Chapter 1 BLACḲ VENOM
Lower East Side, Manhattan, New York City, Three Months Prior
Obsession is a disease. It writhes through the body like black venom, insidious and corrupting. Devotion curdles into fixation.
Until one day, it all ends in destruction.
“Boss, it’ll rain soon. If we don’t start—”
I lift a hand, and John immediately shuts up. He’s been my driver for the past five years. He should know better.
No one interrupts me as I watch her from the dark sedan, keeping my distance.
My poisonous obsession. The woman I hate.
Except for twenty-eight minutes a day when I let myself forget.
The Anderson princess graced a tiny Albanian café with her presence this dreary September New York morning. She clearly got fooled by the cozy exterior—red bricks, faded awnings, blue shutters—and completely missed the graffiti tagging the dumpsters and the questionable men idling in cars nearby.
I’m here because I finally got a name—and I’m going to collect.
But of course my zemer chooses this morning to drink her morning roast inside a front for the Albanian mob.
Lana laughs at something the waitress says. The girl is skittish, too young, too frightened, and unease flickers in my gut. I’ve seen these tells on my sister’s face before, and I’m hit with an urge to protect this woman from whatever she’s dealing with.
But then Lana gestures wildly, her face animated as she responds to the girl.
The stress melts off the waitress’s face, and she smiles.
I grip the book on my lap—Lana’s favorite book, a rendition of Hades and Persephone’s love story—wishing I could hear her laugh up close.
That’s what Lana Anderson does to you. She blazes into your life, all warmth, sunshine, and fucking roses, and you have no choice but to be mesmerized by her. I want to bottle her brightness, inject the essence into my veins, and let it wash over me.
An antidote to my obsession. Or the fatal dose.
But no, I can’t die yet. My one certainty is revenge. Everything else is an indulgence I’ve rationed to twenty-eight minutes each day.
She brings her cup to her lips, her pinkie finger sticking out like she’s having tea with royalty.
Close your eyes. Smell the coffee.
Lana’s eyes flutter shut, her lush lashes fanning across her ivory cheeks. A small smile tips her lips as she inhales. I can almost hear her audible sigh of contentment.
One small sip. Lick your lips. Then go in for a fuller taste.
My breathing quickens.
Her thick brown hair cascades down her back in silky waves as she takes the tiniest sip, her eyes brightening with delight, then goes back for another taste with gusto, downing the rest of her drink in one gulp.
My lips twitch into a smile. This is my favorite part, because it reminds me of the past I lost. But I don’t think about that, because right now, that past is still within grasp.
Nothing else matters.
Lana bites her full lip, her face flushing. I know what she’s thinking, because she told me almost twenty years ago.
“Kian! Stop laughing.” She stuffs the rest of the chocolates into her mouth, cheeks bulging.
She looks like a cute little chipmunk.
“How embarrassing,” she manages once she swallows, eyes sparkling. “Mom would roll over in her grave.”
“Why?” I grin, love-drunk on her.
“Ladies don’t eat like cavemen.”
“You’ll never be a caveman, Elise.”
Her sweet laughter echoes in my head. I still remember how my heart stuttered when she leaned in and kissed my cheek.
Kian and Elise belong in another lifetime. A time when we went by different names and were completely different people.
The echo fades. The present snaps back into focus.
The waitress jerks, her head whipping toward the back. I frown, the earlier unease churning once more.
Lana cocks her head. Her sharp mind knows something’s off with the girl.
She says something to the server, and the girl shakes her head, eyes frantic. Lana’s frown deepens. She tucks a curl behind her ear.
My fingers twitch. I imagine that silkiness wrapped around my fingers, skimming my face—if I went to her.
I won’t.
But in another life, she’d trail her fingers up my chest, a teasing smile on her lips.
She’d recognize me.
Not as the mobster she’s wary of, but as a boy from the past who went by another name. A boy without the ugly scar on his face and blood on his hands.
My jaw tics as I catalog her—her tan dress straining over her sensual curves, the faintest hint of cleavage playing peekaboo, her fiddling with a small puzzle box she still hasn’t managed to open yet. We’re on the third week with this one, a record for her.
It never seems enough—these twenty-eight minutes representing a number that’s haunted my darkest and happiest moments. There are always details I miss, and I absorb them like a starving man.
Ping.
Twenty minutes.
Fuck. I’m running out of time.
A memory drifts into my mind. A beautiful girl who smelled like roses. Her luminous gray eyes sparkled with mischief as she plopped down beside me in the rundown park near my home, looking completely out of place in a seedy Chicago neighborhood controlled by the Albanian mob.
After pulling my silver lighter from my pocket, I click it on and off. It belonged to my father and was the only thing that survived the night my world ended. The sound takes the edge off, but useless memories still hum beneath the surface.
A lanky man with tats on his face and a leather jacket swaggers into view, his lips curled into a sneer. My hackles rise. Lana stiffens. The server flinches when he leans down and mutters into her ear.
Then he does the unforgivable.
He touches Lana. Drags his filthy, disgusting finger over her unsullied skin.
Skin even I don’t deserve to touch because I’m dirty, depraved, and not worthy.
A growl rumbles in my chest. John clears his throat. His eyes catch mine in the rearview mirror.
“Should I—” he begins.
“No.” My voice is quiet. Cold.
I will handle him.
Lana balls her fists and stands, getting in his face. Her untouched water sloshes onto the table. She points to the girl, then at him, her mouth moving at breakneck speed, clearly giving him a piece of her mind.
Blistering heat rushes up my spine. My zemer is brave—that quality’s never changed.
God, she still doesn’t know how dangerous the world is out there.
How tempting it is for predators to break her.
Men like him.
Or me.
The lecherous asshole grins and pats her cheek like she’s a petulant child, not a thirty-four-year-old woman.
He just signed his death warrant.
I imagine removing his hand from his body. I’m not the type to build gruesome shrines, but maybe today’s the day.
Or I can feed it to the rats—God knows there are too many of them in the city.
My blood boils, but I force myself to remain still because Elias Kent is anything but impulsive. I’m patient. Calculating.
Senators quake in my presence because I can end their careers with one call. The mafia, the Bratva, the Irish mob? I can destroy their supply routes because I control the very people who make them available.
Beneath a veneer of civility, these powerful men have an unhealthy penchant for young girls and questionable funds hidden in offshore accounts. Bribery. Trafficking. Drugs. Every dark flavor of hell.
But I’m a dealer in secrets. I know them all.
The asshole leaves the table, and the waitress crumbles, tears sliding down her face. She scurries away. I fist my lighter and remember how helpless my sister was—how helpless this server girl looks.
Helpless no more, not if I can help it.
Huffing out a breath, Lana sits back down and writes on a piece of paper, her lips pursed with determination.
Despite the murderous rage coursing through me, I bite back a smile.
She’s doing her thing again—writing kind notes to waitstaff to cheer them up in addition to leaving a hefty tip.
She rummages through her purse, pulls out something small and metallic, and sets it on the table.
She then leaves the café, only to come to an abrupt halt outside the door.
A calico cat wanders across her path.
She squeals, the bright smile making her even more ethereal. Clearly not caring about the gawking bystanders, she crouches and pats the cat, who twines its lithe body around her. She’s won over the cat too.
Lana murmurs to the feline, pointing to the café. The cat grazes her ankles and nuzzles Lana’s palm.
Damn cat. I can almost feel her gentle touch against my face.
You’re out of your fucking mind, Elias, being jealous of a cat.
After letting out a sigh, Lana says something to the feline. I can make out the words this time. “I wish I could take you home.”
A muscle spasms in the cavernous hole where my heart once was, and a ghostly whisper crosses my mind. A beautiful girl who once told me if it weren’t for her family being allergic to cats, she’d get one.
Lightning sears across the bloated sky, followed by the crash of thunder. Lana jolts, opens the café door, and ushers the cat inside.
She smiles and darts into a town car idling at the curb. She’s running late for work at Fleur Entertainment Holdings, her family’s company.
I grip the car door handle, my muscles aching from restraint, desperate to rush over, pull her from her car, and whisk her away.
But I stay put because my obsession is poison—an eternal addiction.
Her car peels off, and I force myself to release a deep exhale.
Ping.
Time’s up.
I shove my obsession into a small compartment where my deepest grief lives and open the other box containing the darkest day of my life. I see that day in snapshots—our sofa aflame, my parents sobbing, begging for mercy, Sofia whimpering as she’s hauled away, and baby Beatrice crying.
Then, there’s nothing but the haunted, sickening silence.
Rage surges through me, and I let myself fill with hate and violence.
The scar on my cheek throbs, and I labor an inhale before releasing it, because hatred is strength. It’s fuel for my day. It’s what feeds The Antihero Syndicate—also called The Syndicate—and our vow to eliminate The Association, the perpetrators of my family’s massacre.
The vilest men in expensive suits.
I clench my lighter, its sharp edges jabbing my skin. Another box closed.
“It’s time,” I tell John.
“Do you want me to—”
“No, keep the car running.” My voice is flat. This should be quick. Exact revenge and get the kill ledger. Two things that have eluded me for decades.
Quietly, I step out of the car, coat collar up, and pull on my black leather gloves.
Never leave prints behind.
Raucous laughter reaches my ears. The café door opens. The asshole from earlier and a few of his buddies spill out.
The men freeze when they spot me, their faces paling as recognition dawns in their eyes.
Too late, motherfucker.
A slow grin splits my lips, and I advance toward them, a different obsession—revenge—teeming inside me.
I crack my knuckles. The harsh sound ricochets through the air.
Good men don’t get obsessed.
But too bad for them. I’m not a good man.
And in a few moments, they’ll learn what that really means.