Author: Faye Pierce

Chapter One

Katya 

“What the hell?!” 

There are very few things that can ruin a lovely vacation. And that was the sort of phone call that could ruin not only a vacation, but one’s whole damned life.  

I wanted it to be wrong. I wanted to have misheard it. 

Honestly, I wanted to cover my damned ears so that I could pretend that I had never heard that string of words in that particular order ever again.  

“Please tell me that you’re joking.”  

My voice trembled, and I couldn’t even bring myself to hate it in the way that I normally would. I’m not the sort of person that is prone to emotional displays. But, this? This ripped the world right out from underneath of me and tilted everything on its axis. 

My skin felt cold. I could feel myself paling as the damnable words came from my family’s assistant straight into my ears once more.  

“I’m so sorry Katya… but your mother’s death has been confirmed by our people. Stay where you are, and await further orders. I repeat, stay where you are until Alexei gives orders.” 

Moments ago, I had been allowing the September afternoon sun soak into my fair skin. 

I had been having my feet rubbed by the hunk now awkwardly pawing at my back. Not the best travel boyfriend that I’ve ever had in my life, but he’s stupid handsome and looks incredible in a suit so I can’t complain much. Standing at a good foot taller than me and covered in glorious, bulging muscles and tattoos, he certainly looks good being photographed next to me on the beach for my Instagram. He can’t offer me much in the way of conversation, but that’s not what I want him for anyway. He’s not marriage material. Not by half. But, he will do for now.  

Certainly good enough in bed to keep me fully satisfied. 

What else would one want from a leisurely trip to Valencia, in Spain, if not to have a lot of good sex and sangria? 

“What is it, babe?” Derek muttered as his large hands rubbed up and down my biceps. He tried to kiss the cap of my shoulder but the last thing that I want right now is to be touched. 

I shrug out of his hold, wading across the pool a couple of inches away from him.  

“What the hell happened?! Where is she? Her… her body, where is it? I can go and collect her tonight.” Even as I said the words, I knew that I was not going to be given permission to fly back to Russia tonight and collect her body from whatever pop-up morgue they had her in. I can’t even remember the last time that I was given leave to fly back home to attend to anything. Guilt surges through me at the knowledge that I, being the horrible daughter that I am, have not seen my mother in years. When was our last conversation? Was she alone when it happened? Was she scared? 

The thought of her lying there cold and prodded at by strangers is almost more than I can stomach. I might be sick.  

Derek tries to grab me again, pulling me by my hips back into the warm, broad expanse of his muscled chest.  

“Stop,” I mutter dismissively. Can’t he see that I’m busy right now? Can’t he see that something important is going on right now? I turn my focus back to the phone call. “Does Alexei know? What did he say?” 

This time, Derek seems to not want to take no for an answer. 

The grip on my hip tightens as he yanks me back toward him. Roughly enough that my phone slips and falls right out of my hand and into the pool. 

Whatever my family’s assistant was about to say to me about my brother becomes a gurgly mess.  

“What the hell?” I half shout as my palms collide with Derek’s chest.  

Something shifts on Derek’s face.  

He is no longer the mostly stupid boyfriend that’s been entertaining me for the past couple of months. 

No, he just transformed into something darker. Something that I don’t even have time to process before I’m being yanked under the water.  

My lungs burn. 

For a brief, delusional moment I think that he’s just being petty or something because I ignored him. But then his hand knots roughly into the crown of my long platinum blonde hair and doesn’t budge. 

He’s trying to kill me. 

Panic explodes through my body as my ‘fight’ mode kicks into overdrive.  

I swipe my feet at his, hoping that I can knock him off balance, but he’s so much larger than I am and his grip on my hair is so tight that it feels like he’s going to pull my scalp clean from my skull. 

This can’t be how I go out. I refuse to allow this to be the way that I die. 

Absolutely not. 

I’m a Levine for Christ’s sake. Does he not have any idea? 

Guess the meathead just doesn’t care. He might not have any sense of self preservation, but I sure do.  

I surge forward under the water and grab a hold of his junk as hard as I can, twisting and pulling with every bit of strength that I have left in my body. 

Dark spots are forming on my vision, but it works. 

I can hear him yowling in pain even from under the water. Enough that I can scrape my manicured nails into his arm like talons to free my hair from him and kick away. 

With a final burst of energy, I kick the heel of my foot into his face as hard as I can before swimming for my life.  

Shaking so hard my hands barely work, I gather up all of our clothes and belongings and book it to the elevators. 

I glance over my shoulder long enough to see that the pool water has bled red in a ring all around his frame. 

Derek’s eyes glint with absolute murder and rage as he slowly attempts to wade toward me.  

The elevator doors ding and I burst inside and awkwardly fumble the room key against the lock.  

It’s certainly not going to delay him for very long that he doesn’t have a key to the room, but I will take every second that I can possibly get.  

I throw myself into our hotel room and slam the door shut, barricading the thin wood with the dresser. Adrenaline must be on high time overdrive because the heavy wooden furniture is not something that I would have been able to move on my own before. I don’t think that I’ve ever managed to pack quite this quickly in my whole life. 

I am a hurricane as I tear through the room moving on instinct more than anything else. 

I know that if I stop moving, even for a second, reality is going to catch up with me. I can’t allow myself the time to process whatever the fuck just happened to me. 

I have to move. I have to get somewhere safe. Then I can call Alexei. 

Everything will be okay. That’s what I have to keep telling myself.  

I leave behind everything that isn’t absolutely mandatory for my survival.  

It feels far too much like my childhood to be comfortable.  

Scrambling to hide. Throwing everything into a backpack and mindlessly running until I know that I’m safe. 

Alexei is my safe. He’s always been the one to take care of me – but now my brother is tucked away in New York City and a hell of a long distance from Spain.  

The violent pounding at the door is even more triggering. 

Only, it’s not my father on the other side of the wood this time. It’s an enraged giant of a man whose nose I likely broke a few moments ago after his failed murder attempt. 

My heart thumps into my throat and my shaking is even more violent as I throw my backpack on and lace my shoes as best I can before heading to the balcony. 

Not the best option, I’ll admit that. But, if it’s death or death, I will be damned if I don’t choose pavement splatter when the other option is man.  

Over the balcony and down the drainpipe. I’m nearly down to the ground when I hear the door of my hotel room shatter. 

The angry crunching of wood splintering and furious shouting is the background noise to my heart threatening to suffocate me and a desperate desire for him to not look down.  

I dive into the first taxi that slows. I don’t even wait for it to stop before shouting at the man to drive me to the airport. “Hurry, please. I’ll pay double if you get me there in the next twenty minutes.” 

The man clearly wants to ask me handfuls of super annoying questions but I don’t have time for it. He must read it on my face because in the next moment, he’s peeling down the road so fast it would have made my Russian grandmother incredibly happy to see. I glance anxiously behind me to see if somehow Derek is running behind the taxi on foot. I wouldn’t put it past him.  

Almost trembling too hard to dial Alexei’s number on my phone.  

He doesn’t pick up until the third ring.  

“Brat?” I mutter softly. I hope that by speaking like this, I can hide how terrified I feel right now.  

“Da? I am very busy right now, Katya, what is it?”  

Even though he sounds annoyed that I’ve interrupted his day, just hearing his voice is soothing to me.  

“Has Ms. Lagunov not called you yet?” 

“She’s tried, but like I said – I’m busy right now.” 

“Mama is dead, Brat.” I whisper. 

Saying it out loud makes it real. It makes her actually dead and all at once, the pain hits me. 

The pounding, angry headache that throbs and the burning in my lungs all seems to fade away into nothingness as the reality of the situation sinks in. “Ms. Lagunov just told me. She is with her body now, the mortician is finishing up the autopsy for formality’s sake… but Brat, she is gone.” 

There’s a series of hushed, angry swearing in Russian from the other end of the phone and I know he’s likely covering the receiver with his hand in some futile attempt to shield me from his temper.  

“You are certain of this?” Alexei demands harshly. 

He’s always like this. Business first and emotions second.  

“Why would she lie?” 

“Those damned Italian bastards.”  

Something breaks on Alexei’s end of the phone. I don’t know if he’s punched something or thrown something, but it doesn’t really matter. “I warned those mafia pricks what would happen if they stepped out of fucking line. I warned them! Listen to me, Katya, I will handle this. You are to stay put until I say otherwise. I mean it. If they are making moves, I will not risk you getting in harm’s way.” 

“Yes.” I mutter lamely as I try to keep myself from blubbering.  

“Are you safe where you are?” 

I almost don’t want to answer that. I don’t like lying to my brother. “Yes.” I mutter. I mean, I’m as safe as a person in a taxi can be.  

I don’t tell him about my own murder attempt.  

They have to be related somehow. The timing of it is just too perfect. 

Alexei will go completely off the rails if he knows that somebody tried to hurt me and that somebody managed to find our poor mother. He would have every man in his considerable army mobilized in the hour if he knew… and avenging mother comes first.  

Besides, I’m fine. Mostly. I can take care of myself.  

“We are at war, Katya, do not make trouble. I will send word soon.” 

Just like that, the line goes dead on his end and I’m stuck with the taxi driver and the chaos of my own thoughts as he pulls the taxi around to the entrance of the airport. 

Alexei can tell me to stay put all he wants, but there is no way in hell that he can make me actually do it. He’s not going to cut me out of this situation as easily as he might like. 

He really ought to know me better than that by now.  

I’ve always been more of an act first and ask forgiveness later type of gal anyway.  

He can yell at me all he likes for it when I show up at his place in New York City.  

Chapter Two 

Luca 

‘Russia target eliminated. Standby for confirmation for Spain target.’  

“Well, would you look at that?” I chuckle bitterly to myself as I dab the corners of my mouth with my napkin. 

What started out as a nice lunch with my most trusted right-hand man, Dario, was turning into something truly lovely. Paired with the stunning weather outside, good wine and now this? 

Yes, it was setting me up for a damned good day.  

“Luca?” Dario questions as he sips on his expresso.  

“Looks like my father got busy again. Making even more plans without bothering to loop me in on things. How well do you think that is going to work out for me the next time I have to meet with him?” I ease back into my chair and let the cloth napkin rest on the table in front of me. 

I close my eyes and inhale slowly through my nose to remain as calm as possible.  

It’s not the first time that my father has done something like this. 

This damned war he’s gotten our family involved in is a constant struggle. 

Logic rarely matters when Enzo has the lead. He gets a hair up his ass about something or another and runs with it. In truth, he would rather prefer not to have to tell his son anything if he didn’t have to. I’ve always been the black stain that he can’t seem to rid himself of. But, as his only heir – he’s stuck with me. He certainly doesn’t care to run his choices through his son before acting on them.  

Even if those choices are completely against Cosa Nostra’s moral code.  

Something else that he tends to forget in his cursed wars.  

My phone vibrates with the alert of another text message that I pick up before I can think better of it.  

‘Update received – Spain target en route to NYC. ETA 4:37pm’ 

The updates are coming to me and not my father for a reason. 

It means that he has folded me in and made me responsible for these tasks and hasn’t bothered to tell me. 

Again. 

Some days I swear that he wants for me to fail. 

I’ve done everything that has ever been required of me, and yet it never seems to be good enough.  

And now, he’s put me in charge of this task when apparently only one of the two targets that he wanted killed were actually properly taken care of. Which means that I’m going to have to give my father a bad report.  

“Everything all right?” Dario asks, already packing up his belongings from the table and signaling for the bill. Most people mistake Dario for my older brother based on our looks. Not dissimilar in features despite the fact that I stand a couple of inches taller than him. He doesn’t have quite as many tattoos as I do, but we are matched scar for scar. Guess it comes with the territory. He’s got seven years of age on me, but you wouldn’t know it to speak to him. It’s not something that has ever gotten in the way of our working relationship.  

“No. We will have to reschedule our meeting, Dario. Looks like my father needs to speak with me.” I answer as I tuck my phone down into my pocket and take the car keys from the table. 

I don’t bother to wait for Dario, he will manage on his own. 

Every second that passes between my getting those texts and not showing up in my father’s office will be counted against me, and Dario is my closest and most trusted man – so he understands. 

There is very little that he would ever blame me for.  

My black range rover zips through the city that I’ve called home long enough to know it like the back of my hand. 

It takes almost no time whatsoever before I’m pulling into the parking garage of my father’s skyscraper. 

I pass the keys to the valet and adjust the fit of my black suit jacket before stepping into the elevator coded specifically to work for my father, myself, and our inner circle.  

I see that even those security measures aren’t quite enough for the old man, as the red light of a newly installed camera sits in the top corner of the elevator watching my every blink until I reach the penthouse. 

I can feel my father’s strange mood in the air the moment I enter his residence. It looks more like a sterile art gallery than a home that somebody could actually live in. A cartoonishly sharp version of hyper modern. All stainless steel, sharp edges and matte black everywhere that you look. 

My oxfords make no noise whatsoever as I move to father’s office, where his sweltering fireplace is already lit. 

He’s standing with his back to the door and a glass of brandy in his hand, swirling the contents of the glass around the tumbler as he holds it casually near his hip.  

I have been told that my father and I look a lot alike. 

I haven’t decided yet if that flatters or bothers me. 

The man tends to favor heavily on paranoia so he had nearly all records of his history and life destroyed save for a small album of baby photos in my late grandmother’s house. But the album was buried with her for the same paranoid reasons. 

He stands at a lean six foot, while I am three inches taller and a good deal bulkier than he is. While his head of thick black hair has turned mostly silver with age, hints of the true color still remain in his full beard and mustache. We have the same deep olive skin and russet brown eyes, though he lacks the dimples that I got from my mother.  

“Tell me that you have good news, son.” He addresses me without turning to look at me. 

Son? If that isn’t an indicator that he’s in the mood to play games, then I don’t know what is.  

Honestly, his constant power trips and games have become almost comforting at this point. 

Predictable in their consistency. No point in sugar coating things, get right to the point.  

“Levine’s mother? Are you out of your mind?” I blurt a touch more bluntly than advisable. 

If it was not just the two of us in this room, he would have had beaten the crap out of me for such a comment. 

Instead, he turns slowly, his eyes impossibly darkening with rage over the disrespect that he would interpret my words as.  

“It was supposed to be both of the Levine bitches. A swift strike to eliminate most of the remaining bloodline.” His words are condemnation and explanation both as he slowly sips the contents of his glass. “But apparently, the little bitch managed to give our man the slip somehow.” 

The clinking of the ice cubes around the edge of his glass is the only noise in the room between us for a long moment.  

I understand that he’s pissed that Alexei Levine’s younger sister isn’t dead but he doesn’t seem to understand how serious of a move he has just made. We’re not supposed to go after wives and mothers. Women and children are supposed to be off limits and yet my father has chosen to make his move by going after Levine’s immediate family? That is punching below the belt. This war has been going on for too long, I know that better than most, but this is not the way to move forward. 

However, even if I voiced my opinion here, my father wouldn’t listen to it. His way is the only way. His opinion is the only opinion that holds merit.  

“You know how this is going to go. This war that you’re obsessed with – there will be no turning back now. You’ve opened season on all of us.” Anger starts to bleed into my words as I speak. 

He might be the boss, but his long-term thinking has always been severely lacking.  

“You have no one, besides me, so what do you care? Is it not as if they can kill your wife or daughter as retaliation.” Enzo shrugged.  

“And our men? Those with families? Because you needed retribution for a few clubs and a slight dip in profits… you felt that this was warranted? Going against all of Cosa Nostra’s values? What does this mean for our clan?” 

“My clan, son. You have a long way to go before you get to claim that you have any rights to this family. Do not speak higher than you can reach.”  

“You are telling me that you find your actions to be fair? Especially when you know for a fact how volatile Alexei Levine can be?!” 

I take a step forward as father places his glass down on the mantle of his fireplace. “You said no innocents. It was your cornerstone, father, and yet here you are – murdering a woman who had nothing to do with any of this. I doubt that she had even the slightest idea of the war that her son was involved in. You know as well as I that there have been no reports of them even being in contact for years.” 

“Innocent?” Enzo answers, as if that were the only part of my words that he has picked up on at all. “You stand there and have the balls to tell me that any of those Levine bitches are innocent?!”  

His eyes narrow into slits – something that used to cowtail me into submission when I was a child – but that was a long, long time ago. 

Now I can just feel the muscle in my jaw clenching, knowing how much his impulsive, reckless actions are going to cost all of us.  

“Every one of those bitches is connected to him. That little roach that keeps getting in my damned way!” Enzo’s voice never changes pitch or volume, but somehow it becomes barbed and lethal when he speaks. 

Something about the way he can glare daggers at the person he speaks to, that seems to inflict actual physical damage, is something I have never understood and have also never quite learned how to master yet for myself.  

This whole war is wrong, but I know that I can’t say that to him.  

He wouldn’t listen anyway.  

I think that some part of him knows that I don’t support this war, and that I haven’t fully supported his choices in a while now. 

Maybe this is all just another test that he’s putting me through. 

He’s probably just trying to push me to see where I will break and what the final straw will be that makes me defy him. 

That day will come, I am certain, when I will no longer be his obedient son, and I will become one more name on his ever-growing list of enemies.  

I don’t know which one of us will survive that day either.  

“Care to explain to me why only one of them is dead, instead of both?” Enzo broke the silence, expecting an explanation from me that I just don’t have.  

“I have men on the way to the airport to intercept her as soon as her plane lands.” I answer through my gritted teeth.  

Enzo smirks. “Oh, good. For once we are on the same page about something, son.” 

He lifts a hand and condescendingly pats me on the cheek.  

“I want you to ensure that there are no more fuck ups on this job. I want you to personally go to the airport and pick up the young Levine bitch, and I want you to bring me her head. I will have her stuffed and mounted and pictures sent to that meddling twat of a brother of hers before the day is finished.” 

Just the idea of doing what he asked of me makes my stomach roil. 

It is not because I am not capable of great violence, but this girl didn’t do anything to deserve the horrible, depraved things that I know that my father would do to her. 

Not to mention, it is a damned insult to send me out on a petty wet work job when I’m supposed to be getting groomed to take over as the head of the family.  

“Unless you think that you can’t handle it? Son?” Enzo continues, his thin lips curling up into a devious smirk.  

“Consider it done.”  

It’s the only answer he would accept anyway.

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Chapter One

Mary 

The Bensons were many things, but quiet was not one of them. 

I crashed through mom’s door, carrying a dish of wedged potatoes that was just a little too hot to be holding with my bare hands, as my red hair whipped into tangles from the wind. 

I felt like a mess—and I looked one too. I certainly didn’t look like a fashion school graduate.  

I shouted out an ‘I’m here!’ into the house, dropping the potatoes -almost literally- onto the table in the foyer.  

I expected mom to come around the corner with her oven mitt on, smiling at me and telling me to get in there, or to hear my brother hollering from the dining room about how late I was. A part of me still expected to get swept up into my dad’s bear hug, even though it had been almost four years now. 

Instead, the house was silent, and the minute I realized it my spine tingled with apprehension. 

It had been a difficult day. 

The magazine had me writing an incredibly boring article on the miraculous powers of a liquid dish soap.  

I had taken a journalism course in college alongside my fashion design major in the hope that I could work for a prestigious fashion magazine whilst designing my own line of clothes one day. I had yet to write an actual fashion article, no matter how hard I tried, and none of the fashion magazines in the area were hiring. Or at least, they weren’t hiring me. 

I’d ended up needing a hot shower to destress, but it stopped being soothing the minute I stepped out and caught sight of the clock. 

I’d lost track of time and had only thirty minutes to get ready for the Benson Monthly Family Dinner (trademark pending). 

Those thirty minutes were a whirlwind of me dodging from one end of my room to the other, trying desperately to put myself together enough to convince mom and Pietro I was doing alright.  

It probably worked, at least for them. 

I’d put on a sage long-sleeved dress with gray leggings underneath, which was just the right mix of flowy and flared to create an illusion of the curves I didn’t have, with a chunky, spiced-pumpkin sort of orange scarf keeping my pale neck and collarbones warm from the fall chill. 

The slouchy hat matched, but the ankle-boots were a light tan that didn’t fit the rest and I hadn’t had time to put any earrings in, let alone add bracelets or a necklace. 

I’d had to tie my hair, still wet enough to look brown more than copper, into a messy braid, and I’d had to try to do my eyeliner on the bus. 

If I’d had a few more minutes to put it all together I would have been able to make it cute, and to most people it would probably still be passable, but it felt painfully incomplete to me.  

I paused and forced myself to take a breath. 

I didn’t want my family to worry, and besides, it was all going to turn around soon. I just had to bear it a little longer and then I wouldn’t have to force a little extra cheer onto my face.  

“Mom?” I called again. “Mama, I’m here.” 

My stomach sunk when no one answered me. 

“Mom? Pietro?” I started down the hall towards the dining room as the frenetic energy that carried me in flatlined into something heavy in my gut. 

I tried to shake it off. Sure, something unusual was happening, but that didn’t mean I had to teeter down the hallway with my heart pounding like I was in some horror film. 

I should check my phone—maybe they had just gone to get something from the grocery store last minute and I just hadn’t seen the text— 

Then mom rounded the corner, eyes distant and a letter clutched in her hands. Instantly I knew that something was wrong.  

“Mom?” I gasped, hurrying towards her with my hands out. It looked like she would pass out and I knew if she did I’d have to catch her, although I didn’t know how, given that I was the definition of a stick and couldn’t lift more than ten pounds on a good day. But wasn’t that what adrenaline was supposed to do? Make people stronger when they were scared? 

I grasped mom by the shoulders, looking up at her. Her eyes met mine and the first sob broke free.  

“Oh, Mama,” I whispered, walking her back so she could sit at the dining table. 

Immediately, I felt tears burn my own eyes; my mom was an emotional woman but she rarely ever cried in front of us. 

The last time was the day dad died. She’d soldiered through the funeral planning and the wake with the people bringing casseroles with dry eyes, sagging like the world was heavy and she was exhausted, but never breaking into sobs. 

To see her now, hyperventilating with this scrap of paper clutched tight to her chest, made me feel overwhelmed and helpless—and scared down to my soul.  

Pietro wasn’t there, and I feared the worst.  

“Mom?” I asked, a sob building in my throat. “Mama, please, what’s…” She shook her head and held out the letter. All it said was: 

Dear Mom and Mary—I’m sorry, but I’m going somewhere dangerous and I can’t take you with me. I’m not in trouble, but there’s something I have to do. Mom, I found out but I don’t blame you for keeping it secret. If everything goes well, I’ll be back in a while, but I’m begging you not to call the police. The people I’m with cannot know who I am, and if the police come looking for me, I’ll lose the advantage of anonymity. I know this is scary for you, but the best way to keep me safe is not to tell anyone I’m in danger. If everything goes according to plan, which I really think it will, then I’ll come back to you. I promise. Stay safe, and stay out of downtown. -Pietro 

I stared at the words, reading them over and over like they would suddenly say something that made sense to me. 

All I was catching was Pietro, danger, might not come back—it spun around in my head senselessly. 

Sure, we hadn’t heard from him for a few days, and we’d thought that was kind of weird since we were a very tight knit family, but this terrifying, cryptic message couldn’t be real, could it? 

I mean, Pietro could be a total annoyance, but he was never a troublemaker. He’d dodged some classes but never failed any, and he’d thrown some punches but never the first. 

He was smart and funny and personable, and he was my big brother.  

No, it couldn’t be real. Pietro was fine. 

This was a prank, or a joke, or he was filming from around the corner while snickering, or something. 

He’d pop out with a big grin, and then see us crying and apologize, saying he didn’t think we were going to take it so badly. He’d comfort us like he had after dad’s death, he’d hug me like he did after my first college boyfriend broke my heart, and I’d smack his chest and yell at him and be so, so glad he was there.  

But mom was struggling to reign in her rising fear, clasping her hands over her mouth like that could smother the urge to scream, and Pietro wasn’t anywhere 

I read the letter again. 

Found out—secret—they can’t know who I am—if the plan works—if the plan works— 

I felt like I would collapse. 

Pietro was gone. This letter was real. 

Pietro was in danger, and he was gone. I’m going somewhere dangerous, and I can’t take you with me. 

What was the plan? Where had he gone, why was it dangerous, why could no one know who he was when he got there? Would he ever come back? 

What had mom kept a secret, and why did it sound like it started all of this?  

It was handwritten, and it was Pietro’s handwriting. 

He did that stupid thing where he put a vertical line inside of every lowercase O, because otherwise no one could ever tell his O from his E, and the slant of the Ts and Ds were weirdly severe. I had that handwriting in every one of the 24 birthday cards he’d given me. 

There was no mistaking his penmanship.  

Mom took deep, heaving gasps, eyes closed, as she tried to pull herself together. As she tried to be the adult. 

I was never any good at that, someone else always had to pick up the slack, putting aside their own needs to help me with every curveball that came my way. And here mom was, doing it again. 

She pushed the fear, the grief and hysteria, back down inside of her, even though I was sure she wasnted to let it all out, and I needed her too bad to tell her not to.  

“Mary,” she croaked. “Ma-Mary.”  

“Mom?” I asked, voice small. “What—what does he mean, he’s gone? What is he doing?”  

Another sob half-broke out of my mom’s clenched teeth and she clenched her whole face until the moment passed. “He’s—I think he’s with the mafia.”  

As I already said, I had never been very good at handling bad news. 

When I was 12 and my bully had dumped her food tray on me I’d sobbed inconsolably for days, and when I got rejected from my first-choice college I’d thrown up. When dad died they’d had to hospitalize me for dehydration because I cried out all the water they tried to give me. 

This time I felt the room spin and let my eyes roll into the back of my head.  

I wasn’t unconscious for very long, according to mom, but I woke up on the couch with my mother looking near apoplectic beside me. 

“Mary!” she gasped, squeezing my hand so hard it throbbed. “Oh my god, baby, don’t do that to me—here, have some water. Does anything hurt?” 

“No,” I drawled, smacking my lips as I came back.  

“Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?” mom asked, bringing a cup to my face and peeling open my eye like she had the medical training to diagnose a brain bleed or whatever. I pulled back from her, taking the cup.  

“I’m fine,” I said, pushing myself up. 

The events of my last few waking minutes slowly leaked into my brain. God, Pietro was gone. 

He was with the mafia. 

“Mom,” I said seriously, looking her in the eye with an uncharacteristic seriousness, “I need you to tell me everything.” She gulped.  

“I never wanted you to know,” she said. “Either one of you.”  

“Mom,” I said, firmer. Her lower lip wobbled.  

“You and Pietro are half siblings,” she blurted, squeezing her eyes shut like she knew my reaction would stop her if she saw it, and she knew I wasn’t going to accept half a story this time. 

Then, before I could process the depth of what she’d just said, she dropped the next bombs, one after the other. 

“He—his father r-raped me. I was engaged to Dad at the time, and I thought he was going to leave me, but he didn’t. We realized I had got-gotten pregnant, and there was no way it could be Dad’s, but Daddy wanted to tell everyone Pietro was his so no one would have to know what had happened to me. It was a different time, honey, we didn’t talk about these things, and we were scared what would happen if Pietro’s biological father,” she spat the words with disdain, “ever found out.” I was speechless.  

“O-okay,” I stuttered, trying to digest all of that. “So what—what does that have to do with now?” Mom swallowed thickly.  

“Because,” she said, shoulders rising around her ears as she tensed further and further, “the man who raped me—Pietro’s birth father—is Cristiano Pellico. The mafia boss.” 

I stared at her. I remembered a video where someone dropped a bowling ball into jello, and the way the bowling ball carved its way to the bottom, growing slower with every second of resistance but never stopping. At that moment, I felt like I was that jello.  

Pellico, Pellico… I didn’t know the first thing about the mafia, but I’d seen that name somewhere recently. 

“You think he found out?” I asked, half-numb. 

Mom nodded jerkily, eyes frantically pleading with me as we finally made eye contact.  

“I don’t know how,” she said. “I thought I’d buried our secret, not even your grandparents know. Daddy’s name is on his birth certificate, we registered him as Daddy’s son, I never wrote it down anywhere or talked about it to anyone but your dad. I don’t know how he knows, but he does.” 

“And now he’s… joining the mafia?” I asked, the words fitting wrong in my mouth. 

That was ridiculous. Pietro wasn’t a criminal. 

He wasn’t a scarred-up thug who roamed the streets looking for fights, he was the brother who had skipped high school parties to watch his little sister swim like the seven years age difference was nothing. 

He didn’t do drugs or any other weird stuff, he was just a guy. Just an average 31-year-old. 

He worked at a tire shop. He hated pistachio ice cream.  

“I don’t know,” Mom said, voice cracking. “The letter dropped through the letter slot maybe fifteen minutes before you got here, I haven’t—I haven’t figured anything out yet, but that is the only thing I have ever hidden from the two of you.” 

“But—but why?” I asked, lost. “Why would he join the people who hurt you?”  

Mom shook her head.  

“I don’t know,” she said morosely. 

Pellico! The image of my phone screen! My phone automatically opened to a news feed, that is where I had seen, in big red letters, the words “Nicola Pellico Found Murdered.” 

I gasped.  

“My phone,” I said, trying to stand and ignoring my mother trying to urge me back down. “I need my phone!” 

Yep, right there—Nicola Pellico, the only son of suspected mafioso Cristiano Pellico, was found just hours ago in his apartment with four bullet holes punched through him, face down in a puddle of his own cooling blood, gunshot residue on his hands, his gun nowhere to be seen. So far there was no evidence of a forced break-in or a stated suspect. Information was still being gathered from the crime scene.  

My mouth dried up, and my mom went rigid where she was looking over my shoulder. 

Nicola had been 26, just two years older than me, and he hadn’t done anything important or notable. The only reason anyone would target him was because of his father. 

His father, who was also Pietro’s father. 

If someone killed Nicola in order to get back at Cristiano for something, then wasn’t Pietro living under the same threat? Is that why he left, to keep us from getting caught in the crossfire? 

“We have to do something!” I said, shaking my head There had to be something we could do, right? Some way to go back to normal? Mom’s fists wrinkled her work blouse.  

“What, Mary?!” she snapped. 

I reared back, and she reigned in her voice a little. “What can we do? He’s right, if we go to the police he’ll get killed. With all of… this… Cristiano will be desperately looking for another heir, so if Pietro shows up he’ll probably be welcomed with open arms.” 

I tasted bile. 

“So—so if—” 

“If he joins, he’ll become a mafioso. The police don’t help mafiosos, they shoot them. And if the mafia finds out the police are looking for him they’ll think he’s a snitch, and they’ll do a lot worse than shoot him .” 

“But—”  

Mom shook her head, holding me tight. “We can’t do anything, Mary. We can’t do anything at all.” 

Chapter Two

Salvatore 

When people died, they tended to take their secrets to the grave, and I had to know everything Nicola Pellico had up his sleeve.  

Usually, when I was staring this intently at a photograph, it showed a crime scene. 

Or, occasionally, a future crime scene. 

I was not used to inspecting a series of photos of one dead man and a random assortment of people he’d apparently known.  

I sighed, rolling my head to loosen the tight muscles of my neck. 

Flavio glanced back at me in the rearview mirror; he was a good man, as far as mafia men went, and deeply loyal to me as the last Mastro. He knew better than anyone else how personal this situation was for me, and though he wasn’t stupid enough to tell me to take a break, I could tell he was keeping an eye out for anything he could do to help me.  

I returned to the photos in my hands. Each one was taken in a different location, at a different time of day, and even though Nicola was the constant in every picture he was the one thing I wasn’t looking at. 

After all, he was no longer a factor. 

No, the trouble I had was with the small group of people that seemed to revolve around him, only some of whom I could identify. 

Lorenzo Sprezza and Francesco Faci were both soldiers in the Pellico family, but neither of them held any importance within the organization; there were two women, one seen more frequently than the other, that my consigliere was working to identify, and two other men who were also yet unknown to me. 

If the rumors were true, and Nicola Pellico had been planning some kind of coup, these were the only people who could tell me about it.  

Truthfully, the idea amused me to no end. I despised the Pellico family, in part because they were the natural rivals of the Mastros but more personally because Cristiano had forced me to watch as he ended my family and my childhood in a wash of blood. 

The nightmares had never ended, and the rage only grew more bitter with each one. 

Nicola was just Pellico’s son, but that was enough for my hatred to extend to him. Nonetheless, that he could have been scheming right underneath his father’s nose, ready to upend his family and possibly send everything Cristiano loved and felt pride in crashing to the ground, brought me incredible joy. 

Part of me hoped that Cristiano figured it out before Nicola found the wrong end of the muzzle. The betrayal must sting something terrible.  

I wanted Cristiano Pellico to feel true despair before I put a bullet in his head. 

How awful would he feel, in his final moments, to suffer as my father did? His children murdered, his lineage snuffed out, his empire left kingless? Everything he’d worked for in his life gone? 

I rubbed absently at the scar Cristiano’s bullet had left in the center of my chest when I was too young to even know what kind of life I was born into. 

No, killing the man wouldn’t be enough. I had to destroy him.  

I refocused myself on the photographs. 

If Nicola really was planning a revolt and these people were on his side, then they were more loyal to Nicola than Cristiano and might tell me everything I needed without having to deal with the messy affair of torture. 

If they did, I’d offer them a swift, clean death. 

The men, at least—not like Cristiano Pellico. He had never held true to the Cosa Nostra law to keep women and children out of mafia business. I had experienced that personally. 

Unless the son had turned his back on that, the women wouldn’t know anything, and were more than likely the wives or girlfriends of the other men involved in Nicola’s plot. I wouldn’t go after them unless I had to, and I doubted I would. 

Even if the men didn’t want to talk, I had ways to make them open their mouths.  

“We’re here, Don Mastro,” Flavio said, pulling me out of my thoughts as the car rolled to a stop outside my home. I pocketed the photos with a sigh.  

“Grazie, Flavio. Will you be using your room tonight?”  

“No, sir,” Flavio responded. “If you don’t need me, I’ll spend the night at my place.” I nodded, sliding out of the car.  

“Very well. Goodnight, then.”  

“You too, Don Mastro.”  

My house was beautiful, and it was one of the reasons I pitied the bosses who were stuck in places like Chicago and New York, where the height of luxury was a penthouse suite. 

Nothing would ever match up to a freestanding home. I was often grateful to have been born into Buffalo—a city of significant size, yes, but with a far more suburban feel. The buildings here had individuality.  

I left my shoes and coat in the foyer, unsurprised by the silence that greeted me. 

It was far too late for the maids or cook to be here, and the house was far larger than I needed for just myself. 

For now it felt empty, but someday I’d fill it with my children. 

It was my job to revive my family, so I would need at least four kids to secure our lineage for the future. 

In the meanwhile, I had the space to have overnight rooms for my underboss or consigliere should our business run particularly late, so it worked well for now.  

I followed the curve of the stairs up to the second floor, deciding to head straight for the shower and neatly peeling my shirt and belt off on the way. My bedroom was massive, with high ceilings and enough space for two beds, but I barely glanced at it. 

I’d bought this house the day I turned 18, selling the home where my family was slaughtered, and had lived here since. 

Nothing about this opulence was unusual to me—if anything, I had downsized from the mansion I’d grown up in.  

I stepped out of my dress pants and dropped my clothing into my dirty laundry bin, not sure if the cleaning service could salvage them now that the blood spatter had dried into hard brown scales. If they couldn’t, no biggie, they’d provide perfect replacements. 

I didn’t care much about clothes, luxury cars, watches, or private jets. 

Money couldn’t buy me what I wanted. 

Sure, by most people’s standards I was living like a king, but it was all surface level. 

Until Pellico’s head was served to me on a platter, using my father’s fortune felt like spitting on his grave.  

I entered my bathroom, moving past the full-length mirror to start the shower. I barely bothered looking at my reflection. 

My body, like everything else, was a tool. 

My slightly above average height made it easy to blend in to crowds, my black hair just long and shaggy enough to help cover my facial features if I needed it to but could just as well be slicked back into the sharp, clean visage expected from a Don. 

I kept my body muscular so I could handle any situation with force, but leaned into a wrestler’s physique more than visible muscle definition, because defined muscle was intimidating but not as useful. 

I was less threatening this way, clearly strong and capable, but not in the way that made people stare. 

Staring meant you were noticed, and being noticed meant you’d lost your element of surprise. 

Being underestimated, would only ever work in my favor.  

I had my father’s tan skin, and my mother’s blue eyes. My mother’s father had passed down the square jawline to me, and I never knew where my thick eyebrows came from. 

I knew where each scar came from, though. 

One long one running down the outside of my thigh marked where the surgeons had to cut me open to bolt my broken femur bone back into place, and both my knees were heavily scarred from repeated abrasions, and nearly invisible at this point was a small line across my forehead where I’d been pistol-whipped as a teen. 

Then, of course, the starburst of gnarled, darkened skin sitting low and tight on my sternum. 

Without any of my trappings, I looked more like a street rat than a Don. It was my favorite version of myself.  

I stepped under the warm spray and started kneading at my shoulder muscles, pondering over those photos again. 

The most recent one, in particular, had my eye; in it was Nicola, sitting at a table with two men on either side. 

I recognized Faci and Sprezza, but then there was another man with strawberry-blonde hair and lastly one with a tattoo on his neck. They were sitting at a table in a darkened venue that I couldn’t place, which meant it had to be owned by the Pellicos. 

There was a crowd, what looked like several tipsy people holding drinks and laughing, but the mood at their table was serious and tense. 

They were clearly talking business, and based on the somber looks on everyone’s faces, it looked like a war meeting.  

I had worked towards my revenge for more than two decades, and I was so close to finally looking Cristiano Pellico in the eye as I tore down his empire. 

Whether Nicola had really been trying to overthrow his father or something else was going on, I didn’t know. 

I could not let unforeseen circumstances derail me from my quickly approaching justice. 

I was going to hold Cristiano’s life in my hand, show him how useless it was, and then crush it. And no one else would distract me while I did it. 

I kept my shower short and utilitarian, dried off briskly, and didn’t bother to redress as I made my way to the kitchen. 

If I was going to be up all night trying to find these mystery men, I was going to need the fuel. 

I had one goal, one single-minded purpose, and I was too close to seeing it through now to waste time sleeping.  

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Chapter One

Sara

For once, nothing on my computer could distract me.

Not when right now, my best friend in the entire world, Lia Goldin, was breaking into a cop’s house across the city, fueled by the desperate that her crime could pay for her father’s debt to the Sons of Celt. The Sons were a criminal enterprise that were surprisingly wide-ranging in their pursuits—dabbling in everything from petty theft to white collar crime to enacting medieval-ass blood debts on innocent girls. How Lou Goldin had gotten into bed with them was beyond me, but the man excelled at outdoing his own stupidity. Somehow, he’d managed to convince them to give him an enormous amount of money, and then bailed. The Sons didn’t appreciate that.

Either way, now Lia had to pay—either in cash with interest, or with her life.

I swallowed hard as I pictured her, golden hair tied back, the hood of her heavy sweatshirt up, and the hazel of her eyes stern with focus. Her lithe form, too thin from not eating enough, stealing across a dimly lit street, darting around a small white house, and sneaking into a backyard.

Following her best friend’s instructions to cut the power and break in.

All while, me, her best friend, waited for her call to help her with phase two—breaking into the cop’s laptop in hopes of finding some incriminating evidence that would pay her enough to get her out of trouble with the Sons, who’d demanded a motherless art student pay back Lou Goldin’s stupidly large debt to them.

A mix of adrenaline and tedium kept me pinned to my seat, raging against the circumstances, my heart roaring at how unfair it all was. It shouldn’t be this way, the person I loved best being forced to walk the edge of a shadowed world because of circumstance and suicide.

I knew how unfair the world was. I knew that no matter how smart you were, no matter how well you prepared, the world would break you into pieces the first chance it got.

No, all I could do was sit and stare out my window, watching night fall too fast now that it was almost winter. The cold glitter of Boston filled the skyline, bright, sharp, and distant. My computer monitor, reflected in the thick glass, glowed blank and slightly blue. I could just make out my features, the slight pinch between my eyebrows, the tight press of my lips and the nervous drum of my fingers on the arm of my chair.

My other arm was clamped around knees as I burrowed back further into the chair, layered in sweatshirts and a winter hat, not so much out of cold, but to try and keep the worry from gnawing straight through my skin to my terrified, frantic, and furious heart.

Lia is out there. Alone.

Always alone.

It shouldn’t be this way.

For as long as I could remember, her father had barely been in the picture, which made Lou’s current dumbassery even more infuriating. Usually, when I thought of Lia, it was always her and her mother against the world. Until, last year, when out of nowhere, Marina “Fierce” Fioreno, badass Boston Lady Detective extraordinaire had committed suicide, and Lia’s entire world fell apart. School, money, and now this shit.

God, I hate Lou Goldin.

My fingers seized on the chair, and I was tempted to get on my keyboard, track him down, and somehow get him extradited back to the States. But he’d probably end up in jail, and with Lia’s luck, she’d still be on the hook of those awful, idiotic Boston thugs and their goofy-ass criminal name.

Why can’t she catch a break?

At that moment, my phone rang, and I fumbled for it, nearly falling out of my chair. Heart pounding, I saw the number I told Lia to call me from flashing. My hand was shaking so badly, I almost couldn’t answer, and relief made me almost woozy.

“Holy shit,” I blurted into her ear, too much air wheezing out of my lungs, as though someone were squeezing my ribs.

And Lia, lovely, irrepressible, fearless Lia—laughed her ass off at me.

Shaking my head, a rush of affection and annoyance going through me, I drawled, “Okay, yeah, sure, it’s hilarious. That’s what I get for being normal and worried.”

“Believe me, Sara,” she said, her voice warm and familiar in my ear, though with that haunting echo of strain and sadness always ringing through it, “I almost peed myself a few times.”

“But you’re in?”

“I’m in.”

The next few minutes were a blur as I walked her through next steps, the phone tucked against my shoulder as my fingers flew over the keyboard. Forward momentum kept me calm and focused, and I scoffed when I saw the cop’s cluttered desktop.

“Boomers,” I tried to joke. “Look at that mess.”

“Oh my God, you’re the best,” Lia breathed in my ear, and I suddenly wanted to tell her to stop, to just come home. To just let me pay for her life with my ridiculous tech salary. It would be even more once I graduated from school. But I could do that now, I didn’t have to keep thousands in the bank—I’d stopped looking over my shoulder.

Hell, we could have even more money if I gave up this swanky, super-protected Beacon Hill apartment. I could scale down to a regular luxury apartment instead of this uber-secure one.

“Thank you so much,” Lia was saying. “You got me in.”

“No problem,” I got out. Silence pressed at both ends and even though it was the last thing I wanted to do, I made myself ask, “Should I hang up?”

“Yeah,” Lia said softly. “I have it from here. Thank you.”

“Stop saying that,” I said, more sharply than I meant. “Anytime… Oh and, just in case, good luck.” My throat was tight, and my eyes burned as I looked up at the ceiling. “See you soon, right?”

“Of course,” Lia said softly, as though reassuring me. “See you soon.”

I went to speak but the phone slipped, and the call disconnected. The phone’s screen went black in my hand as I stared at it, picturing Lia hunched at the desk, biting her chapped lips, and staring at the cop’s desktop. Going through those folders, one by one.

What if he comes back early? What if—?

“No,” I said out loud, ignoring how my voice shook. “Lia’s got this. She’ll text me in no time at all, safe and sound at home.”

***

I jerked awake out of an old nightmare, one that I hadn’t experienced in over a year, and pressed a hand to my racing heart. You’re okay, you’re safe, I told myself, as I struggled to sit up and make sense of why I was on top of the covers.

Rubbing at my face, I blinked at the windows, and a hot whine of panic began in the back of my head. Something was wrong. Soft pink and gold light streamed through them, lighting up the room. As though daybreak had arrived—but that wasn’t possible because Lia hadn’t called.

I sat up straighter, shaking my head and patting my cheeks, trying to figure out when I’d gone to bed. My memories from the previous night were fragments of waiting and falling asleep, of aimlessly clicking around on my computer, and then sitting on my bed—just for a second…

I fell asleep. Now the panic in my head filled my entire body, a sense of being crushed on all sides, and I forced myself upright. My body seemed disconnected from my brain, movements jerky and automatic as I went to my desk, fumbling around through papers and notebooks for my phone. It wasn’t there.

Whirling around, I spotted it on the floor, and pounced. The battery was almost dead.

No text or calls.

“Lia, no—no,” I murmured. “Where are you—where are you?”

Tears blurred my vision. I had to be dreaming. The soft light filling my window could not be daybreak. It could not be the next day, with no word from my best friend. Any moment now, I would wake up and she would be okay, and my phone would fully be charged and full of messages.

Only the light got brighter, and the phone battery got weaker.

My entire arm trembled as I dialed Lia’s number.

“We’re sorry,” said the cold, automated feminine-coded voice. “Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please hang up and try again.”

“No,” I said and went to throw my phone, before grabbing my charger and plugging it in. First, I attempted to track down Lia with the apps on my phone, before rushing to my computer, and whirling through every way I knew to track her.

But it was as though her phone had been wiped off the face of the earth.

Like Lia had been wiped off the face of the earth.

Here and then suddenly gone, just like her mother.

A sob shuddered between my gritted teeth. Okay, I had to try a different approach. I knew the name of the cop she’d gone after—Mickey Weiss, and yesterday I’d managed to sneak a peek at what Lia had been tasked to investigate.

The Michaelson family, notorious gangsters that lurked in the shadows of the Northeast.

That name had made my entire body go cold, and as I began to search them, the hits made it go colder. Everything I found told me a grim, bloody story of the previous generation—the brutal and horrific exploits of the “Rhino” and the “Reaper.” But both those men were gone now, and the family was under the control of the Rhino’s son, Tyler, and his cousins. By all accounts, Tyler and his capos were just as bad, if not worse—especially since they knew how to cover their tracks.

A pit formed in my stomach as I remembered the heavy muscle outside that Sons of Celt nightclub, the gangsters in suits with tattoos, guns, and cold purpose in their eyes. They’d pulled up right after Lia had gone in, and I remembered that twist in my gut, the timing too close a call…

They have her, said the pragmatic, blunt voice in the back my head. The Michaelson family has Lia. I put my hands over my face. And I’ll never see her again.

“No,” I growled and shoved away from my desk.

I took a quick, freezing shower, then got dressed, and made myself an espresso. When, I at again at my computer, I was more awake, more determined, and caffeinated. I then sent a quick message to my work, then my professors, apologizing for being out today and possibly tomorrow.

I would not leave this desk—I would not rest until I found my friend Lia.

Chapter Two

Sara

Hours passed, a blur of black windows with white text, blinking cursors, and dead ends, until I closed my eyes and saw meaningless words imprinted on the back of my lids. Occasionally, I’d stopped to drink coffee, snack, and jot down notes. But as the afternoon began to wane, I couldn’t eat or drink or make myself to get up.

Not when I was descending into a familiar, deadly kind of panic—a kind of fear that I’d only felt a few times before and had vowed to never feel again.

Ice-cold terror snarled up my arms as I hit another dead end and a scream of frustration built in my head. What the fuck was this? Why couldn’t I find one single answer? One lead?

Did the Michaelson family employ some kind of tech god? A hacker savant? An MIT student?

My jaw set to the side. I had gotten into Harvard and not MIT, and while I loved my Ivy League school—it had been my first choice—the MIT rejection still burned. But maybe I could use that, pretend the Michaelsons did employ some MIT incel bastard who hated women and was a decent coder but would be crushed under my stiletto.

I snorted. Like Zakary Frole at work. God, that fucking twat. At least calling out of work meant I didn’t have to see him and deal with his inability to take no for an answer.

And as though waiting for my petty grievance to pave the way, my computer chirped at me. Finally, I’d found something. Not what I was looking for, but a start—the Michaelson family’s virtual private storage, buried and locked under layers of protection. At least I had something, maybe a place to look for answers, instead of hunting for a place to even look.

You can do this, Sara Tailor. You are a badass tech whiz. Better than any gangster in Boston.

Getting into this storage, however, was presenting a real challenge. Chewing on my lip, my eyes flicked to my second monitor, where the project was that I was working on for my part-time tech job, a security-focused company called Moxi. They let me hack and chew all around their systems and client systems to find security flaws, and last month they had given us all access to a new, cutting-edge tool called Iris-X, or Iris-Beta, as it was still very much in beta.

We were not, under any circumstances, supposed to use it for anything outside of work until the product was done being developed.

But of course, I looked at Iris-X inside and out, copied it, made improvements, and had not yet deployed it. I called it my Iris-XS, my super sneaker, and excellent additions or not, it was a huge risk. I had no idea if Iris-XS could be detected—or if it even worked.

The alternative, though—brute-forcing my way in or even finding the physical server farm to try and get in that way—could take days. Weeks.

Heart pounding into my fingertips, I opened the Iris-XS application before I could stop myself and wielded it against the layers of security and firewalls around the Michaelson systems, cutting through them like a hot knife through butter. It was almost intoxicatingly easy, and a name flashed by during my furious search.

Hyperion.

That gave me pause in the tangled world of the Michaelson’s internal web that opened up to me. My lips parted as it hit me. No wonder it been so hard to hack into this—this wasn’t a typical virtual machine or series of servers. It was not like anything I’d ever seen. This was a whole world, with twists and turns, crafted by a genius who’d named it Hyperion.

“Holy shit,” I said and sat back, flicking my eyes through what I could see, trying to understand what I was looking at. It would take time to learn this, to fully appreciate this—

No. I need to find Lia.

But my hesitation cost me. Suddenly, I was kicked out of where I’d been within Hyperion, and almost locked out entirely. If my super sneaky Iris-XS tool hadn’t given me the ability to create backdoors and fake accounts, I would have been. But like a little parasite, I couldn’t be so easily removed, and I fled off to a different corner, trying to find a list of likely places they could have taken her.

What if they had hurt Lia? I swallowed as the computer screen seemed to fuzz in front of my eyes. What if they’re hurting her right now?

Hastily, I began to compile a list, addresses that I scribbled down, even as I sensed that whatever—or whoever had kicked me out before was closing in.

Sure enough, right before I was about write down the address for a place out in West Carlisle, I was locked out. A snarl tore out of me, and I slammed my hand down in frustration, then sucked in a sharp breath.

Final warning, ran the message on my screen. Your code might be lovely and your talent prodigious, Iris—but next time I won’t be so nice.

I gaped at the message, wondering how they’d done it—and even more mind-blowing, it acted like an old-school chatroom. I could type back.

Fingers shaking, I wrote out, Go to hell, Mr. Hype. Or should I say, Mr. Michaelson?

Oh, ballsy, came the response. Even though it’s pretty damn cold out today in Boston—you’re playing with fire.

“What?” I whispered.

Suddenly, another window opened, this time with a map. For a split second, it was stagnant, then it zoomed in to the Northeast, tilted over to New York, to the Midwest, and then jumped back Massachusetts.

“Shit. Shit. Shit,” I hissed as my tired, clumsy fingers attempted to stop Mr. Hyperion, to cut him off before he could find me. How was he doing this?

Yeah, I see you.

Now the map showed Boston and its environs. It hopped to Cambridge, to Harvard, and I swore, as it jumped across the river, to Boston University and Commonwealth Ave, and then moved East.

With no other choice, I killed my entire system, and my screen went black.

But not before I saw his final message.

Better run, because I’m gonna find your ass.

***

Daniel

“Dramatic,” I murmured to myself as the trail vanished, the hacker—who’d I’d dubbed Iris, after managing to glean that the program they were using to hack into Hyperion was called Iris-XS—clearly killing their entire system to prevent me from finding them. “But effective.”

Too bad it was too late—I’d narrowed their location down to a fifteen-mile radius within Boston proper. All I’d needed was a fifty-mile radius and I could hunt them down with days. As it was, by tomorrow, I should have a name, an address, blood type, star sign, favorite kind of porn, and all the other interesting vices hidden in plain sight on the internet.

Leaning back in my chair, I thought I’d sensed them panic when the map had jumped to Cambridge, to Harvard Square. I didn’t think they were there, but they must spend time there. Maybe they were even a Harvard alumnus—though how they’d wound up on Hendrix’s payroll was beyond me. Perhaps prodigious Ivy League debt made the prospect of working for a gangster palatable. Blood money could be lucrative.

Pulling up their tracks, I sighed, and began to clean up their trail, trying to lock down the intranet I’d created for the Michaelson crime family. It was meant to be a web to catch any hacker, but this haphazard, clever spy had dodged every trap. Brute force and deft elegance let them get deeper than anyone should’ve been able to. Young but brilliant, was my guess. Perhaps not a graduate—but a student. Someone who took chances, someone who was willing to piss me off.

I blew out a sigh. Not good. Iris clearly had no idea how far in over their head they were. Or worse—did he have some kid on his payroll? It shouldn’t surprise me—there was no depth to which Hendrix would not sink. His family had become weaker since Ty had taken the lead of our family, and the word on the street was that his father would only give him the official role of boss once he managed to defeat Ty.

I drummed my fingers lightly on my keyboard, debating what to do. I wished I’d known how the little spy had gotten into Hyperion in the first place. Gotten in and then managed to stay in, which should not have been possible.

Staring at my computer, my mind whirled through dozens of possible plans, sifting and sorting. The smartest, most prudent thing would be to take down the whole system, and then bring it back, piece by piece, combing it over to make sure it was locked down and safe.

But then I couldn’t be sure that I’d ever find that hacker. At least, not without my full attention, and we had too much shit going on with Hendrix, the informant cop in the hospital, and the beautiful blonde who had my cousin, the Capo, in knots.

No, I had to play the riskier hand and leave Hyperion vulnerable, open a few doors to try and trick Iris into sneaking back in. Then I could trap them somewhere and study their skills at my leisure, while also finding a physical location.

I can’t believe they’re local. How reckless can you be? I shook my head. Part of me, however, was also curious about their skills—I’d never seen shit like that. It was as infuriating as it was impressive.

No matter what the cost, I had to protect my family stuff.

I had to find that little spy.

***

An incessant chiming came from next to my ear and I groaned, wincing as I tried to lift my aching neck, the inside of my mouth tasting like an ash tray, and my glasses crooked on my face. I blinked in confusion at the screens in front of me, then jolted awake in pure panic.

“Cazzo,” I swore in Italian, as my fingers tried to find the keys, stiff and useless from disuse. I’d been looking for the little spy, Iris, for almost twenty-four hours straight, with no luck. I’d kept meaning to take a break and had fallen asleep at my desk instead.

In the meantime, Iris had pounced. My brain seemed to hum as I woke up more, trying to catch them, screens popping up and closing, their quick, darting work making my jaw clench even as admiration unfurled in my chest.

Damn, Iris had balls.

I wish I could get you on our payroll, I thought, then I barked out, “FUCK,” as they almost found Tyler’s address—again. Heart pounding, I didn’t want to admit that I’d only narrowly stopped them. What the hell were they looking for—addresses to rob, to leak to the Feds, or a hit? Was Hendrix going after the Head of the Michaelson family? Didn’t we have enough to deal with?

I rubbed at my face, glancing at my phone, wondering how things were going with the blonde, and then I reached for a cigarette. Then, I paused when a message box appeared.

That was fun, but I think you’re all talk, Mr. Hype.

“No way,” I breathed. Iris had deconstructed my messaging apparatus, copied it, and was now using it to talk to me? “That’s so fucked—but also fucking incredible.”

Maybe I can teach you a thing or two.

A laugh huffed out of me. Maybe. You seem to have a death wish. What are you after?

Information. I raised an eyebrow as they seemed to pause, weighing their options. I don’t suppose mobsters might be bribed…

The word made my heart snarl, the tension in my spine enough to make it snap, and my head too heavy with the memories of the two biggest assholes in the universe, my uncle and my sperm donor. Their sneering faces, their chest-pounding pageantry at being mobsters, and their relentless cruelty.

Go fuck yourself, I typed and sent Iris hurtling through the Hyperion stratosphere.

I couldn’t wait any longer. I’d started to lay traps for Iris, but that wasn’t cutting it. The next hours were a blur of locking down the most vulnerable and important parts of Hyperion, taking breaks to nap, and plotting where Iris might live in Boston.

The next morning, I was out the door by nine, ready to hit every coffee shop and public wi-fi area around the Common. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but I had a feeling Iris was smart enough to keep moving, and staying private in public was their best bet at continuing to hack Hyperion and avoid me finding them.

Dressed like a college kid, I’d opted for a Northeastern University sweatshirt, a Boston Red Sox hat, and my most comfortable pair of jeans. I kept my hat pulled low and glasses on, trying to keep my expression neutral as I entered the Downtown Bean. But still, I saw the curious glances from people, the mix of admiration and nervousness, and my gut twisted.

Fuck off and stop staring.

I knew, deep down, I had not received the suave, stupid-handsome Italian genes that my cousins Ty and Luca had. Instead, I had a weird mix of striking features that made people do a double take, which I fucking hated to no end. Especially since, once they got a good look at me, saw the look in my eyes—they ran for the goddamn hills. Every time.

Sometimes, I might get a wild child of a woman to pursue me for the thrill of danger, but once she got close, once she sensed even a fraction of how broken and fucked in the head I was—she always vanished on me.

Now, I didn’t even bother beyond an occasional one-night stand, but even that had become less and less frequent. Once, I’d thought that maybe there could be at least one person who might be able to match me. Who might at least like me, who might be into the same things I was, and wouldn’t mind sharpening passion and intellect with me.

Probability-wise, on a planet with eight billion people, it seemed arrogant to assume otherwise.

These days, even that probability seemed like a fucking fairy tale.

I glanced out the window, at the busy stream of people crossing from the Theater District into Chinatown, the artsy kids from Emerson College smoking on the corner and laughing, the parents hustling kids with bouncing backpacks, and tourists ambling along.

The best you can do for Ty and the rest of the family is keep your head down, hack, and keep building Hyperion. Don’t get it twisted. You’re the monster on the Michaelson leash.

My computer let out a strange chime and I jolted, nearly upsetting my coffee. A few people looked over as it went off again and I touched my ears. I was wearing headphones. What the fuck?

Miss me? Ran a message across the screen. And it’s cute how you’re using café wi-fi. Great minds—but I prefer a different coffee shop. Also, there are a lot of public wi-fi places in this city, Mr. Hype. You’re out of your depth—and hiding something in West Carlisle.

Shaking my head, I typed, maybe that’s what I want you to think. With a few keystrokes, I made it look like I was in a different café, then a public library, and finally, an Emerson college classroom in the nearby theater. Or maybe I want you to know where I am.

I didn’t want that at all. Pressing back against the wall, I flicked my eyes over the room, but I saw no danger. Still, maybe sitting by the window wasn’t the best decision. Shattered glass and gunshots flashed through my head, and I let out an unsteady breath. I’d been witness to a drive-by once before and I never wanted to see that shit again, much less die that way.

You are pretty damn good, they wrote back, and I thought the tone was one of begrudging respect, which was kind of amusing. MIT?

Hm, well damn. I had indeed taken an accelerated program at MIT, at Ty’s insistence. Yep. Harvard?

They took a moment to respond. Maybe. And I didn’t know mobsters were so touchy about name-calling. I’ll be more sensitive to that, Mr. Hype.

A jolt went through me, a roll of surprise and excitement that had my fingers hovering over the keyboard as I almost typed out what I’d just realized.

You’re a woman, I thought, and a grin spread over my face.

I wanted to keep things interesting, Ms. Iris.

All that came back was a winky face before my computer rebooted and I yelped out, “Fuck.” The entire café went silent as heads swiveled to me and I gave a sheepish salute. “Computer died. Big paper due.”

Shoving upright, I grabbed the computer, and hustled to another café. There, it took me twenty minutes to get the computer working again. When I did, Iris was nowhere to be found, nor could I assess if she’d found anything.

And then my cousin Luca called me to set up a meeting with Boston Bratva.

Chapter Three

Daniel

After the unexpected outing with a bunch of fucking Russians, the bad news that a local Russian mob boss, Ivan Volskov had been offed, most likely by Hendrix, and having to keep Ivan’s nephew Kir and Ty from beating the hell out of each other, I hadn’t had a chance to check on Hyperion or Iris for almost a full day. For safety, I’d taken parts of Hyperion offline before the meeting with the Russians, and was now booting them back up, wondering if Ms. Iris was watching.

Ooh, did I spook you, Mr. Hype? Came the message.

Don’t flatter yourself, I wrote back, even though she had indeed spooked the fuck out of me. Maintenance.

Sure. Mid-week is a perfect time for that. By the way, those traps you laid for me were real cute. Again, offer stands to teach you a few things.

My lips twisted as I fought the urge to laugh. You’re just delaying the inevitable, brat.

I don’t think so, she wrote back. I think you like playing cat and mouse, Mr. Hype. Especially since I’ve piqued your interest by being in possession of a vagina.

At that, I did laugh outright, and Heavy, who was sitting across the room in the Crow’s Nest, the nickname of our building down the Seaport, slowly lifted his head and raised an eyebrow at me. I winked at him.

Of course, she continued. You thought I was a dude—so disappointing.

Is that why you nuked my computer? I wrote back. And I didn’t assume jack shit. If anything, though, I should’ve assumed you were a woman.

Oh, bullshit, she wrote back. But fine, humor me, why?

You’re persistent and adaptable. You think outside the box. You code with as much elegance as you do brute force.

For a moment, there was no response.

And compliments seem to be your weakness, I couldn’t help adding.

Meet me.

I stirred at that, something in my gut twisting, even as my heart beat a little faster.

Come on. I’ll make it easier. Meet me and let’s talk this out. I have money and—

I’ll stop you right there, I wrote, resentment filling me. I’m not “meeting” you, Iris. Fuck, how naïve do you think I am? I have no interest in having a bullet put in my head in a downtown café.

Perhaps I’d been a bit naïve, too, hunting Iris down with such recklessness. I’d thought her young, but maybe that had been an act. Asking me to meet, that shit was bold. A bit of an ingénue feint, too, trying to get me to let down my guard. Seemed Hendrix had sent an absolute pit bull after us.

Or—fuck. Was this a Fed? Waving money around like that? How fucking nauseating. I’d have to jump off the Tobin if I’d been bantering with a goddamn Fed.

Oh my God, that’s so dark, Iris replied. Christ, only a gangster would think that she wrote back. So, what, we go around in circles until you find me? I have a life, hello? Guess it must be nice not having a day job, being all above it as criminals, too good for the rules like the rest of us.

“Oh, Iris,” I said out loud, dazzled and delighted at her biting temper coming through the computer screen. “You just fucked up. You showed your entire ass, girl.”

I have several jobs, smartass, I wrote back. And yes, I like the chase. I also don’t believe for one second that you’d make it easier for me.

Except, I did. But it was too late to try and go that route. Plus, I couldn’t say for certain, but I suddenly suspected that Iris was a civilian, not Mafia. Day job, huh. Delicious. Especially since I was now pretty certain she wasn’t a Fed.

You won’t find me, Iris wrote. If you haven’t found me yet, you won’t, aren’t you smart enough to see that?

She was right. It had been almost four days, and I hadn’t found her. But what she probably had not anticipated was the danger of revealing anything to someone like me.

I, however, am getting lots of juicy information about Hyperion, she wrote, and I fought a grin. “Yeah, Iris, what I’m letting you find,” I said.

And I am persistent, Mr. Hype. Iris’s words were coming fast and furious now. I knew she had to be glaring at her computer somewhere. I will take all your shit down to get what I want. This is my last offer for a mutually beneficial compromise.

I appreciate that, Iris, I wrote back. But I’m not interested in compromise.

“I’m also not the one using company technology on personal time, young lady,” I said out loud.

“You good over there, cuz?” Heavy called. “’Cause you’re kinda freaking me out talkin’ to yourself and grinnin’ and shit. Look possessed.”

I grinned even wider, my demon’s grin, and I heard Heavy curse to himself. I’d ran a cross-search, and within five minutes, had pulled up the website for a company called Moxi. Located in downtown Boston, right in the Financial District, they were a world-wide expert on security technology, famous for employing hackers to test for weaknesses. And there’d been chatter about their propriety, cutting-edge security technology in beta, not even known to the market yet. A technology called Iris-Beta-22.

“Bingo,” I murmured. Louder, I said, “I’m fucking grand, Heavy.” He came over, a nervous hilarity on his face as he hovered, and I grinned wider. “Wanna take a field trip over to the Financial District with me? I’ll get you dinner.”

“Sure,” Heavy said. “Christ, you’re a scary bastard.”

“Thanks,” I said with a chuckle. Then I read the message from Iris, you’re going to regret this.

Nah, I wrote back. But I will see you real soon. And with that, I shut down most of Hyperion, save for one corner where I had Iris trapped. It would take her hours, if not days, to get out of there.

And in the meantime, I now knew where she worked. By the end of the week, Friday at the latest, I’d finally know who she was.

Looks like you’re gonna get that face-to-face after all, Iris, I thought as I stood up and grabbed my jacket. But I think I’m gonna enjoy it a hell of a lot more than you are.

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