Lex materializes at my shoulder. My brother moves like smoke—six-foot-three of tattooed silence that makes rooms go quiet when he enters them.
"Elena took that well," he says.
"Too well."
He looks at me. I look at the door Siobhan walked through.
I chose her because the alliance needs Irish blood married to Greek power. Because her family controls the unions and the docks and the loyalty of three hundred men in Southie. Because a marriage to Elena Drakos would have consolidated what I already have, and consolidation is a luxury I can't afford when Viktor Reznikov is carving Russian into my warehouse floors.
That's the reason I'll give anyone who asks.
The real reason is simpler, and I'll never say it aloud: she was the only woman in that room who could survive me. Not tolerate me. Not endure me.Surviveme—the full weight of what I am and what I do and what this life demands. I watched her stand in a room full of men who traffic in violence, and she didn't flinch. She negotiated. She demanded terms. She looked at me like I was a problem to be solved, not a monster to be feared.
I haven't been looked at like that in fifteen years.
I drain my glass. Set it down. Across the room, Dimitri—my brother, not the Russian—is already charming the Romano contingent, easy smile hiding the blade underneath. He catches my eye, raises an invisible toast.Nice play, brother.Stavros is by the bar, nursing a whiskey he's too young to deserve, burning with the need to prove he belongs at the table instead of beside it.
My brothers. My empire. My war.
And now, awife.
I look toward the door one more time. She's gone. But the air where she stood still feels different — charged, restless, like the pressure drop before a storm breaks.
I gather my things. Head for the elevator. In the hallway, Elena is leaning against the wall, phone in hand, staring at the screen with an expression I can't read from this distance. She sees me, quickly pockets the phone, and smiles.
"Really, congratulations, Nico. She's a bold choice."
"She is."
"I hope it works out. For everyone."
Then she walks toward the parking garage, heels clicking on the concrete, and something about the way she holds her phone — tight, screen pressed against her thigh — sits wrong in a way I can't name.
I let it go.
But I shouldn't.
Chapter 2
Siobhan
Chosen
* * *
I've been listening to men talk over me for an hour, and not one of them has said anything I haven't already figured out.
Viktor Reznikov is expanding. The Bratva wants the East Coast. Our docks, our unions, our shipping lanes—everything the O'Briens and the Greeks have bled to build for the last three decades is now sitting in the crosshairs of a man who skins people for sport. I know this because Declan came home last month with two broken ribs and a message carved into the door of his truck: ?????.Soon.I know it because three of our construction workers are dead and their widows came to The Galley last Sunday and Cormac sat with each one for an hour, making promises with his hands that his voice couldn't keep steady.
Declan didn't tell me what happened to him. He never does. None of them do. I found out because I read the police report Finn buried before the ink dried, the same way I find out everything in this family—by being smarter than the men who think I don't need to know.
The meeting room at Elysium is designed to intimidate. I'll give Nico Konstantinos that much. The lighting, the leather, the way every sightline converges on his chair at the head of the table—it's a stage set for a king. He sits in it like he was born there, which I suppose he was. Gold eyes scanning the room with the kind of precision that makes you feel cataloged. Filed. Assessed and assigned a threat level before you've said a word.
I refused the chair they offered me. Partly because it was wedged between Declan and Cormac like a child seat at the grown-ups' table. Mostly because I think better on my feet, and I had a feeling I'd need to think fast tonight.
I was right.
When the wordmarriageenters the room, I expect it. Alliance by blood—it's the oldest play in the book. I start running candidates: a Romano daughter, maybe, or one of the Greek cousins. Someone expendable. Someone decorative. Someone whose disappearance from polite society wouldn't leave a hole.