Page 20 of Iron Heart

“Like the inferno?”

I snort. “No, like Dante Lavelli. Wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns. My dad named me.”

Tori’s eyes go wide, and she starts to laugh, a full, throaty sound that takes me by surprise… and sends my dick straight to full-mast.

“Well, then. Nice to meet you, Dante,” she says, sticking out her hand. “I guess you’re hired.”

9

Tori

Istand on the front porch and watch as Dante descends the steps. I try not to notice how fine his ass looks when he moves. Or how wide his shoulders are. Or how his tattoos somehow make him look even more sculpted and muscular.

Lords of Carnage MC, Ironwood.The patches on the back of his black leather vest are impossible to ignore. He wasn’t wearing the vest the first time I saw him, at Mildred and Eddie’s place. But seeing it now tells me that he’s no casual weekend biker. Whatever the Lords of Carnage are, Dante is clearly a full-fledged member. The smaller patches on the front, which I saw earlier, were like a special code. Words and abbreviations covered his pecs on both sides.

One, in particular, stood out: Enforcer. I’m not sure what that means, exactly. But it sounds kind of… ominous. Like it’s a warning to other bikers.

It probably should be to me, as well.

Dante ambles down to the street, climbs onto his low, black motorcycle, and fires it up. The low rumble thrums all around me. He lifts one finger at me in goodbye.

As he pulls away, I’m almost physically aware of his absence. Like the heat of his body — the hard mass of him — has been taken away from me. I feel more alone here than I usually do. Like the house is emptier than usual. Like something is missing.

It’s unsettling.

I walk back into the kitchen. In the silence where the noise of his engine had been, I can hear the shaky breath I draw into my lungs, then let out in a rush.

Standing in the center of the room, I pull out the pill bottle I shoved into my back pocket. I meant for him not to see me, but I wasn’t quick enough. I probably should have just left them there. He might not have noticed them if I had.

Not that I care what he thinks,I tell myself.

Not that I care whatanyonethinks.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

That’s what it’s called. The condition I have.

Basically, it’s fancy doctor language for “shitty heart that doesn’t work like it’s supposed to.”

The words are a confusing mouthful to most people. But they’ve become almost as familiar to me over the years as my own name. They’re part of my identity. One item on the list of things you think about in your head when someone you’ve just met says, “Tell me about yourself.”

I’m Tori Lowe. The Tori is short for Victoria. I’m a features writer for the local paper in Ironwood, Ohio. I have blond hair and blue eyes, and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. And I like dogs.

Except I don’t like telling anyone. I try to avoid it as much as possible. Almost no one in this town, apart from Savannah and the local pharmacist, knows anything about it. I even go out of town for my yearly checkups with my cardiologist. I’ve insulated myself as much as possible from being thepoor girl with the heart condition.

I got diagnosed at age nineteen. That’s pretty typical for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Usually, people are diagnosed after puberty, as they grow into adulthood. I had asthma as a kid, and so any shortness of breath I ever experienced, my parents just assumed it was that. But my freshman year at college, I was running late to a class one day, and dashing across campus. I got a stabbing pain in my chest, but there was supposed to be a quiz at the beginning of the hour, so I decided to ignore it and kept running. I woke up a few minutes later with a crowd of people standing around me, and someone from campus security on his phone, ready to call an ambulance.

I’m not sure why no doctors had ever heard anything irregular in my heartbeat before that, but apparently that’s common. When they detected the heart murmur, I was sent for a barrage of tests, which took me out of school for the better part of a week.

My condition is apparently genetic, though my dad didn’t know he had it either until I was diagnosed. He’s the kind of guy who avoids the doctor in general. Apparently, his version isn’t as bad as mine, so he never struggled with it as much.

But he blames himself for my having it. I know he does.

Worse yet, my mom blames him for it. And she blames him for what happened to Vaughn.

Oh, I haven’t mentioned Vaughn, yet, have I?

He’s my twin. Or was.