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This was the last thing I wanted—more power games. More people set into position, ready to use me.
I knew there was no escape, but now there really was no escape. All my plans, all my effort. Would any of it ever happen?
Nausea settled in the pit of my stomach as Papa’s words during one of our lessons echoed in my head.
“You decide your path, cara. You’ll fight a war either way. You have to decide whether you’re a pawn or a?—”
At that moment, a deafening bang echoed through my bedroom as the door shook violently with each pound.
“Nerine, open up, now! Or we’re breaking it down if you don’t.”
In the next second, the door splintered inward, and two dark figures emerged from the hallway, their steps heavy and determined.
They approached me swiftly, and before I could utter a single word, the taller one scooped me up in his arms and held me tight against him before whispering into my hair, “Thank God, you’re safe. I don’t know what I would have done if anything happened to you.”
Then the other one said, “Andraius is dead, Angel. We’ve got to get you out of here, now.”
Two
Four Months Ago
Xander
“Any news on Chicago?” Andraius Angelos, the current head of Angelos Shipping, asked during our regular Monday morning briefing.
The fucker loved his briefings, running this operation as if it were some nine-to-five corporation instead of the twenty-four-hour hands-on syndicate it truly was.
Idiot.
But if that was how he wanted it, my best friend Theo Nephus and I would run it that way. Or let him believe we carried things out in that fashion.
“Nothing yet,” I answered.
A frown marred Andraius’s face. “How is that possible?”
Under Theo and I, the different teams reported to Andraius what we believed was necessary. Then they carried out what we told them to do. This moron had eroded his power bit by bit, never even realizing what he was doing. As far as this organization was concerned, he was a lame-duck boss, a figurehead, and none the wiser.
Fucker. And he’d done it all to himself, thinking he was so smart.
He’d shipped us off to manage everything internationally the moment he’d slithered into his seat. What dumbass gave near twenty-four-year-olds that much control?
“I have a few loyalists in key locations keeping tabs on things. None of your brothers are sending any of the Stratos collective to challenge your place.”
He was a paranoid fucker, constantly worried about the family he’d abandoned for his current position of power instead of focusing on everyone around him.
“I don’t trust any of them. The fact we’re family means nothing to them. Given the opportunity, they’d stab me in the back as if I didn’t notice how Tobias sucked up to me at the party last month. They’re trying to muscle their way into the East Coast.”
Well, surprise, surprise. He finally figured out that his nephew Tobias was the real power behind the Stratos Family. Andraius’s brothers played a minor role in operations while the empire belonged to the children, led by Tobias.
We’d had a run-in or two with Tobias in our youth, and that fucker had no qualms about using every dirty trick in the book to get his way. From what I’d learned of the adult version of him, he followed the same tactics. He ran the Chicago outfit by undercutting and cheating his allies, not realizing he left a trail of enemies gunning for his blood.
I guessed stupidity ran in Andraius’s bloodline.
“That boy needs to step out from his father’s shadow and take over the organization. He’s too old to play errand boy all the time.”
Correction, this jackass knew zilch about how the Stratos organization ran.
How the fuck had he orchestrated the Angelos coop? This moron couldn’t have been the mastermind behind it.
