Covenant (The Firm #1)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

WYATT

“Did you see the body they found hanging from the overpass?”

The question isn’t directed at me. It’s not even in a conversation I’m a part of, but I hear it all the same. As does everyone in the near vicinity, I imagine.

It’s a stupid fucking question. Everyone at this party must’ve seen it. It’s been plastered all over the news for days now, there’s no escaping it. It’s almost as if whoever did it is fanning the flames of the fire, keeping it fresh in the public’s mind.

Likely because of the word crudely carved into the man’s chest.

Trafficker.

It might’ve been a stupid question, but it’s not as stupid as the response.

“From what I heard, it was the work of The Firm.”

I can’t see who spoke, but I can guess though. There aren’t many people who lack the appropriate brain cells to know that openly discussing The Firm is a bad idea.

Spinning on my heel, I give both Donald and Greg a withering look. “If that were the case, it’s not something we should be discussing here now, is it?”

Here, meaning in my penthouse apartment, surrounded by my colleagues and friends. These two fuckwits had barely scraped onto the guest list. It was only Jen’s insistence that we invite all the colleagues from my law firm that made me concede.

All around us, the party is unfolding with effortless grace. The countless hours Jen put in to organize this is paying off, something I’m sure she’s thrilled by. Everything from the monogrammed napkins to the 1920s-themed appetizers being passed out is exactly like her vision board.

Not that I give a fuck. I figured we’d have a small dinner to celebrate our engagement. As always with Jen, she had other plans.

Plans that made a sizeable dent in my bank balance. But it’s fine. If Jen is happy, then I’m happy.

Besides, my family is here. Well, the only family member I care about. From the corner of my eye, I seek out Jackson, checking in on him as I’ve been doing throughout the evening. At seventeen, my brother has his whole life ahead of him.

So long as he stays on the right side of the tracks.

Red colors Greg’s cheeks as he mutters something into his wine glass. Donald, however, once again proves that he never fucking knows when to stop talking.

“I’m just saying, who else would pull off such a stunt?”

I glare at them stonily. “And I’m just saying, that’s not a topic for tonight.”

“Wyatt is right.” The smooth voice at my side has my already tense muscles stiffening further. “Tonight is for celebration. Isn’t that right, Wy?”

I’m not the only one tense. Donald and Greg both pale, backing away a step.

I refuse to be cowed though. I plant my feet and turn to glare at the imposing man. He may like to tower over everyone, intimidating them with a simple look, but that won’t work with me. First, I am the same height as him. And second, the day I let Matthias Buckingham intimidate me is the day I’m put in the ground. “How many more times do I need to ask you to not call me that?”

Matthias’s ruthless smile is as cold as his eyes. “What’s wrong, Wy ? Afraid to admit we have a past?”

I grind my teeth together. Don’t rise. He’s trying to get you to bite.

As always with Matthias though, my tongue runs away with itself. “Afraid to admit that you’ve only bested me thanks to nepotism and having your life handed to you on a silver platter? That I’ve worked my ass off to get to where I am, rather than relying on my family’s name and money? No, Matthias, I’m not afraid to admit that.”

His mildly amused expression tells me I’ve reacted exactly as expected. Fuck, I hate that. I hate that after all this time, he sees straight through me. “Ah, clinging to your tragic backstory to cover up the truth. How typically Wyatt.”

Fury rolls through me, so visceral I almost choke on it. “There’s nothing else, Matthias. You made sure of that—remember?”

Something flashes in his eyes, something close to the boy he once was. The one I’d trusted. The one who’d ripped everything away from me.

But it’s smoothed away as a slender arm slides around my waist, the stony lines I now associate with him seeping back in. No, he’s no longer the boy I used to know. He died along with my faith in humanity that day.

“Now, now. I trust you’re all behaving?”

I drag my gaze away from Matthias and force my lips into a smile for my fiancée. “Of course, Jen.”

Matthias smirks, my words amusing him once more. “Wyatt and I were just catching up on old times.”

A small furrow creases Jen’s forehead. “Old times? I thought the two of you only met earlier this year.”

Earlier this year, when Matthias and his brothers bought out the company I work for. I started there as an intern years ago, slowly moving my way up the ladder one painfully excruciating rung at a time.

I’d almost made it, too. Partner had been so close I could have touched it.

However, Matthias—a man who only joined the company three months ago, at the behest of his siblings—was appointed in my stead.

If I didn’t hate him already, I would simply for that.

“We did.” I shoot Matthias a murderous glare, daring him to disagree. “I barely know this man.”

Matthias doesn’t say anything, just watches me as he takes a sip of expensive whiskey. His tailored jacket clings to his muscled frame, a dark lock of hair falling over his forehead. If anything, I wish he’d turned out hideous after everything he put me through, but no, he’s just as handsome as ever.

There’s a beat of awkward silence before Donald, who I forgot was even here, blurts out, “We were talking about The Firm.”

Jen rolls her beautiful blue eyes. “Oh, please. That old myth? Some mystical group who grants wishes to whoever asks? What a load of bullshit.”

“It’s not bullshit,” Donald says earnestly. “I knew a guy back in college. He asked them to pay off his student loans and they did.”

I know the man he’s talking about and what happened to him after. Everyone in the small city of St. Dismas knows. “Remind me, what price did he have to pay?”

Donald falters, his skin paling. He must’ve forgotten that part of the story—and the misfortune of every desperate fucker who walks that doomed path through the graveyard of St. Dismas Church to leave their wish under the brick.

The Firm, whoever they are, will grant you whatever you ask for. Money. A perfect score on a test. A promotion. A new identity. Murder. Kidnapping. Whatever you want, they find a way to give it to you.

But it always comes at a price. That’s what they all forget. When you ask for what you want, you don’t know what the cost will be, or when it will come.

Just that it will.

It always comes and you have no say in the matter.

And, if you don’t follow through on your end of the bargain, your life is forfeit.

Donald falls silent, like he finally remembers why The Firm shouldn’t be discussed so openly. They aren’t the mafia.

They are far worse.

They don’t live in the shadows. They are completely invisible.

The assumption is that it’s more than one person, due to the feats they’ve pulled off over the past several decades. But not a single person claims to have ever met any of them. Many have attempted to uncover their identities over the years but failed.

The Firm’s legacy goes back generations and is commonly seen as a myth.

But they are real. Working in law has introduced me to too many of their victims to believe they live only in legend.

One thing is certain—The Firm runs St. Dismas. There isn’t a soul within the city limits who can outrun or outsmart them. Especially when so many continually seek their unique services.

I pity those people. Desperate fools willing to gamble it all away. Even at my lowest, during that fateful night all those years ago, I didn’t consider it.

It’s not worth it. The things they can demand of you, the cost they might ask you for…nothing should make you that desperate. You’d have to be so very weak to succumb, and I would never.

I’m not fucking weak.

Jen gives a tinkling laugh. I’m not sure the others can hear the undercurrent of discomfort in it. “Goodness, what a topic of conversation for a party.”

“Indeed,” Matthias says smoothly. “Especially when we should be celebrating your love. After all, this is what you wanted, right, Wy?”

“Wy?” Jen chuckles, her gaze flicking between us uncertainly. “I didn’t know people call you that. Is that a work thing?”

I press a kiss to her temple, willing myself not to bite. Matthias almost took everything from me once. I’m not letting him under my skin. Not now. Not again. “No, darling. Come, let’s greet our guests.”

I don’t spare Matthias another thought. Nor Donald, Greg, or The Firm.

None of them matter.

Right now, I have the world at my feet. I’m next in line to be promoted. The penthouse I call home is a far cry from the trailer park I grew up in.

I have a beautiful woman at my side. In just six short months, she’ll be my wife.

Yes, everything is perfect. Matthias is nothing more than a smudge on a distant page from my past.

And that’s exactly where he’ll stay.