Prologue
Alejandro
Sao Paulo, Brazil
One year and three months ago
“No. Please, God… no.”
The devastation of my brother’s home rises into view as I tear down the
driveway on my motorcycle.
Fire still burns the right side of the house, while the majority of the rest is charred.
Thick black smoke surrounds the area in a blanket of doom and billows into the sky, almost blocking out the morning sun.
Scattered across the lawn are the bullet-riddled bodies of the guards.
There are bodies leading right up to the entrance of Eduardo’s house.
This is a massacre.
Did Eduardo, Priscilla, and the baby get out?
Panic assails me when I think of Mia. She was the first person I thought of when I got this hellish news. She’s only two weeks old.
Sirens wail in the distance as I jump off my motorcycle and race across the driveway, smoke enveloping me as I bound toward the side entrance. The only section of the house that looks like I might be able to get through.
Heaviness settles in the pit of my stomach when I’m greeted by more dead bodies at the doorstep.
Eduardo’s house is supposed to be as impossible to get into as mine, but the fucking gates were wide open.
Our guards are highly trained to fight, kill, and protect, but these men look like they never even got the chance to defend themselves.
How the fuck could this have happened?
As soon as the question processes in my mind, I recall the ill-fated phone call from Cristiano that sent me here, and the answer comes to me.
Inside job.
It has to be.
Cristiano is my second-in-command, but because of his role in our family business, he was working here with Eduardo last night. That was why he stayed over.
Only somebody close to us would have known that.
Cristiano is here somewhere. Injured. Maybe dead. He could barely talk to tell me the house had been attacked.
I move down the hallway and head to the library. To where the safe room is. Eduardo would have taken his family there at the first sign of trouble.
I pray they made it.
When I reach the library entrance, everything dies inside me when I see Eduardo lying on the floor ahead of me.
Jesus, no. This can’t be happening. It can’t be.
Fuck… no.