Epilogue
It’s funny how quiet power can be.
Two years ago, if you told me this is what ruling New York City would look like, I would have laughed in your face.
After killing our fathers, I thought we would spend every day watching our backs, expecting war, and perpetually waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Blood, bullets, and bodies, because peace is a notion made up for fairy tales, not for men like me.
I’m sitting on the terrace of Cillian’s penthouse, a vodka on the rocks in my hand, watching the sun set over our city. Eavan, Madison, and Ani are setting the table with whatever Italian feast Enzo is gracing us all with this evening. It’s normal. Domestic, even.
Hazel is toddling across the patio, her little steps still unsteady.
Her tiny hands reach out toward Ani as an excited squeal passes her lips, and it pierces right through me.
The whole notion still feels surreal, like someone is playing a trick on me.
Hazel, named after her mother’s gorgeous eyes—and also my absolute ruin and salvation.
I used to think that my heart was far too black to hold anything as pure as her. Yet, here she is… Walking, laughing, living proof that I don’t have to destroy everything I touch.
“Look at her go,” Ani boasts, smiling wide and warm enough to melt me. She scoops Hazel up just before her little legs give out, peppering kisses over her cheek while our girl giggles like the world belongs to her. If we build this empire big enough, maybe one day it will be.
Enzo places a plate on the table and wraps his arms around Eavan, his hand resting on her growing stomach.
The grin that spreads across his face is pure arrogance, the kind that makes me want to throw my fork at him just to shut him up.
Not that Ani and I are even remotely trying to battle the two of them over who can pump out the most babies. He is far more determined.
“Two at a time is cheating,” I snicker, causing Eavan to laugh loudly.
Enzo just smirks, his hand splaying wider over her belly. “What can I say? Some of us are blessed.”
Cillian groans. “I would tell you to get off my sister, but that didn’t exactly take the first time either.”
Enzo shrugs, utterly unrepentant, before teasing, “I can give you some tips if the two of you ever decide to have a baby of your own.”
Madison shoots a look at Cillian. “Don’t even think about it,” she warns.
“Fun aunt for life.” Cillian hasn’t once said a word—in public or private—about Madison’s position on kids.
I actually don’t know whether he’s waiting for her to come around or if he’s content being the grumpy uncle.
It might be the one secret he keeps from us all.
Alek strolls out onto the terrace with Sadie at his side.
She has been around for a while now, long enough that no one blinks when she pulls out the chair next to him and pours herself a glass of wine like she belongs here.
And maybe she does. Still, Cillian can’t help but regularly give him shit about getting serious with one of the girls from the club—as if he didn’t marry Madison.
Regardless of the circumstances, technically, she was a stripper. And a damn good one.
Business is good. Better than good. The clubs are overflowing with lines around the block every night and cash streaming in faster than we can count.
Our far less above-board businesses are also thriving.
We’ve spread our reach across the world, fingers in every pie worth touching.
Drugs. Arms. Information. The list goes on.
Money and power flow to us like rivers—unstoppable.
Of course there are still threats. There always will be. But no one has dared to come at us the way the Armenians did. Not since we cut the head off that snake and let the world watch it writhe. They remember the lesson. And if they forget, the four of us will not hesitate to remind them.
My brothers and I were born into violence, raised on a steady diet of betrayal and blood.
When our time came, we took what we wanted brutally.
We carved our names into this city with bullets and a trail of blood.
Yet somehow, against every odd, we built something out of it.
Not just a dynasty of hardened kings ruling from the shadows, but men who learned—sometimes the hard way—that power like ours means nothing if you don’t have anyone to share it with.
And now, the future we didn’t know we wanted has become our legacy.