Chapter 1: Emperor of Wrath: Chapter 1

I’m not supposed to be doing this.

Actually, I’m not supposed to be doing several of the things I’m doing right now.

Number one is obvious: attending exclusive, invite-only parties hosted by notorious mobsters without an invitation—especially mobsters also infamous for being unhinged psychopaths—is generally considered a bad idea.

Number two might be even worse, though. It’s not just that I’m crashing Cillian Kildare’s birthday celebration for his wife, Una, at their sprawling new estate in the Connecticut countryside just outside New York, which has a veritable who’s-who of the mafia world in attendance. I’m not here for the guest list, or the expensive champagne, or the cake.

I’m here to take something that isn’t mine.

At least, it’s not mine yet. But in the world I came of age in, you simply take what you want, and run when those who want it back come looking for you.

It’s been like that since I was eighteen and my entire world was yanked out from under me.

“Focus, lady.”

I blink at the sudden intrusion to my thoughts, piped into my ear via the skin-toned transmitter half-hidden by a lock of my red hair.

“I am focused,” I mutter to Freya, turning away from the lawn crowded with mafiosos and pulling a compact from my clutch.

The microphone is in the silver pendant hanging from the delicate chain around my neck. But even if our host this evening is well-known for being a lunatic, and very well might talk to himself out loud from time to time, I can’t afford to be seen doing so. Sneaking in with a fake invitation is one thing. Doing so with the intention of stealing from the psychopathic Irish mobster who lives here is quite another altogether.

Don’t break more than one law at a time, right?

I fuss with my hair in the compact’s mirror, hiding the movement of my lips with the errant locks.

“Peek-a-boo,” Freya snickers into my ear. She can see what I see right now via the little camera in the bridge of the fake glasses I’m wearing, which means she’s looking at me pretending to primp in the mirror. “You were focused all right, but it was on that hottie giving ‘I’ll fuck you ’til you call me Daddy’ vibes over at the bar by the pool.”

I roll my eyes. “You need help. Or to get laid.”

“Is this an either-or thing? I’m not sure we can rule out both.”

I snort before I bite my lip to quiet myself.

“The guy giving Daddy vibes would be Ares Drakos, head of the Drakos Greek mafia family. And he’s married.”

“Hey, you were the one ogling his ass.”

“Therapy, Frey,” I hiss. “Get some. I wasn’t ogling anyone. I was being vigilant. In case you’ve forgotten, we’re not exactly supposed to be here.”

“What’s this we shit?” she snickers back. “You’re the one crashing Una Kildare’s birthday bash. I’m half a mile away quietly minding my own business.”

“If I get busted, I hope you know I’m taking you down with me.”

Freya laughs. “I’ve missed this. We should do this more often.”

I grin to myself. Freya and I are two peas in a pod. We both come from fucked up backgrounds, and we both had to start over from scratch at a young age.

We also both have a gift for taking things that don’t belong to us, which is kind of how we linked up in the first place over ten years ago. Now, we’re thick as…

Well, thieves.

I’m the hands-on type: breaking and entering, opening safes, dodging security. It’s how I survived when I was first on my own after my old life literally went up in flames. Over time, it went from being about survival to a bankable and highly sought-after skill. Freya, meanwhile, is a computer wizard and can hack her way into pretty much anything.

Like, as a totally arbitrary example, the digital safe hidden in the bookshelf in Cillian Kildare’s home office at this very house.

“Yeah, well, we made a promise, Frey,” I sigh, my brow furrowing as I glance back at the garden party taking place on the lawn of the Kildare estate. “A promise we’re breaking right now.”

“Ugh,” Freya groans into my ear. “What is this horrible emotion I’m feeling?”

“I think the word you’re looking for is guilt.”

“Hmm…” she ponders. “No, I don’t think so. I’m not even sure what that word means.”

I grin, but then my smile sours.We really aren’t supposed to be doing this anymore. And I don’t mean the sneaking into private parties bit.

Freya and I were on our own for years. We stole to survive, and then ramped up our skills to do a little better than “survive”. And then one day, our band of two became a band of three when I crossed paths with Damian.

Damian, whose uncle Kir Nikolayev runs the Nikolayev Bratva organization, was my and Freya’s ticket from the minors into the big leagues. Damian had connections. He had clout in the world of the criminal elite. And he was as much a thrill-seeker as Freya and I were.

That said, our motives for larceny are a bit different. Freya and I steal for money, and because we like the challenge.

Damian likes hurting people when he feels they deserve it.

For a while, the three of us were almost certainly on our way to crossing the wrong person or biting off way more than we could chew. That’s when Kir stepped in and steered us away from certain prison time or grisly death and gave us all a fresh start.

Handsome, charismatic, and powerful, Kir Nikolayev became essentially our adoptive father, or at the least our cool young uncle. He’s the first person who saw me as more than just a cocky thief with something to prove, and the first to view Freya as more than a walking middle finger.

Though the Nikolayev Bratva is obviously a criminal organization, it also operates heavily in the legitimate business world. And that’s where Freya and I operate too these days. Kir saw my ability to charm, lie, and social engineer my way into places I shouldn’t be in order to take things that aren’t mine and nudged me in a new direction: corporate takeovers.

That’s what I do for him now. I’m the bitch who walks into the negotiating boardroom cocked and loaded and finds whatever weak spot I can to push a deal through. Do I still get my hands dirty? Duh. But I’m not out there breaking into safes or boosting cars like I used to.

Well, mostly not.

And these days, when I do get up to my old tricks, there’s a certain guilt attached to it. Not for the stealing itself. But for going back on my word to a man who’s given me a second chance on life.

So, for those keeping score, I’m, A, crashing a party I’m not invited to. B, fully intending to burglarize said party. And C, breaking my promise to the man who’s basically my adopted uncle.

Oh, and if we want to nitpick, I’m wearing white after Labor Day.

“I’m going quiet now,” I murmur, tucking away the compact and turning back to the party. I shimmy my hips, pulling at the ultra-tight white cocktail party dress hugging my body.

This is so not my style. I barely wear dresses at all, let alone tight little “sexy” numbers like this. I’m more a jeans girl. Or, when I’m dressing to kill at one of Kir’s negotiating tables, a classy pencil skirt with a matching jacket. Even then, it’s more often a pant suit.

I start to make my way to the huge, sprawling home, gritting my teeth and resisting the urge to reach back and pick my undies out of my ass.

The dress is a necessity for blending in. Unfortunately, it’s also tight enough to restrict blood flow to my legs, which means the usual comfy underwear I prefer to wear wasn’t an option tonight. Instead, I’m dealing with a thong, which I never fucking wear.

“How’s the butt floss?” Freya snickers into my ear, as if reading my thoughts.

I’m moving through the crowd of guests by now, so I can’t retort with something snappy and vulgar, but I make a point to brush my hair back with one finger raised in front of my glasses.

The middle one.

Freya laughs. “Fine, fine. No more distractions from my end. Could you just glance one more time at Ares Drakos’ magnificent ass before I—goddammit.”

I swiftly remove the glasses, neatly folding them and tucking them into my clutch. I don’t need to be wearing these until we get to the safe and Freya needs visual guidance to get past the electronic lock.

“Dick,” she mutters. “What the fuck am I supposed to do now?”

“I dunno,” I mumble under my breath. “Go order another pair of spiked Doc Martens. Or surely you’re running low on black eyeliner.”

“If you’re ever curious why I’m your only friend…” She coughs significantly.

“Okay, ouch?” I grunt as I step around a corner of the garden and out of sight and earshot of the guests. “I have friends.”

“Name them.”

“Hello? Damian? Taylor?”

“Your twin sister doesn’t count. She has to be your friend.”

“Agree to disagree.”

“Whatever. I’ll allow Damian. That’s one besides me. Speaking of which, did he ever text you before you walked in there?”

My brows suddenly knit. “No, he didn’t.”

Damian always checks in with me before a job. Especially one that he set up. What we’re here to steal is a fifteenth-century “death mask”—a seriously fucked-up little artifact from the Spanish Inquisition made from iron, metal spikes, and actual human skin.

I mean… Even for Freya, that’s fucked.

But fucked or not, the thing is a must-have for certain collectors. It was stolen from the British Museum in the 1990s, and it’s been bouncing around private collections for the last couple of decades. It not technically Cillian’s—which does make me feel a little better about taking it tonight. It’s on loan to him from a friend of his.

Because of course Cillian-the-sociopath wants to borrow a human skin mask and keep it in a safe in his home.

The truly messed-up thing, though, is that this fucking thing is worth close to a million dollars to the right collector—although we’re not doing this for the money.

Damian has plenty of that, just like his uncle. And Freya and I…well, we have more than enough. These days, with what Kir pays us for what we do for him, it’s enough to live like fucking queens. Or at least, enough to keep Freya in eyeliner and one-off collector’s edition Doc Martens for the rest of her life.

So, no, we’re not doing this for the money. We’re doing it because the guy Damian plans on selling it to is going to then owe him a favor, and in our world favors are priceless.

Okay…a favor plus we just fucking love doing this, and it’s been way too long since Freya, Damian, and I pulled off a good old-fashioned heist. Which, again, makes it odd that Damian never checked in before I walked in here. Still hasn’t, actually.

“You?”

Freya exhales. “Nothing. And that’s not like him.”

“I’m sure he’s just preoccupied with seducing someone he shouldn’t be, or terrifying small children.”

Freya snorts. “That’s mean.”

“And?”

She giggles. “Probably true.”

Between Damian’s tall, built physique, high cheekbones and sharp jawline, not to mention the shock of silver-white hair and piercing purplish eyes from a genetic condition, he can be pretty frightening.

Or, in the case of women, extremely attractive…if you’re not Frey and I and almost his sisters, and if you’re into spooky-looking ghost boys, I guess.

“Girl, you need to stop talking to yourself and get in there,” Freya mutters into my transmitter.

I bite back a smart response and straighten my back, giving one more uncomfortable wiggle of my hips to try and dislodge the strip of lace riding up my ass.

“How the fuck do you wear these things,” I mutter.

My best friend snickers. “How do you not? I love them.”

It’s one of Freya’s little quirks. She’s basically Rooney Mara in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: dyed hair, black eyeliner, general goth-techno-punk aesthetic. But her one “girly” indulgence is that under the biker jackets and skinny jeans the chick loves expensive, sexy, Dita Von Teese-style lingerie. She owns shitloads of it and wears it all the time.

And she never dates at all.

“Well, you’re weird.”

“You’re the one still talking to yourself, bitch.”

“Fine,” I sigh. “I’m going quiet again. Second floor, east wing, third door on the right?”

“Yeah. Office door key code is six-six-six.”

I roll my eyes.

Kinda predicable, Cillian.

Getting back into character, I walk back around the corner of the garden hedge and pluck a glass of champagne from a passing tray, then smile cordially at another redhead who glances my way. When her brows knit, and something between recognition and confusion sweeps over her face, I quickly turn and scurry away into the crowd.

Shit. That was Neve Kildare, Cillian’s niece and Ares Drakos’ wife.

She’s also friendly with my twin sister.

In the shit that went down when I was eighteen and my life went up in smoke, I lost touch with Taylor. We’ve recently reconnected, which has been amazing, but that’s something I never had to worry about before when I was doing heists like this: that there’s an identical copy of me out there, and someone could easily mistake me for her, especially now that I’ve allowed my hair to go back to its natural red after dying it for years to stay under the radar.

Neve knows Taylor because my sister is the hot-shot name managing partner of Crown and Black, one of the most prestigious law firms in New York, who both the Kildare and Drakos families use for legal representation.

I quickly blend into the crowd, hoping Neve doesn’t give it another thought. Hey, it’s a big crowd, and she looked at me for like two seconds.

It’s fine.

It’s totally⁠—

Fuck.

My heart leaps into my throat as I duck away from the main living room and scurry into the shadows by a recessed window.

“Shit!” I hiss into the mic.

“What?” Freya whispers back.

“Kir’s here.”

Freya groans. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

I wish. In the past, Kir has mainly bounced between Moscow and London. But recently, there’s been more and more Bratva business bringing him to New York—like the growing Yakuza presence in the city, which is slowly eating away at Russian territory.

And that is business I have every intention of staying far away from.

Kir’s been up my ass worse than this fucking thong about setting up some meetings with Sota Akiyama, head of the Akiyama-kai, to press him on some sort of agreement. Under normal circumstances, I’d be down, even with a dangerous, hardcore Yakuza kingpin like Sota.

Except, it’s not just Sota I’d be meeting with.

It’s him.

I’m going to remember you.

In your dreams, sunshine.

No, princess, in yours, which I’ll be fucking haunting.

I rarely make mistakes, but he was one of them.

Kenzo fucking Mori.

The heir to the Mori-kai Yakuza empire. The top waka gashira to Sota Akiyama. The vicious, brutal son of Hideo Mori and a Norwegian socialite, giving him the stunning and terrifying combined physical traits of a samurai and a Viking.

He’s huge, dangerous, and powerful. He’s also the man who’s been hunting me relentlessly for five years like a fucking bloodhound after I stole from him.

So I’m one hundred percent hands-off whatever Kir wants to get into with the Yakuza. Because if I walk into a room with Sota, there is a one thousand percent chance that it’ll be Kenzo waiting for me.

But that’s another problem for another day. The more immediate issue is Kir sipping champagne at the very party I have to sneak through so I can burgle the place. Which is something I’ve promised him I won’t do anymore.

“What the fuck is he doing here?” I hiss.

“Hang on…” I can hear Freya typing madly on her laptop. “Okay, I’m in his phone…”

Yeah, this is what she does. It’s perhaps why I have trust issues.

“I’ve got his schedule.” She swears. “He landed in New York a few hours ago. He does have a personal invitation from Cillian. I think they might know each other from London.”

“Wonderful,” I grunt.

“It looks like he’s called you a dozen times since he landed?”

I wince. “I’ve been ignoring him. He wants to pressure me to get in a room with the Yakuza.”

“Yeah, that’s a hard no because of you-know-who.”

“No shit.”

“Well, you gotta get past him. Our window closes soon.”

Cillian’s friend, from whom he’s borrowing the creepy death mask, is attending the party tonight. But he’s leaving early to fly to Rome in his private jet. When he goes, the mask goes, too.

“It’s okay,” I breathe. “I’ve got this. I can⁠—”

“Fuck. Me. Sideways.”

My brows knit. “What?”

Freya swallows. “We need to call this.”

I scowl. “What?”

“Get out,” Freya snaps. “Seriously. This is done.”

A chill ripples up my spine. “What’s going on, Frey?”

“I’m tapped into the security cameras, and I’ve got eyes on Kir.”

“And?”

She hesitates.

“He’s talking with Kenzo Mori.”

Every muscle in my body tenses. Every nerve ending spasms. Every hair stands up on end as something cold finger-walks up my spine.

“Here?!” I squeak.

“I’m looking right at him,” Freya hisses back. “Huge. Scary-looking. Black hair. Yakuza ink. Looks like he might pull out a samurai sword and a Viking ax and cut someone in two. Someone like…oh, I dunno…you?”

My heart thuds against my chest as my hands tighten to fists, my palms suddenly sweaty.

“Fuck,” I hiss. I yank out my phone out, wincing at all the missed calls and texts from Kir before bringing up my text thread with Damian and tapping furiously.

Me

Where R U?!?

Me

RED ALERT. Kir is here with fucking KENZO.

Me

CALL ME OR FREY!!

There’s nothing. Not even the little dots, like he’s typing.

Goddammit, Damian.

I exhale deeply, trying to slow my hammering pulse as I chance a quick peek around the corner. I don’t see either of them, but still.

Freya’s right. We should walk away from this, now. Kir here is bad enough. But Kenzo Mori is Defcon one, nuclear strike imminent.

If the dangerous devil who promised to haunt my nightmares sees me here, this is going to go very, very badly.

And yet…

Something else spikes in my bloodstream beyond the fight or flight response.

Excitement.

It’s why I’m so good at what I do, just like some lunatics go base-jumping or choose to swim with sharks: the very possibility of danger and getting caught makes my blood run hotter and focuses my senses.

I’m not a good thief despite the fear of being caught. I’m an amazing thief because of it. That fear is a performance-enhancing drug to me.

I swallow the lump in my throat, my pulse quickening again as something electric zips up my spine.

“Where are they?”

Freya is silent for a second.

“You do remember what I literally just told you, right? Fucking Kenzo is⁠—”

“The favor Damian can get for this would be huge, Freya. For us, for him. For Kir.”

“Heard, but can we also agree that getting caught by a psycho Yakuza Viking who wants you dead and doesn’t seem to understand the concept of ‘letting shit go’ would be very, very bad, yes?”

“I can make it, Frey,” I mutter quietly. “Just tell me where they are.”

She exhales heavily. “Fuck you, do NOT get caught or I will never forgive you.” She pauses, then breathes heavily again. “Okay. Got them. They’re in the library downstairs, off the main ballroom. If you go through the foyer and into the second dining room, you can take the back staircase up.”

“Perfect, thanks,” I say tightly. I glance around the corner, feeling the adrenaline rush explode through my veins like napalm. Steadying myself, I plaster a smile onto my face and march back through the living room and into the main foyer. I thread my way through guests and waitstaff before I slip into the second dining room, then duck out the other doorway.

“I’m at the stairs,” I hiss quietly, walking up them as quickly as my heels will allow.

“Glasses on, please.”

I nod wordlessly as I get to the upstairs hallway, slipping the glasses out of my clutch and putting them back on. I drift quietly down the hall, find the door, and enter the six-six-six entry code.

The lock opens with a small, satisfying click.

I keep the room dark as I cross to the bookshelves behind Cillian’s desk. An ominous and not-at-all-creepy knife collection takes up the far wall. But I ignore it as I look for the shelf I know hides the safe.

Sure enough, when I pull on the leather-bound copy of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the shelf pops open on a silent hinge, revealing the state-of-the-art lock behind it.

This is going to be a two-step process. The first involves the little device I have in my clutch. It’s how Freya will remotely crack the electronic lock. After that, there’s an old-school manual three-digit combination lock.

I pull out the hacking device and magnetically attach it to the keypad of the safe.

“You’re up,” I mutter.

“Hang on,” Freya says, completely focused. “Take it off for a sec and let me see the keypad. I want to make sure I’ve got the right model.”

I do so.

“Okay, I wondered about that. It’s a newer version of the Cryo 7000.”

My brows tense. “Can you still open it?”

“Obviously. But I need you to switch two wires on our device first.”

Freya walks me through unplugging a green wire from a red port and plugging it into a yellow one, then reattaching the yellow wire to a red port. I feel like I’m defusing a bomb.

“Put the device back on the keypad.”

I watch as the digital numbers on Freya’s hacking tool blur and flip. Suddenly, I hear an electronic click.

“We good?”

“Golden, baby,” she says, grinning audibly. “Your turn. To quote Ru Paul, don’t fuck it up.”

I roll my eyes. “Bitch.”

I pull out the earpiece out and slip in my electronic headphones so I can have both ears tuned to the clicking. I taught myself this old-school cracking technique long before I met Freya, and fourteen years later, I’m a fucking pro…if I do say so myself.

I clamp the stethoscope part of the listening device to the front of the safe, and the whole world goes silent around me. I love this moment, just me and the lock I’m trying to open. I let my pulse slow; let my breathing deepen as I tune into the slight clicking of the dial.

The first number falls into place with a metallic drop. Then the next. I smile to myself as I slowly go back around the dial.

Number three clicks into place.

I’m fucking in.

Pulling the headphones off, my pulse heats as I turn the handle and pull the heavy safe door open to claim my prize.

Then my heart drops as I stare into the completely empty safe.

What. The. Fuck.

Damian’s intel is never wrong. Ever. Not once in the years I’ve worked with him; he’s meticulous like that.

I can feel my pulse quickening as I reach for the earpiece again. Even before I bring it to my ear, I can hear the frantic muffled sound of Freya’s voice coming out of it.

“—RIGHT FOR YOU!!!”

Her voice screams into my ear.

“Frey!” I hiss. “We have a prob⁠—”

“RUN!!!”

Something cold rips up my spine.

“KENZO IS⁠—”

The breath leaves my body and every muscle I have tenses up as merciless, powerful hands grab me viciously from behind, spin me, and slam me hard into the bookshelf behind me.

The color drains from my face. My mouth falls open in a silent, chilling scream as the floor drops out beneath me.

…As Kenzo fucking Mori leers down into my terrified eyes, his face a mask of pure wrath.

“Hello, princess,” he hisses icily. His coldly beautiful face darkens with rage and fury. His high cheekbones and chiseled, lethal jaw glint in the darkness as the piercing blackness of his eyes eviscerates me.

It’s like I’m powerless to move. Even to blink or say a fucking word as his huge hand slowly wraps around my throat. The hand slips around, his fingers never leaving my skin until he’s gripping me by the back of the neck, forcing my eyes up to his inky gaze.

“Come, princess,” he spits. “We don’t want to keep them waiting, do we?”

I still can’t say a word as he grabs the earpiece from my ear and crushes it in his fist. I watch the pieces crumble like dust to the floor before he snatches the glasses off my face and leers into them.

“Run and fucking hide, Freya.”

He drops the glasses to the floor and grinds them under his heel. I’m still frozen, and it feels like I’m half tumbling and half shuffling when he suddenly turns and starts to drag me after him by the nape of my neck across the floor, then out the door of the study.

“I—I⁠—”

No other words come to me. I stumble after him down the hall, almost falling down the stairs with my hand scrabbling to hold onto the banister and his iron grip still wrapped around my neck.

“Where—where are we—” I finally blurt as he yanks me through the second dining room. “Where are you⁠—

“Like I said, princess,” he snarls in a dark, rasping tone, his gruff but posh British accent giving it a clipped edge. “We don’t want to keep them waiting.”

He storms across the now-empty foyer toward a set of closed double doors which I’m pretty sure leads back into the ballroom.

“Keep who⁠—”

He kicks the doors in, suddenly dropping his menacing grip from my neck to my hand and yanking me after him into the ballroom.

Every. Single. Guest is standing there. Looking at us. Like they were waiting for us.

Something is very, very wrong.

My face is white as I pull my gaze around the room. Everyone’s smiling at me—beaming and grinning, looking like they’re ready to cheer for me.

Everyone except Kir, that is. When I lock eyes with him, all I’m faced with is a cold, dangerous look. Not anger. More like…fear.

And nothing scares that man.

I want to run to him and tell him I’m so sorry for being this fucking stupid before asking him what the shit is going on. But before I can move a muscle, Kenzo’s huge hand tightens painfully on mine, as if he’s trying to crush it. I turn to him, expecting malice. Rage. Hatred. Hell, even a loaded gun.

Instead, he’s fucking smiling.

Something is definitely wrong.

A waiter brings over two flutes of champagne. Kenzo smiles broadly as he takes his. I almost drop mine when the waiter shoves it into my fingers awkwardly.

“First of all,” Kenzo booms, his voice pure silk and honey. Like a statesman greeting his supporters, or a doctor announcing that the life-saving surgery was a success. There’s not a single trace of the malice and darkness that I know lurks behind that smile.

“I want to thank our hosts for graciously allowing me to take the spotlight away from the lovely birthday girl for a moment.”

He beams as he nods and lifts his glass to Cillian and Una, standing front and center, arm-in-arm, next to Kir.

“A very happy birthday, Mrs. Kildare.”

Una smiles, dipping her chin politely as she nods at Kenzo.

What is happening.

What the fuck is happen⁠—

“And now, without any further ado…” Kenzo smiles like a dragon as he turns to level his eviscerating gaze at me. “It is my distinct pleasure to introduce you all to Annika Brancovich…”

His eyes turn to daggers, and I swear I feel them slice into me.

“My fiancée.”

The floor drops out from under me as my lungs seize up and my vision goes black.

What.

The.

FUCK.