I grew up in Connecticut—old money, old manners, old expectations.
My mother’s side raised me after my father’s disgrace, grooming me to take my place among the quiet elite.
NYU educated me. Columbia polished me. Europe spoiled me.
And the last ten years have forged me into something else entirely.
Not a whiny ex-royal. Not a tabloid headline.
But a man who takes what he wants.
Summers and holidays spent in Greece and Monaco taught me how the powerful move—how they smile when they strike, how they kill with contracts instead of bullets.
I learned early in life that bloodlines only open doors—you still have to walk through them yourself.
So I did.
I clawed my way through every threshold those doors led to, and I never forgot who slammed them in my father’s face.
My father was a good man.
Brilliant.
Naïve.
He believed that loyalty meant something, that a man’s word was his bond.
The world he operated in—the world of Wolves, Vipers, and shadow kings—ate men like him alive.
He got fucked more times than I care to admit, and what little fortune my family might have earned, he lost to those men with sharper teeth and colder blood.
But really, it was all over for him when my mother died. I can no longer recall her voice or a clear image of her face. I have photos somewhere. But I don’t suppose that’s the same.
Sentimentality has no place in my world.
Isn’t that what made my father weak?
Isn’t that why those Wolves and Vipers took advantage of him?
Anger at the men who betrayed his trust fills me, but soon, it’ll be over. I’ll have my vengeance.
My father’s half-brother—technically my uncle, but I call him Dimitri, a fact he hates—loves to remind me that he’s the one who paid for my education.
That I’d have been nothing without him.
He’s wrong, of course.
The second I was able, I paid him back—with interest.
I may be descended from an abolished monarchy, a relic of a bloodline that used to mean something, but all that’s worth now is a name that looks good on paper and sounds expensive on an invitation.
It opens doors.
Nothing more.
The rest? I built myself.
Me. Alone.
