1. Prologue

Six Months Ago in Paris, France…

“We found them, sir.” Maxime shifted from one foot to the other, making the floor creak.

It couldn’t be helped. The house was old. Ancient, by American standards, since it’d been built in the sixteenth century. To the French, however, it was simply one of many grand old things, which meant I’d gotten it for a pittance at auction, and then I hadn’t set foot in it since.

Until today. I folded my hands behind my back, peering out the windows at the quaint cobblestone street below. It was midday in Paris, and a mere hour before I was set to have lunch with the Prime Minister. After that, it was back to the UK for tea with a protégé at Oxford and then a dinner meeting with several prominent gang leaders in the south of London. I had a full schedule, as I did every day, but I wouldn’t be able to focus on any of it with this sword of Damocles hanging over my neck. Why today?

“Cancel everything,” I said.

There was a slight pause before Maxime asked, “Everything, sir?”

I turned away from the window, facing my assistant, whose sharp shoulders and bony elbows remained silhouetted by the hall light. “Clear my schedule for the next forty-eight hours, and have Sampson refuel and warm up the jet. I want to be back in Port Columbus by noon local time tomorrow.”

Max dipped his chin, and his slender fingers flew over the tablet in his hand. “Are you certain that’s wise, sir? The minute they see you coming, the Laskins will circle their wagons. You’d need an army to even get close.”

I sighed and eyed the tufted black Chesterfield sofa facing the other way. It was Italian leather. The piece and all its matching parts had cost me a fortune, and yet I’d never sat in them. How many other pieces of furniture scattered around my properties were the same? I’d never considered it before, but now it felt…wasteful.

Without answering, I walked around the side of the Chesterfield and sank stiffly onto the seat. The leather creaked, the sound softer than the creaking old floor, but no less pleasant. It was terribly uncomfortable, though. I had no idea why I’d bought such a useless piece of furniture. Perhaps for the same reason I owned two private jets when I could only ever use one at a time, and why my last name was plastered on university halls all over the world.

On the surface, they were only things, but things couldn’t die. The jet, the leather sofa, the five-hundred-year-old house… They’d still be here long after I was gone.

Two glasses landed on the polished mahogany coffee table in front of me. Ice cubes tumbled into them, followed by amber liquid. My head felt too far from my hand when Maxime picked up my palm and shoved the glass into it and commanded, “Drink.”

I lifted the glass and nearly gagged at the smell alone. It burned the inside of my nose until it was raw, and it was even worse on my throat. After swallowing, I gagged. “God, Max. What did you give me? Hair spray?”

“Might as well be. It’s Union Horse. Just like old times. I keep a quarter pint around so you never forget where you came from.”

I looked up at him, feeling strangely small and helpless. I would be lost without Max. He was everything to me. “Where would I be without you, Max?”

He preened a little, pouty lips turning up in that bratty smile of his as he raised his shoulders. “Dead, most likely, or worse. Average.”

I sighed and sat back against the wall of uncomfortable cushions. Eighteen years. That’s how long I’d been searching for them. I had crossed continents, sent satellites into space, and taken lives in hopes that this moment would come. Now that it was finally here, it didn’t feel real. I wasn’t even sure it was real. I’d been looking for them for so long that I’d lost hope.

I cradled the glass in my hand, grateful for the cool touch and the burn still coating the back of my throat. It kept me grounded, even if I didn’t have any answers. “What do I do, Max?”

“What do you do?” Max huffed and pushed my knees apart, dropping between them. He took my face in his hands, jade green eyes raking over my lips like fingernails. “I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. The same thing you always do.” He twisted his long fingers in mine and squeezed. “You’re going to pull yourself together, look yourself in the mirror, remember that you are a shark and there’s blood in the water. Then I’m going to help you make and execute a plan. A very bloody plan, hopefully.”

Max’s palms were warm and soft. All I wanted was for him to sit next to me and pull my head into his lap like we’d done after that job in Singapore had gone so wrong, but I’d been drunk then. I couldn’t let that happen again. Not with Max. He was too valuable for me to lose.

I pulled my hands away. “I’m not sure blood is the answer this time.”

“It’s not your fault you didn’t find them sooner, Al. Annie hid them well.”

My fingers curled into claws against my knees. The mere mention of that name sent such a surge of rage through me I couldn’t sit still. I pushed up from the sofa and paced to the wall between the windows. There wasn’t enough of a breeze, but some air was better than none.

“I should destroy her,” I said, watching a cyclist roll lazily past with a basket full of strawberries. “The Laskins deserve it. If not for what that bitch of a nurse did, then for all their other crimes.” I sighed and dropped my arm from the wall. “But that would make me a hypocrite.”

“A filthy rich hypocrite,” Max pointed out, rising. “Al, you know they’d do it to you if they got the chance.”

I closed my eyes and let my forehead rest against the cool plaster. Sweat slid down the back of my neck. Max didn’t know what he was saying. Going after the Laskins was suicide. They might not have had the resources that I did, but they had something even more valuable, something no amount of money would buy. As much as I detested that family and what they’d done to mine, they were untouchable, at least for now.

Max’s long arms wrapped around me from behind and his face pressed between my shoulder blades. “If you want to hurt them, let me help you.”

I shook my head. “It isn’t vengeance I want. Their mother is gone. Tearing their family apart won’t bring mine back.”

His fingers curled around my chin and he turned my head slightly. “Is that really what you want?”

It was a fight not to melt into Max’s embrace completely, but I was strong enough to pull away. This time. I didn’t look back at him as I paced away from the window. If I had, I’d see the hurt shining in his beautiful eyes, and I couldn’t bear it. I didn’t need his tears. I needed his claws.

I walked back to the glass of awful whisky and managed to down the rest of it without coughing. “Call Central. Execute Order two-four-Charlie.”

“How much for the bounty?” Max said, getting out his tablet.

I stared at the ball of ice in my glass. “Four million each. Fourteen if all three are brought in together.”

“Sir, that’s… a substantial amount.”

“No price is too high for family.” I put the glass down, adjusted my cuffs, and paced over to the mirror to make sure my hair was still good. I’m a shark, and there’s blood in the water. It’s thick with the blood of my enemies and I’m hungry. It was such a silly thing to say, but Max was right; it helped. “And make it clear that if a single hair on their heads is missing, I’ll start taking body parts. I want my sons brought back to me unharmed.”