This is the mafia, after all.
A world that I knew existed but never thought I’d be thrown into. Now I have no choice but to shed my layers and adapt, even if it goes against my morals. I don’t want to find out what happens if I don’t.
I’d rather be safe in these walls—a different kind of safe—than work the haunted mine ride and constantly scan faces at the park, as if Xander would appear and shatter my world even further.
Here, Xander can’t get me. Can’t hurt me.
Sometimes we have to do unconventional things to survive.
I paste on a grin, but it is quickly wiped off my face as a blaring alarm drowns the living room and break room combined into one. The unexpected screech grinds against my skin, raising the hairs on my arms. It’s so loud, I nearly press my palms to my ears to block out some of the noise.
Synthia and Declan’s faces pale, their eyes meeting each other’s as they share a knowing glance.
“Shit,” Imogen hisses. She tosses her cards haphazardly on the table, reaches into the pocket of her lab coat, and stands, rushing out of the room.
“What’s happening?” I yell over the earsplitting alarm, pulsing the space with red-and-white flashes from the light on the wall in the corner above the doorway Imogen slipped through.
Declan shakes his head. “Whatever it is, it isn’t good.”
A minute later, Imogen marches back into the room, tugging at the bottom of her jacket. She had a look of alarm when she left; now, a professional poise has replaced it. I don’t know why that unsettles me so much.
She exhales the breath she’s holding. “In an hour, we’re going to need all the hands we can get.” Her pointed and worried look finds me. Then she says something that has every ounce of blood draining from my body and pooling at my feet. “Synthia and Declan, you’re in the surgery room with me. I hope you’re ready to get your hands dirty and know how to administer stitches, Kate. This is going to be one hell of a first day.”
SEVENTEEN | PRESTON
Red clouds my vision as I shove open the passenger door and step out into the air that does nothing to extinguish the inferno blazing behind my sternum.
We were set up.
Ambushed at one of our borders.
The scent of smoke, explosives, and carnage that permeated the air still clings to my clothes. My skin. The rancid smell is seared into my pores, a reminder that this war is only beginning, and we’ve already lost one of our territories.
I’m not sure how I managed to get onto the helicopter and back to the estate. All I remember is Carter hurling his body at mine after the first few gunshots pierced through the night as we were unloading cargo. Not even the illegal weapons we were moving could’ve saved us from the attack.
Thirty-seven men.
Thirty-seven brothers whose bodies were left in the rubble and dirt in and outside of that warehouse, as if they were nothing but a pile of bones. I didn’t want to leave them, but getting out of there was a priority.
Now, only sixteen of us are returning home—less than half of the men I took to Virginia.
That’s not including the ones who were stationed there and already dead when we arrived. I knew something was wrong the moment we landed—the kind of silence that is suffocating becausehehad already taken out everyone before we got there.
Their blood is on my hands.
It’s always On. My. Hands.
The back of the military-grade vehicle lowers, and several of my men wheel out their friends on gurneys into the medical center that shares the same grounds as our estate.
Those who survived the flight, if they weren’t left behind.
Luckily, Arden was safe at the estate, letting me handle this one on my own.
There may have been burning skin, hair, and the stench of blood that stained the air, but I could still pick out the unmatched scent of a cigar that threaded through the aftermath. At first, I thought it was my brain playing tricks on me, wanting me to seek him out like a bloodhound. There was no time to find him, not when we were taken by surprise.
I thought we were prepared for anything. Ready for everything. But it’s not until someone strikes that you realize you underestimated their power.
When the plane carrying our survivors took off, I hopped into the helicopter with Carter, and that’s when we saw him below. He strutted out of the warehouse in his gray suit, puffing on one of those cigars that makes me want to release the acid in my stomach. His fucking son, Nico, was beside him.
