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“Well, look what the cat dragged in.” Yara giggles, obviously amused with herself.
“Was your night as interesting as Yara tells me?” my sister asks with a smile tugging at the corner of her lips.
“It was a very good, long night,” I say with a smirk and walk over to the coffee machine. Yara gets up and practically shoves me out of the way, but I know it isn’t in a rude manner. I’ve never been the best at making fresh coffee drinks, and she was pretty much born knowing how to do it right.
“Good. We all deserve to have some fun every once in a while, even if our brothers don’t see it that way.” I find that Eset and I have the closest bond out of any of my siblings. My brothers are all very overprotective. Ruslan is by far the worst with how overprotective he is, but he means well.
I’m fortunate to have good relationships with my blood siblings, but my relationships with my adopted ones aren’t as great. I haven’t seen my brother or sister in the last year, and my adoptive mother has made some comments to me that I should reach out more. It’s hard to do when my relationship with Andrej and Branka hasn’t been good for years.
“Yeah, they’re fun killers, in a way,” I say.
“Most people are,” Yara says as she hands me my perfectly made coffee. I take a sip, and it’s like liquid happiness wafting over my tastebuds.
“Not to change the subject, but you know Ruslan’s going to be asking later. Have you given any thoughts about school? You know he wants you to pursue your dream, no matter what that might be.”
Ever since I found out I was part of the family, Ruslan made it a point to tell me the family would support me through whatever I wanted to do.
“It’s not that I don’t want to go to school. I do. I just don’t know what I want to go for. I haven’t found my passion yet, and I don’t want to rush into anything.”
Eset nods. “I completely understand. Whenever Ruslan asks you about it, just shoot it to him straight like you did to me. He’ll appreciate your honesty. Not to mention respect you for not just jumping to do something because you feel pressured.”
“I’m sure I’ll know what I want to do at some point. I just don’t want to rush into anything just yet.”
“Say no more. You’ll know what you want to do eventually. It will hit you at the right time.” Eset’s trying to be reassuring, and while I appreciate it, I don’t think she understands what I’m saying. She’s always had a love for art. I don’t think she’s ever struggled with knowing what she wanted or didn’t want to do.
“Not to be rude, but I’m going to take my coffee outside and enjoy some fresh air,” Yara says, and she proceeds to walk out of the suite.
It’s the first time I’ve had my sister alone in a really long time, and there are some things I’d love to discuss with her privately. Typically, we have a couple of children running around or some adults. This is the sort of thing I’d love to talk to her about in private.
“You look like there’s something on your mind,” Eset states.
“I’ve heard a couple of rumors circulating about the family.”
Eset cranes her neck to the side. “What sort of rumors?”
I lick my lips nervously. “The kind about our family being powerful, dangerous people. I mean, I know we come from a powerful family… but I don’t know how we could be considered dangerous. It’s something I’ve wanted to talk to you about. I just can never find the right time to do it.”
Eset sucks in a deep breath and slowly lets it out. “This is a conversation we need to have with our brother, Xava.”
She only said one sentence, but it’s all I need to know that there’s some truth to it all. If there wasn’t, she would’ve denied it completely.
How could we be dangerous?
What is going on that I don’t know about?
Chapter Five
Ambros
Instead of returning to Greece, I accepted a job in the United States. Right now, I’m standing outside an almost empty office building in the middle of Manhattan. Most people would be afraid to pull off a job like this in one of the most congested places in the world, but not me. I’ve been doing this for so long that I’ve learned some tricks of the trade. It doesn’t hurt I was trained by one of the best—my father.
Even though we often don’t see eye to eye these days, I still owe him a lot of credit. I won’t lie. I was pretty much thrown into the contract killer life. I didn’t have the option to turn it down as the oldest son of the great Achilles Galanis. He was named Achilles because my grandmother loved Homer’sIliadand felt like it was a strong name for a man who would no doubt be a leader. My grandmother never said anything to me while she was alive about the family business, but I wholeheartedly believe she knew about the Organization, the contract killer business my grandfather started almost seventy years ago.
Since then, he’s passed, with my grandmother joining him a few months later. I believe she died from a broken heart. She’d known my grandfather ever since he was a young boy. I think she might have been five or six herself. I can’t imagine knowing someone that long and then trying to live without them. It must’ve been torture.
As I sip on my hot coffee, staring at the building under the security of my blacked-out sunglasses, my phone rings. I fish it out of my pocket to see it’s my mother, which can only mean one thing. My father has been talking to her about me not coming around. I have two options right now. I can either avoid the call and make things so much worse, or I can accept it and make sure that I at least smooth things over in the meantime.
Fuck. I know what I have to do.
