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Chapter One
Mari
There was nothing worse than a project behind schedule. Time was money, and losing it wasn’t acceptable. Not in my world. Not in my city. Not in my club.
Or what would be a club. The walls were bare, the subfloors visible, the liquor shelves not even hung. Boxes leaned precariously on plastic-wrapped booths that should’ve been installed weeks ago. My second-in-command and I were alone inside the scraped-out hull of what should have been my dream come true. Instead, all I saw was a mile-long list of projects that needed to be done.
Designed as a luxury speakeasy, Gilded leaned heavily on the myth of Hades and Persephone. Deep pomegranate red and a heavy charcoal gray were featured everywhere, while snakes hid themselves in the dark walls, the edges of the booths, and the ornate light fixtures.
I’d always been drawn to the Queen of the Underworld. To the idea that she who ruled the land of the dead also brought life to it. Not to mention balance, harmony, and even love. After finding myself on my own deadly throne, I wasn’t sure it was even possible to have a life like that, but I appreciated the hope it represented.
That life could flourish even in the darkest places.
I needed things to come together flawlessly. I’d ascended the throne in the midst of a citywide territory war, and now that we’d rebuilt, Gilded would keep us together. Every plan we’d spent six bloody years working toward was counting on it. But with seven days until opening, things weren’t looking good.
This can’t be happening.
I tapped my fingers along my thigh, trying to dispel some of the frustration running through me. “You’re telling me that the flooring isn’t in, the bar’s not ready, the bartenders aren’t trained, and the opening night’s entertainment just backed out. Is that right?”
“That’s correct.” Anyone else would rightly be terrified of giving that answer, but not Grey.
Greyson Andrews was the very definition of a cradle-to-grave friend. He, my twin, and I were born less than a week apart and had been practically inseparable since. The boys had been closer than brothers, but Grey had always been something else to me. Something more.
For most of our lives, he’d been a lighthouse in the chaos of our childhoods. A life raft when I was drowning in nightmares of blood and pain, the currency of our lives. He kept me tethered to the ground when I was falling apart under my father’s expectations of me, when I couldn’t stand being the perfect mafia princess anymore.
He’d kept me whole when I lost my brother Antoni, and he’d stayed at my side to watch over me when life had thrown one curveball after the next. And somehow, he’d become my everything.
My best friend, my second-in-command, my bodyguard. My savior.
We’d been bound together since birth and would remain so until we left this life behind.
But at the moment, he was the bane of my existence.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Grey?”
He peered over the top of his tablet, dark-brown eyes watching me pace with a slight furrow between them. Despite the utter disaster zone around us, Grey still looked incredible in a black suit that fit the muscles he worked for in the gym perfectly. I doubted he even had plaster dust on his perfectly shined shoes. The entire ensemble was a mix between stylish and dangerous, and I wasn’t too proud to say it did things for me.
Then again, he always had.
I looked away, determined to pretend I didn’t notice. It was easy to do, surrounded by chaos. “What happened?”
“Things got a little off schedule, Mari. It happens, but everything is taken care of.”
“Ha. I’ll believe that when I see it.” I groaned. “We need this club to work, Grey. The city needs it. It needs peace.”
My heels clicked on the temporary plywood floor as I walked in agitated circles. How can I fix this? Who can I call? How many favors can I cash in to make things right? Solutions whirled through my head as I sorted and discarded them one by one. There had to be a way to make it happen. There had to.
“It’s going to work out, reina,” Grey soothed.
He’d been calling me queen since we were children, but neither of us had ever expected it to become our reality. We’d learned, though. The Seattle underworld waited for no woman, and after Antoni died, I’d claimed the crown before I’d even realized what had happened.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I took long, slow breaths. “It’s not going to be fine. We have every high roller and boss in the city scheduled here for the opening, and nothing is ready. Do we even have security assigned?”
I was spiraling, and I couldn’t stop.
I’d slaved over the opening night guest list for weeks, refining it to include every crooked politician and cop, as well as the heads of Seattle’s gangs and made families like ours. It was a logistical nightmare, but we’d created Gilded to be neutral ground. The first of its kind in the city.
No grudges, no assassinations, and no death would be allowed on the property, and everyone who was coming had agreed to follow my rules. Those who broke them would be dealt with swiftly and severely. I gave no second chances to oath-breakers.
