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Prologue

Everest

It stings. Every time Kato drags the razor between my breasts right over my heart, it stings. They can tease me all they want about my pain tolerance, but they only had my one initial – I have to get three.

By the time Kato finishes, I have three letters carved into my skin vertically between my breasts – B K M – for the three loves of my life, Brixton, Kato, and Maddox.

We’re practically a modern-day Romeo and Juliet. Or…Romeos.Plural since I couldn’t choose only one of them if you held a gun to my head.

And of course, there will be no suicide.

No. The correlation is the fact we come from rival families. I don’t think I could call them enemies, per se. I guess it depends on who you ask.

The Bratva – who my father works for - runs the east side of Cedar Springs, controlling anything imported or sold into the area from drugs to weapons. Kato’s father leads the west side,doing pretty much the same thing except I’m pretty sure he has a hand in the skin trade.

I’m not the biggest fan of Christos Antoniou. But, honestly, I’m not exactly a fan of my own father, either. They’re both criminals, they both treat their kids like we’re nothing more than a pawn in their quest for world domination, or something as equally ridiculous and unattainable.

At least Kato is being raised to one day take over his family’s operations.

Me? I’m being raised to marry someone to further my father’s reach and power.

Unfortunately for him my heart, mind, and body already belong to someone else. And we officially just branded each other for the world to see.

“I still think we should go make it legal. We’re adults. We don’t need anyone’s fucking permission,” Brixton says, blowing on the slices in my skin while his own seeps blood that runs between his pecs, making a path to his stomach.

He dabs at the beads of blood again, then presses his hand to my flat belly. Flat for now.

Our parents might suspect we’ve all been fooling around through the years, but they have no idea we’re madly in love and I’m officially in a poly relationship with three men.

It had all started innocently enough; we’d get dragged to various events, and since we were around the same age, we tended to congregate to other areas of the house or banquet hall, anywhere away from the adults where we would overindulge on the desserts.

By thirteen, I knew my heart belonged to them. Yeah. That was a little early for such a declaration, but there had never been a doubt in my mind – even to this day – these three men were meant to be my husbands.

Okay. So legally I can’t marry all three. But being as we don’t know which of my men fathered the baby we just found out I was carrying, I figure we’re tied for life, anyway. Unless one of them suddenly decides they no longer want to share me and demands a paternity test.

“It’s going to be hard enough to tell my parents I’m carrying the grandchild of their adversary without throwing in the news of our elopement,” I tease him, laying my hand over his and tilting my head back for a kiss.

But Brix is right. I’m eighteen. They’re all nineteen, with Kato turning twenty in two months. We are legally adults and can damn well choose to spend the rest of our lives together regardless of what our parents think.

We aren’t old enough to drink yet, but we’re going to be parents in nine months.

It’s going to take me some time to get used to that notion.

“If they have a fucking problem with it, we’ll pack up and move on,” Madd says.

“That’s easy for you to say. What about Kato?” I point out.

Madd and Brix are being trained to be Kato’s right-hand men. They’ll be his guards, his consiglieres, and whatever else he might need.

Kato is being groomed to run a multibillion-dollar criminal empire. Not exactly the type of life I want to bring a child into, but both he and I come from a long line of mafia families. It would be damn near impossible for either of us to simply walk away from this life or our families.

Kato shrugs as he applies some antibiotic cream and a bandage to the initials carved into my skin, then tugs my shirt over my head. “I could find work somewhere else. Even start my own syndicate.”

“Right. Because your father will let you walk away that easily.” Just like me, Kato is an only child. He’s the only heirto his father’s business, and it wasn’t for a lack of trying on his parents’ part, either.

Poor Mrs. Antoniou was the constant recipient of Christos’s anger over the fact she wasn’t able to produce an army of sons to carry on the Antoniou legacy.

We’re currently sitting in the woods surrounding my family’s estate. I can’t count how many times I’ve snuck out here through the years to meet with my guys. It got so much easier as we got older and we could simply get in our cars and meet up.