Prologue—The Hitman
A yacht. My mark is on a freaking yacht. I unwind the mooring line from the dock’s metal cleat and stretch across for the gunwale. My foot braces on the ivory gunwale, but of course, the gap between boat and dock widens and I make a lunge for it. Water laps the sides and it is by far the least graceful boarding I’ve made.
Scrambling to my feet, I hunker down and peer back at the dock where a line of boats in varying models still sat, moored. An inky sky with shimmering stars stretched overhead, yet the Canary Islands were alive with tourists and locals—music and laughter carried over the water, still, everyone was too busy to notice or care what I’m doing.
“Let’s see where you are,” I mumble as I check my phone for my mark’s coordinates. Their yacht left nearly ten minutes ago, so I need to hustle. Locked in on my target, I prime the boat’s motor before turning the key and sit back as the engine catches up. This isn’t my first hit and odds are it won’t be my last. The truth is, it never gets easier. But, when the royals give an order…
The engine roars to life and I jet across the lapping water, disturbing whatever lies in wait below the surface. While nobody appears to sound any alarms, an uneasy sense of danger fills my core. I look around in each direction—the dock is still quiet, the island still raucous with party goers. Probably too busy stuffing their faces with paella and wine, which is what I want to be doing again.
Once I came upon the yacht, I quickly dispatched the one guard at the bow—tossing him overboard. My mark didn’t make it easy. He put up a good fight—I even have a bloodstained and bullet skimmed arm to prove how close this hit had become to being my last.
Standing over my dead mark, I pull out an old flip-phone and take a quick picture as proof the job is done—then ring my buddy.
“Yep,” Larz says on the other line.
“It’s done. Your father’s little problem is handled. I just sent over the proof,” I say, still catching my breath from the tumble I just took.
“Good. You know what to do.”
I hang up the burner phone and smash it in half across my knee. Picking up the pieces, I toss them overboard and make my way back to the stolen boat that I must also dispose of.
By the time I made it back to port, the graze had stopped bleeding, but I was still pissed about it. This is my favorite shirt, dammit. I dumped the boat but not until I had raided it and found a Hawaiian-style button down of all things. It did not go with the rest of my clothes but it also didn’t have a blood stained hole on the arm, so there was that.
My phone beeped, alerting me that I still had a few hours until my flight to LA—and Ruthless Corp headquarters where all hitmen get their shining start—so it was time for that paella and wine.
Chapter One—Larz
Rain pelts my windshield as I look on at the stone structure before me. Grey clouds hung low above the stone structure and I shook my head at how perfect the weather accented the mood.
“Father’s release day...it should be sunny,” I mutter to no one but myself. News plays over the radio, but the rain and my own sour thoughts drown it out. I’d already heard what I needed to anyway—three dead at sea and no leads on suspects or motives. It was a clean job as always, save for the bonus requested by our little hired “help” after he received a small flesh wound. Not that money was an issue. I would have paid more if he’d asked.
I stretch with a yawn and look back at the entrance, then the clock. Ten minutes until my father, Aksel “Mads” Madsen the disgraced king of Denmark, walked free. I imagine eighteen-months for tax evasion is plenty for his highness to have spent locked up—plenty of time for him to devise a plan of retaliation to those Warsaw thugs who screwed him over and left him to hang for their crimes. My hands tighten on the steering wheel that I didn’t even realize I’d taken ahold of again. I release them, flexing them one at a time to ease the shakes. My temper couldn’t solve anything immediately in the now, just as it couldn’t solve anything at the time of my father’s framing. Nope, but we will have our revenge, I thought. I shake my head—no, father is against retaliation. Just breathe.
It’s hard to talk myself down from taking revenge—especially since my father had offered to pay the debt in full, but those bastards were out for blood, willing to take down my family at any cost. And my father, a tough old goat, took one for the team.