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“Of what?” I asked.

Alex shrugged. “Whatever we want. Something to remember this by.”

I should have walked away when he said that. I should have snapped back to reality and shot him dead, but instead, I pulled him in, grabbing the nape of his neck in my hand. “Maybe I should tattoo my name on your ass.”

His smile turned watery, moisture dancing in his eyes. “You should,” he whispered before pulling me into a deep kiss likesomehow he got his oxygen from me. But I knew this couldn’t last.

This wasn’t my destiny.

My destiny was The Snake.

Blood. Power. Death.

Not love. Especially not with him.

I haven’t thought about that night in a long time, but seeing Alex’s chest, theXIX VIscrolled in black ink has me convinced I’m about to lose my mind completely. I shouldn’t be thinking about it or him, but the memory is like a ghost I can’t shake.

I grit my teeth, pushing him out of my mind for now and knock on the office door, taking a deep breath when I hear her clipped ‘enter’. I pause at the threshold when I see her because she’s not alone. My father is here too, standing beside her, his expression pinched in a way that takes me back to when I was a little boy.

“Rowan,” my mother says first. “Come in.”

I walk through the office. The walls are flanked by bookshelves stacked with old volumes of classic novels, motivational self-help books and old accounts of the history of The Snake. I know them all by heart.

“You wanted to see me?” I say, my eyes falling on the matriarch of The Snake.

“Where are you on finding out what happened to that man in the warehouse?” she asks.

I swallow, not sure what to tell her exactly, especially after the raid.

She watches me for a moment before realising I’m not going to give her what she wants. “Must not be very far if I’m hearing the police were at Summit.”

And there it is.

My smile is easy to pull off. I shrug. “It’s nothing to worry about. I have it handled.”

She glares at me. “I only told you about this because I thought you could prove yourself,” she says. “But for the first time in years, the police are in our business again, and guess who the common factor is?”

The thing about my mother is that she never shouts. Her tone is always level, like she’s talking about the weather or something equally mundane, not the potential implosion of our entire clan.

But I keep my face neutral. “Like I said, it’s handled. Nothing to worry about.”

“Are you sure about that, Rowan?” My father speaks up for the first time. His voice is deceptively gentle, playing the good cop when my mother was always the bad one, but I’m not falling for it. I know who he is just as well as I know who she is, and I’d be an idiot to fall for his smiles.

“I just said it’s handled.”

They may be my parents, but we all play a game here. Never show weakness. That’s at least one thing they taught me. That and how to kill swiftly.

“I hear you haven’t been sleeping at your apartment recently,” my father continues, coming round the desk and leaning against it. He’s dressed in a well-fitting suit, the buttons of his shirt popped open. “Perhaps you’re distracted?”

“Are you keeping tabs on me now?” I lift an eyebrow, a smile dancing on my lips. “You haven’t done that since I was fifteen. Would you prefer I move back in?”

His smile is as icy as the look in my mother’s eyes. “Wouldn’t have to if you knew how to manage yourself. Maybe we should not have been so lenient with you.”

I curl my fists at my sides because they were anything but lenient.Hewas anything but lenient. The sound of a sharp whip rings in my ears, but before I can respond, my mother speaks.

“I don’t care who any of you occupy your time with. I do, however, care when it gets in the way of business. You can tell Xander I said that too. His reputation and histasteshave begun to proceed him. No one wants an incompetent heir nor a sadistic one. Hayden is not much better either, but at least he’s discreet in his shortcomings.”

My muscles tense. “Is that all?”