Twisted Hearts (Dark Hearts #4)

Chapter 1

EILISH

I really hate surprises.

A twisting sensation knots in my stomach as the elevator begins to rise. My throat works as I swallow nervously, my eyes squinting in an effort to see through the blindfold, even if technically that would be cheating.

I like plans. I like schedules. I like to know what’s on the other side of a door before I walk through it. I’m going to have to force myself to swallow all that back tonight if I’m really going to go through with this.

And I am going to go through with it. I might not usually do surprises. But I also don’t “do” breaking and entering or theft, either.

And, well, here we are.

“You look like you’re going to puke.”

Britney sneers, the only other person in the elevator.

“I’m fine.”

“I mean, I would have thought that committing a crime as part of your initiation would be as easy as breathing for you, Eilish. But if you want to back out, now’s your—”

“I said I’m fine , Britney.”

She snickers. “Sure. If you say so.”

The elevator keeps rising higher and higher, just like my blood pressure as it thrums in my veins. My hands fidget with my phone in the front pocket of my hoodie.

Her joke isn’t anything new to me. Yeah, har-har-har, my family, the Kildares, are effectively the royal family of the Irish Mafia here in the US.

And yeah, my Uncle Cillian runs the whole show.

Like I haven’t heard every possible joke and snide remark involving my family’s criminal connections since I was in kindergarten.

Someone’s juice box is missing? Well, you know who Eilish’s family is. A teacher is out sick? Gosh, they probably crossed the Kildares.

Don’t piss Eilish off, or she’ll have you whacked.

I gave up trying to tell me people that my family name doesn’t define me years ago. Because they were actually right: being a Kildare did —and obviously still does—define me.

So instead, I threw myself headlong into being “good”.

I aced every test. I was top of every class. First chair cello in the New York Youth Symphony. Valedictorian with honors at NYU with early acceptance to Columbia School of Business.

But it doesn’t matter how high you soar. It doesn’t matter if there’s never a single hair out of place or a single piece of lint on your clothes.

Names matter.

Family matters.

Blood matters.

And mine is inescapable.

Not that I want to escape my family. I truly don’t.

For all their involvement in what is categorically “bad”—i.e.

, crime—my family is amazing, flaws and all.

My sister Neve, with her chaotic energy and heart of gold.

Our broody, grumbly, overly protective bodyguard Castle, who at this point is effectively our big brother.

Even my uncle Cillian, the lethally cold and vicious head of the Kildare empire, who is a literal, actual psychopath—at least, with his enemies.

With us and his new wife, Una? He’d kill for us.

He has killed for us.

It’s not just them. In the last year, my family has basically doubled, after Neve married Ares Drakos, head of the Greek mafia Drakos family. Now I have four new brothers-in-law, not to mention a sister-in-law, Callie, who’s quickly become my best friend.

Yes, a lot has changed in a year.

I’ve changed, too. And I know it hasn’t gone unnoticed.

I know my family is worried about me. Three and a half months ago, when the combined Kildare-Drakos forces almost went to war with the Reznikov Russian Bratva family, a bomb tore through the bar that Neve, Callie, and I had been working our butts off to open.

I’ve been different since then. A little reckless, maybe. A little aimless. A little feeling like I’m just bouncing around, waiting to crash into something.

Neve, Callie, and the rest of them assume it’s because of the explosion that sent me to hospital with fragments of my new pub embedded in my shoulder and thigh like so many cruel, wooden bullets.

That’s a lot of it, of course. But in the almost four months since that night, my body has healed. And I’ve mourned our family friend, Sean Farrell, who died shielding me, Callie, and Callie’s grandmother Dimitra from the worst of the blast.

But I’m still not the same.

When we were little kids, before Castle became our bodyguard, an older, grizzled street brawler named Eoghan used to watch over Neve and me.

We used to sit together in the kitchen of our family home and listen while he told what I now realize as an adult were horrifically inappropriate stories for children—tales of his various battles, fights, shootouts, and brushes with the law.

And one thing he said back then always stuck with me in particular: when warriors die, they meet the ghosts of those they sent to Heaven or Hell before them.

It was only a terrifying story when I was a little girl.

Now I know it’s true.

Because when I was in that hospital bed getting emergency transfusions as they rushed to stitch up the nicked artery in my leg, I got closer to whatever happens after life than I ever had been before.

And I saw the ghost of the one I sent there first.

The crime I’ve buried for more than a year. The crime that no one knows about.

Everyone looks at me and sees “the good one”. The little angel who’s always played by every rule, charmed every teacher, and aced every test.

When I look in the mirror? I see a darkness.

A killer .

I’d shut it away before the bombing, somehow.

I’d kept it buried, hidden in the blur of day-to-day life and my friends and family finding their own happy-ever-afters—Neve with Ares, Cillian with Una, my friend Elsa with my brother-in-law Hades.

But when I saw that ghost leering at me, pointing an accusing finger at me, all the walls I’d built around that one act of evil came crashing down like Jericho’s.

And now they won’t go back up. Even though I know what I saw was just the morphine and blood loss talking. Ever since, it feels like I’ve been slowly speeding faster and faster toward a cliff.

Aimless. Just bouncing around. Reckless , after spending my entire twenty-one years on the planet avoiding risk at all costs.

Hence, me being here—wherever “here” may be—with Britney Torres, a blindfold on my face, and a mission to steal something of value in about two minutes.

The mission is part of my initiation into the very exclusive, very secretive Crown Society—a club for “excellent students with driving ambition” at Columbia Business School. It’s sort of like Yale’s Skull and Bones, or the almost mythological Kings and Villains at Lords College in London.

The list of Crown Society alumni allegedly includes Senators, members of Congress, heads of major corporate entities and tech behemoths, and no less than five former U.S. Presidents. Needless to say, being a member opens doors to a world and opportunities most people can only fantasize about.

The downside is, you have to deal with absolute cunts like Britney Torres—a senior member of the Crown Society, and unfortunately my “pledge adjudicator”, aka, the bane of my existence over the last three weeks of hazing and initiation tasks.

But honestly, you know what? I’ve been shot at, threatened, declared war upon, and blown up. Britney’s going to have to bring her bitchy mean-girl schtick up about a hundred notches if she thinks she’s going to get to me.

With a ding, the elevator doors finally open. Wherever we are, it’s pretty high, given the length of time we were in the elevator.

“Still feeling fine?” Britney jeers as she leads me out into a cool, air-conditioned space. It smells clean and rich . I frown under my blindfold, trying to think where we might be, so I know how to prepare.

A year and a half ago, the Eilish everyone knew wouldn’t have dreamed of doing any of this. Tonight’s task—the final test before being confirmed as a member of the Crown Society—involves “proving you’re ready to take on the establishment by taking what’s theirs for your own”.

Which is a sort of overly dramatic, overblown way of saying I’m supposed to break into the office of some rich, powerful head of a major company and steal something of sentimental and usually monetary value to them.

Apparently, the current recordholder is a pledge from five years ago who managed to steal one of Napoleon’s actual swords from the office of the CFO of Blackpool Financial Group.

“Yep,” I mutter back at Britney. “Still fine.”

She snickers. “If you say so.”

I shiver, and it’s not from the air conditioning.

Wherever we are, the established members of the Crown Society have prepared the place, which includes paying off guards, looking for blind spots to sneak in, and hacking into the building’s security system to make sure the crime I’m about to commit doesn’t lead to my imprisonment.

There’s still obviously risk involved—a lot of it.

But they don’t want or need their prospective pledges going to jail.

“Okay, Kildare,” Britney murmurs, moving closer to me after we’ve just walked up a staircase of some kind. “Your clue is ‘if you want to make an omelet’.”

My brow furrows. That’s the other thing: I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to steal. And I won’t know until I get into whatever office I’m about to walk into and hopefully figure it out.

“Got it?”

I nod. “Got it. Can I take this off now—?”

My phone rings, making me jump.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Eilish!” Britney hisses. “Are you actually serious?!”

Shit shit shit . I must have turned the ringer back on by accident when I was fiddling with my phone in my pocket. I quickly jam my hand inside to silence it.

“Sorry,” I mumble.

“Fuck,” she sighs. “I really thought you’d be better at this—”

The phone rings again before I can turn it down. My face twists.

“I’m so sorry. Can I just check to see if it’s an emergency?”

Britney groans. “Fuck. Fine . Knowing your family, it’s probably someone needing bail.”

Yeah, fuck you, too .