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PROLOGUE
ARIA
Ihear a voice, faint—it seems miles away.
I try to respond; my tongue feels thick, my words slurred. There’s a distant, detached part of me that’s aware of the danger, aware of how close I came to not coming back from this. It’s a mix of shame, regret, and a desperate longing for this hellish descent to end.
“Aria!” I hear. Has someone come to rescue me?
Dion. I see him. His face etched with worry. He’s here, and for a moment, I feel a glimmer of hope.
Sotíras. My savior.
Dion, who has been there to rescue me time and again, to pick up the broken pieces of my shattered soul. I cling to that thought like a lifeline.
Every part of me aches with a bone-deep weariness. I just want it to stop.
I drift in and out of awareness. I think about what led me to take all that stuff. It seemed like an easy escape, a way to make all my feelings disappear.
So I could sleep.
My body is rebelling. There’s a burning in my veins, a fiery reminder of my mistake.
My vision blurs, and I can barely make out anything in front of me. The world tilts and spins. I feel Dion’s hand on mine. He’s talking, but the words are lost in the haze.
The darkness behind my eyelids is a small relief from the sensory overload.
I just wanted the pain to stop, but instead, I’ve plunged into a new kind of agony.
All I can do is hold on, hoping that I’ll make it through to the other side.
PART I
THE ONE NIGHT STAND
1
DION
Two years earlier
You’re going to be shitfaced if you keep this up,” Xander says from my right, his bulky frame taking up almost the entire booth. His arms are spread along the back of the couch as he eyes me with a disapproving look.
“That’s the fucking goal,” I murmur, annoyed that I have to spend the night listening to loud, thumping music and watch drunken idiots misbehave. I hate crowds. Especially drunken crowds.
I down the rest of my ouzo and slam the glass on the table. “Argh!”
It’s my third drink of the night and it’s only nine p.m. Only five more hours to go…
I’m on babysitting duty—as I call it—at Academia, the nightclub my best friend, Brother from another mother, and boss, Evander Vasilakis, owns.
Even though the manager, Elias, is around and the place is filled with bouncers, Evan still wanted me here.
I get it. He would rather be safe than sorry, given that the threats made against him are becoming serious.
Cebrene is controlled by five main families, and the Vasilakis clan, in which I’ve been adopted, is one of them. I was born a Loukas. But when tragedy struck, I was taken in by Evander’s uncle, Ignatius Vasilakis.
I’ll never change my last name, but I’m loyal as fuck to them.
