Chapter 1

1

A hand on his shoulder yanked Gideon from a restless sleep. His eyes popped open, mind and body already on alert. His best friend and head of his security detail, Samir Yassin, met his gaze in the semidarkness.

And Gideon knew.

He sat up, inhaling deeply. "It's time?"

Samir nodded solemnly. "It's time."

A heaviness settled over his limbs, and for a moment he just stared at Samir, until his friend sat on the edge of the bed, settling a hand on Gideon's knee. "You ready for what's next?"

Samir should've known better than to ask that question. They'd been preparing for this moment and all the others to come for a very long time. Gideon was nothing if not ready. Still, his stomach tensed. He looked forward to what was to come. For what he stood to gain. But in order for that to happen, he was about to lose the most important person in his life.

His throat worked and he pressed his lips together. Maybe he wasn't as ready for that part, though he'd been prepared for it. He'd known this day was coming—had been on alert for weeks.

"We have to go." Samir squeezed his knee, then stood, shoving his hands into his pockets. "The others and I will be outside when you're ready."

Once the door closed behind Samir, Gideon got out of bed and made his way to the bathroom, quickly washing his face. This bathroom was smaller than the one in the last place he'd had. He'd stopped counting the number of times he'd moved since he'd first gone into hiding at thirteen. He'd returned to the city of his birth a year ago, back to where it all began.

He dressed by rote, made sure he had his weapons, then went in search of the others. His team was a small one; just four of them, people he'd handpicked. He trusted the instincts he'd honed over the years. Knew his guys were the best, knew they were loyal to the death. They were his family. Would always be, especially now.

Will spotted him first when he stepped out into the garage, and she winked at him as he approached. He tugged on her ponytail because he knew how much she hated that, and she playfully swatted his hand away, brown eyes flashing. Will—or Willoughby Caine, the name she hated—was just about as tall as Gideon's six-foot-one height, with tawny beige skin, medium-length hair that was so brown it looked black, and the meanest right hook he'd ever been lucky to receive. Samir had been the one to recommend her, and after seeing her in action, Gideon had to have her on the team. Will was a bloodthirsty beast.

"Hey." Kaleb Sandoval walked over and stood in Gideon's way. He'd been the last one to join their group, brought on board around five years ago. The youngest, too, at twenty-eight. He used to be a mercenary, a gun for hire, until Gideon heard about him and sent Samir to offer him a spot. He was Columbian, bulky and shorter than the others at just five-ten, but a magician with explosives. His hair was cut to the scalp in a severe style, showing off his angular face, not-quite-brown eyes, and the jagged scar just near his right eye. "We got you."

Gideon didn't doubt it, not for a second, but he couldn't make his throat work, so he simply nodded. Marco touched his shoulder just as Samir barked, "Let's go."

Then it was all business.

Marco Anders was their weapons expert. He didn't look the way his name sounded though. He was a blond fucker, tall and skinny, with green eyes and tattoos covering more than half of his body.

They were all professionals, former marines, mercenaries. Killers. Gideon had surrounded himself with killers because the world he'd been born into, the one he'd been hiding from for the past twenty years—the same world he was about to step back into—was one inhabited only by the most ruthless, the most diabolical and bloodthirsty. He had the bullet holes, the scars all over his body and soul, to attest to that.

They rode out in two vehicles, Kaleb and Will in the first one, Gideon in the back seat of the second, with Marco driving and Samir riding shotgun.

Samir had been with Gideon since he turned twenty, and Samir twenty-five. Being so close in age, they'd become fast friends—and lovers for all of two seconds. They were better friends than lovers, they'd decided, so they nixed that and had been brothers ever since. Samir towered over Gideon at six-foot-six, with deep reddish-brown skin and a bald head. His frame was all solid muscle. The others liked to call him "machine" because he was that. Samir was a killer, incredibly adept at it, with no remorse or second-guessing, but he was an even better strategist. He used to be in the military until he went AWOL. There was a bounty on his head even now, but that would eventually be dealt with. It remained in place because they needed it to be.

They'd moved closer to the city—knowing just how dangerous it could be—on Gideon's insistence. With all that was to come, he couldn't stay away any longer. He'd wanted to be close, and now he was glad for it. It only took fifteen minutes to get to their destination, though it felt like an eternity. They'd prepped for this moment, so it was all choreographed—driving into the underground parking lot of the building next door, getting out, and walking to the elevator, flanked by his people. They rode the elevator to the basement level of the ten-story building, then got out and filed into a room once Samir checked to make sure it was empty. The room, barely large enough to fit all five of them comfortably, had a secret entrance hidden behind the false wall. That led them down a narrow echoing corridor and into the building next door.

Only one man waited for them when they made their exit, expression pinched when he met Gideon's eyes briefly.

"This way." He waved them forward and they entered the apartment fully. It was quiet. Too much so. Gideon swore he smelled death in the air. Samir stopped him from moving with a hand on his arm, reminding him that his safety was still number one. Gideon leaned against the wall, ankles crossed, hands shoved into his pockets as he waited for Samir and Marco to scout the area.

Gideon had been waiting for such a long time that you'd think he would be used to it by now, but this one was different. This one…

Samir returned, his dark gaze meeting Gideon's. "We'll be out here when you need us."

Because he would.

Gideon nodded and turned from them, heading into the room where the last of his heart waited. It was a large room, with all the frills and furnishings that showed off wealth and status. And on the large bed, directly in the middle of the space, his father lay.

Dying.

At thirteen, Gideon's mother died in his arms. Now, he stood over his father's bed, staring down at the old man laboring to breathe. His skin was gray, body shrunken, all his hair gone. The cancer had eaten away at him steadily. This was his third bout with it. He'd fought the first two times, refusing to leave Gideon before he was ready to do what needed to be done. So his old man fought. Now, he'd stopped fighting. Or maybe this round was just one he no longer had the strength to take on.

Either way, the last of Gideon's family was in that bed, preparing to leave him, and though he'd known this day was coming, he wasn't ready. He dropped to his knees beside the bed, taking his old man's hand in his. All bones. He'd been vibrant, untouchable, deadly. His name brought fear, and yet here Aldo Winters was, fading away.

Gideon bowed his head, inhaling. At one time his father's scent—cigars and spice—had been the only thing keeping Gideon grounded. Then he'd had to leave his home, leave his father, to hide from the people intent on killing Gideon in order to hurt Aldo. And he lost that familiarity, that security. He'd been thirteen, too young to be alone—left with strangers with whom his father had entrusted Gideon's safety—to mourn the loss of his mother. The loss of his father too.

Aldo made a sound and turned his head, lashes fluttering and lifting. His gaze was unfocused, but in the depths of his once-gray eyes, Gideon saw a ticking clock. They had hours, probably.

"M-my son."

"Don't talk." Gideon hushed him. "I'm here. It's okay."

Aldo's lips twitched a little. "Are you ready?' The question was just breaths tumbling over each other, words barely discernible, but Gideon understood. He'd always understood his father.

"I am ready," he told Aldo softly. "I know what has to be done." He'd been waiting for a long time for what came next.

"I-I am p-proud of you. So proud." Aldo's chest rose and fell, breath wheezing out of him. His hand shook in Gideon's clasp. "Your mother is too."

Gideon shook his head. He couldn't?—

"I'm going to be with Mama." Aldo's voice had zero inflection that time. "She's been waiting a long time for me."

The day after Gideon turned thirteen years old, gunmen ambushed their home. His father was gone, and Gideon was home alone with his mother. They came for him, for the son of the most powerful man the criminal underworld had ever seen. Gabriella Winters sent Gideon to hide and refused to hand over her son when ordered to do so, despite the masked men's promise to leave her unharmed if she did. They gunned her down, and she lay in a pool of her own blood, choking on it, when Gideon found the courage to crawl out of the secret space she'd shoved him into.

He held her in his arms as she took her last breaths.

Until that moment, he'd had no clue just who and what his father was.

Six months later, masked men came for him again. His father had an army of bodyguards around Gideon then, but somehow their enemies managed to ambush them on Gideon's way to school one morning. He ended up with a bullet in the arm and a graze to the temple, hiding under the much larger body of one of his bodyguards. Playing dead.

Aldo faked Gideon's death that day and sent him away. He'd been gone ever since. But he was back now. Back to watch his father die. Back to take over the throne. Back to right the wrongs done to his family. There was a traitor in The Council, the underworld body that controlled all the power in the U.S. The group of seven had been started by Gideon's many times removed great-grandfather. There would be no Council without the Winters and there would always be a Winters on The Council. For now, the other members of The Council were languishing under the illusion that Aldo's death would mean an end to the Winters' reign. They didn't know Gideon was here, biding his time, ready to do anything to reclaim his birthright.

He stroked his father's hand, kissing the knuckles, as Aldo kept talking, his already low voice threading in and out.

"Mama and I will be waiting for you." His gaze, barely focused, landed on Gideon. "But you have work to do here first. Make them pay for what they took from us." He coughed.

"Hush. Rest." Gideon stroked his father's chest. "Lie back."

But Aldo shook his head. "You're better than me," he choked out. A lone tear stroked down his left cheek. "I made sure of it. And I made sure they can't touch you."

Wouldn't stop them from trying, though.

There'd been lessons—so many of them—while Gideon had been in hiding. Weapons training. Combat training. Mental conditioning. Aldo had made it his mission to ensure Gideon would never be helpless again. Would always be untouchable, physically and mentally. His father had hired people who taught Gideon to be a machine. Capable of doing whatever was necessary to survive.

"Thank you," Gideon whispered to him as Aldo's lashes lowered. Thanking him for all he'd done, all he'd sacrificed. He loved his father and he knew how much his father loved him. "I love you, Papa."

Aldo's lashes fluttered but his eyes didn't open, though his lips twitched in a sign of a smile. His fingers made circles in Gideon's palm. Over and over and over. And Gideon held him, watched him, tears brimming in his eyes as he watched Aldo struggle to breathe.

Until he stopped.

His chest ceased moving.

His pulse disappeared.

Gideon still held on to him, screaming in his mind for his father the way he'd screamed out loud for his mother that day. She didn't answer him then. Aldo didn't answer him now.

His father was gone.