Breaking the Annulment (Conquered Kings #1)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

“ M y sons,” rasped Chrysanthos Giannopoulos.

Michalis stood to the side as paramedics worked frantically to save his father’s life, their expressions grim. The sterile scent of antiseptic mingled with the metallic tang of blood as they secured an I.V. line in his father’s arm and placed an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth.

The air was thick with dread, the sounds of his father’s death rattle bearing down upon them like a storm ready to break, heavy with the promise of inevitable loss. It was a miracle his father was still conscious. The emergency bandages Michalis and his brothers had wrapped around their father’s wounds were already soaked with blood, a reminder of the fragility of power in their world. “We’re here, Father.”

“ I psychí mou ? My soul? Where is she?” Chrysanthos gasped, speckles of blood appearing on his lips as he coughed.

Michalis kept his feelings hidden out of habit, locked beneath a layer of icy control as he answered his father’s question. “I believe their plan was to take her directly to surgery. She has multiple gunshot wounds, and the blood loss is severe.”

He cleared his throat, wrestling to keep his anger and pain at bay as he watched his father struggle to hold onto life. Michalis had no love for his new stepmother, having met her two days before the wedding. True, she looked at his father like he’d hung the moon just for her, yet how a thirty-four-year-old woman could fall in love with a man nearly twice her age—especially one embroiled in a life of danger—was beyond Michalis’s comprehension.

He didn’t want to get married. Ever. He had brothers who could continue the Giannopoulos line. He’d rather cut off his leg and feed it to the ‘gators than take a wife. He would never endanger someone he loved. Their world was too dangerous, too violent. Wives became targets as they were often a man’s only visible weakness; one to be exploited. Children were even worse. His new stepmother and stepsister, Aurelia, were both prime examples of that. His father had only been married for three weeks, and already, there had been an attack; a shooting and a kidnapping .

None of his dark thoughts showed on his face.

Pain flashed across his father’s normally guarded features. “And Aurelia?”

Michalis’s lips thinned. He had no desire to cause his father any pain, but he had too much respect for him to lie. Slipping effortlessly into Greek so the emergency technicians wouldn’t understand their conversation, he admitted, “She was taken. We’re waiting for demands. Evidence points to the Bonetti family…”

“Maybe––” Chrysanthos wheezed––“not Bonetti.”

Michalis straightened. The police still didn’t know there’d even been a kidnapping, labeling the shooting a ‘botched’ home invasion. He knew better. Someone was about to succeed in taking down the head of the Giannopoulos crime family. Chrysanthos was pure Greek mafia, straight out of Athens.

If not their biggest rivals, the Bonettis, then who was declaring war on his family? They had already made the first move, taken the first shot, first prisoner. The police didn’t need to know Aurelia had been captured; they would interfere––get in the way of what had to be done.

A flicker of uncertainty flashed in his father’s eyes. “I think it was Victor Khomenko,” he wheezed. “He was… my Nadia’s past. Mafia Romaneasc? . Aurelia…doesn’t know.”

Romaneasc? ––the Romanian mob? Michalis exchanged sharp glances with Dimitris, his closest brother, silent communication coursing between them. He and his brothers were like a pack, ready to defend their territory, their loyalty unbreakable. He could almost taste the danger in the air—thick, acrid, like the smoke of embers, rising to engulf them.

“I’ve got forty men out there searching for her,” Michalis declared, his voice firm, unease prickling at the edges of his mind. “We will find her before they can get far.”

Chrysanthos’s face twisted in anguish, his words barely audible as he struggled to breathe, yet he pressed on. “My Nadia. I promised to keep her daughter safe––keep her out of this life. I promised I would not tell Aurelia about her father or the Romaneasc?. Now…now you must…honor,” he stopped wracking coughs made speech impossible. “My word…Giannopoulos …sacred.”

“Don’t try to talk, Baba . I understand. She will never know.”

As Michalis and his brothers clustered close, their figures outlined by the dimming light, the burden of their family’s legacy settled heavily on him. Occasional bloodshed was a way of life in their world, but what was coming was different. Whoever had Aurelia had just declared war.

“Honor my promise, Michalis––Chrysanthou Giannopoulos. Keep her safe,” Chrysanthos ordered, one last command piercing through the chaos.

Chrysanthou, son of Chrysanthos ––Michalis’s thoughts turned dark at the reference to his lineage, a reminder of his responsibilities, his duty, his heritage. “Whatever it takes,” he vowed, the words an unbreakable oath.