Page 5

“Silver Death boarded a private plane to the States two days ago,” I inform him.

My dear cousin, who I’ve never met, sent the most feared and revered killer in the underground for me. I feel honored he sent the Council’s best assassin. That means my hard work has paid off.

“Why are you fucking grinning?” he asks, brows knotting.

Strangely, I am not even a bit afraid, but a surge of excitement awakens my comatose state.

“She landed in New York.” She’s here for me. The stopover is most surely a deceptive tactic. She’s never set foot on this continent. It would be remiss of me not to trust the intel that has always been correct.

“Enzo.” He says my name in a deep voice, thick with annoyance.

I sip from my glass, unperturbed. “Let her come for me. I haven’t had something entertaining going on in a while.”

“Do you have a death wish? Sorry, brother, but if I am trapped in this shithole, so are you.”

Loyalty—that’s why I have to push through.

“You haven’t come to see her on stage,” he says in an accusatory tone.

Her, Dahlia, my sister. He watches over her, making sure no one ever comes close enough to upset her. No wonder she feels at ease only in his presence. It’s as if she shares a bond with him that I never could. Purely platonic, of course, he’s more like a brother than I am.

She lives with my mother at the compound where she feels the safest, surrounded by people who watch over her and know they can interact with her only when she initiates it. The day my sister got kidnapped, I disappointed my entire family. I couldn’t save my father or my sister in time. It was Mika who did, and I will forever be grateful to him.

“It would only distract her.”

He exhales loudly as if to purge the demons that steal his tranquility. “It was not your fault.”

My grip on the glass tightens. I half expect it to crack under the pressure. “It doesn’t change the outcome.”

Done with this talk that only sours my mood, I change the topic to business. “The Syndicate is expanding. They’re getting dangerous.”

There are a few criminal organizations and families who possess enough money, resources, and influence that we constantly monitor, but their rise to power is nothing short of admirable.

He waves me off. “Let them rule over the East Coast. We rule over the West.”

“Still. We will either clash or turn into associates.”

He looks deep in thought as he taps his finger on his silver watch.

“Friends or foes, if they touch our family, they’ll end up dead.”

Between the two of us, I am the more subtle when it comes to eliminating potential threats, and sure as fuck, I am not carving the tallies on my skin.

“Dahlia should be performing on the best stages of the world,” he sighs, reminding me of my biggest failure as a brother.

“I won’t force her. Will you?” I ask, arching a brow.

Something dark crosses his eyes and there’s a tic in his jaw as his eyes lower for a second to the floor.

“No.”

Everyone has an opinion about my sister. He’s the only one who can tell that to my face. But after what she went through, I am too relieved to have a sister who’s alive than force her out of her comfort zone. She found a way to cope, and that’s all that matters.

“And let’s not talk about any of us having a life. It is what it fucking is.”

“Yours might be cut short, and then I’ll have to go over there and kill the fuckers as revenge.”

I pat my chest. “You’d do that for me?”