Chapter 1

One

Adrian

A shadowy figure emerges from the darkness, illuminated by my headlights.

"We're on."

My gaze slides to my right to meet Emilio's, my best friend and blood brother, before refocusing on the dark cavern in front of us.

"About damn time too." Stefan, my other best friend and blood brother, grunts. I look to my left to see him wrap a hand around his neck and work at some kinks.

All three of us lean against the hood, tracking the moving shadows along our peripheral. But the one caught in my headlights is where most our focus falls.

Born from a habit I picked up from my old man, a few details make it into my memory bank as one of Club Genesis' ‘runners' makes his way toward us. He is tall, bulky from shoulders to calves, and he wears a long coat that looks a size too small.

"He'll be a bitch to take down." Emilio stubs out one cigarette only to light another.

I have every intention of making it out of this basement with my head intact and every other body part. There's too much riding on this going smoothly for it to turn out any other way. "My thoughts exactly. Harlon better know what the hell he is doing."

Harlon Constantine is part of a trio of friends back in Chicago. They operate a criminals-are-us kind of club where one with shady shit that needs doing can take out a contract and the club's ‘runners' fulfills them. It's akin to working with starving lions hoping they don't turn on you, but what Emilio, Stefan and I need done isn't something you put out in the wanted section of a newspaper.

My gaze locks onto the way the runner's right hand never strays too far from his thigh. Whether he has a knife or gun strapped there is anyone's guess.

His gate is long, steady. Easy going. A lack of confidence is not an issue. A man with his job description normally doesn't suffer from self-doubt. I would bet my last dollar the people he knocks off think he's just a regular gym enthusiast without a care in the world until he's in their face. By then, it's too late.

Not much is known about this runner which has me on high alert. Harlon wasn't in the over sharing mood and I am not in the position to be picky. That said, going into a deserted basement half blind is how you end up dead and probably why the acid in my stomach won't stop churning. We prefer our offices on the thirtieth floor of the Centennial with a view of Seattle over its dank basement, but I can't risk my father catching on to the shady shit this runner is about to do for us.

"Harlon Constantine said his man is trustworthy with the job we have for him?"

I nod to Emilio's dubious question.

We trust Harlon, but I can speak for the three of us when I say no one is ready to extend that same courtesy to his hired help. Trust is earned in my book, but this time we are buying it. Where that will leave us when all this is done will either be an interesting story no one ever learns about.

Or we will be dead.

Restless just as much as the rest of us, Emilio pushes his weight off the car and checks his watch. "You'd think paying a man seven-point-five million dollars would make him punctual."

"Easy. We do this and we can go upstairs and work out your pent up energy at Club Sin." I come to stand at his side with Stefan moving in on my right.

Emilio is already shaking his head before I fully finish. "Sex is the last thing on my mind." I watch him drag on the ass end of his cigarette one last time before dropping the smoldering thing and stomping out the embers against the dingy cement.

"I'm more bothered by your nasty habit than some thug in a trench coat for fuck's sake. Why can't you take up drinking like the rest of us. A good top shelf whiskey at least smells better."

Stefan steps a couple of paces from us, waving a hand in front of his nose.

Smoke spills from the corners of Emilio's humorless grin. He stoops and picks up the crushed cigarette, wearing a cloak of indifference. "I'm a work in progress. Me smoking a cig and it bothering you is the least of my worries right now."

It goes silent for a second and it's bliss. These two have been at each other for hours now. I get it. Everyone is on edge, but damn. Both of my best friends turn their attention on me when I don't add to their bickering.

"You having second thoughts, brother? We've got about twelve seconds before this man reaches us. Now's the time to back out of this."

Stefan has a way of stripping everything down to the bare bones with a limited amount of words.

"I hate going behind my father's back and doing this shit is all. Let's just get it done."

Stefan lifts a shoulder like the choices in front of us are easy. "We back out, the Astor family will lose everything."

"I know." The weight of the family's crest etched into my pinky ring has never felt so damn heavy.

I can't bring myself to think of losing everything four generations of Astors have built all because of a gambling debt my father owes. Astor practically built this city. I can't let it fall into the hands of the sharks waiting for the first signs of blood in the water.

Seattle's winter isn't far off. This deep underground makes the cement walls locking us in, feel like Death's personal hang out. I cup my hands in front of my mouth and blow on them.

"I don't see any other way to do this. Just keep your heads on a swivel. Make sure he's alone before we hand over the final detail you need to know."

Like I said, I don't trust anyone. The man we are meeting with takes money to do dirty jobs. If we can buy him, that only means someone else with deeper pockets can offer more for him to double-cross us.

But our options are limited. We all know it. So here we are.

"Heads on a swivel," I repeat without taking my eyes off the hulky man lumbering our way. I drop my hands to my side when we can finally see the whites of his eyes.

He juts his chin my way. "You Astor?"

Club Genesis' runner comes to a slow, rolling stop in front of us. He shares Emilio's taste in shitty vices. Cigarette smoke wraps around a head full of curly, red hair and the cherry of his cigar glows like a one-eyed demon's eyeball.

Real spooky shit if that sort of thing knocks you off balance.

For me, it's just another fucking Wednesday lately.

"I was hoping for someone who would be a little lighter on their feet. Your boss recommends you. Says you can be trusted with the job we have but I have to be honest. I don't see how a fucking two hundred and thirty pound man makes a good cat burglar." I keep my tone serious, although the idea of this man in a catsuit breaking and entering flashing through my head is laughable.

When I shift my weight to the left, light catches on bubbling irritation in the other guy's eyes.

"Two-eighty and didn't your momma teach you not to judge people?"

Touchy. The beast of a man inhales a room full of air, testing the strength of the stitches to his cotton pull over. A couple of veins pop along his temples and thick fingers curl into a fist like I crushed his playground-sized feelings.

Emilio chuckles beside me, lighting up another fucking cancer stick. He reaches into the car and pulls out a Cohiba cigar from his stash in the backseat and offers it up as a peace offering.

"Sorry, big man. No disrespect."

"Damn. Yeah. Thanks. It's all good, man. I didn't mean to be snappy. You never know who the fuck you're meeting at the ass end of a dark basement."

The runner's voice matches his size—big, powerful and rough around the edges. Now that he's in front of me, I can finish my list of details about him. The cotton pull over looks like it is made to fit every bulge of his arms and the slacks are tailored to fit his unique size. He looks like he will enjoy the five hundred dollar cigar Emilio gave him. But what has me intrigued is the leather coat and multitude of weapons he has strapped to the inside. With the help of the headlights bouncing off the metal, I count at least four guns and three blades.

This crazy fucker lives for scaring the shit out of people and then delivering on the nightmares he instills. I would bet my last dollar that nobody tells him what to do.

My chuckle is genuine. "No shit. You really don't."

"For God's sake, put that down. And stop riling up the clients. You do this every time, Big Red. They paid us for our time after all."

The big lug physically tenses at the sound of the woman's voice.

I stand corrected and I would be out a bet, it seems. The hulkish brute is afraid of something. Or should I say someone.

A smaller shadow peels out from behind the bigger one. My gaze falls off the giant's face to land on a petite woman with a cute button nose. This one is more feminine and smells like moonlight and mystery. Black hair, skin-tight…whatever it is women wear that covers them from collar bone to ankle in shiny black. Leather or latex? She's sexy. But the gold bands on her ring finger says she is spoken for. Doesn't matter. We don't have time to play, anyway. But she's cute all the same.

A delicate hand plucks the smoke out of her friend's mouth before dropping it to the floor and crushing it. For a second the runner looks like he wants to talk back but thinks better of it.

"Forgive my friend. Big Red is just a little overprotective. Like he said, you can never tell who to trust when the common meeting places lack just about anything welcoming."

Her hand is soft in mine when we shake. "Understandable. I didn't realize we hired a team."

"Red and I work together on a few jobs here and there. I moonlight for Club Genesis when they need my particular skill set. Red makes sure people don't get stupid on me. Believe it or not, not a lot of people adhere to an honor system in our line of work. He makes sure they do. I hope that's not a problem."

I push indifference into my expression. "Smart. And like I said, understandable. As long as the job gets done, I don't care who does it."

"None of us do," Stefan adds, with the same flat tone I use and matching scowl. Emilio remains silent doing what he does best. Observing.

"Glad we are on the same page. Since we don't wanna be here anymore than you do, let me get down to the nitty gritty. Seven point five million for an in and out job. Steal your father's paintings, keep them hidden so you can do whatever insurance claim you're going to do. You know there are easier ways to pay off gambling debts. Say… pull the money from your bank account and be done with it." She looks all three of us up and down with a calculating edge to her appraisal of our attire, ending her evaluation with a pointed look at my ring.

"Astors are said to have enough money to buy this country if they wanted."

Her gross assumptions can lead to misunderstandings that end up with people getting hurt. But I don't have the time to school her, nor the back up muscle, on the dangers of believing every rumor they hear. They are only half true.

"Are you in or out?" I see no need to explain my actions more than I already have. A signed contract by her some-times employer is all that is needed. If it's not her, it can be someone else.

"I'm in, but if you want me to safeguard the booty I lift and paint a bullseye on my ass, there's a storage fee involved. You have shady people on your ass and I don't want them on mine without a little padding, if you know what I mean."

"Hazardous pay," Emilio grunts out his retort, pulls out a slip of paper and hands it to Big Red. I pop open the driver's door ready to be done.

I point to the paper. "Use that for the vault. It changes every thirty-six hours, and the clock started twelve hours ago."

Once we are in the car and moving to the upper level parking garage, Stefan finds his voice again.

"Are none of us going to talk about the bigger problem?"

I know what Stefan's referring to. I catch his gaze in the rearview mirror. "I don't see how it would help. My father doesn't control Astor Enterprises anymore. I do. He can't blackmail me into fathering a child so he can die happy knowing there's another Astor in line for the throne." It sounds ridiculous saying that out loud. I'm not about to pull an innocent woman into our world knowing she would be in danger for the foreseeable future.

I maneuver my Mercedes into our designated parking spot and kill the engine. We sit there in silence for a minute just staring at the cement wall in front of us. I know what we are all thinking. My older sister tried to please my father. The only thing her efforts earned her was an early grave for herself, her husband and their unborn child.

Our father promised her the holy grail and given she loved money it was an easy sell. He offered her the position at the helm of the family multi-billion dollar real estate and development business if she would give him grandchildren. He didn't care about them having his last name. All he wanted was to go to his grave knowing my sister would leave Astor blood behind when it came her time to step down.

None of them took in account the rot built into the foundation of our family business. No one paid attention to the dangers within our own walls when they were passed over and the throne of the Astor empire was handed to my sister on a silver platter.

Watching the last part of my father's soul leave his eyes when we buried her broke a part of me. I vowed to find a way to bring back life to the man who loved us with all his heart.

With the mounting debts, the cannibals wanting to devour our company from the inside out and the sharks looking to take our place at the top, I don't think my promise is realistic. Not anymore.

Beside me, Stefan straightens his tie and fiddles with his cufflinks like he has something on his mind and wants to counter my thoughts. He doesn't enjoy getting sentimental and frankly neither do I.

"You're not thinking straight, Adrian. Your father is a lost man. We all miss Ashley. But damn. If we don't do something to keep him from ruining the company, we might as well fold now, let them cut us up and sell off everything in pieces. Just…fuck."

Stefan's words drop off, lost in the freshness of Ashley's passing like the rest of us, no doubt.

Emilio pulls out his silver lighter and flips the top open from the back seat.

Open. Closed. Open. Closed.

Click. Click. Click.

"Say what you have to say, brother." I can't take much more of the clicking and keep my cool.

"Emilio is right. Someone has to stop your father. He's making enemies every damn day it feels like and we are the ones keeping him from getting an early grave. How long before someone tries to off us to prove a point to him?"

It wouldn't be easy, but it could happen.

I nod. "I know. We're going to fix this shit. Tonight was just the first step. Once we get our hands on the insurance money, we can bail out my father, get back on our feet and dust off the rubble and reclaim the power the Astor name once carried. I found a lawyer willing to get his hands dirty and dig up dirt on the snakes trying to rip into the company."

The mood shifts in the vehicle to one of relief. "Good. When do we meet?"

"He's set to come to the apartment upstairs tomorrow. He wants payment in cash."

We're trying everything to keep our heads above water while we dig out from under my father's mistakes. I rake a hand through my hair. Some days I wake up wondering what would happen if I just dropped off the face of the earth and was never seen again. Stefan and Emilio would follow me, but it would leave their families devastated to never see them again.

"If giving your father a grandchild will settle him down, I don't see the downside." Emilio falls silent. I follow the change of topics and watch him turn pensive through the rearview mirror. He pulls a smoke out from a silver case and taps the end of it against the shiny metal a couple of times before meeting my gaze again. "Would having a family be so bad?"

His voice is rough with emotion. The pain buried in his tight expression eats at my soul. He's given up so damn much to help me keep Astor Enterprises alive. Stefan has too. They've wanted a family for a while now and I'm tired of telling them it's not the right time.

"Where would we start? I don't have a little black book of names."

"Club Sin has a room for that. You fill in your requisite, any specific details you require and they find the best match for an additional price."

I huff out a grunt of shock and turn in the driver's seat to connect eyes with Stefan. What the hell is happening here? "People sign up to breed with complete strangers?" There's no damn way that is a thing.

Stefan's head bobs up and down as he reaches behind him and takes the smoke out of Emilio's mouth right before he can light it up.

"Fucker."

"Whatever man, not in the car for fuck's sake." Stefan turns back to me. "Club Sin offers a lot to its members. As it should with the hefty membership price tag. We just never took advantage of them. The breeder room comes with an additional cost if you have a certain criteria."

"Which we would," Emilio adds.

I begin to see a dim light down the endless tunnel in front of us toward getting peace for my father and us. "Agreed." Not just anyone can carry an Astor's child. That's not me sounding like a dickhead. I have to protect the family and everyone we get involved with.

I tap my fingers on the wheel. It's not just to make my father happy, it's for all of us. "If we do this, it's a group thing." Whoever we bring into our circle will need protection. She and our child get that better with the three of us.

Both men nod. "I'm ready for someone soft between us and tiny pampers. You fuckers are getting boring. Three men and a baby sounds like a nice way to move into a new future."

Pure awe and dreamy wishful thinking smothers Emilio's words until I can practically smell the baby powder.

All three of us have been connected at the hip since highschool. My father never understood the need for me to welcome such close friends when they could stab me in the back at any time.

His limited beliefs cost him a lot. I knew from an early age I never wanted to go that route. When you sit at the top of the food chain, friends are how you stay alive. Real friends.

Emilio and Stefan are more than friends. They are blood brothers.

I grip the wheel, considering my options. I have a duty to the family. No matter how much I want to shut out the world and ride this life into the ground, I can't. Too many would suffer.

"Three men and a baby. And a wife. We do this, we are all in." Momentary insanity sets in. This could get us all killed.

Stefan lets out a heavy sigh that sums up my thoughts.

"All in," they both agree and for the first time in my life fear grips me by the balls.