With a premonition of what I’m about to see, I pull it out, scanning the screen. Just as I hoped, it’s a message from Dean:
Baby was in a hurry. We barely made it to the hospital in time. Cat handled it like a champion—Levi Yenin is 7 lbs. 6 oz, 22 inches long. So fucking happy to have him here.
I’m crying from the very first word.
Miles reads over my shoulder, his arm around my waist.
“I told you,” he says. “We gotta hurry up if we’re gonna give that kid a cousin.”
Leo Gallo
Chicago
Two Years Later
I’m dressing for Sabrina’s engagement party.
After two years of arguing over whether they’ll live in St. Petersburg or Chicago, she’s finally agreed to marry Adrik Petrov.
They’re holding the party on the rooftop terrace of LondonHouse. It’s a black-tie affair, which means I have to remember how to tie a goddamn bow tie.
I’ve been fucking with it for twenty minutes now, not wanting to admit that I’m going to have to ask Anna to work her magic yet again.
She’s already dressed, playing with the twins downstairs before we have to leave them with the sitter.
I know she’s excited to see Cara, who just completed her last year at Kingmakers, and is finally home for good. Cara’s only here a month before she and Hedeon embark on their six-month backpacking trip across Asia. I guess Cara feels like Kingmakers wasn’t quite enough inspiration for the novel she’s been writing the last two years.
I’m equally excited to see Rafe and Nix, Freya and Ares, and Kade Petrov. It’s been too long. We’re all so busy and so scattered across the globe—it takes a wedding or a funeral to bring us all together. I know which one I prefer.
Giving up on the ridiculous bow tie, I head downstairs to beg for my wife’s help.
I almost trip over the twins, who barrel across the hallway at top speed, Athena chasing after Archie, both brandishing wooden swords.
“Don’t run with those!” I bellow after them, but they’re shrieking too loud to hear me.
It’s hard to tell them apart from behind, since they’re both crowned with a bush of dark curls, and they’re both equally filthy and feral unless Anna has just lifted them out of the bath.
She may have done so—Athena was wearing the bottom of a pair of pajamas, and Archie the top.
I search through the main floor of our house, looking for Anna.
We bought this gothic mansion right before the twins were born. I was starting to get nervous that Anna wouldn’t find a place she liked. She was adamant that she didn’t want any gleaming, modern condo on the lake, no matter how pretty the view. Her tastes were shaped from an early age by her father’s house.
The Astor Street mansion has everything she likes—dormers and gables, high ceilings, cavernous fireplaces, an overgrown garden, leaded glass windows, and an abundance of ghosts.
The twins love it. They’re continually getting lost in the maze of ancient rooms, popping out again in unexpected places as if they’ve found a secret passageway through the walls.
I love it because it suits Anna so well. She only becomes more ethereal and elegant with each year that passes. She’s as timeless as this house, and as beautiful.
At last I find her in the music room, setting a vinyl on her mother’s old record player.
I see her long, silvery sheaf of hair laying over her shoulder, and the backless silk gown she’s chosen for the evening.
She hears my footsteps behind her and turns to face me, the skirt of her shimmering black dress twisting around her legs like the bloom of a calla lily.
As she looks up at me with those ice-blue eyes, I’m hit with the strangest sense of déjà vu.
All at once I remember a dream I had, my first month at Kingmakers.
Anna and I were only friends then. Best friends, and nothing more.
I was already in love with her, but didn’t know it yet.
My heart stops in my chest as I remember every detail of that dream:
A mansion even grander than my parents’.
Two little twins, running through the room.
My wife in an elegant black dress.
When the woman turned, I saw that it was Anna.
That was the moment I realized that no vision of my future could ever be complete without her.
I knew I had to have her. But at the time, it seemed it could never happen.
There are crossroads in life where you can either choose the cold truth you see in front of you, or you can choose to chase the impossible dream.
It’s only by believing in that dream, and pursuing it, that you can turn it into a living, breathing reality.
You must chase the dream to live the dream. Otherwise, it will only ever be an ephemeral fantasy in your mind.
Thank you for coming with me to Kingmakers ❤️ Have you read Ivan & Sloane’s story? →
Sloane has only failed at one thing…
trying to kill Ivan