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He knows what I did.
I shudder as I try to shower away the day. Dread fills my heart as I slip into pajamas and crawl into bed.
Gavanknows.
He knows that a year and a half ago, Neve’s and my father, Declan, was going to a sit-down with Vasilis Drakos, Ares’ uncle. Things were tense between the Kildare and Drakos families, and even though they were meeting to discuss a possible truce, I knew my father would still bring his gun.
His gun that Iloaded with blanksan hour before he went to that meeting.
When I think back on it, it’s almost surreal how calm I was. I mean, yes, I was livid, and in so much pain after I’d discovered the truth about our mother, and what that bastard did to her. But when I was in his study—in this very house, actually—and silently loading his gun with bullets that wouldn’t protect him if things went south, I was totally calm.
I wasprayingfor things to go south, to be honest.
I didn’t learn until later that neither Vasilis Drakos nor my father started the shooting that got them both killed that night. But from the spent rounds I picked up after the carnage was over, I knew my prayers had been answered.
My dad did try to defend himself. The blanks I loaded his gun with made sure he couldn’t.
I might not have pulled the trigger myself, or fired the bullets that ended his life. But Ididkill my own father that night.
I’m a murderer.
And now, the devil himself knows it.
In the darkness of my room, my eyes squeeze shut miserably. Wefinallyhave peace. After all the drama between our family and the Drakoses. After all the ghosts of the past. After all the enemies that have tried to hurt us time and time again, it feels like we’vefinallyhit a place where there’s not a threat of violence always lurking around the next corner.
And now I’ve gone and welcomed that violence back into our lives by crossing Gavan.
I swallow as I replay our meeting: the vicious, lethal and yet at the same time sinfully smoldering look in his gray eyes. The malevolence and raw sexuality oozing from his very pores.
A shiver ripples through my core.
Whatever he wants, I can do it. I can face Gavan Tsarenko.
I won’t let my family down.
6
EILISH
There’sno blindfold involved the second time I step off the elevators into the offices of Ironclad Capital. This time, I can truly stare in awe at the sheer opulence of the place.
Holy crap.
The main offices are decorated in a similar fashion to Gavan’s personal one, all slate gray and dark wood tones. The far wall—the height of two floors—is all glass, with a view similar to the one from Gavan’s office. It smells like it did the other night: clean, cool, andrich.
Even though it’s only seven-fifty in the morning, the place is already teeming with activity. In the main area, sitting at small clusters of desks boasting top-of-the-line curved, widescreen monitors, financial analysts and traders stare intently at margin lines and stock tickers as they bark buy and sell orders into phones.
A pretty brunette looks up from the very on-brand slate and dark wood reception desk and gives me a tight, professional smile. “Yes?”
“Hi, I’m…” I swallow. “I’m here to see Gavan.”
Her brow furrows a touch.
“Mr. Tsarenko, I mean. He’s expecting me.”
She eyes me cooly. “And you are…?”
“Uh, Eilish. Kildare.”
