Chapter 1 The Contract
The Contract
LUCIAN
If I am at your door, it’s because you fucked up or fucked with someone you shouldn’t have. No one hires a hundred-thousand-dollar-a-pop hitman if you’re not causing trouble. More likely, it’s because you are in deep trouble.
My brother Logan says that it’s good to have a reason, or at least one that looks good on paper, ‘cause it makes it easier to pull the trigger. That’s because Logan would much rather destroy a life with a few taps on a computer keyboard than with a gun.
Sometimes, I honestly believe he’s more dangerous than I could ever be.
Regardless, I don’t care one way or the other about reasons. I don’t need one. Morality is a luxury I don’t indulge in. My brothers and I live by the Maddox family code: We’re not here to make your day better; we’re here to do what it takes for us to protect our way of life.
The Maddox fortune was made the old-fashioned way, through grit and persistence, and all four of us did the work to get to where we are.
Gideon is the oldest, and I technically work for him. He runs one of the biggest media empires in the world, and I manage a division of that, Maddox Sports.
I step through the glass doors of my office in the Maddox Tower, which stands tall on 57th and Park in the heart of Manhattan. As Gideon likes to say—he sits on the eighty-second floor—it’s high enough to see every dream worth destroying.
I nod to the receptionist who doesn’t know I moonlight as a shadow, which is why she keeps flashing me her tits—if she knew the truth, she’d run.
Passing her without a word, I head for the corner suite that says “Executive Director” on the door, with Perla, my PA, chasing after me, teetering on her high heels and clutching a tablet for dear life.
“You have a meeting with the PR crisis team in ten—something about that hockey player who called the ref a ‘walking tampon,’” she says, out of breath. “Then there’s the licensing call with the new fight league. They want to stream the bloodier matches uncensored.”
I grunt.
“Oh, and Gideon moved the corporate ethics briefing to Friday afternoon.” She winces. “Again.”
“Because nothing screams ethics like cleaning up after punch-drunk athletes?”
She shrugs. “Your words, not mine.”
I push open my office door.
Dark wood. Cold chrome.
It pretends to be about media but smells like money.
This is the life I built for the daylight. The other one waits when the sun goes down.
I have a perfectly acceptable day job as a media executive, which includes sports agenting, celebrity PR, and damage control for athletes with too many vices and not enough discretion.
It pays well. It also keeps the IRS happy.
But what gets me up every morning is not talking to some American football superstar, hell no, it’s my night job—wet work where there are no fingerprints or second chances.
“Oh, and this came for you.”
She hands me a matte black envelope. Untraceable. Familiar.
To anyone else, it looks like an invitation to a charity gala. Classy. Harmless.
But when I scan the text with my phone, triggering one of Logan’s encrypted backdoors, I’ll find instructions buried beneath layers of false metadata.
Spoiler alert. It’s not an invite. It’s a contract.
“Thanks, Perla.”
“You’re welcome, Lucian.” She hugs the tablet to her chest and looks at me dreamily.
Gideon has rules in place, one of which is to not fuck anyone we work with—which is the only reason I haven’t visited my dick upon Perla.
She’s pretty. Blonde. Gorgeous. Red lips that would look good around my cock.
But I can find sex anywhere, without having my brother thrash the living daylights out of me for it.
Perla just stands there, fluttering her eyelashes.
“Perla, go!”
She straightens, flustered, and leaves.
I open the envelope and scan the contents into view using my phone.
My pulse doesn’t quicken. It used to, when I first returned from the military, but now, it’s just consumption, like air, water, food, and sex. You don’t get excited about it. You just use it to sustain yourself.
One photograph. A brief dossier. A burner number. And a name.
Calista Ferraro.
Olive skin, dark hair, green eyes.
Looks sweet. Probably isn’t. They usually aren’t when they’re marked for death. Beautiful, though, but then your looks don’t exempt you from having a contract put on you.
I read further for instructions.
Needs to look like an accident. No police investigation.
I then scan everything with my eyes—photographic memory comes in handy for someone like me.
I start with her face. That’s the ritual. Not because I want to get to know the target, but because if I don’t know what they look like for sure, I might hesitate.
And hesitation is how you die in this business.
I use one of Logan’s programs to erase the file from existence, and then burn the card and envelope with my gold lighter, which belonged to my grandfather, the man who tried to raise us, and drop it, still burning, into the metal waste bin.
I get on with my day job—like I won’t be spending the night following my prey, finding her weaknesses.
It’s nearly four when my phone beeps with a summons from Gideon.
He is already pouring himself a drink when I step into his office.
“Scotch?” he offers without looking up.
“It’s early,” I object.
He smirks. “Then I’ll have yours, too.”
I close the door and sit across from him. The view from his floor wraps around Manhattan like a silk rope—luxurious and suffocating in equal measure.
He eyes me over the rim of his glass. “Are you going away for a while?”
I don’t know how he does it, but whenever I get a contract, he knows.
“No.”
“Lucian,” he says my name, like a warning.
I lean back in the chair. “We have a thing.”
“What thing?”
“Just happened. A PR firestorm is brewing. Skip Bond’s fiancée just went off-script on a podcast and implied he beats her. Might be true. Might not. Either way, we need to quiet this down.”
“Fucking hockey players.” He takes a sip of his five-thousand-dollars-per-bottle rye whiskey, then narrows his eyes. “She’s not the job, is she?”
I chuckle. “The fiancée?”
When Gideon nods, I smirk. “No.”
“Good.”
Gideon doesn’t judge. None of my brothers do. They know what I do, and know it’s something I need to do.
Some people are wired differently.
My oldest sibling studies me for a moment, always more perceptive than I’d like. “Will you be traveling?”
I meet his gaze. “No.”
He finishes his drink in one swallow and drops the glass on the table with a muted clink. “Good, then you’ll be home for the holidays.”
I sigh.
Gideon’s wife, Kendra, goes all out for Christmas.
Ornaments, candles, the gingerbread crap.
She’s sweet, always perfectly put together, and you can tell she sincerely cares for my brother.
Unfortunately, that only makes me pity her; loving a Maddox is like swallowing live wasps—it stings, it bleeds, and you endure agonizing pain until you either run screaming… or die.
My brother picks up the second glass of whiskey, arches an eyebrow, daring me to bitch about his wife.
I shrug.
He taps his fingers against the table, thinking. “Have you talked to Adrian lately?”
Adrian is older than me but younger than Gideon. He’s also married.
Logan, the youngest, and I have sworn off the institution. And honestly, seeing the marriages of our older brothers isn’t inspiring in the least. While Kendra cosplays as a Stepford Wife, Cora is so ridiculously young and innocent, I’d be bored within an hour.
“Just in passing. Saw him in the elevator, ” I answer, shrugging.
Adrian runs a hedge fund, and his company occupies three floors of the Maddox Tower.
“Do you think he’s spending too much time working out these days?” Gideon muses.
I narrow my eyes as I try to read between the lines. If Adrian is working out more than usual, that means he’s having problems. He doesn’t feel his feelings. He exercises as a form of denial.
“I have no idea.”
Gideon sends me a flat, unimpressed stare.
“Can we talk about work now?” I ask sarcastically.
“Sure.” Gideon waves a hand.
I give him an update on Maddox Sports, he nods here and there, and makes assenting sounds.
The truth is that he doesn’t care what I do with my part of the business.
It’s small potatoes for him. For me, too—not financially, but emotionally.
If the company goes belly-up, I’ll still be fine.
But even if my personal wealth were non-existent, I’ll still be fine—my brothers will take care of me, just as I will them.
I’m almost at the door when I hear Gideon utter, “Be careful.”
It’s an order.
“Aye, aye, captain.”
“Fuck off, Lucian.”
As I descend in the elevator, I’ve already forgotten about Maddox Sports.
Calista Ferraro’s name rings through my brain as I recollect her face, her data. She’s like a ghost pressed into my psyche, and she will be until the job is done.
I step onto Park Avenue and immediately raise the collar of my coat.
It’s begun to snow.