Darcy dressed to kill, p.1
Darcy (Dressed to Kill), page 1
Darcy (Dressed to Kill)
Copyright © Marie Mistry 2023
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademark owners of various products, brands and/or stores referenced in this work of fiction which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorised, associated with or sponsored by the trademark owners.
The right of Marie Mistry to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the author. You must not circulate this book in any format.
No generative artificial intelligence (AI) was used in the writing of this work. The author expressly prohibits any entity from using this publication for purposes of training AI technologies to generate text, including without limitation technologies that are capable of generating works in the same style or genre as this publication. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
ISBN: 978-1-915066-29-9
www.mariemistry.com
Cover art and design by JODIELOCKS Designs.
Edited by Kaye Kemp Book Polishing.
In memory of Chester Bennington.
And for those he saved.
Contents
Playlist
Author’s Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Epilogue
Dressed to Kill
Acknowledgments
Books By Marie Mistry
About the Author
Playlist
Check it out on Spotify here
W.I.T.C.H - Devon Cole
Remedy - Little Boots
Bad Habits (feat. Bring Me The Horizon) - Ed Sheeran
Giving Blood - Architects
MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT - Our Last Night
Popular Monster - Falling In Reverse
Rock and Roll Thugs - Icon For Hire
Just Pretend - Bad Omens
Can You Feel My Heart - Bring Me The Horizon
Falling Apart - Caskets
Breaking the Habit - Linkin Park
Alkaline - Sleep Token
Glass Heart - Caskets
Throne - Bring Me The Horizon
Black Lungs - Architects
Heaven - Silence
Aqua Regia - Sleep Token
sTraNgeRs - Bring Me The Horizon
Lost - Linkin Park
Belladonna - Ava Max
A Place For My Head - Linkin Park
Running Up That Hill - Loveless
Afterlife - Holding Absence
1x1 (feat. Nova Twins) - Bring Me The Horizon
Voices In My Head - Falling In Reverse
Crawling - Linkin Park
There’s Fear In Letting Go - I Prevail
deep fake - Architects
War of Hearts - Ruelle
Author’s Note
Darcy is a contemporary reverse harem novel containing explicit sexual situations, including scenes featuring multiple consenting partners over the age of 18. This series is written in British English and contains foul language, violence, discussions of past self harm, drug addiction and relapse, and multiple explosions. For a comprehensive list of trigger warnings, please check out my website.
Self-care is important, so if such subject matter upsets you, please don’t read this book.
This book has been professionally edited, but we’re all human. So, if you spot a typo, please contact Marie directly using the form on her website or any of her social media links. Please don’t report it to Amazon, as this feature can lead to books being taken down.
This book is enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, that means it is not available, legally, on any platform that is not Amazon. If you’ve downloaded the book from somewhere else, you’re committing book piracy which is seriously not cool and can also lead to the book being taken down.
One
Darcy
BOOM!
The windows of the penthouse apartment shatter above me as fire shoots out in a glorious explosion that paints the rainy night sky golden. Glancing up from my phone, I revel in the sight for an instant before returning to my screen and wiping away the rain splattering it. I love explosions, but I have work to do. Thankfully, I have a drone filming everything, so I can rewatch the footage later.
Tommy
babe you got a sec?
I dismiss the message with a sigh of impatience. Tommy has been getting more and more clingy lately, and I can’t deal with him mid-mission. I have a few minutes at most to move the funds from my mark’s accounts before his people catch wind of what’s happening.
Swiping down, I check the upload status of my calling card… almost there. God, I wish this rain would just stop. I’m soaked through.
Sirens pierce the air—that was fast—and I grimace at the reminder of how little time I have.
Months went into planning this, but it always comes down to these final few minutes.
Tommy
I just wanted to let you know that I’m sorry, but this ain’t working for me anymore.
What?
Dismissing his irritating messages again, I flip between apps. Bingo. The funds from that corrupt senator’s little nest egg are now sitting pretty in one of my shell accounts. I’ll give it a few days, then begin the process of wiring it to the dude’s victims—minus my cut, of course.
Tommy
I want to break up. You’re gorgeous, and the sex is great, but you’re just not into me, and it’s not fair to keep stringing me along like this.
I pause, but only because I’m waiting for the notification—there.
Upload complete. Every single device the senator owns is now wiped. His money and his data are mine, and all the cops will get off any of his tech is a new little screensaver that reads Game Over.
Satisfaction curls my lips into a tiny smile as I disconnect from the server and—
“Put your hands up!”
Oh, great. I remove my glasses with one hand and pull up the messaging app with Tommy’s latest break up text. Mustering a sob, I turn to face the officer. His gun is shaking in front of me.
“He broke up with me!” I wail, inconspicuously dropping my glasses into my handbag as I brandish my phone in the cop’s face. “By text! Why would he do that?”
The poor, fat, balding man sweats as he tries to figure out if I’m a threat or just really as stupid as I appear. I can’t blame him. No sane person would stand calmly below a building that’s just exploded, in the pouring rain, ranting about a break up text. Eventually, he must figure that I’m just an airhead—thank you blonde stereotypes—because he lowers his weapon.
“Miss, you need to get to safety. There’s been an incident—”
“I thought he loved me.” I pinch my brows together, thrusting the phone at him again. “He said he did, and now look! I planned our life together. I even had a Pinterest board! And he just…” I manage a huge, hiccupping sob, allowing practised tears to fall freely. “Why do they always leave me?”
His expression hardens, and despite my poor vision, I can practically read the words “dumb, emotional bimbo” as they flit through his mind. No sympathy from this dude, sheesh.
“Miss. This isn’t the time or place. I’m going to have to insist you get behind the safety cordon, immediately.”
I wipe my hand across my eyes, sacrificing my mascara to the cause with an embarrassing sniffle. The cop just sighs and grabs my elbow, dragging me out of the dark side street and over to where his colleagues are already ushering civilians away. The moment I’m among the crowd, I stop my fake tears and start making my way around the block. Pulling a hat out of my bag, I tug it over my distinctive hair, flipping the collar of my trench coat up to hide the rest, before heading for the metro.
Just another face in the crowd. Nothing to see here…
Once I’m seated and the train is rattling along the tracks, I fish my large black-framed glasses out of my bag and send a quick text confirming the mission was a success back to Man. Then I t
Five new messages. Ugh.
Despite my dramatics, I just don’t have it in me to care about the multitude of excuses he’s listed. They all come down to one simple truth…
I got bored.
Just like every other time, I thought I was in love, but in the end, it turned out I wasn’t. God, I wanted to be. Tommy was decent. Stable job. No gambling or other addictions. Good family. Wanted kids. The whole picture. I did so much to keep myself in the box he expected: outspoken, but not too much, sexy, but not slutty, interested, but not nagging. It was so tiring, but I thought maybe it would be worth it…
My head falls back, and I let out a long sigh. The car I’m in is mostly empty, so there’s no one to see the small, genuine tear when it finally escapes.
I’m not crying over Tommy. Not really. There are other guys out there, so I’m not sure why I’m upset. Perhaps it’s just self pity.
Scraping the evidence away with one hand, I dig into my bag for my panda ear headphones with the other. I know Man will be annoyed that I’m letting my guard down, but I’m certain of my anonymity. The music will help drown out my background thoughts and allow me to focus on erasing any lingering security footage of myself from the incident.
It takes almost an hour until I’m satisfied I’ve left no trace of myself behind, and by that time I’m more than ready to hop off the metro and board my plane back to Colorado. Once in the air, nestled in a business class suite that I took the liberty of upgrading myself to, I let the sounds of Hazardous’s latest album take away my ability to feel. The band’s haunting vocals—at times screaming, other times whispering fervently against the mic—take the place of thoughts.
I must’ve fallen asleep, but I wake to the bing of the seatbelt light alerting me that it’s time for landing.
I check my phone again. Ten new messages from Tommy. Block. I don’t even want to know what they say. If he’s changed his mind… Well, he shouldn’t, because he’s right. All I want to do is stuff my face with pizza and ice cream, create a blanket pile, and hide for the next week until I feel like myself again.
I wish that ritual wasn’t as familiar as it sounds, but Tommy is the latest in a string of “the ones” who didn’t work out. My never-ending streak of breakups is honestly more upsetting than the end of the relationship itself.
We’ve been over for a month, maybe longer. No use pretending otherwise, and I have no interest in the whole “let’s stay friends” lie. I don’t need to be reminded of my failure to settle down on a regular basis.
Most of the other Belladonnas have paired up—or really, grouped up, given that they’ve all started their own harems—and I can’t even keep a relationship going with one guy.
A new notification pops up, jerking me out of my maudlin thoughts, and a small smile quirks the corners of my lips.
[HzD]D0dgeVip3r
getting our asses kicked, where tf are u?
Dodger’s message is an instant dose of dopamine straight to the brain. My thumbs move of their own accord, tapping out my reply.
D4rk4ngel
Omw home from business trip. Be back on in a few hours.
Chucking my phone back into my bag, I make my way through baggage claim and out of the airport. My driver, Pierce, is already there, waiting for me by the open door of the armoured Bentley, and I slide into the back seat with a sigh. His baby-blue eyes meet mine in the rear-view mirror, and he offers me a gentle smile.
“Did you enjoy your time in Chicago, miss?”
I beam at him. “Yes, thank you.”
He nods, face fixed into a pleasant mask. “Back to the house, miss? Or will we be stopping somewhere first?”
“Home, please,” I answer, turning back to my phone.
[HzD]D0dgeVip3r
Proph3t rage quit. We need our healer.
D4rk4ngel
Is he going to beg this time?
Radio silence follows the message, and I snort. My clan has been regretting making me pick a healer class for three years. When too much blatant monetisation convinced the five of us to switch from playing Clans of Carnage to Runes of Chaos, they decided the fresh start was an opportunity for the group’s only girl to play a more “suitable” character.
I’ve been making them pay for their misogyny ever since.
At one point, Slate actually begged me to switch classes and go back to being their tank, but I’ve invested too many points into the druid and healing skill trees to respec now.
Until we start a new game, they’re stuck at my mercy, even proud, silent Prophet.
The car pulls down the empty country roads, sleek and silent. Man likes his privacy, so it’s a good twenty minutes from the nearest town to the manor, and I gaze silently at the trees as we pass, mulling over Tommy’s texts and trying not to feel disappointed.
When Pierce finally brings the car around the circular drive, I jolt out of my funk and shove open the door. The late afternoon sun is a welcome change from the chill of the AC, and I let it wash over me for a second before I head inside.
“Thanks, Pierce,” I call over my shoulder, leaving him to put the car away. “You rock!”
He says nothing, but I catch the flicker of a smile at the corner of his mouth before I turn and jog up the front steps of the house.
The sun-bleached coral walls of the manor haven’t changed since I was a girl. Man’s immense home is adorned with white gables, imposing pillars, and arched windows. From the outside, it could be the house of any run-of-the-mill eccentric millionaire, but beyond those dark front doors lies the base of operations for one of the deadliest assassin agencies in the world: the Belladonnas.
I dump my bag on the gleaming tile floor of the Mediterranean style foyer, ignoring the imperial staircase in favour of heading to my second favourite room in the house—the kitchen. I half expect my sister, Karma, to be here baking up a storm, her long brown hair bound out of her face while she works, but she’s been gone for weeks now.
Groaning at the thought of having to feed myself, I grab a pizza from the freezer, decorate it liberally with canned pineapple chunks, and chuck it in the oven.
Tabby and I are the only two Belladonnas here at the moment, and we rarely cook. I’m probably going to develop a nutrient deficiency without the others here to scold me for my bad diet.
I’ll eat an apple later. Probably. If I remember.
Two
Darcy
The others’ absence hangs over me as I skip back through the house with my plate of pizza in one hand and a tub of ice cream in the other.
I was the first Belladonna; a five-year-old runaway Man picked up on a whim. Growing up, I was alone a lot. He was dedicated to my training, but otherwise distant. For years, I never questioned the echoing emptiness of the big house. That changed with the arrival of the other girls.
I considered all of them my sisters from day one. It didn’t matter that only Naomi and Ivory are technically related. Together, we brought plenty of noise and life to a house that was otherwise cold and lifeless, and I miss that.
