Crimson Possession (Blood Mafia Family #2)

Prologue

War changes men.

Some slowly, like rust working its way through steel. Others all at once, in a single strike that shatters everything they thought they knew.

For us, it had been both.

The war with the demons had been brewing long before Roman brought Layla into our lives, but she was the spark that turned it into an inferno.

The moment he claimed her, the game shifted.

The Irish mafia moved against us, thinking they could take a piece of what was ours.

The demons, led by Malakai, slipped in through the chaos, testing our borders, testing our patience.

They made a mistake.

They had the audacity and touched her. Hurt her. Roman nearly burned the city to ash that night, and we all stood with him. Demons died and the streets ran black with vengeance until their leaders hid in the shadows.

I played my role, as I always do, three steps ahead, seeing the angles before anyone else. We shut down demon nests and choked the Irish’s supply lines. Took back territory and made them pay for every inch they’d tried to take from us.

But war isn’t just bullets and blades. It’s the spaces in between, the quiet moments where you think it might finally be over… until it isn’t.

Roman got his victory. He took Connor Flannery’s head for daring to threaten his mate. Layla gave him a son, the next generation of our bloodline. And for the first time in a long time, I thought maybe we could breathe.

But there’s one thing you learn when you’ve lived in the shadows as long as we have, and that is that enemies don’t vanish. They wait. They hide like the cowards they are, and they rebuild.

And sometimes, you don’t find the war. The war finds you.