It’s a good thing.
Because it’s finally time to take action.
I’ve been waiting three years and two months for this moment. Searching, planning, scheming.
Not all predators hunt in the open. The zone-tailed hawk looks exactly like a turkey vulture. It will even fly among a flock of turkey vultures, wheeling and circling like one of their brothers. And then, at a time known only to itself, it will break from formation, attacking one of its former fellows as its prey.
That’s how I have to think of myself now.
I’ve spent three years pretending to be Ares—calm, kind, patient. Humble.
At first it was easy. After all, I know Ares better than anyone. His family’s farm abutted our summer house in Poseidonia, our land next to their land with no fence in between. Ares and I grew up together, sailing around Syros in his father’s skiff, feeding his fainting goats, our younger siblings playing hide and seek in the vineyards.
Our fathers were friends, and our mothers too. His father loved to read, just like mine. They used to trade books from their libraries, my father’s biographies for Galen Cirillo’s military histories.
Galen Cirillo was a gentle and intelligent man. He’d think for a long time before speaking. Devoted to his wife and children.
Though the Cirillos are one of the oldest mafia families, Helio Cirillo gave up all his ties to crime when he married Ares’ grandmother. Ares’ father likewise lived a simple life—sometimes poor, but always happy.
The night we were attacked by the Malina, Galen woke to the sound of gunfire. He took his hunting rifle down from the wall, running across the fields toward our house.
I don’t know exactly what happened next. Only what my uncle Dominik found three days later: two of Marko Moroz’s men with 7 mm Remington bullets in their skulls. And Galen lying dead in our dining room with his throat cut. I think he was trying to get upstairs to help us.
The Cirillos want revenge for that night just as badly as I do.
Ares wrote to Kingmakers, requesting acceptance for the fall, as is his right as heir of one of the ten founding families.
No one here knows him by sight. The Cirillos are too small, too insignificant. I doubt Marko Moroz even knows that he killed Galen—if he noticed him at all, he might have thought he was our gardener.
But he was our friend. Our ally.
He will be avenged, as will my father.
I took Ares’ place on the ship to Kingmakers. I wore his clothes. Carried his backpack. We look alike—our parents used to joke that we were meant to be brothers. The only brother either of us had.
No one recognized me. I’d been living in America where my father was capitalizing on the legalization of marijuana, opening massive dispensaries in Oregon, Colorado, and Nevada. I hadn’t been back to St. Petersburg in years.
The very first night in Dubrovnik, Bram Van Der Berg and Valon Hoxha mocked me for my shabby belongings and my weak family name, never realizing that they were speaking to the son of the most powerful Bratva boss in Russia.
I swallowed the taunts. I took the abuse. And I listened—constantly listened for any information on Marko Moroz.
I boarded the ship. I came to this island under my new identity. When class started, I hid my skills. I pretended to be quiet, studious, focused. I pretended to be uninterested in girls or dating. All the while looking for the information I needed.
I’ve played my part well. No one has ever guessed that I’m not actually Ares Cirillo—that the real Ares has been living in secret in one of my family’s properties in Nevada. He’s been managing our Las Vegas dispensary, taking in almost a million dollars a day in cash, cash that we desperately need to keep the high table off our asses so they don’t suspect that my father is not actually running the business anymore.
If those sharks scented blood in the water . . . they’d rip us to shreds. St. Petersburg is too tempting a prize to expect loyalty from the Bratva.
I hid in plain sight, and I gathered crumbs of information while searching for that one crucial document that we hope is here at Kingmakers.
I never expected it to take this long. I never thought I’d still be here, three years later.
But I am here.
And now, so is Nix Moroz.
If Plan A fails, then we have to go through with Plan B.
I despise Plan B.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter what I like or what I want. We’re far past preferences.
I wait until the new female Heirs have followed Chay and Anna inside the Solar, and then I head west along the north wall, all the way to the Library Tower.
I know this part of campus better than any other—better even than my own dorm room. I come here almost every day.
I know I shouldn’t. Miss Robin has warned me several times that I’m being too obvious, taking too many chances.
I can’t help it. I never realized the toll it would take on me, lying every single day. Never answering questions honestly, even in casual conversation. Never hearing my own name spoken aloud. Never being hugged by a friend who truly knows me.
I’m separated from everyone I love—except for her.
So I push open the heavy wooden doors to the library, catching the scent of ancient paper, dusty rugs, spiced tea, and a hint of that perfume that reminds me so powerfully of home.
My mother’s scent reminds me of my father’s. There was always something similar between them. Like coffee and vanilla, or sea salt and cedar . . . things meant to pair together, each enhancing the other.
My parents were made for each other, partners in a way I’ve never seen in any other coupling. So alike that a novel’s worth of words seemed to pass between them in a glance.
Before they met, neither one believed in soulmates. Neither of them was looking for love. They were the most independent people imaginable—my father, a ruthless Pakhan, subduing the city of St. Petersburg, smashing any rivals in his path. My mother an assassin for hire, expert in the subtle murder of powerful men without a trace of evidence left behind.
My father was supposed to be another name on her death list.
She breached the security of his monastery. Crept into his bedroom in the dead of night. Held a syringe full of poison to the side of his throat.
And then . . . fate intervened.
His eyes opened and locked on hers.
They fought a desperate, bloody battle in his bedroom, each trying to slay the other.
Each had met their match, for the very first time.
When my father ripped off her balaclava, he saw not an enemy . . . but his own reflection looking back at him, in female form.
I climb the long, spiraling ramp of the Library Tower. Since it’s only the first week of school, most of the tables are empty of students. No one is yet burdened with enough homework or enough anxiety of upcoming exams to forgo the pleasures of the sunny day outside.
My mother sits at her desk, dressed in her ridiculous disguise.
It’s difficult to hide how beautiful she is. She’s dyed her hair a distracting shade of red. The repeated applications have caused her sleek curls to become frizzy and unruly. She wears several layers of chunky woolen cardigans, not only to ward off the chill of the stone tower but also to disguise the athletic figure beneath. Her granny glasses, thick tights, and orthopedic shoes are supposed to make her look older. None of it works, not really. The only thing that can mar her lovely face is the expression of unhappiness that settles over her when no one is looking.