Prologue
KING
Four years ago.
“Motherfucker!” Everyone in the house comes running into the war room as I scream. The contents of my desk, now on the floor, shattered.
I’m not fucking done yet, though. Not by a goddamned long shot. Some motherfucker is about to die.
“Boss?” Cas is the first to walk closer. The air in my lungs forces harsh breaths out, and I know I look like a rabid fucking dog.
“Someone took her.” No one needs to ask who I’m talking about.
I only get this livid over two girls in my life. My queen, Lilith, and our daughter, Aria. The little princess who wasn’t supposed to make it. She was meant to die, the doctors said, but my girl is a true Adair. She’s a fighter. She takes no prisoners and pushes through life.
“Danny-boy, get on surveillance at the school,” Cas commands. Born at six months, Aria has spent much of her life in and out of the hospital with an auto-immune disorder. She’s been home the past three weeks with a terrible flare-up and begged to go back to school today.
At fourteen years old, she just wants to be treated normally. As normal as an Adair can be anyways. In the best private school in Pensacola, Florida, her security is tight, which makes me wonder if we have another mole.
“King?” Lilith’s fearful voice penetrates the haze that's clouded my sanity.
“My queen.” I hold my arms open for her as she worriedly strides forward, and the men surrounding me remain silent as she surveys the room.
“What’s happened?” The nervous tone in her voice suggests she has an idea.
Sitting her on the couch, I kneel in front of her as Luther stands behind her. Dimitri and Atticus bookend both sides of her frightened body. They know her reaction may be worse than mine.
“Aria,”—she shakes her head in denial, and my fury continues to spike—“has been taken.” There are no rose-colored glasses in our world.
“By whom?” she forces out. Tears spill down her cheeks as she pales.
“I don’t know.”
“What do they want?” Her lower lip trembles.
“I don’t know.” I hate not having fucking answers.
Her eyes narrow, and I know I don’t have to worry about her falling apart… I have to worry about her slaughtering someone without blinking an eye. “What do you know, King?”
“Nothing yet.”
Pushing away from everyone, she stands and walks to the window. “Dimitri!” she snaps.
“Yeah, Lil?” D stands and meets her stare.
“Find my daughter's guards. Bring them to me.” A smirk plays on the other man’s lips as he nods and leaves the room.
“My queen, behave,” I mutter.
“My baby is missing, King. My little girl is scared and needs to come home.” Her words are vehement, but her eyes show vulnerability.
Pulling my love into my arms, I look to Luther with a nod, and I know he’ll have everyone in the house on it. Including her brother Holden. Our boy protects his sister like she’shischild half the time, and I know if he and the Petrov-Corelli boys get to whoever took her first, we’ll never have answers. Only body parts.
* * *
Aria
Gasping awake, I look around the darkness surrounding me, and sheer terror invades every fiber of my being. I’m gripped in the icy cold hands of death and struggling to remember everything Uncles Luther and Cas taught me.