the kitchen. Not the dining room or den. The void.

Whenever she leaves the room, it’s as though the warmth disappears. It’s like returning to a version of myself that isn’t me anymore.

Well, fuck that shit.

I stride toward the door and pull it open with more force than necessary, a crash of metal against the wall. Lark is already two thirds of the way down the stairs.

“Stop right there, Lark Montague,” I call after her.

“Not sure who you mean,” she yells back.

“Lark Kane.” My voice echoes through the open warehouse space and bounces back toward us. Lark halts with one hand gripped to the railing, but she doesn’t turn around. “We need to talk about this.”

“Actually, Lachlan, we don’t.”

“Discovering you’re married to a serial killer—”

“Multiple deleter.”

“—‘multiple deleter’ probably warrants a conversation, don’t you think?”

Lark shrugs. “Not particularly.”

“Then why in the bloody hell would you admit that to me?”

Her grasp tightens around the railing as Lark turns just enough to cut me with her glare. “What was I going to say when you shook the finger jar? ‘Oops, not sure how those snowflakes wound up in there with a severed digit but I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about’?”

I swallow my irritation and stay planted to the landing, unwilling to approach her even though I want to. But I can’t. I can’t bear that flash of fear in her again. Not of me.

“Just … just come up here and talk to me.”

Bentley plops down between us on the metal stairs with a disgruntled huff like I’m the dumbest feckin’ eejit to walk the earth. I swear his eyes roll as Lark lets out an incredulous bark of a laugh. “Talk to you? Since when have you made it fun to do that? You cannot wait to judge the shit out of me again. You really are an asshat, Lachlan Kane.” Lark shakes her head, and the smile that should be so bright it’s blinding only comes off dark and lethal. “You asked me once if I really cared what you thought about me, and I said yes. Well, go ahead and judge me all you want, because I got over that. Fucking fast too, I might add.”

“That’s …” That’s what? Good? Bad? Fuck, I don’t know. I shake my head and wrap my hands around the railing, but the cold metal does nothing to soothe the heat that courses through my palms.

Lark watches. Waits. But I feel like something is broken inside me. Like I keep pressing a piano key and no sound comes out.

For a moment, the look in Lark’s eyes is pitying. “I haven’t told Sloane because I love her, Lachlan. I haven’t told Rowan because I love him. They expect me to be a different person than the one I am. Everyone does. And I don’t want them to be disappointed. I don’t want them to think the worst of me. But you already do. You have from the first moment you laid eyes on me. So what does it matter if I tell you? What is it really going to change about living with you? You’ll like me less?” With a sardonic snort of a laugh and an eye roll, Lark turns away. “I’ve got bigger things to worry about than how much less you’ll like me.”

Her footsteps echo against concrete walls and steel beams as she descends the stairs, Bentley a ghost in her wake. And I just watch. I don’t call after them, and they don’t look back. The door is an exclamation of metal, and then silence.

I’m still here. Standing still. Holding on. Holding on to what?

I release the railing from my grip and turn my palms upward. Tiny flakes of rust stain my skin.

It’s only now that she’s gone that the realization truly settles in my thoughts.

Even with these secrets revealed, I still know next to nothing about Lark Montague.

“Kane,” I say aloud. “I know nothing about Lark Kane.”

I enter the apartment, determination growing with every step I take. Then I grab my keys and jacket and leave.