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Leo
Present day…
You’d think I’d be used to the heat of hell by now—I rule a vast swath of the underworld, after all. But this heat isn’t a hellish heat. It’s worse.
This heat is humid and heavy. It’s a heat you only find in the bayou. Just outside of New Orleans. In the summer.
This is worse than hell.
“See, it’s not so bad,” Ray teases as he shuts the back door to our car behind me.
“You bastard,” I grumble, swatting away a mosquito. “You’re lucky you don’t work for me, otherwise I’d have your head for helping set this meeting up here.”
“Well, then it’s a good thing I don’t work for you,” he shrugs. “Aiden Kilpatrick is a much more forgiving boss.”
“I can’t imagine the Irishman would be able to survive in this weather. Don’t you lot burn like dry leaves?”
“Some do,” Ray nods. “But Aiden and I were raised in the fires of New York. This shit doesn’t compare to that.”
“I’d take some thug with a gun, or even the entire fucking Italian mafia over all of these fucking mosquitoes.” Somewhere in the distance, a splash of murky water grabs my attention. “And that’s not to mention these fucking gators.”
“You didn’t have gators in Russia?” Ray continues to taunt.
“My father owned two,” I sneer. “We locked them in the basement and kept their bellies full with the flesh of those who dared betray our family. And if you don’t shut your mouth and give me a quick rundown of this place, I’m going to bring two gators back with us to Manhattan. You can ride in the trunk with them.”
Ray just huffs.” I used to ride these scaly kittens for fun back when I was a kid. They’ll be wrapped around my pretty little finger before we get to the airport.”
“I thought you were raised in the fires of New York?”
“During the warm seasons I was. In the winter, my father would take me down to New Orleans so that he could spend all of his money on the Cajun hookers and underground gambling dens.”
“Is that when you found out about this place?” I ask. Wiping the beads of sweat from my forehead, I peer out over the mossy bridge ahead of us. It reaches out across the murky swamp-land like a path into a dark, twisted fairy tale.
A dark twisted fairy tale… isn’t that exactly what this is?
“As a matter of fact, it is. My father came here often, and I’d spend my nights playing with the gators… until I was old enough to play with the women. They used to call this place the house of the rising sun.”
“I don’t see any sun,” I growl.
On the other side of the bridge, under the tangled canopy of bald Cyprus trees, bathed in darkness, stands a rickety old mansion, , half-overgrown with vines and Spanish moss.
“I never did either,” Ray sighs. “This isn’t a happy place.”
“Then why did we agree to meet here? We’re going to be discussing an arranged marriage, after all. Isn’t marriage supposed to be a happy thing, especially when it leads to peace?”
“We agreed to meet here because the Greek mafia was stupid enough to agree to meet us here. They obviously didn’t do their research. If they had, they’d know that the Kilpatrick’s top lieutenant knows this area like the back of his hand.”
“And what good is that knowledge going to do us if we aren’t planning to ambush the bastards?” I ask, frustrated. I’m still not on board with this whole marriage idea. The Greeks are my mortal enemies. How could I marry one of them?
“Because it means they won’t get a chance to ambush us,” Ray says.
The man I’ve come to know especially well over the last year drops his head and takes a deep breath. Beneath the façade of rugged charm he seems to wear so easily, I can sense a heavy darkness.
That’s where we’re so similar—though, I don’t try to hide my rage… not anymore.
“I’d like to see them try…” I grumble.
