Dark mirror a dante jaco.., p.1
Dark Mirror: A Dante Jacoby Thriller (Dante Jacoby Series Book 3), page 1
DARK MIRROR
DANTE JACOBY SERIES BOOK 3
MATT ROGERS
Copyright © 2023 by Matt Rogers
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Onur Aksoy.
www.onegraphica.com
CONTENTS
Reader’s Group
Socials
Books by Matt Rogers
Prologue
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part II
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Part III
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
Part IV
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
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Part V
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Part VI
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Afterword
Afterword
Books by Matt Rogers
Reader’s Group
About the Author
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Meet Ruby Nazarian, a government operative for a clandestine initiative known only as Lynx. She’s in Monaco to infiltrate the entourage of Aaron Wayne, a real estate tycoon on the precipice of dipping his hands into blood money. She charms her way aboard the magnate’s superyacht, but everyone seems suspicious of her, and as the party ebbs onward she prepares for war…
Maybe she’s paranoid.
Maybe not.
Just click here.
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BOOKS BY MATT ROGERS
THE DANTE JACOBY SERIES
Be Somebody (Book 1)
Double Life (Book 2)
Dark Mirror (Book 3)
THE JASON KING SERIES
Isolated (Book 1)
Imprisoned (Book 2)
Reloaded (Book 3)
Betrayed (Book 4)
Corrupted (Book 5)
Hunted (Book 6)
THE JASON KING FILES
Cartel (Book 1)
Warrior (Book 2)
Savages (Book 3)
THE WILL SLATER SERIES
Wolf (Book 1)
Lion (Book 2)
Bear (Book 3)
Lynx (Book 4)
Bull (Book 5)
Hawk (Book 6)
THE KING & SLATER SERIES
Weapons (Book 1)
Contracts (Book 2)
Ciphers (Book 3)
Outlaws (Book 4)
Ghosts (Book 5)
Sharks (Book 6)
Messiahs (Book 7)
Hunters (Book 8)
Fathers (Book 9)
Tyrants (Book 10)
Monsters (Book 11)
Rogues (Book 12)
Legends (Book 13)
Smugglers (Book 14)
Daggers (Book 15)
Heroes (Book 16)
THE LORE OF KING & SLATER SERIES
Recruited (Book 1)
Thin Air (Book 2)
LYNX SHORTS
Blood Money (Book 1)
BLACK FORCE SHORTS
The Victor (Book 1)
The Chimera (Book 2)
The Tribe (Book 3)
The Hidden (Book 4)
The Coast (Book 5)
The Storm (Book 6)
The Wicked (Book 7)
The King (Book 8)
The Joker (Book 9)
The Ruins (Book 10)
PROLOGUE
Austin
Texas
Jane looks good and she knows it.
Transparent fishnet mesh clings tight to her hips as she totters through the Market District.
The dress leaves nothing to the imagination, but she has no qualms displaying herself. At no point during the five years she was married did she succumb to the temptation of letting herself go. Since the age of twenty, she’s enforced routine on herself with the rigidity of a drill instructor: Pilates six days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, without fail. She credits a healthy relationship with exercise for the consistency. She’s only ever worked out to make herself feel good, not to make the other sex drool.
She can’t say the same for Bryan. He lifted weights like a man possessed while they were engaged, determined to maintain a physique he forged on the gridiron of the Texas Longhorns. In college, he was a star wide receiver: great, but not great enough. Still, he didn’t spiral when he failed to make the NFL, and it was that steadfastness which first drew her to him. She fell in love with him after his dreams crashed and burned; she’s no gold digger. But when she walked down the aisle, he must have realised the ring would stay on her finger regardless of the number on the scale. Their honeymoon gave him a taste of lethargy and he found it suited his palate. Almost immediately after they returned from Cancún, he ballooned.
Now he’s three hundred and twenty pounds, but she has to remind herself it’s no longer her concern.
She’s thirty, childless, and freshly divorced.
On a whim, she wheels left at an intersection onto Rio Grande Street. The hulking American Bank of Commerce looms, dormant at midnight. A cab trawls slowly past and she remembers what she promised Radha not twenty minutes ago.
They caught up mid-evening at a tacky sports bar to discuss the divorce: next thing they knew, they were eight rounds deep. A blue-collar guy with thick hands and a bulging gut tried to sweet-talk Jane, she politely turned him down, and he moved on to Radha with zero shame. Radha gets attention from men once in a blue moon, and although the guy wasn’t attractive, he also wasn’t disgusting. She wanted to go home with him.
Jane assured her it was fine. ‘I’m a big girl. I can get myself in a taxi. You enjoy.’
But as soon as she stepped out into the humid Saturday night air, that idea just seemed so boring.
After five mind-numbing years searching for reasons to stick it out with a man she increasingly detested, she’s about done with boring.
Which is why, when she stops in front of another bar with no visible signage, probably no name at all, nothing on the black door but “est. 1895”, she doesn’t listen to the logical side of her brain.
She leans into the lizard side — one drink — and pushes through and in.
The last time she had eight drinks in one night was probably three or four years ago, and her swimming head helps quell any trepidation. There’s no entranceway, she just steps right into the venue: a cavernous space the size of a small warehouse with a circular bar as the centrepiece. A three-hundred-and-sixty degree tower of liquor rises from the middle of the bar, its curved shelves projecting soft warm light outward in a halo. With sunken burgundy sofas and an eccentric array of plush armchairs — none of which match — the place has the feel of someone’s oversized living room, the key ingredient for an unpretentious watering hole.
It must be popular, too, but the rush hour clearly dwindled right before she arrived. She surveys a sea of uncollected glasses on tabletops; somehow, the empty pints and flutes soothe her, demonstrating there was once life in the place.
There’s a big guy in a flannel shirt on a stool at the bar, back turned, chatting to a thin male bartender. At first she thinks the man is the only patron, but a flash of vivid purple in her peripheral vision catches her eye, and she turns to find a stunning black-haired woman in a loud violet cocktail dress sitting in an armchair, one bronze leg draped over the other. The woman takes a sip of her martini, puts it down, and stares curiously across the room at the new arrival.
Inebriation gives Jane confidence, and she walks straight over. ‘Want company?’
The beautiful woman blinks. ‘No.’
She almost spits the word. Her tone’s venomous. Jane’s head is spinning already, and she can only take the reaction at face value. Can’t read between the lines.
Her mistake.
‘Jesus,’ she says. ‘You’re antisocial. Relax.’
With a scoff, she heads for the bar. The woman in purple sits up suddenly, as if about to stop her, but she doesn’t follow through.
Jane’s heels click on the hard floor as she makes her way unimpeded to the row of stools.
The big guy in the flannel shirt hears her coming.
He looks over his shoulder.
She sees his face and it nearly sweeps her — quite literally — off her feet. One heel wobbles on the industrial concrete floor, but she rights herself and acts like nothing happened.
He’s the most attractive man she’s ever seen in her life.
Bright blue eyes, somehow both wide and sharp, and a ponytail of luscious golden-brown hair. His facial symmetry reminds her of the long-haired biker from Sons of Anarchy; she can’t remember the character’s name: Jax? Anyway, this guy’s even better-looking, like a romanticised lumberjack from an erotic fantasy. His flannel can’t hide the powerful body underneath, proportions that make her want to drop her underwear where she stands. His cuffs are rolled up above broad hands, exposing solid forearms coated with hair.
Watching her, he tips back a full two fingers of whiskey in the tumbler he holds.
He places it down and says, ‘Well, look at that.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve just finished. Want in on the next round?’
She has to remember how to speak.
‘Sure,’ she manages.
Am I dreaming?
He smiles, and it’s cocky and self-deprecating all at once. Like, Yes, I look this good. Nothing I can do about it.
He pats the stool beside him. She can tell he’s drunk, but there’s something underneath the booze she can’t put her finger on. He feels supremely competent, like he has the universe in the palm of his hand, but she isn’t sure why.
It’s as if he’s boozing because his life is so perfect that there’s little to do but celebrate.
She swings gracefully onto the stool beside him and slides her legs under the wooden overhang. Positively giddy, she tries and fails to control her heartbeat. But she doesn’t need to work to impress him. She knows she’s gorgeous. Fit and tight and firm, with naturally full lips. She could make a complete fool of herself, and still he’d want her.
She reminds herself that Bryan was always punching above his weight. She’s a catch: time to start acting like it.
Coupled with all the drinks, her confidence returns. ‘What brings you here?’
The guy glances at the bartender, taps his glass to indicate another, then raises an eyebrow at her in a silent question.
‘Gin and tonic,’ she says.
The bartender nods and shuffles around the liquor tower to the other side of the bar. Off to fetch the right gin.
The moment he vanishes, the man beside her leans in close.
‘You want to know a little secret?’ he whispers.
She hesitates.
All she can think is, You smell so good.
It’s not artificial cologne, but some powerful natural scent. He smells like hard physical labour, a musk of pheromones, and it does something to her she can’t explain.
‘Why not?’ she manages after a pause.
His perfect teeth almost touch her earlobe as he leans closer. ‘Soon that guy behind the bar will try to kill me.’
She laughs. She doesn’t have to force it; she’d do anything to impress him, and it comes naturally to her. She turns to face him and realises that, within seconds of sitting down, their faces are inches apart. If he stays put, she’ll kiss him. She doesn’t care for small talk. Not with him. But she figures they’re role-playing, so she decides to entertain it.
‘Oh, really?’ she says in jest. ‘He’s jealous?’
The guy shakes his head.
‘No,’ he mutters. ‘And he’s not a bartender. I’m acting like I don’t know. So he’ll try, and when he fails, maybe ten or twelve more will come storming in. You’ll see some things you’ve never seen before, you’ll do a lot of screaming, you might think you’re in a nightmare for a while, but after it all settles down, I’d like to take you home and please you in ways you didn’t even think were possible. I think witnessing terrible violence might even heighten your pleasure after the fact. Being so close to death … I find it makes you more alive.’
This time she doesn’t laugh, but still she wears a smile. It’s a strange role-play, but beautiful people can be forgiven for almost anything.
Hell, Ted Bundy had fangirls show up in court.
‘That’s a hell of a way to say you want to take me home,’ she whispers back, playing along. ‘Are you usually so forward?’
‘No. But it’s going to happen in the next thirty seconds, and there’s just something about you … I really don’t want this to be ruined by what’s to come. I think you’re gorgeous. I’d like to treat you right, just for one night. I want to show you what a man can be.’
‘What…?’
‘I’m Sam.’
She swallows. ‘Jane.’
‘Jane, it’s a pleasure. Please remember what I just told you. It’ll help you process what you’re about to see.’
He’s taken this little performance way further than she thought he would, but still…
If he rose off the stool and offered his hand right now, she’d take it.
It’s hard to admit after being a good girl her whole life, but, just from sixty seconds of bizarre conversation, she already wants to spend the night with him.
