Chapter 1
Eli Ellsworth
This is so fucking insane.
So, so stupid.
A random person walking by could recognize any of us and all our lives would become hell.
We’re just standing on the fucking sidewalk, not protected by the tinted windows of the cars we only ever use to go to meetings, and of course none of our bodyguards are here because they always have to be left behind when it comes to matters of the Turris.
But it’s not like we have a choice.
No one besides the Chairs and Heirs of the Turris can ever know about our meetings, and our families have been taking extreme measures to ensure this secret doesn’t gets out for literally hundreds of years. We’ve got it down to a science nowadays.
None of us see any daylight on our way to the meetings, no one ever tells their security details where we are or what we’re doing, and the most important rule, no one ever says no when we’re called in—with some obvious exceptions.
Calm as a lake, Harrison Crawford, the Chair of Foundation, walks right up to the security guard standing in front of the brownstone he told us to come to—he says jump and we’re all obliged to ask how high. He doesn’t ask often, though.
“You know who I am?” The bodyguard nods once. “Then you know getting out of my way is the best thing for you.”
Simple as that . . . though by the frown he gets in return, it’s not simple at all for the tall, muscular man.
Not as muscular or as tall as Lex—
Nope.
I snap my head down to focus on the tablet in my hands again and see I have full control of the house.
We saw the lights come on just a minute ago, and I think the generator must’ve kicked in because the rest of the block doesn’t seem to have any power.
That’s probably why it took my software so long to hack into the network of the house.
People are insane for installing those panels that can control everything inside their house.
I could turn all the lights off again with a few quick taps to the screen, open the windows, turn on every TV, turn on the AC, blow up the speakers in every room with whatever song I want, but again .
. . Harrison hasn’t told me to, so I resist.
A few seconds later, the bodyguard spins on his heel and walks around the brownstone.
I guess it’s his way of telling us he was never here.
I don’t blame him.
Sure, I’d expect more from the secret service, but then again this is Harrison Crawford.
He’s not the biggest or strongest man in the city, but he is the owner of . . . most of it. We all just live in his world.
Out of the eight heirs, Beatrice, Zack, Tucker, Patricia, Iris, and I are here. Matthew and Virginia are away it seems, and it’s not like anyone can blame them, this wasn’t a planned meeting. Harrison texted us only a little over half an hour ago and told us to get our asses here.
All the Chairs made it, though, and the only ones who look outwardly annoyed are Michelle Blackwell—one of her plays had its first show tonight—and Stephen Windsor, who was probably in an art gallery or something super boring.
I’m the one who’s going to have to deal with the aftermath of this little field trip, though. Erasing CCTV feeds and any trace that we were all here is probably how I’ll spend the rest of the night.
“Oh hey, before we leave I’m going to need all your phones,” I whisper to our group of .
. . fourteen, fucking hell, that’s going to be a lot of work.
And they’re all looking at me like I’m the one who’s crazy.
Right. “You know what? I’ll just send you all an email with a link so I can erase all your GPS histories.
” I wave them away and they all focus on the front door again, on Harrison .
. . fucking opening the mayor’s front door like he owns it.
Which again, he might.
I don’t know if I’m the only one who knows this is the mayor’s house. I guess Baron Alton, the Chair of Law in the Turris, could know, and maybe all the other Chairs too?
I look at Dad, and yeah, he looks uneasy to say the least.
“Come here, Eli,” Harrison mutters once we’re all standing in the narrow foyer of the house. I walk closer and he nods at my tablet. “Can you tell me if there are cameras inside the house?”
“There are.” I already checked.
“Where is Brent?”
I flip through the different feeds until I find him, and my breath catches in my throat.
“Office,” I manage to say through the fear gripping my throat.
“Don’t worry, Eli. Nobody’s going to get hurt.” I can’t bring myself to believe him.
Eian fucking Dempsey is being held at gunpoint by the fucking mayor of New York City, and he’s reaching for the gun on the desk—
I look away. There’s just no way I’ll ever sleep again if I see someone get murdered.
“Where is the office?” he murmurs.
“Down the hall,” I whisper. “Last door.”
Harrison moves and we all follow in a single file, around the stairs that go up then the ones that go down, and when we get to the door, he turns to me again.
“Can you control the lights or the computers inside?” he asks me, but his gaze is fixed on the screen, and if I’m not wrong, he looks worried. We can’t hear what they’re saying, though Brent is clearly talking. The door has to be thick, because only murmurs pass through it.
“There are speakers?” I say it like a question.
“That works.”
“Okay.” I let out a big breath. “What do you want the audio to be?”
“Can it be my voice?”
That’s a little more complicated, but I get to work and only a minute or so later, I hold the tablet up to him and nod.
“Press that red circle, then you can say whatever you want.”
He nods quickly, and with a kind of urgency he can’t hide, taps the screen.
“Mr. Brent. Please put the gun down.”
I’m surprised he asked so nicely, and I have to lean on my tiptoes to see the feed again.
Brent is looking around frantically, scared, but after a long moment, he lowers his arm to his side. Harrison reaches for the doorknob and steps in.
The way he simply holds his hand out to Brent, as if expecting immediate and unquestionable obedience, is only one of the reasons I respect Harrison. And fear him.
Only someone without a brain wouldn’t fear him at least a little.
Brent seems to have a brain, because he places the gun in Harrison’s hand.
My jaw drops as he expertly expels the cartridge, then thumbs the bullets one by one so they fall to the floor.
“Tucker, you think you can keep him from running out of here?” Harrison asks the big Heir to the Chair of Sports, but his eyes don’t leave Brent.
“Sure,” Tucker murmurs and stands right behind Brent.
Then Harrison turns and nods at Eian fucking Dempsey.
“Evening, Mr. Dempsey.”
“Crawford,” Eian responds, and you could cut the tension with a damn knife as they stare at each other.
Finally, Harrison takes one step closer to the desk then bends down and picks up . . . oh, yeah, that’s where the other gun went.
Holding it by the barrel, he offers it to Eian, who, after staring at it for five eternal seconds, grips it then holsters it back under his suit.
“You may leave,” Harrison says, and the underlying threat clearly doesn’t go over Eian’s head. He looks fucking furious all of a sudden, but nods regardless.
He reaches behind him, and that’s the first time I register the other man. Smaller, probably late thirties . . . and—holy shit, that’s Colby Major.
He used to be the top news anchor for us, for ENN, our news network. I want to turn around and see Dad’s face but I can barely breathe. There’s no way I can move.
Dempsey hoists a black duffel bag onto his shoulder, then they walk out from behind the desk and our big-ass group shuffles to let them pass. When they’re about to leave, though, Harrison stops them again.
“Mr. Major?”
They freeze and I can see the terror and confusion on Colby’s face when he spins around slowly.
“Y-yes?”
“The folder,” Harrison instructs simply.
Colby’s mouth drops open, and I can tell he wants to refuse—god, I hope he doesn’t refuse—but Dempsey seems to be thinking more clearly. He nudges Colby and so he hands the folder over.
“Much appreciated,” Harrison says.
The second the door closes behind New York’s most feared mobster, Harrison steps up to the mayor and fishes the chain from under his shirt’s collar, then yanks it hard enough for it to snap.
“This doesn’t belong to you,” Harrison murmurs.
It’s one of the few times I’ve seen the great Harrison Crawford look like he enjoys the power he holds.
“Eli, take a look at this and that laptop, will you?” He holds out the folder to me, and I quickly grab it then walk over to the desk and open the laptop. There’s a . . .
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I can’t help but say.
“What is it?” Iris asks, walking over to me.
“This.” I hold out the laminated piece of paper with usernames and passwords. “It’s going to make my life a hell of a lot easier,” I mumble. “Oh, shit,” I hiss when I unlock the laptop and see the site that’s already open.
“What is it?” Harrison asks, but Brent pipes up before I can tell him.
“It’s not what it looks like. It’s not me. I’m looking into it for the safety of the city, for—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Harrison growls at him. Growls. “What is it, Eli?”
“An auction page on the dark web for—” I stop myself to swallow hard. “For humans. It’s human trafficking.”
Harrison nods as if he already knew, as if—
“I have nothing to do with that,” Brent claims, sounding even more panicked now. “It was that fucker Dempsey, and you just let him go! He’s the one—”
Faster than I ever thought he could move, Harrison whirls around and clamps a hand around Brent’s thick neck.
“You thought I wouldn’t keep an eye on you? That I wouldn’t make sure the mayor of my city was fucking behaving?” The power behind those words is impossible to ignore, and in answer, Brent sputters and coughs—pretty pathetically too.
Not even the disgusting website can steal my attention away from the spectacle that is Harrison Crawford owning how powerful he is.
After a long moment, Harrison drops him like a stone, then gets out his phone and puts it to his ear after a few taps to the screen.