Page 91 of Hard Luck (Blackstone House)

“Yes.”

“Did you take a self-defence class? I know a guy with a gym on Ilha Grande who runs classes for women and kids.”

“I don’t worry about myself anymore. It’s all the other victims and potential victims out there who make me lose sleep at night. Can we change the subject now?”

The way she’d picked him up so confidently in the Black Diamond and accepted an invite to his house, Cole figured she had to know how to look after herself. And she cared for others, that much was clear, even if she sometimes came across as cold. He was surprised she’d told him as much about her past as she did. Maybe he could google that Levi guy? Would a murder like that have made the news? He knew the name and the state.

“We don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to talk about.”

Bella reached for his cock, and now that he was learning what made her tick, he understood why. She fucked to forget. For her, opening up about herself was far more intimate than sex. Not that Cole didn’t enjoy the sex, but he was beginning to value the conversations more.

Smoothly, Bella hooked a leg over his hip, and once again, he’d give her what she wanted.

He’d always give her what she wanted.

Cole had always loved these moments on board theCrosswind. Dr. Blaylock and Clint were in theTide Pod, Witt and Jon were diving, and Bella was in the galley. It was just him on the swim platform with the sun shining down and a light breeze taking the edge off the heat. Well, him and a parrot that had flown in to keep him company.

He glanced over his shoulder in case Bella had finished inside—there was no sign of her—and then opened his laptop.

The first entry in the search results surprised him. He’d been expecting snippets from a decade ago, but this article was barely a year old, and the focus wasn’t on the murder; it was on one of Bella’s roommates.

He’s doing more than guarding her body…

Sources say that the man Violet Miller was seen getting cosy with in her hometown of Oakwood Falls is none other than her bodyguard, Dawson Masters. And where have we heard that name before?

Our research reveals that Miller’s new beau is the same Dawson Masters suspected of involvement in the Blackstone House murder near Washington, DC, eight years ago. Although landlord Levi Sykes was subsequently jailed for causing the death of Ruby Costello, there are still some who believe the Sykes family’s claims that he was the victim of a conspiracy concocted by the other roommates.

There were three photos under the openingparagraphs. Two were of Dawson Masters, one older, the other more recent with Violet Miller. Cole recognised the name. Violet Miller was a Hollywood actress who’d hit the big time with a horror movie and then become a household name by starring in an erotic thriller. Frankie was a big fan of her movies, and they’d watched a couple of them together in the movie theatre near Frankie’s home on Ilha Grande.

The third photo was more interesting. A group of people smiling and laughing, seven men, one woman. The caption underneath readEight of the Blackstone House gang: Dawson Masters, Justin Norquist, Braxton Dupré, Zach Torres, Nolan de Luca, Greyson Meyer, Levi Sykes, and victim Ruby Costello in happier times. Two housemates, Jerry Knight and an unidentified minor, are missing. Was one of them the photographer?

Wait a second… Jerry Knight? Was this the right murder? It had to be—all the other details fit, including the name Braxton. Was Jerry a nickname? Or had Bella changed her name afterward? If she had, she’d done it legally—he’d seen her passport. And could he really blame her for wanting to distance herself from such a painful past?

Cole continued reading.

What really happened behind the closed doors of Blackstone House one Saturday evening almost a decade ago? Maybe we’ll never know, but the story has fascinated many over the years.

Ruby Costello, a twenty-year-old sophomore at Georgetown University, had been living in the shared house in the small town of Blackstone Bluff for over two years before that fateful night. When she didn’t appear at breakfast the following day, her housemates assumed she was staying with a friend, but one of them was hiding a terrible secret. Upstairs, Ruby was lying in her locked bedroom, stabbed and strangled, her limbs arranged in a cross and a pentagram carved into her chest. Two days would pass before her body was discovered. Evidence shows that nobodyapart from her housemates entered or left the property during that time.

So, who killed her?

Out of the nine people she lived with, only one had a solid alibi. Greyson Meyer, also a student at Georgetown and now running for Congress in the tenth district of Virginia, was on vacation in Florida at the time. According to their statements, Masters and de Luca were playing pool in the basement all evening while Dupré and Torres watched a movie in the living room. The other housemates were in their bedrooms, except for Sykes, who claimed to be in his studio on the third floor, painting. But evidence soon started coming to light that cast doubt on his assertion. DNA analysis proved the two had engaged in sexual intercourse shortly before she died, and at his trial, the others testified that he and Costello had shared a tempestuous relationship, with Sykes being described as moody, unpredictable, and volatile. He also had an interest in the occult.

After just a day of deliberation, Sykes was convicted by a jury of his peers and sentenced to life in prison. Despite this, Sykes’s mother, Mary, continued to protest her son’s innocence until her death a year later. Levi Sykes is currently incarcerated at Redding’s Gap, Virginia, with little hope of freedom on the horizon. Many believe he got what he deserved. However, there are some still convinced that the wrong man was convicted, although those voices have grown quieter over the years. With Dawson Masters back in the public eye, will Sykes’s defenders once again rally to the cause?

Man, that was fucked up. And if Bella had been one of those who discovered the body cut up like that, then no wonder it had affected her so deeply. Cole went back to the search results and clicked the next link, another recent entry.

FREE LEVI SYKES

A decade has passed since passionate environmentalist and brilliant scientist Levi Sykes was incarcerated by an unjust legal system after being framed for murder by the deep state.

An academic prodigy who graduated high school two years early, Mr. Sykes was working with Professor August Groveland on the study of water electrolysis, and the two men were due to present a paper on their work just a month after Mr. Sykes’s arrest.

Had they made a breakthrough in the production of green hydrogen?

We may never find out because Professor Groveland was killed in a fire at his home mere weeks after his prize student was incarcerated, taking much of his scientific knowledge with him.

It’s no secret that Congress is owned by Big Oil, which might explain why Mr. Sykes’s appeal was denied. Politicians would rather line their own pockets than preserve the environment.

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