Chapter 1

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Never let them know your next move.

Rowan

There should not be a woman tied up in my basement.

There should never be a woman tied up in my basement.

Scrubbing a hand down my face, I make a mental, color-coded note to teach my consigliere, Corbin, that when he says I have a surprise, generally that refers to something good. Like a fifteen minute break between meetings, during which I can reassess all my life choices.

Ever since some syndicate called the Maxim Project made my parents disappear three months ago, I've had two options: take over their job and become Boss of the Veleno family, or get the heck out of here.

For reasons I still can't explain, I took up the bloody mantle of my birthright and forged ahead as though it doesn't weigh a thousand pounds. I've spent grueling hours ignoring migraines in order to redefine our methods, map new laws, and create laminated posters for the meeting room walls.

Not a day goes by where I don't at least mildly regret not changing my name and skipping the country.

All this is to say: if Corbin thinks this is a joke—after everything we've been through—it is not funny.

If it's not a joke, having a woman tied up in my basement breaks every guideline I painstakingly alphabetized and compiled into a personal handbook for all capos and leading officers.

It took me seven sleepless nights to make that stupid handbook, and Corbin proofread it, so I would love to assume that since we do happen to be working day and night to get rid of trafficking in the area, my few trusted family members wouldn't organize this kind of surprise as a joke.

Alas. Evidence speaks otherwise.

I'm going to be pissed if I need to make another informational poster.

As it stands, I'm running out of wall space.

Not to mention I have more important things to do than doubt my knowledge of color theory and what fonts pair well together.

The bitter scent of stale iron scrapes down the back of my throat as I approach the small woman strapped to the rough chair in the center of this cement room.

The thuds of my boots reverberate in the space, and the single, dim bulb overhead highlights her swallow.

She's blindfolded, the cloth tied against her straight, short dark hair. Tousled, the sharp cut of her bob follows the lines of her jaw and pierces toward her pointed chin on either side of her freckled face. Full lips. Petite nose. Cute.

She is cute.

But Corbin should know better.

It goes against everything I thought we stood for.

After the Maxim Project overturned the hierarchy in Veleno, I've been exhausted, stressed, gripping the fraying strands of this family together. Even if there's no love lost between me and Veleno's old leadership, there are many in my ranks who preferred my parents' methods to mine.

Particularly because mine don't deal in humans. And humans will always be the source of the most money.

Shutting down the rackets that sold organs and sex, one by one, while maintaining enough authority to keep a bullet out of my skull has been a delicate process.

About as delicate as the little twenty-something sitting pretty in the cold cavern of my parents' favorite place to make examples of people. For the past few months, I've neglected this dank, concrete space. I had intended to continue doing so for as long as possible.

Nothing short of serial offense would get me back down here.

And…Corbin has to know that.

There's no way he'd think I want a young woman in a frilly sky-blue dress tied up anywhere near me—much less here. If he does, we need to have a talk that results in one of us going to therapy, because clearly he's demented or he's picked up on something I should not be putting down.

None of this adds up.

Corbin can be a loose cannon, but this woman is wearing tights with tiny clouds on them. I've never seen anyone as utterly beautiful, or as utterly out of place.

In the thirty-eight years of trauma I call life, I have never before witnessed a scene quite this jarring.

Yeah, no. No cannon is quite this loose. Something is up.

Muttering a swear, I turn my back on the disturbing sight, pull my burner phone out, and dial Corbin. A heavy sigh leaves me as it rings once. Twice.

Then a gunshot answers.

"Yeah, Boss?" Corbin asks, alongside another more distant gunshot.

"What's going on over there?" I grumble.

"Just practicing."

Well, that's one less thing to worry about, I guess. The tension in my shoulders doesn't ease, though. I mutter, "I found my surprise."

Corbin's light tone doesn't change. "Didja? Get any good information out of him?"

My eyes narrow on a disturbing discoloration near my boot. "Him?"

"I'm told he's a big guy, almost as big as you. Aster found him snooping around near the heart of The Casa. He thought it was unusual for anyone to make it so far into the base without someone noticing and assumed the guy had to be linked to the Maxim Project. Aster told me he couldn't get any information with verbal threats, so given your updated rules concerning torture, he asked me to pass that onto your discretion."

A moment filled with more distant sounds of shots hums into my ear. Deep-seated unsettle permeates my lungs.

"What's wrong?" Corbin prompts. "Have you gotten a lead on where your parents ended up yet or not?"

"There's a woman tied up in my basement, Cor."

"What?" The gunshots grow distant, then they fade entirely as an eerie vacancy consumes the space surrounding my consigliere's next words. "What do you mean there's a woman tied up in your basement?"

"Exactly that," I mutter, and turn back toward the chair. "There's a…"

My heart drops when the rough, empty wooden seat greets me. I swear.

"Boss?" Corbin asks.

"She—" I swear again. "—disappeared. She—" Before I can finish my thought, fabric rustles behind me. I twist to find piercing, ice blue eyes—no longer blindfolded.

A sheer sensation of danger stabs me in the gut.

"Is everything okay over there?" Corbin asks. When I don't respond, he says, "Boss?"

The woman mouths the word boss before the dim overhead light sparks in her gaze. She pounces, like a black-footed cat. Gripping my hair, she yanks my head down and crushes her slender legs around my chest as she whirls onto my back.

Her arm locks around my neck as her lips settle near my ear. "Shhh," she whispers—closing my windpipe with one effective squeeze. "Be a good boy for me, pet."

My heart seizes as spots invade my vision. Before my brain can compute what's going on, something pricks my skin. The undeniable sensation of a drug entering my bloodstream makes my stomach plummet.

Corbin's voice slips through the line, frantic, distant, thinning. Gripping the phone like a lifeline, I lose feeling in my legs and collapse.

While the world darkens, the woman's soft fingers pry my phone out of my hand. My muscles strain when I tell myself to get up. But before I can manage any headway, the weight of her foot lands between my shoulder blades and pins me to the cold floor.

Blearily, I twist my attention toward her cloud-spattered tights. Leading up, up, up. To a knife strapped beneath the frills of her sky-blue skirt. The detailed inscription on the sheath blurs as more darkness crawls over my eyes.

Another curse whistles through my skull, weakly exiting my lips.

The woman lifts my phone to her ear. "Cor?" she says sweetly, the word muffled and too far away as the shadows behind her shift to reveal two large figures, two pairs of strangers' eyes, two disturbing smiles that seem to match hers. "Now, I don't want you to worry," she practically purrs, grinding her heel into my spine. "But your boss is coming with me."