Prologue
Zeus
Seventeen years ago
A hand on my shoulder breaks me away from the conversation I’ve been having in the main ballroom. It’s a nervous touch. Light as a feather. The other men at the table continue the discussion about their various tax shelters but their eyes look toward whoever is standing next to me.
I pretend not to know who it is.
When I turn toward her, the nervousness in her touch is echoed across her face. Wide, brown eyes. A tentative smile. She’s cute for a whore. Devastatingly, painfully cute. Dark hair, shining waves, a curvy body in a red dress. She clutches a tumbler in her hand, ice still frozen and clinking in the whiskey. Like all good whores, she keeps that smile on her face even while she cuts glances at the men around the table. “Your father’s busy,” she says.
The drink and the whisper and the smile are all signs. They’re all a bid for assistance, which my father never gives. I roll my eyes at the rest of the table and stand up. “I have to take care of this.”
“Put her in her place, Zeus.” The man who says this has evil in his eyes. I know what he does to the women here. It takes them a full week to recover.
“What else would I do?” To prove it I put a hand on the back of her neck and haul her along with me toward one of the exits. “Give me that.”
She presses the glass into my hand. It burns going down, one swallow, and then I toss it at a waiter with a decimated tray of hors d’oeuvres. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t want to interrupt you, but—”
“But what?” I don’t bother to look at her, even when she trips on the carpet and only manages to catch herself at the last second. I’d let her fall. If it came to that, I would let her fall. “You thought you needed me?” I shove open the door to the outer hall and pull her across it. Her legs are so much shorter that it’s a struggle for her to keep up with me. Her feet are slipping in her kitten heels. We go across to an access hall, shadowed and empty at this time of night. All the way to the very end. The wall bumps out a few feet and I push her into that space. “What could you possibly need from me?”
I haul her up the length of my body until she’s face to face with me, her arms slung helplessly over my shoulders and lips a bare inch from mine. She scrambles to get her legs up, finding purchase around my hips, and I give her a shake. “Tell me.”
“A kiss,” she whispers.
“Ah, fuck,” I tell her, and then I give her what she wants while she laughs, the sound muffled in the dark. She’s so fucking cute. When we come up for air she presses her face into the side of my neck and sighs. “Were you scared?”
“No.” Katie turns her head and licks over the curve of my jaw to the bottom of my ear. “I was close, though. I almost believed you.”
We’ve been playing this game for four months. It is strictly against my personal policy to get involved with any of my father’s property but she’s the first one to make me laugh. She’s the first one to make me feel like I’m not a burned-out husk of a killer. She’s the first one to look at me like I’m not my father’s son. “We’ll be gone soon,” I promise, for what I hope is the last time. “Then we won’t have to play like this.”
She pushes back so I can see her face. “What if I want to play like this?”
“Do you think I’ll just give you whatever you want?”
Katie kisses me, light and fleeting. “Yes.”
“You’re right.”
I kiss the side of her neck and she shivers. “Tonight, then?”
Tonight is when we’re supposed to leave. To disappear. We won’t take anything with us, except the bank cards to a secret account I have and enough cash to make it without the accounts if necessary. It’s supposed to be my father’s big reveal of our new business partnership, with me taking over the whorehouse while he keeps the rest of the city in a chokehold. But I know he’ll never really let go of this place. And I don’t want it. I haven’t wanted it for months, for years. There are other ways to have what I want.
I have her now.
Katie presses her mouth to mine, her tongue flicking across my bottom lip. It’s nothing, comparatively, to what I’ve done with other women but it doesn’t matter. Every time she touches me I come back from the brink. Without her, I have no doubt, I would be nothing but my father. Or I would be nothing.
“We could go now.” The urge to leave is so strong. The exit to our right pulls on my sleeve. “Right now. We could leave, and be gone by the time—”
“I can’t,” she giggles. “I have one more client. He’s a regular.”
“The old man?” I groan. “He’ll find another piece of ass.”
“I’m his favorite piece of ass.” She kisses my nose and my cheek. “And he tips well. It’s forty-five minutes, and he won’t take that long. I’ll meet you back here when I’m done.” Katie tries to scramble back down to the floor but I don’t let her. Not at first. I kiss her first. Slow. Soft. Who cares if that old fuck is waiting for her.
“Remember,” I warn. “Don’t—”
“Don’t bring anything but my purse,” she says. “You worry too much. It’s as easy as walking out the door.” Then she wriggles insistently enough that I do put her down. I lean against that exit, which won’t open unless I put in the security code.
“I’m not worried.” I love you. I’m not going to tell her now. I’ll have a lifetime to tell her. “Don’t keep me waiting.”
“I would never.” She blows me a kiss and sashays down the hall, picking up speed as she turns the corner, curls bouncing. Smile on.
I count several minutes before I make my way back. I’ve just stepped into the hall when something moves in the corner of my eye.
“Happy birthday,” says my sister. The hairs on the back of my neck leap upward. Demeter isn’t allowed in the whorehouse. She never has been. But here she is, wearing a silver dress to match her eyes, her own curls a riot down her back. Someone’s done her makeup. “How does it feel to be twenty-one?”
“How does it feel to be abandoning your own child?” I won’t give her the satisfaction of seeing how much her presence unnerves me. “Where is she, Demeter? Did you leave her alone again?”
She scoffs. “Abandoning my child. Please. Haven’t you heard of a babysitter?”
“Then you’ve come to make some extra money.”
Her eyes flash. “I was invited to your party, asshole. The least you could do is say thank you.”
“Thank you for coming to my party.” I show her my teeth. She of all people should recognize that smile for what it is. “Speaking of the party, let me take you in. There’s nothing happening out here in the hall.”
It’s a challenge, and she knows it, but she doesn’t mention the fact that she saw Katie. She must have. There’s no doubt in my mind that she’s been lurking out here. And if my sister is lurking, then there are actions to be taken. Get Katie out of that room, for one. Cause a distraction, for another. Demeter slips her arm through mine. “Yes, let’s,” she says. “I like the music.”