Ruthless Titans
SNEAK PEEK
MADDIE
Pulling up the collar of my wool coat to block the stinging wind from my neck, I stare out across the valley to where the rocky summits of the Adirondacks tower like sleeping giants, their boreal and deciduous forests casting elongated shadows across the rolling landscape.
The leaves have begun to change color, but there’s a frosty bite in the air rolled in by a fast-moving front from Canada.
The unseasonable kind of cold that penetrates deep into your marrow and solidifies your bones to ice.
The parallel is ironic because that’s exactly how I feel.
Cold. Empty.
Like there’s nothing there.
Turning my back on the picturesque scenery, my heeled boots crunch the gravel underfoot as I cross the two-lane road that cuts through the town’s center. I’ve been strolling around Winterhaven’s idyllic Main Street for the past three hours, and my feet need a break.
My way of exploring a new place is to walk it. I find it’s a good way to discover those hidden nooks and crannies only the locals know about. Like the town bar and grille where everyone loves to gather after a long day.
Changing direction, I head toward Donovan’s Tavern.
It sits nestled between the other red brick-and-mortar shops that line Main Street.
All the buildings have that rustic mom-and-pop feel, but everything they sell comes with a hefty price tag.
Winterhaven isn’t a small, rural town. It’s a playground for the elite and home to some of the wealthiest people on earth.
Pulling the brass handle of the heavy oak door, I’m immediately hit with hot, noisy air infused with the bitter aroma of hops and the mouth-watering scent of grilled meat. It’s not even seven o’clock, and the place is already packed.
Keeping my head down, I ignore the chirpy hostess and navigate through the crowd of cacophonic, happy patrons.
Taking a seat on one of the empty stools at the bar, I instantly recognize the craftsmanship and trace a finger across the lacquered dark wood grain.
It must have cost a fortune for the owner to have this brought over from Ireland.
“Welcome to Donovan’s. What can I get you, beautiful?”
I don’t bother looking up at the flirtatious bartender, my focus solely on my phone’s screen and the text message I received two days ago. Besides, all male bartenders flirt with female customers. It’s how they make good tip money.
“Something local. I’m not picky.”
He sets a gold embossed black square napkin down in front of me. “My kind of girl. Legal?”
Tearing my gaze from my phone, I’m met with boyish good looks and the kind of smile that probably makes most of the women he meets drop their inhibitions as well as their panties.
Too bad I’m immune. I was surrounded by entitled, pretty boys for eight years at school.
They were all rich, gorgeous…and complete assholes.
“Pardon?”
Bracing the bar top with one hand, he leans in, his grin growing in wattage. “Do I need to card you?”
“No.” I’m twenty-one, but I fish out my passport and show it to him. I’ll need to get a state driver’s license at some point.
“You’re from Ireland? Didn’t catch the accent.”
“Expat.” Putting an end to that line of small talk, I tuck my passport into my pocket and go back to reading the text message. I think I’ve read it and re-read it over two dozen times since yesterday to the point where I can recite it verbatim.
Good morning, Miss Tierney. My name is Charles Worthington from Charleston, Blake, & Worthington.
It is with deepest condolences to inform you that your mother has passed away.
There will be a ceremony and burial service on Sunday at the Titan family estate.
Mr. Titan hopes you will be able to attend and has offered the use of his private jet. The reading of the will…
Death mail by text message. From an attorney. Kind of cold. Then again, I’ve always been an afterthought to my mother. Even deceased.
It doesn’t matter how many times I look at the text, the sadness and lamentation don’t come. Shouldn’t I feel…something? Shed at least one tear for the woman who gave birth to me? But it’s hard to conjure emotions about a woman I barely know.
Days after my father died, my mother shipped me off to a boarding school in Switzerland.
I was ten. It wasn’t even a month after Papa was lowered into the ground before she carved out a new life for herself with a new husband and his children.
I was left behind. Forgotten. Like I never existed, except for the annual, obligatory birthday card in March and the Christmas card I would get in December that came with a small, wrapped gift.
A snow globe. Always a fucking snow globe. I have ten of them.
Boarding school became my home, my teachers surrogate parents, the students my found family.
I never once came back to the States, not even for holidays or summer break.
Out of sight, out of mind, I guess. I lost my father, and my mother didn’t want me.
It fucked me up mentally. Big time. A psychologist would have a field day untangling all the emotional trauma that I carry around.
At least she made the effort to set up a custodial trust fund that would ensure my tuition and room and board was promptly paid every year.
I was also given a monthly allowance to use for whatever.
Other than for food, I saved every penny.
Started investing when I was eighteen. I already have millions stashed away in an offshore account.
Swiping through folders, I pull up the picture I downloaded and stare at the photograph. It was taken at a charity event a few weeks ago. My mother’s happiness beams up at the man standing beside her, his arm loosely draped around the trim waist of her red satin cut-out gown.
Light-brown hair cut to businesslike perfection. Dark blue eyes. Tall. Distinguished. Ruggedly handsome. Julius Titan. My stepfather. A man I’ve never met before, not even at the wedding that I was not allowed to attend.
But I know exactly who he is. Capo di tutti capi.
Head of the Titani familia. A fact only people in the underworld know.
To everyone else, he is a philanthropic businessman.
A leader in real estate, finance, and security because diversification is the key to success.
Can’t have all your eggs in one basket. Those types of businesses are also gold mines of opportunity.
Weapons trafficking, money laundering, total control over the pipelines for both.
I never fully understood the world I grew up in because I saw it through the rose-tinted lenses of a child who was more concerned about playing with her dolls and running through the back gardens to find butterflies.
I didn’t see the men with Glocks who were always around or how those men stood a little taller in the presence of my father and addressed him as “sir.”
To me, Sean Tierney was Papa. My dad. The burly man with blond hair and a lopsided smile who would sneak me candy when my mother scolded me.
The man who read books to me at bedtime and turned every story into the grandest of adventures.
All the hugs and kisses and laughter and snuggles and tickles he gave that made me feel safe and loved and cherished.
My father was my entire world…until the day a precisely aimed bullet ground my world to a halt, and it ceased to spin.
Bookending my mother and Julius in the photo are his three sons.
Trent, Lukas, and Sawyer. All adults. All insanely gorgeous.
Trent is the oldest, early thirties, the responsibility of being the firstborn son of a don showing by the way he stands rigid and unsmiling in his tailored formalwear.
Lukas is the middle child. He and Trent look most like their father.
Then there is the youngest, Sawyer, with the flashy smirk that spells trouble.
He looks nothing like his brothers. A mama’s boy.
I’ve seen an old picture of Naomi Titan.
Raucous cheers rise up from the group of men watching the football game playing on the wide-screen mounted to the far wall, so I almost don’t hear the question from the guy sitting next to me.
“Family?”
I quickly flip the phone facedown onto the bar. “Not exactly.” Not to me. They are all strangers. Even my own mother. No way to rectify that because she’s dead.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to be nosy,” the guy says when the bartender comes back with my drink. “Put that on my tab.”
Mr. Flirty’s eyebrow arches in my direction, waiting for me to agree or disagree.
I turn to face the auburn-haired stranger who has decided to invade my solitude. “Thank you, but I can buy my own beer.”
He sips his Pilsner, and I’m immediately drawn to the intricate ink decorating his forearms. Tangles of thorny vines snake their way up from his wrist and disappear under the rolled-up sleeve of his black Henley.
He doesn’t fit with the other polished people here, so of course, that piques my interest.
“My way of apologizing,” he says.
Not one to pass up a free drink, I take the pint glass from the bartender with a subtle nod. “Apology accepted.”
“Local?” the guy asks.
“Just passing through.”
He scrapes off the corner of the label on his beer bottle with his fingernail. “So, I shouldn’t ask you any questions about what to do for fun around here.”
I can’t stop my grin. “You seem to be doing just fine with asking questions.”
Dimples dent his cheeks. “If I apologize again, I’ll have to buy you another drink.”
Hope laces his sentence, and I know I need to shut it down politely. “I’m good with this one.” Which I won’t drink. I don’t care for the taste of beer, but when in Rome, as they say.
“I’m Colin, by the way.”