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Prologue
Ten Years Ago
Dom
The barrel of my own gun digs into the back of my head. I keep the grimace off my face and my hands still by my side. My attention can only be in one place if I am to live through this battle, and it won’t involve bullets.
Well, not right away.
“You killed my man.” His voice comes from the window, his presence undeniable. When he speaks, his own men quail like tiny birds, ready to scatter. The suit he wears is worth more than my father’s shitty little house. He doesn’t need to turn around for me to know who he is.
The Gallo heir.
The Cyprus Don’s son.
I snort. “He was a pest. He got in the way of business.”
If nothing else, the comment should put us on common ground. I pray the man is fair, likes a good amount of fight, and isn’t a spoiled, trigger-happy brat.
“I see.” He turns sharply on his heel, piercing me with eyes that lance straight through my soul. “And you deemed that worth a life. Why?”
Looking into Rafael Gallo’s face is like standing before judgement with God and begging him to find something worth my existence. A soul.
Mysoul.
But his playground only holds broken halos and twisted hearts.
My shoulders drop back, and I stare the devil full in the face. “Because he was on the paycheck of a man I believe you know. Declan Hennie.” His opponent in an ongoing territory war.
Rafael inclines his head. “I know his son.”
“You tried to kill each other last week.”
The ghost of his smile leaves a trail of ash in its wake. “You listen to gossip?”
“I was fighting in the cage behind you. The door was locked, or one of you would likely be dead,” I say, pointedly.
He laughs softly. “You have my attention.”
“Do I?” I watch him from my stilled position, wiggling my toes in my boots to encourage circulation. “Then you know Hennie has men in your house.” I pause. “In this room.”
“Funny thing. I do know that, actually.” The men behind him twitch while neither of us move. “I was looking for someone to help me clean out the rats.”
“It would be my pleasure.” My dead smile matches his.
I whirl on the ball of my foot, surprising the man behind me twice over when I reclaim my gun and fire at the man at his back, through my captor’s mouth.
A double tap behind me cleans the room of the rest of Hennie’s vermin.
I turn back, my gun lowered.
Rafael holds out his hand. “May I?”
“Of course.” I hesitate a fraction of a second before I pass the prized gun over, wondering if I will join the dead men littering his study floor.
“Beautiful.” He studies the make, the mirror finish marred by fingerprints, but he doesn’t add his own to them. “Part of a matching pair?”
“It is.”
