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Ares clears his throat, straightening up and buttoning his jacket as I melt into a puddle of mortification.
“See you in there, princess.”
Chapter 2
Ares
Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
Everyone knows that. Except kings usually know they’re going tobekings long before they take over the throne. They prepare for it their whole lives, train for it. They’re ready when the day arrives.
I wasn’t. Because I was nevermeantto be king. I’m Lancelot, burning and pillaging and fucking his way through the countryside.NotKing fucking Arthur.
But life, or fate, or karma, or whatever you want to call it, had other plans for me.
Nine months ago, my father Aeneas, the head of the entire Drakos Family, died at the hands of my older brother, Atlas. My father was a hard, brutal man. But Atlas was unhinged. And power-hungry.
Not to mention a knuckle-dragging fucking idiot.
His “reign” lasted less than three weeks. Then he was killed waging a pointless war against a man with deep pockets and dangerous friends, all over a woman.
It’s an absurd story. Years and years ago, Atlas had once been betrothed to this woman’s mother, Saoirse —an Irish Mafia princess and Cillian Kildare’s sister. But Saoirse ended uphaving a fling with someone else, producing a daughter, Rose—who went on to end up with this man with the deep pockets and dangerous friends.
Atlas decided the daughter of the bride he’d been cheated out of should be his. Obviously, the man with whom she lived and shared a bed disagreed. And when the dust had settled, my brother was dead, and I was king in his place.
Sometimes I’m convinced life really is a Greek tragedy.
Or a comedy, depending on how cynical you are.
But, heavy as the burden to lead is, I was born for this. All my siblings and I were. Living under our father’s rule may have been a lesson in brutality and viciousness, but it hardened us. It prepared us to lead and to conquer. When I took the throne that was unexpectedly thrust upon me, I was ready.
And then, of course, life threw me another curveball.
My siblings and I were all born here in New York. But my father ultimately preferred England, where he’d grown up. So that’s where the real seat of the Drakos empire was for the last twelve years, while my uncle Vasilis oversaw our operations back here in New York City.
Until four months ago, when, as I say, the proverbial shit hit the proverbial fan.
Our family and the Irish Kildare family have never gotten along. There’s generations of bad blood between us, going back who even remembers how long. At one point, there was at least a half-truce—when Saoirse was promised to Atlas. And even when that marriage fell through, things at least cooled off between our families for the next twenty years or so.
Until things went sideways,badly.
I’ve heard it started as a potential peace agreement. Vasilis sat down with Declan Kildare, Cillian’s half-brother and the head of Kildare operations here in New York. But whatever “peace” they were trying to hammer out shattered when a gunfight broke out between them, killing them both.
It should mean all-out war. A bloodbath in the streets. The final showdown between the Kildare and Drakos families until only one is left standing.
Luckily, neither Cillian nor I is suicidal.
Cillianisa fucking psychopath, there’s no question about that. He’s been described more than once as the kind of man who wants to watch the world burn because he enjoys the smell of the smoke. And I think that’s a fair assessment. But either out of self-interest or greed, we’ve managed to work out an arrangement.
It’s time to settle this bullshit between our families once and for all.
And the key to settling it is currently glaring daggers at me from across the room. Clearly, nobody’s told her yet. But she’s it.
We’reit.
My eyes narrow, my mouth tightening to a line as I let my gaze drag across the scowl on Neve Kildare’s face.
It makes sense that she hates me. Even if neither of us had anything to do with the violence of a few months ago, at the end of the day, my uncle and her father killed each other. From what I gather, neither she nor her sister Eilish was very close with Declan.
