Chapter 1
Chapter One
One year later…
He wasn’t sure that he would be able to make it through the night without killing someone.
Victor Alexander held the wine glass in his hand, he stared at the glittering Christmas tree, and he heard the voices rising and falling around him.
Laughter grated in his ears like nails on a chalkboard.
Anger twisted in his gut as he thought about all of the ways that he could commit his murder. It would really be quite easy…
“She has to be dead,” Dario Mage announced with a dramatic sigh. Not a Mage by birth, but by marriage. Though he’d taken on the last name as fast as possible. “I mean, come on, this is my sister we’re talking about here…”
Actually, he was talking about his stepsister. An important distinction that the guy seemed to be missing. Though it was a distinction that Dario had made the time he tried to fuck Melody.
I hate the sonofabitch and his smug face. He’d be an easy enough one to kill. Victor tried to ease his grip on the fragile wine glass. If he wasn’t careful, he’d snap the stem.
These days, he just wasn’t good at being careful. Or good at handling fragile things. Or, well, good. At all. Darkness had swallowed him whole, and only rage lived and breathed inside of him.
“Melody hasn’t touched any of her bank accounts in the last year.” Dario’s voice kept right on grating. “The woman cannot survive without her expensive accessories.”
Cannot survive.
Dario ambled toward the fireplace. Gas, not wood.
The flames flickered and danced. “Not like she’s taken up a lifestyle waiting tables some place.
If she could have accessed the money, she would have done it.
” Dario braced his forearm against the mantel.
His black hair was perfectly styled. Just like the trousers were perfectly pressed.
The white shirt perfectly ironed. “We have to face facts. She isn’t coming back. ”
A twitter of nervous laughter followed his pronouncement. Victor clenched his back teeth even as his gaze darted toward the source of that laughter.
Olivia Hatcher—Dario’s current lover and Melody’s one-time best friend—had bright patches of color staining her cheeks. Probably from the wine she’d been downing. At last count, she’d had three glasses.
Olivia weaved in her heels before announcing, “Just because she hasn’t touched the money, it doesn’t mean Melody is dead.” She beetled her eyebrows toward the quiet man sitting in the corner, Sebastian Mage.
Melody’s father.
“Melody lived—lives,” Olivia hurriedly corrected, “for adventure. She probably found a new lover, hooked up with him, and for all we know, they’re sunning it up in the south of France right now.
She hasn’t touched her money because she doesn’t need it.
You don’t have to take a doom-and-gloom perspective. ”
Sebastian stared into the fire. “It’s been a long time.”
It had been one long-ass, painful year.
“My Melody was many things,” Sebastian continued in his deep, but slightly shaking voice.
“But she wasn’t cruel.” His fingers trembled slightly.
The tremors had been getting worse lately.
“She wouldn’t vanish. Wouldn’t just disappear without ever talking to me again.
” He shook his head. “No, something more is at play.” His gaze slowly turned from the fire and landed on Victor. “You haven’t said a word all night.”
Because he hadn’t wanted to be in that damn house. Everywhere he looked, Melody haunted him. Her picture was on the mantel. A smiling image of her at her college graduation.
He refused to look at that picture.
He was already feeling murderous enough. One fucking year had passed. A year where he’d been living with his heart cut out of his chest.
“Victor, do you think my Melody is dead?” Sebastian asked him.
He didn’t want to answer that question. Because if he answered it, then there would be no going back.
No more pretending. No more thinking that he’d turn around, and Melody would just be there.
Smiling her mischievous grin, the one that made the dimple in her right cheek flash.
Just the right cheek. She didn’t have a dimple in the left.
Her green eyes would sparkle. Her full lips would tempt him, and, just like that, he’d be wrapped around her little finger.
Not that he could let her know. Not that he could say—
“Oh, come on,” Dario scoffed. “Victor and Melody barely tolerated each other. The man doesn’t give a shit one way or the other, am I right? He’s got the business. He’s got plenty of money, and he has Melody out of his hair. Wins all around for him.” Bitterness underscored every word.
The bastard had been drinking way too much. His mouth was too damn loose.
Victor was highly conscious of the drumming of his heartbeat as it echoed in his ears. He turned his attention to Dario. Let that attention linger.
Dario yanked his arm away from the mantel. “What? No need for the ferocious glare. I’m just stating the obvious. We all know the cops even interviewed you several times over the last year. You and Melody hated each other.”
No, he had not hated her. But, yes, the cops had interviewed him. When they’d finally come around to the idea that Melody might not have vanished of her own accord, he’d been their chief suspect.
Even though he’d been the one trying to find her the hardest. He’d hired five different PIs over the last year. They’d turned up jack shit. A woman shouldn’t vanish into thin air.
Definitely not my woman. She shouldn’t have vanished. I should have kept her safe. Savagery beat beneath his surface. His control was far too thin these days. Probably because nothing mattered any longer. Nothing but finding the sonofabitch who’d taken Melody and putting the bastard in the ground.
“We have to face facts,” Dario continued with a sage nod.
“Time to sell her house. Time to change the will. Look, I’ve investigated.
It takes five years to declare a person dead without a body.
Five years. We’re only on year one and I’m not so sure that…
” A telling glance toward Sebastian’s hunched figure.
“I’m not so sure that everyone in this room has four more years left. ”
A sharp gasp from Olivia.
Dario had never been a tactful bastard. Mostly, he’d just been a whiny prick. One who’d always gotten on Victor’s last nerve.
It truly would be easy to kill him.
A chime echoed in the house. Not really a house. A freaking mansion. A country estate outside of Richmond, Virginia. The chime meant another guest had arrived to join their party from hell.
Why in the world had Sebastian organized this horror show of a night? Especially with an impending snowstorm? But, oh, no, despite the weather reports, the guy had insisted that everyone show up. Said he had urgent matters to discuss.
This mansion was the last place Victor wanted to be. The snow had been falling heavily when he arrived, and, unfortunately, since the snowfall didn’t seem to be letting up any, Victor knew they’d all probably be stuck in the house until morning. Fucking hell.
He’d be stuck with more memories of Melody everywhere he turned. As if her ghost didn’t haunt him enough.
“Victor.” Sebastian’s weak voice. “Do you think my daughter is dead?”
He forced his back teeth to unclench. Don’t say it. Don’t. He’d held on to hope. At first, he’d been so sure there was a mistake. Melody couldn’t really be gone. She’d planned to meet him at her house. She’d been wearing his ring. She’d…
The doorbell rang again.
Dario turned toward the sound, frowning. “Just how many people were invited out here this weekend?”
“Hatterson will answer,” Sebastian waved away the ringing bell. He also didn’t answer Dario’s question. “Hatterson is on top of things like that.”
Hatterson. The butler, assistant, guard—all of the above. He tended to constantly be lurking around. Yes, he’d get the door. If the visitor hadn’t been invited, Hatterson would block access to the inner sanctum. Hatterson always got rid of problems. Snowstorm or not.
“Victor.” Sebastian’s voice was stronger than it had been in ages. Maybe the new medication was helping him. “Do you believe my daughter is dead?”
Is that why Sebastian had called for this little gathering? Maybe he was finally going to give in to Dario’s urging and change the family will. Yeah, right. Good luck with that.
Victor lifted the wine glass to his lips.
Barely tasted the two-hundred-dollar-a-bottle wine that had come from some lush vineyard somewhere in France.
Then he said the words that he knew would haunt him forever, “Yes, Melody is dead. Probably fucking buried somewhere.” I will find the sonofabitch who took her from me.
Even if it’s the last thing I do, and I will bury him.
But first, I will make him hurt. I will make him bleed.
I will make him beg. “So we have to stop expecting her to show up.” He had to stop expecting to just turn around and see her.
She was never going to walk in a room again and flash her dimpled smile his way.
Her green eyes weren’t going to light up when she looked at him.
“I’m sorry, Sebastian.” Each word tore from him.
“But Melody is never coming home again.”
Never.
And it was time for him to accept that stark truth, too.
Damn…but he really wanted to murder someone. And I will. As soon as I find the bastard who took my Melody away, I will murder him.
She rang the doorbell for a third time as she stood on the stone porch, with snowflakes swirling around her. The wind kept kicking up and tossing them her way. Every breath she took had a little patch of white fog appearing in front of her mouth because it was positively frigid outside.
Would it kill the people in the giant mansion to open a door when they had a visitor? She was just about to go for ring number four when the door finally flew open.
She pasted a bright smile on her face. “Thank goodness!”
The man in the doorway—silver threading through his hair, a neatly trimmed beard on his face—blinked at her.
She barreled inside before he could speak.
“I was turning into a popsicle outside.” Snow fell onto the floor as she stomped her boots.
Then she hauled off her coat and put it on the rack near the door.
A battered wool coat she’d picked up from a thrift shop.
She loved that coat. It had kept her warm on plenty of cold nights.
More snowflakes sprinkled down onto the floor, though they quickly melted in the warm room.
Voices rose and fell from a room down the hallway, drawing her attention. “Is that where everyone is?”
He didn’t speak. Just stared. Kinda gaped.
“Right.” She flashed another broad smile at him. “I’ll just go greet them, shall I? Could you do me a major favor and bring in my bag? It’s on the porch. Thanks so much.”
She didn’t give him a chance to respond. Hopefully, the bag grabbing would keep him busy.
Her steps double-timed it as she hurried down the narrow hallway. She didn’t glance inside the room to the right. The library. Or look up at the massive staircase. Her gaze remained directed dead ahead.
“Eventually, a body will be discovered.” A man’s deep, rumbling voice.
She shivered and tried to pretend the shiver was just from the walk through all the snow. Her worn boots hadn’t exactly protected her feet. Her toes felt icy. Come to think of it, her entire body seemed to be encased in ice. Because I am terrified.
“Melody is gone,” that voice continued, making her heart twist, “and she’s not coming back.”
For just a moment, she paused on the threshold of the room. A big, too-fancy room with lots of leather furniture, a crackling fireplace, and a tree that had every single limb decorated. She sucked in a deep breath and then… “Merry Christmas, everyone,” she announced.
Every eye in the room was immediately on her.
Shock came first.
Some jaws dropped.
Shock, horror and…
Glass shattered.
Her gaze followed the sound. She saw that the big man to the right—the man who’d been standing near the elaborately decorated Christmas tree—had just broken the wine glass he held. As their gazes collided, she could have sworn an electric shock whipped through her blood.
Victor Alexander. She knew him by sight, thanks to her careful research. The man who’d worked as Sebastian Mage’s protégé. The man who had taken over the company. The man who—
Was rushing toward her. Staring at her with glittering eyes. With a handsome face that seemed to have been carved from granite. Shock. Rage. Desire? So many emotions flashed in his eyes and on his face as he reached out to her with his big hands.
And she realized…“You have blood on your hands.”
His dark eyes widened.
Then he looked at his hands. Or, rather, at his right hand. The one that had held the wine glass before it shattered.
She locked her knees. The urge to turn and flee was nearly overwhelming. But…
“Melody!” Sebastian Mage rose to his feet. Almost fell but caught himself. “Melody…my God!” He gaped at her, as if she had to be a ghost.
Fair enough, considering that was exactly what she was.
Melody Mage smiled at her father. Then she let that smile sweep to the others in the room. “Hello, everyone. Guess who’s back?”
Silence greeted her.
“The Ghost of Christmas Past,” she said into that silence. And this ghost is here to wreck your world.
Ho. Ho. Ho.