Chapter 2
Two
F our Months Ago
Xander
“Any news on Chicago?” Andraius Angelos, the current head of Angelos Shipping, asked during our regular Monday morning briefing.
The fucker loved his briefings, running this operation as if it were some nine-to-five corporation instead of the twenty-four-hour hands-on syndicate it truly was.
Idiot.
But if that was how he wanted it, my best friend Theo Nephus and I would run it that way. Or let him believe we carried things out in that fashion.
“Nothing yet,” I answered.
A frown marred Andraius’s face. “How is that possible?”
Under Theo and I, the different teams reported to Andraius what we believed was necessary. Then they carried out what we told them to do. This moron had eroded his power bit by bit, never even realizing what he was doing. As far as this organization was concerned, he was a lame-duck boss, a figurehead, and none the wiser.
Fucker. And he’d done it all to himself, thinking he was so smart.
He’d shipped us off to manage everything internationally the moment he’d slithered into his seat. What dumbass gave near twenty-four-year-olds that much control?
“I have a few loyalists in key locations keeping tabs on things. None of your brothers are sending any of the Stratos collective to challenge your place.”
He was a paranoid fucker, constantly worried about the family he’d abandoned for his current position of power instead of focusing on everyone around him.
“I don’t trust any of them. The fact we’re family means nothing to them. Given the opportunity, they’d stab me in the back as if I didn’t notice how Tobias sucked up to me at the party last month. They’re trying to muscle their way into the East Coast.”
Well, surprise, surprise. He finally figured out that his nephew Tobias was the real power behind the Stratos Family. Andraius’s brothers played a minor role in operations while the empire belonged to the children, led by Tobias.
We’d had a run-in or two with Tobias in our youth, and that fucker had no qualms about using every dirty trick in the book to get his way. From what I’d learned of the adult version of him, he followed the same tactics. He ran the Chicago outfit by undercutting and cheating his allies, not realizing he left a trail of enemies gunning for his blood.
I guessed stupidity ran in Andraius’s bloodline.
“That boy needs to step out from his father’s shadow and take over the organization. He’s too old to play errand boy all the time.”
Correction, this jackass knew zilch about how the Stratos organization ran.
How the fuck had he orchestrated the Angelos coop? This moron couldn’t have been the mastermind behind it.
Christ, I needed a drink to get through this meeting.
“Thankfully, I can count on you two.” Andraius nodded as if he’d done something right. “I wasn’t so sure about sending you off to represent us, but damn, trusting the two of you with my interests was probably the best thing I could have done. No matter what, I know you have the family’s best interests in every decision you make.”
As if he’d had any other choice but to trust us. He’d killed all the people who knew any fucking thing about the organization.
No, that wasn’t true. Andraius had allowed Pops to live. Somehow, my father had convinced this jackass that our family’s undying loyalty to the Angelos family translated to him.
It had taken us a few years, but we’d worked our way through the various networks. First, we’d had to battle the stigma of being traitors, which still gutted me.
Once people saw where our loyalties honestly sat, things shifted faster than Theo and I could ever imagine. We’d maneuvered and formed alliances to back us when we ultimately set our trap in motion to take down this betrayer.
It was only fitting for us to double-cross a double-crosser. And on top of everything else we’d lost, we no longer had each other or her .
“We appreciate the recognition, sir,” I responded as I leaned back in my chair and studied the asshole on the other side of the desk.
How Andraius used the word trust and never choked on it always surprised me. He was an interloper. A man who’d changed his name to occupy a seat meant for someone else.
The reasons the people of Angelos Shipping, more widely known as the Angelos Syndicate, hadn’t revolted against him all revolved around keeping the true heirs to the organization alive.
We’d let him blow smoke up our asses if it kept the fucker thinking he was the big man on campus.
“How is our progress with the negotiations with the Greek suppliers?” Andraius studied the paperwork on his table.
“Everything is going as planned. Security is in place for your arrival in Cyprus.” Theo spoke this time.
After a slight pause, Theo added, “However, I urge caution.”
I almost rolled my eyes at the corporateness of this conversation. I fucking missed the days when I could say, “Boss, it’s better to watch your back and keep the deal quiet so outsiders don’t learn of it and try to fuck it up.”
“Meaning?”
“I suggest you reconsider the trip and finish the final paperwork in Boston. The security risks are higher than normal, considering the parties involved in the deal. The Drakoses have an estate in the suburbs outside Boston, and news is less likely to leak.”
Andraius considered Theo’s words, nodded, and said, “I’ll consider it. It may come to that if I don’t solve another problem on my table.”
I waited for him to drop whatever issue he had waiting for us to handle.
An actual boss showed up to the negotiation tables as the head of an organization, but he let Theo mediate for the family, so we’d go with it.
But fuck. I was tired. And the last thing I wanted was to get on another flight.
Could he give me more than a week in Boston at a time? I’d barely had a decent conversation with Pops and Mama since everything happened almost five years ago.
But as Pops would tell me, this was the role I’d trained for and then inherited as part of my duties to the Angelos family. I came from four generations of Onassis men and women who had never and would never falter in their loyalty to the Angeloses.
Hell, Theo’s family had followed the same traditions even longer. The Nephus family went back to the inception of the Angelos Syndicate back in Greece.
Our two families’ legacies were to fight with and protect the Angeloses.
Only once had they failed. Not quite five years ago, when some of our own betrayed us and helped the fucker sitting before us to pull off his plan.
But at least I could say Pops had fought a good fight. He’d come out with nearly fatal wounds as he’d tried to shield little Linus. It had broken his heart to learn one of the bullets had pierced through him and into the kid.
Theo’s pop, Theios Mik, hadn’t been so lucky. He’d died protecting our Angel and her sisters. He’d stood between them and this bastard before me.
One day, I’d make this fucker pay. No, Theo deserved the honors. He’d lost his only parent that day. I still had both of mine. He’d also lost his three brothers. Even if they weren’t close, they were his family. Now, he was the last of his line outside of Greece.
“Let us hear your problem, and we will come up with a solution,” I coaxed.
Andraius kept quiet for a few seconds, then shook his head. I knew this whole pausing shit was all for dramatic effect.
This guy represented the biggest cliche in mob life ever fucking described. How had he spawned from one of the most influential organizations in Chicago? This shit truly was a waste of space.
When he finally finished with this, whatever he wanted to call it, Andraius said with a sigh as if he held the weight of the world on his shoulders, “My wife.”
Immediately, my back went up.
His wife. Nerine
I resisted the urge to clench my jaw.
His wife.
The woman he’d forced to marry him at gunpoint. The woman who meant more to Theo and me than anything on earth.
Our Angel.
The blood heir to the organization.
Anger surged in the pit of my gut, along with guilt and shame. I’d let her down. I let her believe I was the enemy. I’d promised to always stand by her and be her rock, her best friend.
I’d fucking failed her, and this fucker forced himself upon her when I wasn’t even in the damn area.
My throat burned as the rage continued to build, and only years of hard-earned training kept me from giving any of my true feelings away or reaching across the desk and bashing the bastard’s face in.
“I want you two to watch Nerine at all times, day and night,” Andraius ordered. “She’s up to something, and I want to know everything she is doing.”
Was he fucking serious? He planned to demote the two people who ran his organization while he pretended to be lord of the manor to watch his wife.
Okay, yes, the woman happened to be one of the loves of my life. But this made no damn sense.
A throbbing ignited in my head. What the fuck was he up to?
“She has around-the-clock security teams keeping tabs on her. The reports say she is clean.”
Theo and I knew everything that went on in her life. Circumstances had forced us apart, but that hadn’t meant we weren’t aware of her every move.
Over the last nearly five years, Theo and I had watched the light leave her eyes. She’d become a cold, yet combative version of the spitfire, takes-no-one’s-shit person she was before the coup. According to our men, she directed most of her ire toward Andraius. She hated him and had no problem letting him know her feelings. There were no traces of the girl with the wicked humor who laughed easily.
She believed we were her enemies by aligning ourselves with Andraius and becoming his right-hand men. We had seen the anger and the hurt every time we caught her looking in our direction during the first year of her marriage.
I would have given anything to tell her the truth, but giving away our secret would put her in danger.
However, the time of watching Nerine and her sisters suffer would soon come to an end. The right players were maneuvering into position, and then the trap would be sprung.
Then our Angel would finally get the chance to gain her wings back.
Andraius had ripped them to shreds over the years, something I’d never forgive.He had no idea the depth of what I imagined doing to him, inch by microscopic inch.
“She has that team wrapped around her finger, and I don’t trust them.”
I narrowed my gaze. “My father’s soldiers are beyond loyal. He doesn’t tolerate deception, and neither do I. And they know the consequences if they do.”
“Yes, yes.” Andraius chuckled. “No one wants to end up in your Caves. Maybe I should bring Nerine down there to watch you work, and then she’ll straighten up. I doubt she has the stomach to handle a discipline session.”
I glanced for a fraction of a second in Theo’s direction. He kept a stoic expression on his face, giving nothing away. However, I knew what he thought of that suggestion.
Bringing Nerine down to the Caves would only serve to remind everyone who the true Angelos heir was. No matter what Andraius believed, changing his name would never solidify his claim to the seat.
In the eyes of the organization, he’d remain the backstabbing betrayer Andraius Stratos. First, he’d weaseled his way in by marrying Angelos’s cousin, and then, when she died in childbirth, he’d decided to stay. After that, he’d pretended his undying loyalty to Peter Angelos, our beloved boss, all the while setting up people to overthrow him.
When Andraius took over, he’d made everyone swear allegiance to the Angelos Family, not him. To us, the Angelos Family were Peter’s surviving children. His daughters, Nerine, Christina, Ariana, and Fiona. Giving them our absolute fidelity took nothing from us.
We’d do what it took to protect them and the family’s legacy. Theios Peter had named Nerine his heir, even if Greek syndicate practices didn’t traditionally accept female leaders of an organization, business, or syndicate. Then again, Theios Peter had no choice but to modernize his views, having had four girls in the family and no sons for most of his life. Even after Linus’s unexpected birth, he’d never altered his perception.
“Would you like the visit to the Caves arranged? This way the men will know to expect your wife’s arrival,” Theo asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.
The glare he shot me said Andraius had been waiting for my response, and Theo had to jump in before he noticed that I’d spaced out.
Theo preferred to watch and rarely spoke unless absolutely necessary.
Well, the only exception was with Nerine. But then again, she’d gotten under his skin when she hit fourteen and he was seventeen. So his teenage way of dealing with his attraction to the then-boss’s daughter was to needle her until she tried to punch him.
Enemies to lovers, at its finest.
Then there was me on the other end of the spectrum. The best friend, the one who watched out for her, the one who’d beat a motherfucker to a pulp for picking on her.
She was the one person who saw past my bulldozer exterior and allowed me to care for her. The polished one fought with her nonstop, and the brute cuddled her.
Even before our Angel turned us into a trio, my relationship with Theo went beyond that of best friends. We felt more and wanted more. It wasn’t until we hit high school that we acted on it. Then Nerine blew into our world, throwing both of us off balance.
We loved her, and she felt the same for us. Our unconventional relationship worked.
“Yes,” Andraius answered with a smirk. “Set it up for some time in the next few weeks. I want to spring it on her. Keep her on her toes.”
Fucking manipulative bastard.
“Back to watching her. I want the two of you to take over personally.”
He was serious about this.
“What about our duties to you? Aren’t those priorities?” I asked.
The last time I’d played any security detail duty, I was in the middle of puberty. By the time I left high school, enforcement had become part of my weekly routine and then turned into my full-time gig by my first year of college.
“You’ll suspend travel unless it is absolutely necessary. As for your duties, I know you two are well-versed in multitasking. So delegate things others won’t fuck up and handle everything else as you normally do.”
Meaning he planned to continue to sit on his ass, take all the credit, and let Theo and I do all the work.
Theo moved closer to the desk. “Is there something you aren’t telling us, sir? Is there a threat against Nerine you need us to eliminate? If so, I will have my top men prioritize research and data collection before disposal.”
I had to give it to him. He had a way of being diplomatic, even when talking about slaughtering a fucker for information. And the smile on Andraius’s lips said he was eating up all the bullshit European genteel training.
I wouldn’t say I hadn’t learned the same lessons. I just chose not to use them in front of this dick. The ability to fake polish and charm only lasted as long as the means justified the ends. Andraius viewed me as his muscle and strategist.
Being the rough, unrefined one of the Theo-Xander duo worked in my favor.
He’d realize soon enough the calm ones were the people to worry about. They hid their darker sides. When Theo joined me in the Caves, he garnered answers ten times quicker than anyone else I knew.
I played the psycho for Andraius, but the true unhinged one sat next to me.
“Nyx Mykos-Drakos seems to have taken an interest in Nerine.”
Good for Nerine. She needed someone like Nyx in her life.
Nyx took shit from no one.
And as the wife of Simon Drakos, the head of one of the largest Greek syndicates on the east coast of the United States, it was either hold your own with the man known as the master of death and fortune or get run over. Nyx was also the daughter of Phillip “the surgeon” Mykos and sister to Tyler Mykos, who ran another large syndicate. The alliance between the two families made them the most powerful group in the eastern half of the United States if not the whole country.
I could only hope Nyx’s influence would help Nerine to drop her guard. The shield she wore around herself could only protect her so far. She needed companionship and friendship, something Andraius had gone out of his way to prevent these past five years. He enjoyed isolating her, making her believe she had no one. He believed if he broke her, he’d have a weak, compliant wife to do his bidding. Except what he received was a woman who chose seclusion over companionship and a public facade of unapproachableness.
“I need you to be my eyes and ears whenever they meet.”
I held Andraius’s stare, letting him know I believed my involvement in this was pointless.
He needed me too much to flip out on me. He knew it as much as I did.
“These are duties our men already handle. They give you a detailed accounting of her activities whenever she is out and about.” I paused and added, “Or does this have to do with Simon Drakos?”
Andraius believed his alliance with the Drakoses would truly cement his power over the Angelos Organization. Then he’d no longer have the specter of his predecessor’s achievements haunting him.
Too bad, he’d yet to figure out that Simon Drakos only tolerated him.
“Of course, it has to do with him. I want you to make sure Nerine doesn’t fuck up all the progress I’ve made with Drakos by pissing off his wife. I need that deal signed, and Drakos is soft for Nyx. I want Nerine to keep her happy.”
I resisted the urge to shake my head and clock this moron. He had no clue about the players of the world.
Anyone with a grain of sense would know Drakos wasn’t a man led around by his balls. From the first moment I encountered him, I understood the only way Nyx could influence anything with him was if someone targeted her. Then all hell would break loose.
Outside of that situation, the couple kept their boundaries.
Nyx liked to dabble in things that she’d rather her husband not get involved in.
The fact that Andraius hadn’t picked up simple cues would make it so much easier when we executed our plan in a few months.
“Why would she endanger this relationship?” The coolness in Theo’s tone came out in his standard unemotional way, but the flash of annoyance in his silver eyes screamed he’d had enough of the digs against Nerine.
The time and distance hadn’t lessened his guilt and anger for not being here when everything had gone down. And every slight against Nerine added fuel to the fire.
“My wife is stubborn and prefers challenging me at inappropriate times. I wouldn’t put it past her to offend Drakos’s wife to spite me.” He shook his head. “Of Angelos’s four daughters, I ended up with the standoffish, cold bitch of the group. What are the damn odds? I’d wonder if she had a pulse if she didn’t have that viper’s mouth. I hope she gets pregnant soon. It’s like fucking a venom-filled whore with ice in her veins.”
Motherfucker.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
I continued to count backward in my mind until I calmed down enough to focus without seeing red and then asked, “How do you want us to manage Nerine, sir?”
“You two grew up with her. I’m sure you can get her to let her guard down and convince her to be nice.”
“We aren’t nice men.” Theo’s deadpan tone almost had my irritation leveled out enough to smile. “And we barely knew her. We ran in different circles.”
“No matter. You aren’t strangers to her. She will be comfortable around you. You can report her activities and, at the same time, spy on the Drakoses while you’re at it. It’s a win-win.”
I released an exasperated breath, noticing Andraius narrow his gaze at me but keeping his mouth shut.
“This is a waste of our time. I’ll put a new group of my best men on her. They won’t lie. They grew up around her, too. Theo and I have better shit to do than babysit an errant wife.”
Andraius slammed his hand on his desk. Guess I pushed him too far.
“You will do as I say. I want her watched. She has her current team wrapped around her finger. They do everything she tells them, and I don’t believe they are reporting everything she does. I know she’s taking something to keep herself from getting pregnant. They lie for her.”
“My men don’t lie,” I pushed back, matching his ire and daring him to insult my soldiers again. “As I said, they know the consequences. I’ve already agreed to switch out her team.”
Loyalty to my people remained paramount in my world. They put their lives on the line for the family daily, and I refused to let anyone insult them.
Fuck this asshole.
“Then prove it to me and watch her. I trust you two, not them. If your findings are the same, put her original team back on her.”
Knowing I no longer had any patience left for the dick in front of me, Theo set an elbow on the end of Andraius’s desk as if no explosion had occurred and stated, “She isn’t going to like it. Her preferences for routine and schedules over sudden changes are well-known in the organization.”
“She’ll do as I say. And if she gives you any trouble, let me know. I’ll have a word with her.” He flipped through some paperwork on his desk. “Now, let’s discuss some information I want you to gather at the Drakos estate tonight.”
“Does this mean we are starting our duties effective immediately?” Theo continued his corporate speak.
And thank God because I had no fucks left to give after what Andraius had said about Nerine.
We’d had no choice but to stay away. Pops knew how close we were to her. Well, maybe not the full extent of the relationship, but he believed we were best friends. And he thought if Andraius had gotten one whiff of it, he’d have killed us on the spot.
“Partially. I’ll head over with her and my team. You’ll come in with the rest of the security personnel and work on the tasks we’ll discuss. Then, at the end of the evening, you will bring Nerine home.”
“In other words, this is another thing you plan to spring on her.” I let the disgust in my voice show. “This isn’t going to make your wife like you.”
“I don’t care about her liking me. I want her to know I can make her life very difficult if she doesn’t start behaving.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, Theo and I walked down the corridor leading out into the main foyer of the Angelos Estate house.
“I thought my hate for the bastard couldn’t get any stronger,” I muttered, pushing down the urge to grind my teeth together.
“Yeah, well. He tends to outdo himself at every turn.”
“Pops isn’t going to like this.” I ran a hand through my hair as we veered into the hallway leading into the security section of the compound where Pops kept his office.
“Has Theios Alex liked anything that’s happened over the last five years?” Theo asked. “I’m not sure we can be near her without giving it away.”
“What choice do we have?”
“She’s not ours, Xander.”
“She will always be ours.”
“We can’t touch her.”
“No, we can’t.” I gripped the back of my neck, closed my eyes briefly, and released a deep breath, hoping he wouldn’t avoid answering the question as usual. “And what about us?”
“What about it?” Theo kept his focus in front of him. “It’s the three of us or nothing.”
“How is this going to work? We can’t avoid being around each other for long periods anymore.”
“Exactly as it has for the last five years.”
“Meaning?”
“Pretend our history with the Angel or each other never happened. You made that call. Now we’re sticking with it.”
After the coup, it felt as if the world had shattered around me. Losing Theios Peter and little Linus broke my heart, then so many people we loved and cared for. And the worst was we hadn’t protected Nerine.
I couldn’t handle the guilt, or the heartache. And instead of turning to Theo and talking to him about how we would live life without Nerine, I made the decision that unless we were all together, there wasn’t a relationship.
I’d realized the mistake I’d made almost immediately, but the damage was done.
And it seemed Theo wasn’t going to ever forgive me even after five years and countless apologies.
Deciding to change the subject, I said, “She’s going to give us hell.”
“Thanks, Sherlock. As if I hadn’t figured that out. She thinks we betrayed and abandoned her. I wouldn’t be surprised if she hated us.”
“Hopefully, she’ll stay calm when Andraius drops the bomb about the detail change.” I pictured her face for a moment. “She’s going to lose her shit.”
“Maybe she’ll keep it together long enough to let us explain it was for her own good. That everything we’ve done has been to keep her safe,” Theo contemplated, and then, before I could tell him he was fooling himself, he spoke again. “She’ll pull a gun on me if I say that crap to her.”
I said nothing, feeling the weight of the last few years settle on my shoulders.
Then Theo added, “She has to love us still, or she wouldn’t watch us when she thinks no one will notice. She’ll forgive us.”
I cocked a brow as if he’d lost his mind. “You know, there is a thin line between love and hate. We can only hope the love hasn’t morphed into hate.”