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  Max, on the other hand, was always the same. Kind, loving, reliable Max who loved me more with every day. He never said it out loud, but then again, he didn’t need to. It was obvious from the way he looked at me, from the hushed tone of his voice whenever we spoke to one another. He cared deeply, and they were feelings I worried I’d never be able to match with my own.

  As I descended the stairs into the party, feeling Papa’s approving gaze on me, my eyes only sought out one person, but I couldn’t find him. Though I did find Max, and with a heavy weight lifting off my shoulders, I walked over to him, politely thanking the people I passed for coming.

  I’d been trained for the role of the Bratva Princess my whole life, and I did it well. And looking from the outside, no one would be able to tell the garden and house were filled with murderers, bad men, and the women who turned a blind eye to all their crimes.

  If I tried hard enough, I could almost imagine it wasn’t true myself.

  “Max,” I said softly as I approached him, and he smiled politely at the man he was talking to before turning his attention to me, his eyes as warm and kind as they always were. “Have you seen your brother?”

  I should have been embarrassed about inquiring after his brother right away, but I felt needy, desperate. I needed to know where he was.

  “He went to the treehouse, I think,” he said simply, and I nodded in gratitude.

  “I’ll be right back,” I murmured, already walking away, my heels sinking into the grass.

  I walked over the garden, on a little stone path, until I reached the gnarled old oak tree where an old treehouse stood. My siblings didn’t use it anymore, except for Vladislava. She was only six, and I loved her very much. She was my favorite sister, and I loved showing her all the spots I loved around our house.

  I heard whispering and giggling as I neared the house, and it filled me with inexplicable anger and white-hot jealousy.

  Before I could stop myself, I’d already put one stiletto-clad foot on the ladder and started climbing up the tree into the old treehouse. The moment I reached the last step, I wished I hadn’t.

  A girl I recognized as one of Papa’s assistant’s daughter, perhaps a couple of years older than me, lay sprawled on the ground of my treehouse, butt-naked.

  Above her was the shirtless figure of Ryker, my Ryker, kissing a line down her naked breasts and making her giggle and shriek between taking deep, gulping breaths of air.

  I wanted to scream.

  Instead, she did when she saw me. One loud, shrill sound, and then she covered her mouth with her palm and stared at me in absolute, bone-crunching fear.

  I set my lips in a thin line. She was fucking right to be afraid. I was going to have my revenge for what she had done here, and judging by the petrified look in her eyes, she knew it too.

  Ryker didn’t seem to give a shit though. He just groaned and rolled his eyes at me.

  “Get the fuck out, Ophelia,” he said tiredly, turning his back to me and returning to kiss the girl’s shaking midriff.

  “Fine,” I spat out and climbed down the ladder.

  The girl followed moments later, as I was stomping down the lawn directly to where my papa was standing.

  “Ophelia,” she called after me, and I stopped cold as her hand wrapped around my forearm. “I’m so sorry. I should never have… I didn’t even think…. I didn’t think you’d still care.”

  “I hope you can fool yourself with those words,” I said coldly. “Because you sure as hell don’t fool me, suka.”

  She blanched at me calling her a whore and gave me a sheepish look.

  “You won’t tell my papa, will you?” she asked, a note of desperation in her timid voice.

  “Of course not,” I replied with a sweet smile and a shrug.

  And then I kept on walking until I reached my father, tugged on his shirt sleeve and filled him in.

  His expression turned from jovial to furious, and he nodded solemnly, never needing a reason for the things I asked of him. It was enough to say the girl had disrespected and upset me.

  I didn’t take advantage of my position very often, but when I did, it always ended fucking badly for the offender.

  I watched papa walk over to the girl’s father, roughly pulling him to the side and snarling in his face. Beatific pride set in as the girl raced to the garden only to be thrown out, along with her family, by our bodyguards. She fucking deserved it. Nobody messed with what was mine.

  Hours later, I stood next to Max, still looking around to try and find Ryker. He’d been missing since our little spectacle, though the party had gone on as if nothing had happened. Everyone who was there knew better than to question my father.

  With Max by my side, I felt more confident, but his presence just made it increasingly more and more clear that Ryker and I would never end up together.

  He was so sensible, so kind. He was everything a man should be, but none of it was… well, it wasn’t exciting in the slightest.

  Ryker had changed in the past years, making me question whether he was a good man. But under the layers that made him bad, there were more—the boyish charm, the permanent smirk he wore, the leather jacket he refused to take off for a whole year, even though it enraged his father. He dropped out of law school, and spent a year driving fast cars and doing God knows what with models. I’d always been the last to know. He didn’t care about me anymore.

  That knowledge stung most of all, and as I thought of him not giving a damn, my bottom lip trembled and I bit back tears. I hated we’d grown apart.

  My father clinked on a glass, getting everyone’s immediate attention.

  “I’d like to invite the birthday girl over,” he said pleasantly, and I smiled wide, my expression purely for show—and because I didn’t want Papa to hurt me for not obeying.

  I approached Papa with ladylike steps and smiled at our guests like the perfect daughter I was groomed to be.

  He said a few nice words about me and ended by saying Max would be joining us next.

  While Max and Ryker had been a permanent fixture at all our family gatherings since that day in the summer when I was five years old, during the last few months, Papa had pushed me and Max closer and closer together, trying to force closeness between us that had never existed.

  “As most of you know,” Papa went on, “Ophelia and Max Marino will be married on my princess’s nineteenth birthday.”

  I blushed as he spoke, not wanting a word of what he was saying to be true. I winced at his words as he went on and hoped Max hadn’t noticed.

  “I want today to be about growing up,” Papa said. “And since my daughter has now become a woman… I wanted to announce I will now allow her to date her fiancé,” papa finished proudly, giving me an expectant look.

  The only thing I could return was a blank stare. Did he think I’d jump up and down with joy? The only man he’d ever let me date was Max, and this only solidified the knowledge that he wasn’t even an inch closer to changing his decision about marrying me off. And he still didn’t care that he’d chosen the wrong brother… that I longed for the other twin, the one that ignited a deep fire within me. The one I could never have.

  “Well, kids?” Papa asked with a grin that felt a little too forced for my liking. “Are you going to make me proud or what?”

  Max and I stared uncomfortably at each other as the guests started to chant for us to kiss. I’d never been more embarrassed in my life. I wanted so badly to talk back to Papa, but I knew full well that wouldn’t end well. He’d just get really upset at me and punch me in front of everyone. And I couldn’t let anyone see that. I was too proud, too old to be Papa’s punching bag.

  I thought to all the years I’d spent with the Marino siblings. Our beautiful childhoods forever entwined together, somehow making us blind to what our parents really did, what kind of situations they dealt with. I didn’t want to know how many men’s blood Papa had on his hands. I preferred not to think about Ryker and Max doing the same jo
bs. I preferred to block it all out and pretend I was much stupider than I may have seemed.

  “Kiss,” Papa boomed in his commanding voice, and in seconds, we’d thrust ourselves at one another.

  Neither of us was particularly fond of finding out what would happen if we denied Papa.

  Max’s lips on mine were warm and tasted of caramel. I gasped in shock when our mouths touched, and he let out the smallest of sighs against my lips, kissing me like he’d been holding back for years.

  My eyes had closed on instinct, but now they flew open, trying to make sense of things as he kissed me with more passion than I ever knew he possessed.

  His hand grabbed my hair, and the guests cheered, my eyes inadvertently passing through the crowd, searching and searching while Max kissed me like I belonged to him.

  And then I found him, standing to the side and looking so enraged I thought he was going to hit somebody.

  Ryker was properly dressed now, but his expression displayed such intense hatred I shrank back. He was looking not at me, but at his brother. I felt his energy from where he was standing, but I closed my eyes instead, because I didn’t want the kiss to end.

  Max seemed to sense it, and while Papa laughed merrily, he pushed his tongue into my mouth. I let out another gasp as he kissed me, everything in me belonging to him at that very moment.

  We broke apart, and I looked at the ground, embarrassed and blushing as Papa clapped Max on the back.

  I ran off to the side of the garden as the guests dispersed, and felt those lingering looks on me disappear. I hid behind the thick trunk of the old oak tree and shook with fear and excitement.

  A firm young hand wrapped around my forearm and I gasped, turning around into Ryker’s arms. He held on firmly, nearly lifting me off my feet.

  “We’re going to talk,” he barked. “Right the fuck now, you little slut.”

  Chapter Three

  Ophelia

  He forced me up into treehouse while tears of shame burned my eyes. How dare he call me that… that vicious word.

  I sat down opposite of him in the tiny treehouse. He appeared enormous in it, ridiculous, like a giant in a village for dwarves. But I couldn’t help noticing the way he looked, the tight, broad expanse of his shoulders, the smirk on his face and the passion in his eyes as he stared at me.

  “What the hell do you want?” I asked angrily.

  “I want,” he hissed, his fist coming toward me, clenched.

  I flinched, but he never hit me, just stared at me with those passionate, rage-filled eyes.

  “I want an explanation,” he growled.

  “A-about what?” Damn me for stuttering. Damn him.

  “About kissing my fucking brother, suka,” he said.

  Hearing it in Russian hurt even more, because it meant he’d learned it especially for me. Ryker and Max’s families were Italian.

  “I couldn’t do anything,” I whispered as he drew closer, his face intimidating. “Papa told me to do it. Why the hell do you care, anyway?”

  “I care,” he growled. “Because this is mine. You are mine. Do you understand, slut?”

  “I’m not a slut,” I whispered, inches away from his lips, but my stomach fluttered at the thought of being called his.

  “You’re my slut,” he whispered in my ear. “My property. Never let him kiss you again. He will never have what’s mine, will he?”

  I moaned with my mouth closed and he grunted against my neck, sniffing my neck like an animal. He’d never, ever spoken to me like this before.

  “Tell me, Ophelia,” he demanded, and I swallowed thickly, realizing with more shame than I’d ever felt that I was wet between my legs.

  “He won’t,” I whispered, and he sucked the skin of my neck between his two rows of perfect teeth.

  He bit down and I cried out.

  “As long as you remember,” he growled into my skin. “You’re mine. You’re not to be touched by anyone else. And since my fucking brother stole your first kiss, I’m going to take another one of yours.”

  “No,” I gasped, but he didn’t give a shit, reaching for my dress, growling orders at me.

  In a split second, my no turned into a yes. He pulled me against him and stole my second kiss.

  “Open your mouth,” he barked at me. “Open. Now.”

  I did, and he took it, his fingers holding my throat as lightly as the touch of a feather. But the way he kissed me was anything but gentle.

  He stole things. He was a thief. My second kiss, and my third one. My fourth and my fifth one.

  “Ryker,” I moaned against his mouth. “Ryker, please….”

  “Please?” he whispered into my ear. “What do you want, little slut?”

  “More,” I demanded, spreading my legs for him.

  That’s when I heard the first shots being fired.

  Bang, bang, bang.

  There were moments of silence while we stared wide-eyed at one another.

  And then the screaming began. The blood-curdling, gut-wrenching screaming.

  I was about to scream myself when I felt Ryker’s palm close over my mouth. He held me firmly in place and pressed his hand so tightly over my mouth I could barely breathe.

  Outside, chaos erupted.

  Ryker held me still through the sounds that sounded like endless pain and terror. Gunshots. More and more and more. Screaming. Crying. Cursing in Russian. It seemed to take hours—hours upon hours of not being able to move a muscle. Every time I tried to make a move, Ryker stopped me. He kept me safe in his arms as inexplainable tears streamed down my face. What was going on? What was this? Please, oh my God, make it stop.

  It didn’t end. Wouldn’t end. Just kept on fucking going until the tears stopped coming, drying on my cheeks as Ryker held me closer, not to hurt me, but because he needed me. We clung together, my body trembling with awful fear and the desperate attempt to stay quiet. His grip firm and smooth, he whispered in my ear, nearly soundlessly, that I would be okay, that he would protect me.

  We heard voices all around us, and then, suddenly, there was a face at the door leading into the treehouse.

  The man shouted in Russian and Ryker sprang into action, feet sailing through the air and kicking the man in his face, hard. He motioned for me to stay hidden and climbed down the stairs. I listened to the screaming and it was more horrible this time around because I heard them hurting Ryker. And behind all those noises, I heard my mother’s high-pitched scream and my heart froze.

  Mamochka. They were hurting Mamochka. Please, don’t let them. On impulse, I ran outside the treehouse. I couldn’t let them keep hurting her, hurting my family. I couldn’t bear the sounds of someone hurting Ryker, the man who’d stolen not just my kisses but my heart as well. So down I went, and I stepped into pure madness.

  The air was filled with smoke, a small fire starting on the picnic table. That was the only place that was still. Everywhere else, chaos erupted. People ran, some of them hurt, people I knew, faces I recognized.

  I screamed in terror at the sight of it all and tears sprang back into my eyes. There was a family friend on the grass, my papa’s friend from high school. His brains had been blown out all over the other picnic table. I retched at the sight.

  I tried to run. I wasn’t proud of it, but I was terrified, and my survival instinct kicked in. But before I could move an inch, a body knocked me to the ground, and I screamed in fright.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” an unknown voice whispered in my ear, pulling me up and crossing my arms behind my back.

  I resisted, but it didn’t do anything much, and the man twisted me to the side, bringing me to where three others held Ryker and Max.

  “Ah!” someone exclaimed with glee, and I stared wildly ahead as a man, no, a boy, came up from behind two guards.

  He was tall, dark, and handsome, but he looked young, maybe just a couple of years older than me. He still had that boyish look to him, the one both Ryker and Max had outgrown a couple of summers ago. He
wore an expensive suit that didn’t fit him perfectly, which made me think it belonged to somebody else.

  “It’s such a pleasure to finally meet Princess Ophelia,” the man mocked as he drew closer.

  I stared at him intently, trying to imprint every inch of him into my memory. Once I told Papa what he’d done, he’d be disposed of. And he fucking deserved it.

  “Don’t call me that,” I snarled.

  “Oh no?” he asked with feigned surprise. “What would you prefer to call me?”

  “Nothing,” I grunted, fighting against the man holding my arms back. “I’d prefer it if you didn’t say anything at all.”

  “How misfortunate.” He clucked his tongue. “Maybe I’ll call you an orphan.”

  My blood chilled in my veins as he looked at his guards, one of whom kicked Ryker in the stomach. I cried out at the sight, and this seemed to spark a sharp interest in the other man’s eyes.

  He motioned for his men to step aside and they did, I gasped at the sight that awaited me, the horrible reality before my eyes.

  My mother and father were at the bottom of the heap. On top of them, were my siblings. My sister and my two brothers, the baby eternally asleep on top of my little sister. Vladislava….

  My eyes watered and I choked back a sob. It couldn’t be true. The blood flooding down the stack of bodies couldn’t be real. The sight of them couldn’t be real. Surely they were all okay; this was just a figment of my imagination. A nightmare.

  “No,” I whispered. “Please don’t let it be true.”

  “I’m sorry, little orphan,” the handsome young man went on. “Now, I must ask you a very important question.”

  He closed the distance between us with several long, meaningful steps, kneeling in front of me and taking my trembling hand in his fingers. He never moved his devilish eyes away from mine as he touched his ice-cold lips to the top of my hand and kissed it.