CHAPTER ONE

"Not many come to me to die anymore," I mused, mostly to myself but partially to the invader in my home. "I suppose I should thank you."

The cold metal of my gun weighed heavily in the steady grip of my palm. It anchored me to that moment. To what I was about to do.

I could have stood there forever, a demon of vengeance casting judgment on those stupid enough to try and take what was mine.

The rose — my fucking rose — lay in tatters in the grass. The scattered petals gleamed like silver droplets of fallen blood beneath a pregnant moon.

Fucker!

The sight of them, crushed and destroyed, reignited my rage. My hunger for the sniveling bastard's life as payment.

My fingers tightened around the ridged handle of my weapon.

"I didn't mean to. Please. I didn't," he kept whining in between jagged sobs. Most of his pleading was muffled by the soggy dirt beneath my boots where I had his skull pinned. It was useless of him to play on my sympathies.

I had none.

I killed him.

Just one shot into the back of his skull, quieting his weeping.

His restless shuffling.

His life.

His body slumped and lay motionless at my feet surrounded by the violated remains of my garden. I couldn't see the river of blood contaminating the grounds, but its stench wafted into the silence, twining with the heavy perfume of gunpowder.

That was regretful.

I should have moved him off the property first, away from the structure of stone and glass, and hallways that collected souls. But what was done was done and could not be undone.

"Let the swamp have him."

I didn't look to see Cyrus there in the shadows, nor was the command necessary; the marsh was where all my unwanted guests found themselves.

Willing or not.

The many souls haunting the halls of Lacroix House watched my return with their blank, dead eyes from the unwashed windows. Their hatred slithered down the nape of my neck and traced glacial fingers along the ridges of my spine.

I ignored them.

It was the only way to safeguard what was left of my sanity. Unlike my father who had followed the ghost of my mother into the swamps never to return, I would not be so weak. I wasn't afraid of the whispers in the dark, the pools of endless night spilling down faded wallpaper to soak into the rot in the floorboards, the figures always just out of sight.

Lacroix House kept its secrets and its dead close. One day, I would be part of the restless, but until then, it was my burden, my curse, and the dead didn't scare me.

Dust tangled around my wide strides through the corridor. I left tracks in the filth, adding a fresh set to the months, maybe years of neglect.

Mom would have been horrified to see her beautiful home a cobweb away from being considered condemned.

Abigail Lacroix had loved the monstrosity. Had basked in its Renaissance fa?ade and wide, French windows. She had poured sweat and blood into the gardens, a devoted mother doting on a beloved child. She had given everything to undo what my grandfather had done, to destroy the shell of our curse. She had ignored the warnings, the rules of survival by feeding the house as my grandmother had and my great grandmother, and every woman who had ever set foot within its walls, including the five I had sacrificed.

And like all those who had come before, the manor ate.

It consumed her and devoured her soul.

"Thoran?"

The two men at my desk bounced to their feet as if springs had ejected them from their seats. They spun to face me, their expressions comically contradicting each other.

"Did you kill him?" my mother's younger brother fretted anxiously. Eyes the color of murky lake water dropped from me to the gun still hanging at my side and his shoulders drooped. "Oh, Thoran."

I ignored Oliver's disappointment. It wasn't my job to comfort a grown man. I closed the door to my office and moved to join the pair.

Metal scraped against wood as I set my weapon down next to the papers we'd been going over before the alarms had sounded.

"Where were we?"

Vance immediately sprung to action. Long, dark fingers drifted over the contract before me, outlining the stipulations, but I could feel Oliver's outrage with the intensity of a hot sun burning into the side of my face. The intertwining scars puckering the skin on my left side prickled the way they tended to do when I came too close to heat.

"Do you have something to say, Oliver?" I prompted, never taking my eyes off the bottom line of the contract I was about to sign.

I knew my uncle well enough to expect the tirade. He had my mother's soft heart. A useless family trait. The only reason I put up with his ridiculous moral compass was because of my mother; she would have wanted me to watch over her little brother. To keep him safe from himself because Oliver was weak. He believed people were inherently good.

Kind. Decent.

Without my protection, he would already be dead and I didn't need that on my conscious.

"You can't just kill people who—"

"Break into my home and destroy my property?" I cut in, scratching my signature across the bottom line, and flipping the page.

"You are being reckless. Who knows who he told he would be here. The authorities—"

"Are well paid to shut their mouths and mind their business," I reminded him, carving my initials into the next page. "Maybe if I kill enough of them, they will learn to stay off my fucking property."

I didn't see his huff of indignation, but I felt the silent puff of air agitate what was left of my patience.

"That man could have had family," Oliver shot back.

"He did." I slapped my name on the final document and piled everything into a stack with three sharp raps on the desk to align everything before meeting my uncle's furious glower. "A wife and kids. He stated as much."

It would have been amusing, the outraged sputtering, the silent flapping of his jaw, but I wasn't in the mood.

"He should have thought of them before putting his life in my hands." I held out the papers to Vance who had yet to comment on the situation, nor would he because Vance was smart. He understood the rules. "He was a thief. He thought it was a good idea to climb a seven-foot wall, cross a goddamn swamp, and steal from me. Actions have consequences."

A new manila folder was placed in front of me and opened. Vance started the process of explaining the pages, but Oliver wasn't finished.

"Forgiveness, Thoran!" he snapped, hands meaty fists at his sides.

In a different lifetime, Oliver could have had a thriving career as a bouncer. With shoulders that could barely fit through a doorway straight on and a dominating height of almost seven feet, Oliver was a hulk of a man. Genes that were passed to me, but where he approached everything with rose-colored glasses, I saw the world for what it was — trash. It was cold and bleak and full of monsters.

"No."

I could practically hear his molars grinding, but I didn't give a shit. It was my home. My call. How many of those fuckers was I supposed to forgive? How many times was I supposed to stop them from stealing my roses? How high did my walls need to be and how deep was I supposed to dig my swamp before people got the message?

Well, I built the wall.

I deepened the swamp.

I put up the fucking signs.

I did everything possible to be left alone and people continued to test me. They seemed to forget I was a killer, not a saint.

Oliver relented, at least for the moment. He dropped into his abandoned chair and sat in silence as Vance resumed without a shred of insight into the matter. It wasn't his place to dictate my behavior, a sense Oliver didn't seem to have. Vance knew he was there to keep the wheels turning and the lights on. He gave advice, but only regarding the business — legal or otherwise. That was what my father had paid him for and what I paid him for. Vance understood that.

We were just adding the final touches to the contract naming me the owner of an underground club at the heart of downtown's hottest strip when Cyrus slipped into the room. Eyes the pale blue of the Arctic met mine briefly, a flicker to assure me the task was complete before all but melting into the wall next to the door.

"I will personally hand-deliver these in the morning." Vance checked the Rolex on his thin wrist and added, "In three hours."

My gaze slanted to the sickly, yellow film collecting against the gray grime crusted across the glass. The light barely penetrated the room but filtered through enough to make me aware of dawn's approach over a new day.

"We'll stop here." I rolled back my chair and unfurled stiff limbs. "Get some rest."

Oliver stayed in his sulking position, but Vance rose quickly and gathered up our paperwork. They were tucked beneath his arm as he inclined his head to me.

Cyrus followed me into the corridor now dimly lit by the weak fingers of light creeping in through the dome of stained-glass overhead.

It had been years since I'd seen the images depicted in the mural now smeared beneath a thick layer of wet leaves, sludge, and mold. I couldn't even be sure there were images. Maybe just a shredded patchwork of colors? Maybe nothing. I didn't care.

Dust floated up beneath our feet as we took the main staircase to the first floor. Cyrus said nothing, a trait I highly valued in the man. We'd been brothers since diapers, and I could almost count every conversation we'd ever had.

"How did he get in?" I asked upon hitting the top landing and the murky catacomb of corridors ahead.

"We found bolt cutters in his bag. He cut the electric fence. It triggered the alarms."

"Idiot," I muttered under my breath. Louder, I said, "Was he alone?"

Cyrus inclined his dark head once. "We tracked his car half a mile down the road. Lyle is wiping his cellphone location now and we'll dispose of both at the yard once he's done."

I filled air into my lungs and trapped it there until the burn was too much and I had to exhale in a deep sigh and mutter, "It doesn't matter."

Heavy brows knitted together over eyes filled with disapproval. "As the head of your security team, I disagree."

He wasn't, though.

He'd been the head of my father's security team back when Aerys Lacroix was still alive. Cyrus had dedicated his entire life to thanking my father for saving his life as a baby, for buying him off his addict father, and for raising him as his own. He'd worshipped the ground the older man had walked on. After Father was nearly killed during a drive-by, Cyrus took it upon himself to become a lethal killing machine trained in every weapon and technique. Ultimately, it was the sight of my mother's broken body at the foot of the stairs that ended my father's life, a fate even Cyrus couldn't save him from. I knew it was a weight he unnecessarily carried. It was partially why I hadn't argued when he simply slipped into the role for me.

He needed it and I wouldn't have denied him anything.

At the threshold of my room, I faced the other man squarely. "Go to bed."

Cyrus never so much as batted an eye at the command. "You first."

I did roll my eyes then.

The age-old argument between two people with insomnia was laughable, but we knew we'd both be awake in an hour and starting a new day.

Shaking my head, I stepped into the heavy darkness, the musty stench of rot and whatever fabric softener Olly's wife used on the bedding. A weighted silence settled against the grainy heat I lived in, a familiar grit against my skin as I moved blindly across the familiar space, shedding clothes as I went. Smooth hardwood rose into worn carpet, and I had five steps before I got to the edge of my mattress.

Lilacs.

The sweet perfume lifted around the bulk of my naked frame as I sank into the feathers and fabric. My eyes closed even though I knew nothing would come of it. Not when I could hear the whispers start just inside the walls.

I allowed myself an hour before giving up the fa?ade and rolling free of the sheets. The cotton square was chucked back on the mattress and left rumpled as I padded the eight steps through the pitch darkness to the bathroom in nothing but skin and scars.

They no longer tingled with the torment of a million fire ants marching beneath the ropes of disfigured flesh. Most were faded to a pale pink, barely noticeable while others rose like roots splintering down my forearm and twining my leg in all the places carefully hidden beneath a tapestry of art and colors.

It could have been worse,Dr. Roberts had said with his head bent over the thread and needle he worked into my flesh.

After months of walking with a cane, battling infections, and ripping threads, I knew he was right. Death was always worse, but they served as a reminder to trust no one. Even friends could betray you and that was a lesson I learned the hard way.

I stood before the gilded mirror, an angry sight glowering back at a million splintered versions of myself in the cracked glass. Heavily hooded eyes bore into mine beneath perpetually creased brows. It was a deformity I couldn't undo. They seemed stuck in that frown.

They dipped even lower the longer I stared at them as if annoyed by my own annoyance, but I didn't look away. Not even as I scooped up the inky strands falling in tangled waves around my face into a messy knot at the top of my head and stepped into the shower.

Skin red and raw, and pulsing from the scalding water, I emerged twenty minutes later, jaw clenched. No sooner had my fist closed into the plush material of a towel when a knock soaked into the opaque cloud of steam.

Cyrus peered back at me from the other side of the door with a dark smear of impatience curling down his lips. It was the look he wore only when I wasn't going to like what he was about to tell me.

"Ronin is here."