1
KATE
There’s a moment just before your world is destroyed when you stand in perfect innocence, when you believe you have absolute control over your past, your present, and your future. Then, the universetwists, and everything collapses into a broken, spiky heap.
I’m Kaitlín Minola Lynch, the half-feral daughter of Baltimore’s Irish mob captain. I’ve spent my entire life in the Canton Crew, most of it fighting every last one of my clan’s rules. I’m a tempest, a fury, a shrew, and I bleed Irish green.
I’m Mrs. Cole Wolf, new wife to a mysterious hacker billionaire. I’ve learned to crave my husband’s dungeon, to submit to my Dom because he’s the only man in the world who can force me to lose control, who can devastate my body and my mind and leave me begging for more.
I’m CyberGhost, founder of the Red Cap Raiders, a band of computer hackers. I’ve broken into dozens of banks andcorporations, sometimes for money, sometimes just for fun. My computer code is flawless.
I’m Kate.
And on this brilliant Thursday morning in May, I’m staring at a ghost—Brigadier Pyotr Nikolaevich Tarasov of the Russian bratva.
No. Not a ghost. A nightmare.
Tarasov is one of the men who kidnapped me eighteen years ago. I know the bratva tattoos etched into his chest. I know his laugh, pitched far too high for a man his size. I know his cruel smile, wide behind the barrel of his gun.
But more than that, I know the question he’s just asked as he digs that gun into an innocent woman’s side: “Hey there, CyberGhost. Ready to sell your soul for a fortune made of light?”
Time has turned to a river of sludge. My palms are slick with sweat. I don’t remember how to breathe. But I manage to croak to Cole: “He’s MaskedMarauder. From the Raiders.”
MaskedMarauder. The one hacker on my Red Cap team who can rival my coding skills. The only other person capable of mastering all the ones and zeroes, all the bits and bytes. Every time the Raiders launch a new campaign, every time we sell our souls, Mask says the words:A fortune made of light.
I’ve broken laws with Mask. For the past four years, I’ve put money in his pocket, and he’s put money in mine—money I’ve always handed over to my da to keep the Canton Crew running. And all that time, I was hacking beside a feckin’ Russian gobshite—the feckin’ Russian gobshite who held my sister and me hostage in the dark, beside the rotting corpse of our nanny.
Cole speaks behind me. “What thefuckare you doing here?” His growl chews through the brilliant spring morning, each syllable a separate shard of ice.
I watch Tarasov, waiting for the shitehawk to flinch, because that’s what any sane man would do. But the bratva arsehole onlylaughs again, sounding like a giant who broke into a tank of helium.
“Cole, please.” It’s the woman pleading, as Tarasov’s gun pries between her ribs. Her name is Megan, and she’s Cole’s sister. That’s why I invited her past my husband’s monolithic security at our Georgetown home.
Iopened our gate to the bratva. This is all my fault.
Megan has fresh bruises around her throat, fingerprints where someone—I’m betting all the money I’ve ever stolen it was Tarasov—has choked her into submission. She pleads with her brother: “He’s the man I told you about. I warned you. I never would have brought him here if I had any other option.Please,” she begs. “I swear to God I’m telling the truth!”
“You’re breathing,” Cole says, without even a hint of emotion. “So I know you’re lying.”
“Cole!” she sobs. But before she can gasp out any more of a protest, Tarasov plants one hand between her shoulder blades and shoves, hard.
Megan shrieks by reflex, barely catching herself from a tumble against the brick drive. I only have a second to register the hard look of disgust on Cole’s face, and then I feel Tarasov’s fingers close aroundmywrist.
I’m a better hostage than Megan.
But my temper runs hotter than the core of the sun, and I’m not afraid to fight anyone, anytime, under any feckin’ conditions. Especially not the man who has haunted my nightmares for decades. Plus, I learned some dirty tricks, watching my da’s mobster crew.
Ignoring every instinct screaming in my brain—the ones that say to pull free, to run, to get as far from the Russian gangster as humanly possible—I turnintoTarasov’s grasp. I slam my heel into his instep—a killer move that would be a lot more effect if I wasn’t barefoot and he wasn’t wearing steel-toed work boots.I bring my knee up to crash into his crotch, but he’s already angling away so I bruise myself against his tree trunk of his femur. I go for the base of his nose with my free hand, but his grasp on my wrist cuts short my room to swing.
He yanks me around so his chest is pressed to my spine, pulling me close to his rock-hard body with one meaty forearm. I’m panting hard, trying to escape, and I nearly boke at the stink of him.
It’s his sweat, or maybe it’s his breath, maybe his unwashed hair. Every cell in my body goes nuclear when I catch the remembered reek of onions. If I don’t escape, I’ll die.
My fingers have gone as cold as ice, as cold as Larissa’s dead body in the pitch-black hole where the bratva kept Breagha and me for two long weeks. Fourteen days of hearing Tarasov’s clown-laugh every time he launched a new round of negotiation. Fourteen nights of breathing that stench when he called me hislisichka, when he…
Eighteen years ago, I was a terrified child. Today, I’m a furious woman.
“Yer such a big man, aren’t ya?” I taunt, rage thickening my Irish accent. “Pull a gun on a girl, so she’ll do as ya say?”