Prologue

Diesel

Halloween Night, Senior Year

"I'm not a fucking whore," I growled at Dion, shoving his phone back at him. He was always a real son of a bitch who never gave a shit about anything but his money, but what would you expect from a mobster?

"No reason to be so offended," he tsked, flashing me a toothy grin that showed his longish canines. "I'm offering you an easy two grand. One fuck and you're out. You know what? Since we're friends, how about I make it three?"

Friends? I snorted. Dion didn't have any friends. He had people he owned, and I was one of them. Luckily for me, I was in his good graces, meaning I had no reason to worry about getting a bullet in my head. For now.

Looking around the room filled with guns, drugs, whores, and thugs, I knew I shouldn't be here, but I couldn't help it. It was my nature. This was my natural habitat, where my life began and where it would likely end, too. Living on Malibu beach with my so-called brothers, pretending I was a normal nineteen-year-old guy, going to school, was a joke. A sorry-ass joke Chief had been trying to sell me ever since I got out of juvie and came to live with him. It may have worked for Andrei and the two other clowns, but not for me. I was too fucking immersed in this shit to see any other future for me.

"Nah, I'm not doing it." Leaning back on the Italian leather couch, I brought the crystal glass to my lips and sipped from the sweet liqueur. Amaretto. Everything in this club was Italian, everything but its French owner, Dion.

"You sure?" he asked, studying me with his cold blue eyes that always seemed tired. He probably thought he could see through me. Only he couldn't. No one fucking could.

After dropping Hansel and Gretel—Jessie and Levi—at that ridiculous Halloween party in the middle of Beverly Hills, I met Dion in one of his smaller clubs to run an errand for him. Unlike the rest of the people in the room, who were practically his property, I was a freelancer doing occasional jobs to ensure Iván's life was kept safely behind bars. Thanks to Iván, my idiotic older brother, who was doing time for whatever shit had landed his ass in prison for five years, I had to run errands for this maniac. It was a small price to pay in exchange for my brother's safety. Since Dion had people inside, he could protect my brother, who, in his twenty-five years of living, had managed to make a lot of enemies.

"Fine, your loss," Dion said, patting his thigh. A moment later, a mostly naked woman came to sit on his lap, shoving her naked breasts in his face. Taking one of her perky tits in his mouth, he closed his lips around her nipple and let out a low groan while sucking on it. She moaned when he tugged on her nipple before letting go.

"What's so bad about being a whore?" He slapped her small ass and began playing with the string of her black thong.

Crossing my arms, I ground my jaw. "Fuck me if I'd let someone buy me."

"That's usually the point, isn't it?" He raised one cocky brow my way. "But we're talking about something else. That woman who saw you in my club wants you to fuck her. Not the other way around, so why not? I never offer people deals like that. You know, you're my only exception. See it as a favor, like the one I do by making sure Iván stays in one piece."

Favor, my ass. He'd been working his ass off lately, trying to make me work in his club.

"I won't work for you."

"Didn't ask you to." Despite the girl that was now giving him a lap dance, his attention was on me. "You know, the Venetian is nothing like this place." He waved around the room. "It's classy. Fucking expensive. And my Gatti are artists, not cheap whores like her." He slapped her ass again. "They have the final say."

When it came to Dion, no one ever had the final say. That was why I never took him up on his offer. As tempting as making shit tons of money while working for him might be, I knew it held nothing but danger.

Putting down my crystal glass, I crossed my arms over my chest. "You own a sex club."

He laughed. "It is an exclusive club where my Gatti make their patrons' dreams come true. I call it art. You can call it whatever you like." He straightened on the couch, making the girl move aside, and leaned toward me. "But tonight, I'm not asking you to join me. I'm offering you an easy way to earn some cash." He put a stack of money on the wooden table and slid it my way. "So why not fuck the bitch and take her money?"

Opening my phone, I read Dion's message with all the details. The client was a regular at his club, and last week, she saw me when I dropped off some packages for him. Besides the picture he sent me and the fact that she was filthy rich, I knew nothing about her. Her being rich wasn't surprising, considering all the members of the Venetian were. That was the whole fucking point.

Looking at her picture, she appeared to be in her late fifties. Did I care? Not really. Just another pussy to distract me for a while. Did I enjoy sex? Not particularly. Did I have a lot of it? Yes.

Before quittingmy job at the beach club, I often fucked some of the ladies there. It was another way to pass the time through those boring shifts, and it usually helped with the tips. Since I was used to sleeping with older women, tonight would be no different. Sex was nice, but it always felt basic. Superficial. It didn't stir my insides the way it should have. Nothing ever did, not really.

Shoving the worthless thought aside, I stepped into the lobby of the five-star hotel and walked straight to the elevator.

"What floor do you need, sir?" the dude in the hotel uniform asked as I stepped in.

"The presidential suite."

He didn't say a word but scanned me skeptically. Did the son of a bitch just side-eye me?

"The fuck you waiting for? Press the goddamn button before I break your nose and shove it up your ass."

His ugly face paled as he quickly did his job, pressed the damn button, and stayed quiet on the ride up.

When we reached the thirty-eighth floor, he straightened. "H-have a good night, sir."

Rolling my eyes because he was pissing me off, I shoved my hands in my pockets and stepped out.

Looking right and left, there was only one door in the short hall. It was excessively big. The type of doors that reached the ceiling. Stepping closer, I saw it was open. Oh, fuck. Was that some sort of an invitation? Dion did mention she was kinky. Was she one of those perverts who enjoyed being surprised by an intruder?If I'd known, I would have asked for more money.

Already tired from this shit, I huffed some air and stepped inside, cursing Dion's ass. Greedy son of a bitch.

The large room was dim, lit only by the reflections of the diamonds adorning the chandeliers. Opening the doors leading to the bedroom, I'd expected to find her waiting on the bed, with her hands tied behind her back or something, only it stood empty. The sheets were smooth and tucked under the mattress, unused, which confused me. When I crossed the space into the room, I saw no one. Maybe she was in the bathroom? Checking there next, I found it was also empty. Stepping farther in, I found white powder spread over the black marble with a golden credit card beside it. Okay… so she has a thing for coke.

I left the drugs behind and went back to the main room. Was she playing hide-and-seek? Wasn't she too old for childish games? Annoyed with this nonsense, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and was ready to text Dion to tell him I was calling this off when I reread the last text he sent me—the one with all the details.

The Blue and Red Sunset Hotel.

Floor 39.

The royalty suite.

"Oh, fuck." I was in the wrong fucking room and floor. Great. Just great. Pocketing my phone, I was ready to get the hell out of there. The last thing I needed was for the rich asshole who paid for this place to return and find me in his room. I was about to start walking when a cold breeze hit my skin, so I turned to see the terrace doors were open. Something made me stop in my tracks and focus beyond those glass doors. Squinting, I tried to see past the silky white curtain that danced with the wind and looked straight out into the dark night.

And then I saw it. A figure of a man standing over the edge of the balcony.

Facing his back, all I could see was his golden hair swaying in the air and the way his hands hardly held on to the rail. Whoever this man was, he was about to jump. I had no doubt. Without thinking twice, I ran toward him as quietly as possible. As soon as I reached him, I wrapped my hands around his chest and pulled him back with all the force in my body. The intensity made us crash to the floor, with him on top of me.

Still processing what just happened, I held still with him in my arms. I'd expected the stranger to say something or, more likely, fight me, but he didn't. In fact, he just lay there in my hold and cried. He cried so hard even I felt his pain, and that was saying something. Clueless as to how this stranger's pain simmered my insides, my arms hugged his trembling body tighter. I had no idea who this person was other than a man I had just stopped from jumping to his death, but his guttural crying shredded my stone heart like nothing had for years.

There was so much agony and suffering to his voice.

Agony, I recognized, and suffering, I knew.

Still holding on to him, I glanced at his blond shreds of hair tangled around his shoulders. Twisting him in my arms, he buried his face in my chest, so I focused on his body. Despite being clothed, I could tell he was smaller than me, with long, elegant muscles that suited an athlete. His tan skin, peeking from underneath his open shirt, was covered with painful bruises that adorned him like jewelry. Perfection would be the word to describe him.

My heart thrummed in my ears, and my chest tightened with the cold air I inhaled as I traced my fingers down his sculpted jaw. It was almost like touching an angel. This whole moment was surreal, as if ripped from some old, forgotten tragedy.

This was the last thing I'd expected to happen tonight, but as I shifted his head just a bit to see his face, I understood that in my arms wasn't an angel but a devil.

But didn't they say that the devil, too, was once an angel?