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Chapter One

Dominic

Ican smell the fear in the room before I open the door.

Not the sharp-edged fear of violence. The slow, sweating kind. The kind that seeps out of a man’s pores when he knows he’s made a mistake and he’s sitting in a room waiting to find out how much it’s going to cost him.

I straighten my cuffs and walk in.

The conference table seats twelve. Only three chairs are occupied. Gregor, my finance director, is on the left. Danny Sorvino, the human we brought in to take over most of Marco’s financial oversight, is on the right.

Danny is the one sweating. His pulse is running fast enough that I can hear it from across the room, a frantic rhythm under the collar of a shirt that’s too tight for him.

Roman is at the far end, leaned back in his chair with one ankle crossed over his knee. My brother looks relaxed. He isn’t. I can feel his tension. A low vibration, a frequency only another wolf picks up. Roman is coiled energy wearing an expensive suit and a bored expression. He’s been like this for months. Ready to snap. Waiting for a reason.

I take my seat at the head of the table and let the silence hold for three seconds. Four. Five.

“Tell me about the Weston Street property.”

Danny clears his throat. His scent spikes: cortisol, sharp and sour. “Mr. Voronov, the permits came through, but there’s a complication with the zoning variance. The alderman is asking for—”

“More money.”

“He’s, uh. He’s suggesting that the original arrangement didn’t adequately reflect the complexity of—”

“More money.” I keep my voice level. I don’t need to raise it. The room recalibrates to me without effort. It always has. “How much?”

“Another fifty.”

Fifty thousand. For a zoning variance on a property we’re using to move money through a construction project that exists largely on paper. The alderman knows what we are. Or what we appear to be, at least. A crime family with deep pockets and short patience. He doesn’t know the rest. No one does.

To the rest of Chicago, we’re the Voronov organization. Russian money, old money, criminal money. The labels change depending on who’s whispering. The FBI calls us organized crime. The men who do business with us use less formal language. None of them understand that the hierarchy they’ve spent generations trying to map isn’t a criminal invention.

It’s a pack.

“Pay him,” I say. “Add fifteen on top. Tell him it’s a gesture of good faith and that the next time he renegotiates mid-deal, the gesture will look different.”

Danny nods too fast. He writes something down. His pen shakes.

I move through the rest of the agenda. Revenue from the South Side properties. The status of two construction projects that exist to justify cash flow. A problem with a supplier who’s been skimming materials. Human problem, handled by human means, nothing that requires what we actually are. The meeting takes thirty-five minutes. When it’s done, Danny leaves first, almost running. Gregor follows, calm, professional. He’ll be fine. He’s been with us for eleven years and he understands the boundaries.

Roman stays.

He waits until the door closes, then drops his foot to the floor and leans forward. The bored expression is gone. What’s underneath is sharper. Hungrier.

“Marco’s daughter is back in the city.”

I go still. I’ve had a hundred and thirty-two years to master the art of keeping my body from betraying my mind. But inside, something tightens. A thread of cold attention pulling taut.

“When?”

“Yesterday. She’s at his apartment. Flew in from wherever she’s been.”

I know where she’s been. I’ve kept loose tabs on Sophia Marchelli since her father died. She finished her MBA eight months ago. She’s been living in a studio apartment in a city that doesn’t matter, grieving, not working, burning through savings that won’t last much longer. She’s twenty-seven and adrift and she has no idea what her father was involved in.

At least, I don’t think she does.

“She’s settling his estate,” I say.