Prologue

PROLOGUE

"This is not retribution. This is a reawakening."

- John Kramer

12 YEARS AGO

“This better work, Victor,” the man grumbles, trading his nearly empty glass of whiskey for the document set before him.

He runs his hand over the ink, apprehension doing numbers on his confidence, making him second guess not only himself, but everything he and Victor spent months tirelessly working on.

“It will, Gregor,” Victor tries to reassure him, though it does little to extinguish the pessimism running rampant in Gregor’s mind… and heart.

Unlike Victor, Gregor knows firsthand the malice that has spun its web all over the very family they are trying to take down. He knows this because he was once one of them. Until he escaped.

At first, the freedom Gregor gained from escaping seemed like the solution, but Gregor quickly learned all it did was earn him the invisible target on his back. And because of that, Gregor’s days are numbered.

So, with each stroke of ink, controlled by his reluctant grip, Gregor knows this is the necessary evil required to restore some semblance of peace again.

Though as he finalizes his signature, a sensation he’s not used to strikes him.

Heartbreak.

Grief so profound that a harsh lump lodges itself in his throat making the ability to swallow, to even breathe, futile.

But how can he grieve what he hasn’t yet lost?

How can doing the right thing feel like he’s casting a bad omen over those who had the misfortune of getting too close to him?

These questions plague Gregor, making the agreement before him feel like a death sentence instead of the remedy it should be—that it needs to be—to take down the entity that has been nothing but a cancer to their world.

Corruption and organized crime may go hand in hand, but even Gregor knows that there’s a hierarchy amongst the wicked. And sometimes the only way to gain what you want is by doing something you don’t want to do, in the hopes the outcome desired will occur.

Tossing the pen on the table, he addresses Victor, who is refilling each of their whiskey glasses. “This stays between us, no one except us sees this. When the time comes, those who are involved will know. It’s too dangerous otherwise,” Gregor warns, “the only way this works, is having the reveal be abrupt. Then the dominoes will fall, one bloody piece at a time.”

Victor nods and the men both exchange other technicalities, talking strategy until dusk has long gone and the evening shimmer of stars and a full moon creep its way through the window in Victor’s study.

Taking nightfall as his sign to go, Gregor says goodbye to his friend as he reaches for his long black trench coat to head out. Though as he exit’s Victor’s home, he drops something from his pocket. As he goes to pick it up, the hand of Victor’s daughter emerges, reaching for the fallen item to give back to Gregor. The two exchange nods, and Gregor quickly takes the mask that fell and places it in his pocket. The young woman eyes Gregor as he leaves, distrust swarming her face, but she doesn’t question the strange man leaving her house. She simply watches him disappear into the darkened landscape, unaware that will be the first and last time she ever sees him.

Gregor’s journey begins by car and ends on foot until he reaches the property that he swore he’d never step foot on again.

Red devil horns sit on top of the half devil’s mask he places over his features camouflaging him enough that he can slip onto the premises unnoticed but not too much that his signature look isn’t visible.

He’s used to sneaking around and observing, taking intel where he needs it so that when the time comes he can strike mercilessly, without leaving a single heart beating that doesn’t deserve it.

However, this evening is different.

Usually, Gregor’s surveillance time is spent in stoic observation, but when a woman with jet black hair and sadness swarming her eyes is not only visible in the window but is looking at him, signaling for him to help her. To save her. It urges him to do something he hasn’t done in years, if ever.

A silent prayer plays in his mind. Asking for guidance in desperation even if he knows that those optimistic delusions sound in his head because that’s where all prayers begin and die.

No one is listening.

No one is watching.

If they were, she – the beautiful woman trapped in that house – wouldn’t be hurt by the man who swore to protect and honor her in sickness and health.

She wouldn’t hurt at all, because she would be his.

The concept of soulmates, the idea of love, none of it meant anything to him…not until her. And as much as it kills him, he knows this is the only way he can save her and have the Demonio name live on, as it’s meant to. As it has to.

It means a sacrifice must be made and that the Cromwell name and all its members must perish.

No exemptions.

No lives spared.

This is more than revenge…this is fate.

But the thing with fate, that perhaps Gregor didn’t consider that evening is that it can only be delayed for so long.

You can run from destiny, but if you hide, it’ll find you and once it does?

It’ll trap you…one way or another.