Captive Crown (Mafia Lords of Sin #14)

Chapter 1 Kaia

KAIA

“You’re not going to win this.” My best friend Anya leans so far forward that her glasses slide down to the end of her button nose and she places three cards, a six, seven, and eight, down on the table between us.

We’re nestled on our favorite plush cushions, surrounded by snacks and drinks, and pretending I don’t have a forgery to tackle in the morning while she sleeps in.

“Wanna bet?” Playfully narrowing my eyes, I wink at her and then quickly scan my own cards.

Frustrating doubles stare back at me, taunting me with the possibility of a win but lacking the third card I need to complete each run.

My ace and two misses its three, my jack and king lack a queen, and my seven and nine wait for their missing eight. At this rate, Anya’s definitely going to win.

Like most game nights.

Sucking on the inside of my cheek, I relent under her unwavering gaze and snatch up a card from the deck.

A five.

There’s no hiding my disappointment when I set down my seven and Anya immediately snatches it up with a cheer.

“Told you.” She grins as she slaps a five, a six, and my old seven down onto the table. “I’m winning.”

“You’re getting too cocky,” I warn her, shifting my weight from one side to the other to ease the building cramp in my crossed legs.

“I’m not!” Anya straightens up indignantly and pushes her glasses back up her nose. “I’m reveling in my victory.”

“Two runs in a row doesn’t secure a victory.” The next card from the deck is the queen I’ve been waiting for, and I slap the three cards down. “See?”

Anya grumbles, and after an unsuccessful card draw she sets a three down onto the upturned cards, which I immediately add to my hand.

“Unless this is part of your trick,” I say, grinning widely as my next draw gives me another seven and I set down my complete ace, two and three. “You’re not going easy on me, are you?”

“With Rummy?” Anya snorts in amusement. “I never go easy on you.”

“Liar. You always go easy on me.”

“Only when Vic is around.” She winks at me while drawing another card. “Can’t have you looking like a bad card player in front of your brother.”

“So last week when we were playing poker…?”

Anya lowers her cards and lazily leans back against the pillows she propped up against the couch, yawning slightly. “Are you asking me if I let you win at poker because you want to know if you beat Vic legitimately or because you want to know if you beat me?”

The fireplace to our left crackles slightly as logs shift and break down under the heat.

With hot cocoa warming my belly and the fire lulling me into a sleepy state, I’m one card game away from calling it quits and heading to bed. “Both?” I say uncertainly. “Maybe just Vic.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you, but I did throw my hand so you could win,” Anya sighs smugly. “In fact I don’t think you’ve ever beaten me fair and square.”

“You lie!” Laughter bubbles inside me. “You can’t tell me I don’t have skill.”

“A bad skill, sure,” Anya replies with a giggle. “We don’t all have talent for cards.”

“Talent? I have talent!”

“Oh really?” Anya’s smile turns coy. “Because I’ve yet to see it in any of our games. In fact—!”

The rest of her words, light and soft, vanish with the crash of the lounge door flying open behind me with such a loud bang that I jump right out of my skin.

Comfort brought on by an evening of good food, greater company, and a cozy log fire, evaporates as I spin in my cushion nest to the source of the interruption.

My older brother, Vic, stands panting heavily in the doorway.

His dark hair is streaked back from his forehead, his eyes so wide and wild that the whites are visible all the way around his pupils.

Blood pours down the side of his face from a large gash on his forehead, while dirt and sweat soak into his half-open blue shirt, turning the fabric a muddy shade.

“Vic?!” I’m on my feet in seconds, stumbling over the blankets I’d wrapped around myself in the blissful nest I’d created. “What happened to you?”

“Kaia!”

My name bursts from his bruised lips just as a deafening explosion bursts to life just outside the lounge window.

Half a second later, the explosion crashes through the bay windows with such force that I’m wrenched off my feet and cast up into the air like I’m absolutely weightless.

Vic vanishes from my line of sight, and Anya’s scream rises up from somewhere beneath me then is immediately cut off as I hurtle through the air.

I land hard, shoulder first, a few feet from the fireplace, crashing down onto the coffee table that crumples under the force of my landing.

Everything on it—the glass vase of daisies, the drinking glasses we’d left there, and a few of my aunt’s porcelain figurines—all shatter under my weight, slicing and cutting deeply into the arm I land on.

Pain’s an afterthought to the panic-fueled instinctual act of curling up and protecting my head with my arm from the falling debris.

Glass and splintered wood rain down around me, followed by chunks of brick and plaster ripped out of the wall from the force of the explosion.

It’s deafening as the initial explosion is followed by two more, each like a gigantic booming firework far too close to me.

Panic grips me like a vice, and the two seconds I lie there covering my head, drag on for an eternity.

We’re under attack.

I don’t need details to know that.

Who would attack us here?

No one would dare be so bold, would they?

Surely only someone with a death wish would bring an attack like this to the doorstep of the Yudkin manor.

Move, I scream at myself as debris continues to fall around me in slow motion, floating as if the bricks and glass shards are nothing more than snowflakes. Get up and move!

I need something.

Something to defend myself with.

Where though?

Behind the bar.

Uncle Antov keeps a gun behind the bar.

I’ve seen him with it a few times when he’s been hiding here instead of at home, drinking late at night and avoiding Aunt Kara.

A chunk of brick crashes down next to me and breaks me out of a daze abruptly enough to kick me into action.

Shoving up onto my hands and knees, I desperately crawl over wood splinters and glass shards as quickly as I can, heading toward the bar at the far end of the lounge.

Heat licks at my bare arms and legs while smoke pours in from the source of the explosion, blinding me and clogging my lungs.

Each desperate gasp for air as I crawl ignites a tickle in my throat and by the time I reach the bar, I’m coughing violently.

Gun. Gun, gun, gun, where does he keep the fucking gun?

Bottles shake and clatter as I shove them aside searching each nook for where Antov keeps the gun.

Whiskey, Bourbon, Vodka; it’s all in the way and each bottle I frantically shove aside from the shelf spikes my terror as the weapon remains hidden.

“Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck.” This wouldn’t have happened if I had my gun on me.

I should have had it on me, but it’s so late. Anya and I were in our pajamas enjoying hot cocoa and card games before bed.

Danger shouldn’t ever reach us this far into the estate yet here it is, bringing my home down around my ears.

Another explosion outside makes me squeal in fright and I jerk back, ripping the drawer in my hands right out of its home.

Cutlery clatters to the floor around my bare legs along with the heavy thud of the handgun I was searching for, and relief floods up like a wave as I grab the weapon and settle the familiar weight in my palm.

Defense secured.

I have to find Anya and Vic and get out of here—!

A sudden shadow moves to my right and a figure emerges from the smoke.

As instinct takes over and I raise the gun, it’s immediately slapped out of my hand.

Before I can react, a hand grabs my shoulder and jerks me in close enough that the stranger’s features melt into familiarity.

“Vic?” I gasp with a cough. “Vic!”

“Kaia! Come on, we have to go!” he yells so loud in my face, yet it’s nothing compared to the deafening roar that’s filling the air.

“What’s happening?” I yell back.

“Up!” His hand moves from my shoulder down to my arm.

As he hauls me to my feet, the pain from my glass injuries flares hot and sharp all the way down to my wrist.

I find my balance, and Vic winces and I glimpse the source of his pain.

He’s been shot.

Blood pours down his chest, darkening his shirt to as black as the sky outside, but he doesn’t seem to notice or care as he drags me out from behind the bar.

His own raised gun leads the way as we stumble together back around the bar, my bare feet slipping on broken stone, razor-sharp glass, and torn wood.

“Come on!” Vic yells, jerking me forward so violently that I immediately lose my footing and crash straight down to the ground while throwing my hands out to catch myself.

I cry out, choking on the thick smoke as it swallows us up.

For a second, I lose sight of Vic until a gust of wind rushes in from the hole in the lounge and takes the smoke screen with it.

I spot Vic at the same time he spots me and his iron grip returns to my arm.

He hauls me upward, his lips moving and he yells something I don’t hear because, as he drags me up, I see her.

Anya.

She’s a few feet away, lying flat on her back surrounded by playing cards shriveling up under the flames that consume them.

Her eyes are wide open, staring unseeing and unblinking up at a ceiling that’s threatening to cave under the weight of the crystal chandelier.

If not for the deep gouge from the wooden stake, a shard from the window frame, protruding from her abdomen, she’d look peaceful.

As if I’d caught her in a moment of blissful contemplation.

“Her glasses,” I choke against the smoke as it descends again. “She needs—Vic, her glasses—!”

Just as I spot them lying shattered a few feet away, the smoke closes down like a curtain and she vanishes from sight.

Vic, tired of my delay, forcefully drags me with him out of the lounge and into the hall.