Good.
If I’m going to bring this empire to its knees, it might as well start with the daughter.
Still, there’s a small, treacherous part of me that doesn’t give a damn about revenge when she leans over the table to pass me a contract and I catch the curve of her hips, the way her cropped blouse rides up her sides, and the whisper of ink disappearing below her waistband.
Focus, Stavros.
You’re here for blood, not pleasure.
But maybe if I’m lucky I’ll have both
But as she straightens and our eyes meet again, I already know—this deal might cost me far more than I ever planned to gain.
Chapter One-Atlas
The Newark docks taste of salt and iron, diesel and rain.
Cranes arc like mechanical gods against the low, bruised sky as the ship nosed in, its hull swallowing the morning light.
This is the moment I’ve been waiting for. When the first sample of my wares touches American soil, and nothing can be left to chance.
I stand on the pier with my suit jacket unbuttoned, hands loose at my sides, but everything about me is tight as a wire.
Beside me, Nico Fury Jr. looks like he’s been carved from marble—broad, unreadable, the kind of man who hides violence behind polite silence.
Sammy Ramirez is all movement and energy, scanning manifests and checking faces.
Between them, Cecilia Batiste holds a tablet loaded with the legal paperwork, fingers flying as she cross-checks serials and certifications.
She’s all business, she’s tied the longer pieces of her hair back to where it’s cropped at the nape with some kind of clip.
I want to take it out of her hair. To see those pretty curls flying about in the wind all wild and proud.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I have better control than this. But still, my gaze is locked in when her inked wrist is half-revealed—a sun maybe—when she brushes a stray curl away.
She doesn’t notice me. And while it rankles, it also gives me time to just take her in.
The sight of her concentrating over the screen does something to me that I refuse to name in front of witnesses.
The skies grow darker, and the promised rain begins to fall in heavy drops.
I whisper orders to one of my men in Greek, and a moment later he holds an umbrella over her head.
She looks up, surprised.
Then her dark gaze finds me, and she nods her thanks.
I clench my jaw together, dipping my chin to acknowledge her.
The gangway clangs, and men in orange vests hustle containers into place. The first crate with my brand, Hephaestus United, stamped across the side is unlatched, and the world narrows to the metallic scent of the case and the soft click of Cecilia’s stylus on glass.
Her cousins move behind her. They stand framed a few paces back—protective, watchful.
I like that. I respect a family who respects their women, and I already know they do.
After all, it was me they sent Remy Falco to when they were testing his mettle, seeing if he was right for Andrea—Andres Ramirez’s daughter.
