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My rumbling voice fades just as the rumble of our following caravan grows. Four armored range rovers pull up just behind us.
A tinted window descends.
“The perimeter is secure. It doesn’t look like the Greeks are planning any ambush,” Maksim says, sticking his head out.
What Ray is to the Kilpatricks, Maksim is to me and my family. He handles the stuff I’m too busy to deal with, and he’s good at his job.
Hell, Ray is too. In fact, he’s so good that he’s managed to climb up the ranks within the Kilpatrick clan, from common thug to top lieutenant.
He’s here today to represent his bosses. Those fuckers are a big deal—even I can admit that. They rule the American underworld with an iron fist—or, at least, they rule the east coast—and my family runs it with them.
It’s not like I have much of a choice. One of them, Nolan Kilpatrick, married my baby sister.
For her sake, I’ve given them a chance.
Now, I’m wishing I hadn’t.
But it’s not because of anything we can control.
It’s these fucking Greeks.
Over the past two years, the Greek mafia has somehow managed to gain control over the entire west coast of America.
I’ve agreed to meet them somewhere in the swampy middle, between east and west, because just a few months ago, I received a horrible letter from their new leader.
A letter with an even more terrible proposition...
Our enemies are being run by a twenty-year-old girl. The daughter of the man I helped kill just a few months ago. His death was supposed to end the war that we’re trapped in. But this girl has managed to rally the troops.
We thought that might mean we were going to have to continue fighting.
That is, until she sent that fucking letter.
It proposed peace.
A peace forged through marriage.
Her and me.
Roman Barinov, youngest son of the Barinov family; de facto leader of the Black Delphi—a global league of assassins so feared that most of the world won’t even dare speak our name out loud.
I’m to be paired with Sophia Xiphias. Daughter of the former Godfather of the Night. Leader of the Greek Mafia. Head of the Xiphias Oikos. Her father, Kostas, stole my older brother, Roman, from my family when I was just a boy.
He did unspeakable things to that boy.
Still, that boy escaped. That boy became a man. A married man. And with my sister married to Nolan Kilpatrick, I’m the only single child left.
That means there was no one else who could take this bullet for me. At the very least, I had to come out to this black swamp, to this dark and crumbling house of the rising sun, and give peace a chance.
It’s my duty.
Fucking hell.
“Let’s go,” Ray says. Turning from our convoy, he heads to the bridge. I wait a little longer.
At the very least, I should compose myself. These negotiations are too important to fuck up, no matter how badly I might want to stomp them out.
“You and the men stay here,” I order to Maksim. “If you see anything suspicious, you have my permission to start blasting. Fill this swamp with blood, if you have to.”
