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PROLOGUE
Once upon a time, there was a boy.
A prince.
But he wasn’t like regular princes we read about in fairytales.
Felix Malone was the second-born son of an evil mafia don.
His father bedded women, impregnated them, used them to birth his five sons, then disposed of them like the trash he considered them to be.
Felix, being the second oldest,almostescaped the responsibilities placed upon an heir. He was the spare, after all. The child who would support the oldest son asheensured the family name prospered in dark alleyways, through shady business dealings.
But Timothy Malone the Third, the heir in question, never wanted the throne; not when he was a child, and not now that he’s grown. He never wanted to rule a kingdom, and he sowed the seeds of abdication long ago.
By the time their father died of an aggressive form of cancer and the family business needed a new ruler, Tim had already left the city.
So it was Felix who stood ready to pick up where his father left off.
Preparations had already been made, of course. From the moment Tim made his future wishes clear, Felix became the Chosen One. Theprettiest. The most tormented. He was the first to feel hisfather’s savage backhand as the boys grew, and when he was old enough to partake in the enterprise itself, he was the first brought into the boardroom to talk distribution channels, powder shipping in from the south, and the movement of guns across every state of the continental U.S.
Naturally, the Malones were a family of diversification: weapons, cocaine, money,andwomen. They were a business, after all, and any smart businessman knows that multiple streams of income is how an empire flourishes.
Felix wasneversupposed to be the mafioso he is today, but Tim refused the crown, Micah prefers solitude and privacy, Archer was brave enough to denounce the family and walk away, and Cato was just a baby.
Still is.
The cold hard truth is, if Felix rejected his position amongst the deadly ranks of New York City, the Malones would become a hunted species.
He might be the craziest brother of them all. The loudest. The most homicidally spontaneous.
But his role in this life, whether he likes it or not, is to protect his family.
It’s always been this way.
1
FELIX
SIXTEEN YEARS OLD
“Shhh…” I tiptoe along the halls of my family’s home, the sprawling mansion made up of more rooms than I’ve ever cared to count. More floors than I’ve ever walked. More hidey holes than I could ever hope to discover.
To do so without my father’s permission is forbidden. To sneak higher than the second floor, punishable in the worst way. But with Savannah Towers holding my hand, her sweet perfume filling my nose, and her intoxicating smile flashing in my peripherals, I’m unstoppable.
Unafraid.
No motherfucker can slow me down.
So I trek along the halls of the fourth floor like a knight in unbreakable armor. For as long as Savvy needs me, for as long as she’s a guest in my home, I’ll be her shield.
“Felix.” Savannah’s sweet, tinkling voice is anything but fearful. Her almost-silent giggles a challenge, not a warning. “We’re gonna get in so much trouble.”
“I just wanna see,” I whisper back. Glancing over my shoulder, I catch her arctic-blue eyes smiling back at me. Long, black lashes, framing her stare.
She’s the daughter of one of my father’s soldiers. One of three girls born to a man who stands at nearly seven feet tall and carries an automatic weaponalways.
That weapon, of course, is meant to point toward my father’s enemies. But sometimes, when no one else is looking, he shifts it my way, just for a second, and conveys a million warnings without a single word.
