Page 1 of A Love So Deadly (Kissed by Darkness #1)

Chapter

One

Elliot

I stare at the door. It’s not even a metaphorical door. It’s literal. And it was just slammed in my face.

“Asshole,” I mutter under my breath, pulling the visitor sticker from my hoodie.

My eyes burn hot, and I blink fast, turning from the police chief’s door.

Tenebris City’s surface-shine of money and power rubs away easily to show the corruption and crime, the darkness within.

Like right now.

And I blame VMR Media.

The conglomerate’s building brings the word monolith to mind. The entire complex takes up a whole block midtown and it runs the main TV stations and streaming services, a browser, the main papers, and countless online zines and apps.

They control so much of the entertainment we consume, and the information that flows, that they can make or break careers. Make or break people. Make or break this city and country’s reality. The leadership we have. Even the trends and desires of the public are led by VMR.

They’re power absolute.

No wonder the door got slammed in my face.

Even the cops bow and turn a blind eye.

Corrupt, every last one of them—the police, the politicians, the whole construct of VMR.

But I know that down where the blood and bones of the conglomerate is, where all the secrets are held along with the ghosts, must live the truth.

Exposing that truth means one thing.

Justice. That’s all I want. A tiny piece of justice. Is that too much to ask?

In this place, apparently the answer’s yes.

I swallow over the lump in my throat, willing myself back into a cohesive form because the last thing I need to do is fall apart. That’s never helped anyone and the only help I’ve got to rely on is going to come from within. From me.

Now all I need is a plan of action. Right after I get out of this building.

I head out of precinct twelve, ignoring the gazes that follow me in the fluorescent lights. They probably can’t wait to see the back of the most annoying woman in Tenebris.

Either that or they take one look at my blond curls and dismiss me as a ditz, which is their mistake, not mine.

It almost makes me want to smile for the thorn that I’ve been, even if it’s gotten me nowhere. I still caused discomfort to their smug little lives.

I breathe in the air as I step out. The sun—what there was of it today—has sunk below the horizon and rain drizzles down, turning the city into a glistening lighted jewel.

It suits my mood perfectly. I don’t have an umbrella, but the rain isn’t an issue. I pull up my collar and my hoodie over my head and start the long walk uptown.

I hug myself tight, hoping I can somehow transform some warmth to that cold, knotted spot deep within me.

But it almost seems impossible with buses that pass, advertising whatever latest thing VMR media has out.

I really don’t bother reading past the recognizable VMR logo.

Why would I? I hate that fucking place with a passion.

Before Kayla went missing, before she landed that cursed job at VMR, I didn’t like the company.

Not the glossy and sanitized reach into almost every part of our lives, and certainly not the rumors about the powers who ran it.

Of their part in the city’s dark, criminal underworld.

Of wicked goings on like Satan worship, blood ceremonies, and other ritualistic happenings.

“Virgins at midnight,” I say, trying to lighten my mood. “Sacrificed at full moon.”

I can picture the anti VMR slogan in my head: ‘Have Sex. Save A Life.’ Of course it could be called ‘The Great Devirgining.’

A small laugh breaks free.

No one’s ever mentioned virgins of course or actual sacrifices.

Not out loud.

VMR’s just soaked in rumor and wrong doings, and it’s so big and protected that nothing can touch it. Sometimes I think it really is not of this world.

I’d tried to investigate it a few times when I was fresh-faced, out of college, determined to put the name Elliot Montague on the map, any map, but the doors VMR had didn’t slam, they slid shut, sealed me out, and…

my name was spelled M-U-D, apparently. I got blackballed.

Couldn’t even get a job in the mail room of a paper. Do they even have mail rooms anymore?

I gulp in some air, and someone almost runs me down on foot. “Watch it, sister!”

“Not your sister, you bag of dicks.” Assholes are everywhere. I swear.

They probably breed them in the bowels of VMR. Then I growl.

VMR didn’t like questions. The only journos they liked were the glossy ones they employed, and the limp ones who wrote the kind of stories that were about as hard hitting as a feather.

I hate the hold VMR has over Tenebris. I should probably move, I know that. Get a job somewhere far away in journalism, far from VMR’s reach.

How far is far enough? Another city? Another country? Because VMR has a monstrous hold.

Tenebris is its home city. And the mysteries behind their doors make all my journalistic instincts flare. I want to know everything that happens there. I want all the secrets.

And I want to find my friend.

Besides I loved Tenebris, and working in journalism somewhere else, or online still wouldn’t allow me to poke about in the secretive world of VMR Media.

And now my best friend is missing.

Even if I wanted to, I’d never leave here now.

Not until I find out what’s happened to Kayla.

I worry about her because everyone low-down knows the rumors.

People get jobs at VMR. Some of them go missing. And missing, when it comes to VMR, it means never to be seen again. It means dead.

She changed and then she disappeared.

I think she’s dead and it breaks me in ways I hate.

Dead or alive, I need to know. I need to know what happened to my friend.

Kayla’s dream was to be an anchor, and VMR is the top job to have.

Her internship should’ve been a step on a path that rocketed her to fame under the VMR banner. Not sent her straight into no man’s land.

Now it’s like no one’s heard of her. My failed visit to the idiotic cops went nowhere. They told me she probably just moved.

As if.

Where would she go? Why? Like me, Kayla was born and bred in Tenebris.

She didn’t just decide to run back to some ranch in the middle of nowhere, or to live with a rich aunt.

She didn’t go into Narnia or run off with a lover to live a life of adventure.

She didn’t suddenly jump on a rocket and fly to the moon.

Every single one of those things are just as stupid as the other, and there’s only one thing that bears focusing on: where would she go? The answer’s obvious.

Nowhere of her own free will.

A car horn blares, and I realize I’m in the middle of the road. I throw the driver a look, but he just swerves, spraying me with a puddle of filthy water.

I need to do something else to find Kayla.

Screw it. I’m going to. Somehow, some way.

My charge home is fueled by fear and anger, and by the time I reach uptown and its working-class microcosm, I need a drink. Or maybe more than one. I buy some Chinese takeout and a bottle of cheap bourbon, which puts me firmly in the world of class.

The door to our building’s broken again, but the upside is new graffiti.

I take the stairs two at a time, listening to the din of the other residents as I go.

When I close my third-floor apartment door, I eat and knock back a few drinks, just to let the heat snake through me and give chase to the cold in my bones that’s got nothing to do with the weather.

The heat doesn’t touch that other, cold, knotted place in my chest, though.

I’m janky too, nerves biting at me.

At Kayla’s room, I push open the door, heart crushing in as I take in the neatness that was never her.

Before she started at VMR, she was gloriously alive, a storm of haphazardly placed things, a trail of cosmetics and clothes. Her perfume would sparkle in the air behind her.

She got the job and the perfume stopped, and she started to get focused.

That was normal, the focus, at least at first. She’d landed a place where if she played it right, she’d get her dream job.

But then it got weird. The focus wasn’t on the job, but the place.

And she got neater, less…her. Like her personality was eaten away day by day.

She came home less and less and then…not at all.

“Crap.”

I return to the living room and plonk down on the ratty couch, the sounds of life from the building seeping in.

The weird thing with VMR is how reclusive the head people are…president? Owner? CEO? There’s a public arm, obviously, and when I research them it all seems on the up and up. Like any company, they come and go over time. People get new jobs, they age, retire, die.

But unlike other companies, the figureheads seem to be just that. Figureheads. Every single one I’ve researched feels more PR-like, not business-like.

Like those old pop bands who looked good but weren’t the artists. They lip synched. They played the part.

That’s it, isn’t it? These people play the part.

It’s one thing with VMR—one of the things—the real powerholders are shadowy, unseen. And the unsavory rumors always go exactly nowhere.

Except as I’ve found out, into blackball hell. RIP, career.

Journalistic career. But I’m queen of the odd job, sovereign of making myself fit and make it work. I’ve been everything from cleaner to factory worker to PA. And I can make my resume fit whatever someone wants.

What I need is to get into the VMR HQ.

That’s more than clear. It’s a beat in my veins. I need to find a way in.

I pour another drink and take a big swallow, setting the glass on the scuffed coffee table, and then I pull my computer to my lap and start scrolling through the job sites.This task isn’t exactly a storm of VMR jobs.

I flip to their site, but it ranges from technical to artistic and those are jobs I can’t fake or fudge. I don’t know how to operate a camera or do professional make up.

And while I can edit a script, there aren’t any.

Their site is a dead end. So I flip back to the job sites. Some are locked behind a pay wall, but I have Kayla’s password for them, back when I’d help her apply for jobs when she was hitting the pavement, her eye always on VMR.

But the pay wall sites have nothing.

So I go to an old generic one that anyone can use, search and apply for jobs from.

Suddenly a white-hot flash sears me.

There.

VMR.

Office Assistant.

It’s so bizarre I just stare at it.

Assistant?

With the internship Kayla had to go through hoops, and it was on a paid site where she had access to jobs before the public.

But here, in amongst packers and Uber drivers, and sales calls jobs is this. The logo isn’t their flashy one. It just reads:

VMR CEO looking for office assistant.

Top Floor. All hours.

All hours? My spine prickles. It sounds odd.

It sounds like my way in. It’s got to be.

Biting my lip, I pull up my resume, take out all my journalism credentials and embellish other jobs I’ve done. I write a cover letter why I’d be perfect for the job.

Then, I send it.

The moment the email whooshes off into cyberspace, I start searching for other jobs that match that one.

It’s so vague and benign it feels like a test. And there are more.

All in unexpected spaces. I send the same email and resume, and I number them so whoever sees them knows I’m diligent. I pay attention.

I want that job.

And once I get my foot in VMR’s door, I’ll find out what happened to Kayla.

After that?

Easy.

I’m going to expose them all.