1
THE CONTRACT
LUCIAN
If I am at your door, it’s because you fucked up or fucked with someone you shouldn’t have. No one hires a hundred-thousand-dollar-a-pop hitman if you’re not causing trouble. More likely, it’s because youareindeeptrouble.
My brother Logan says that it’s good to have a reason, or at least one that looks good on paper, ‘cause it makes it easier to pull the trigger.That’s because Logan would much rather destroy a life with a few taps on a computer keyboard than with a gun. Sometimes, I honestly believe he’s more dangerous than I could ever be.
Regardless, I don’t care one way or the other aboutreasons. I don’t need one. Morality is a luxury I don’t indulge in. My brothers and I live by the Maddox family code:We’re not here to make your day better; we’re here to do what it takes for us to protect our way of life.
The Maddox fortune was made the old-fashioned way, through grit and persistence, and all four of us did the work to get to where we are.
Gideon is the oldest, and I technically work for him. He runs one of the biggest media empires in the world, and I manage a division of that, Maddox Sports.
I step through the glass doors of my office in the Maddox Tower, which stands tall on 57thand Park in the heart of Manhattan. As Gideon likes to say—he sits on the eighty-second floor—it’s high enough to see every dream worth destroying.
I nod to the receptionist who doesn’t know I moonlight as a shadow, which is why she keeps flashing me her tits—if she knew the truth, she’d run.
Passing her without a word, I head for the corner suite that says “Executive Director” on the door, with Perla, my PA, chasing after me, teetering on her high heels and clutching a tablet for dear life.
“You have a meeting with the PR crisis team in ten—something about that hockey player who called the ref a ‘walking tampon,’” she says, out of breath. “Then there’s the licensing call with the new fight league. They want to stream the bloodier matches uncensored.”
I grunt.
“Oh, and Gideon moved the corporate ethics briefing to Friday afternoon.” She winces. “Again.”
“Because nothing screams ethics like cleaning up after punch-drunk athletes?”
She shrugs. “Your words, not mine.”
I push open my office door.
Dark wood. Cold chrome.
It pretends to be about media but smells like money.
This is the life I built for the daylight. The other one waits when the sun goes down.
I have a perfectly acceptable day job as a media executive, which includes sports agenting, celebrity PR, and damagecontrol for athletes with too many vices and not enough discretion.
It pays well. It also keeps the IRS happy.
But what gets me up every morning is not talking to some American football superstar, hell no, it’s my night job—wet work where there are no fingerprints or second chances.
“Oh, and this came for you.”
She hands me a matte black envelope. Untraceable. Familiar.
To anyone else, it looks like an invitation to a charity gala. Classy. Harmless.
But when I scan the text with my phone, triggering one of Logan’s encrypted backdoors, I’ll find instructions buried beneath layers of false metadata.
Spoiler alert. It’s not an invite. It’s a contract.
“Thanks, Perla.”
“You’re welcome, Lucian.” She hugs the tablet to her chest and looks at me dreamily.
