Prologue
Kellin
The end of an era…
The words echo through my mind like endless ripples through a pond, shrinking but never vanishing.
Grass slicks the bottom of my Oxfords. Thin green souvenirs from my visit to the cemetery this afternoon.
Though dim stars now blanket the New York sky, my mind continues to linger on the image of Shane Gallagher trapped in that oversize box.
The indomitable leader of the Irish Kings for over twenty years, six feet under. Finn Gallagher—Shane’s only surviving son and heir—watching the glossy black wood of Shane’s casket disappear beneath the soil with a grim, unreadable expression isn’t a scene I’ll soon forget.
Hours later, Finn’s face remains unchanged.
Despite the guests packed into the first-floor foyer of the sprawling Gallagher estate, he’s easy to spot. From his position near the ceiling-high windows, he towers over most of the other people while clutching a glass of amber liquid.
Finn and I have never shared a particularly close relationship, but we’ve worked together long enough for me toknow that he’s not much for revealing his emotions. Even after the death of his father, his stoicism holds true.
But grief casts a long shadow, and its creeping fingers show in the pinch of new wrinkles around Finn’s eyes and the tightness of his pale lips. The way he’s downed three of those glasses of whiskey in the same amount of time I’ve consumed one.
To those of us accustomed to people-watching—who do so as a matter of life and death—the strain is evident.
In the space between Finn and me, distant relatives and family friends crowd the blood-red carpeting. The tiered chandelier tinkles above the mourners. They’re all sharing memories and chatting over their champagne as they recall Shane’s younger years.
I recognize some faces. Mostly upper-echelon Irish Kings. Finn’s friends—Rory O’Connor, Cian Mahoney, Darren Kelly—hover nearby, along with Darren’s adoptive father Donal Gallagher, the Kings’ second-in-command.
With Shane’s death, I wonder if Donal will retain that title, or if it will pass to someone else. Cian, maybe. He’s closest to Finn. Or maybe Darren. Though I hear he’s less involved with the family business these days after marrying and branching out into private security.
Near Finn, a slender, pretty young woman with fair skin and coppery hair blots her eyes with a tissue. It takes a few seconds for me to place her as Trinity Gallagher, Finn’s half-sister. I haven’t seen her since she left to attend college in California, and she’s grown up a lot in those years.
In the nearby shadows, another Gallagher drains a glass of whiskey like its water. When he finishes, his empty stare settles on me. Alarm frissons up my spine. I may be a dangerous bastard, but next to Liam, I look like a damn kitten. He’s a big ex-special forces guy who always strikes me as a man on theverge of self-destruction. To be honest, I’m surprised he even bothered to show up.
I catch a few whispers about Finn from a nearby group of lower-ranked Kings. His age, his wife…his next steps.
After all, he’s the one to watch. Before, he was Shane’s most trusted enforcer, the heir without real power.
Now he’s the king of the Kings.
While he has a small group of tight-knit friends, he’ll need more people he can trust, and I hope to secure a post in that coveted inner circle.
Us Brennans have always enjoyed a tight-knit relationship with the New York Gallaghers. And when Finn married my cousin Riley, I figured heightened involvement in the family would be an all but done deal.
Until my uncle fucked everything up.
My knuckles whiten around my whiskey glass.
Thomas Brennan. The man who betrayed the Kings and Shane so deeply that he earned himself thefamily goodbye. Death. A brutal and very much deserved one where every King had the opportunity to torture him first before Shane dealt the killing blow.
His actions were some of the most shameful in our history. He colluded with the enemy, leading to loss of product, revenue, and even life.
Now, thanks to his idiotic grab for money and power, the ranks have tightened more than ever. No one whose name doesn’t already top the VIP list will get close to Finn anytime soon.
I’m not mistrusted, exactly. But because I was on decent terms with my uncle—better than his own daughters, at least—the Kings started shooting me suspicious looks. Thomas’s treachery clearly tainted my reputation too.
The opinions of the rabble mean nothing. But I loathe the way my uncle’s fuck-up hangs over me like a dark shadow, smothering my upward momentum.
Thomas’s daughters, Riley and Harper, seem to be weathering the resulting storm of his betrayal just fine. My cousins ditched the Brennan last name when they married into the Kings, thereby weakening the impact of their father’s sins on their lives.
