Prince of Hate Preview

Chapter 1

Oliver

Around me, the house is an inferno. Engulfed in flames, strangled by smoke and ash.

Fire roars hungrily and hisses in my peripheral vision as I stumble choking through the blaze. My skin burns. My eyes water. The uncaring flames rip into and sear my heart, shredding it raw as the screams and pleas for help hit me like so many knives to the chest.

Again, and again.

Help me. Help me, it burns.

He’s burning. I’m burning. The whole fucking world is burning. And I can’t help him.

I surge forward into the raging hurricane of fire and smoke, seeing nothing, feeling everything. I keep moving. I keep fighting until the heat sends me to my knees. The ceiling begins to cave in, but I’m still crawling, clawing at the very fucking floorboards, oblivious to the way they crumble to ash beneath my fingers. Heedless of the way the smoke turns my lungs black.

I’m coming. I’m coming.

But I can’t reach him.

The whine becomes a roar. The flames become Hell itself as the entire house begins to crumble and crash and burn.

And burn, and burn, and burn.

Everything burns. Everything crumbles to ash. Until the whole world is streaked with soot and blood.

Cinder and bone.

Gray and dead.

I close my eyes, reaching out one last time through the gaping maw of the fire demon roaring towards me. But as the ceiling crashes down, all I know is pain, fire and death.

This is how a golden god falls.

This is how a dynasty ends.

This is how the world goes dark.

And how a beast emerges.

 

Chapter 2

Rose

 

I can’t breathe.

My nerves feel raw and shattered, like a live wire sparking as it snakes over the ground. My throat constricts as it tries to muscle down the lump caught in the middle of it.

But then, my mouth opens. And just as my hand clenches on the edge of the polished wood conference table, air fills my lungs.

Okay, I can breathe. I’m just being dramatic, as Sister Carmen would—and often does—say to me.

I swallow thickly again, feeling the lump in my throat finally sink into the black pit forming in my stomach. My teeth rake across my bottom lip, and I nervously glance down at the clothes I’m not used to wearing. Sitting in an environment I’m not used to being in. Preparing to talk about things I know nothing about.

Where the hell are you, Dad?

My hands run across the edge of the conference table in front of me. Apart, together, apart, then together again, my fingers beginning to claw and pick at each other’s cuticles. Is it hot in here? Maybe I’m sick. Maybe I’ve caught something. Maybe—

A hand lands on top of mine: soft fingers, exquisitely manicured nails, a firm grip steadying my jangling nerves. I turned to smile weakly at the only other person currently in the conference room. The corners of Elsa’s perfectly done, and yet tastefully professional lips curl up. She raises a brow, her sharp hazel eyes locking with mine. It calms me, at least momentarily.

“Take a breath, Rose.”

I do, shaking a little as my lungs fill with air. My father’s attorney smiles and pats my hand again before releasing it.

“Just let me do the talking, okay?”

I nod, telling myself I feel better now. But really, all I end up doing is moving my wringing, twisting hands to my lap under the table to hide them and my nervousness.

“Look, I know this is all new to you.”

Elsa turns to give me another comforting smile.

“But it’s not exactly old hat for me to be meeting with the upper echelons of the Greek Mafia either, for what that’s worth.”

She’s good at maintaining power and poise, while also being a calming force. I suppose that’s why, despite being barely five years older than me, Elsa Guin is one of the most hotshot lawyers in the country. Or at least, hotshot enough to be my dad’s’ pick for a meeting of this importance.

“And my father really didn’t say what this was all about?”

Elsa shakes her head.

“Not exactly, no. I know it involves some outstanding business contract, but Paul was quite vague about the particulars.”

Which makes him not being here right now send my anxiety spiking even higher. Elsa seems cool as a cucumber, though.

“Whatever the particulars are, though, we’ll tackle them head-on as they come.”

We? She will tackle them head-on. I’ll most likely sit here freaking out, wondering what the heck I’m even doing at a business meeting between my father and the Greek freaking Mafia. 

I take another breath, smoothing my chestnut hair yet again. I am determined to stop shaking like a quivering leaf next to the poised, confident lawyer sitting next to me.

I can do this.

Because “tackling things head-on” has quickly become my personal mantra for the last two months, along with the slightly less uplifting “sink or swim”. Up until two months ago, when Dad found me, I’d spent the first twenty years of my life not knowing my father even existed. I mean, logically he existed. But I had no clue who he was, and only the barest idea of my mother.

My hand drifts to my chest, where I finger the little silver locket—the only thing I have of hers.

I know she was young when she had me. I know her family disapproved of her and my father—and unborn me, for that matter. I know everyone decided the best option for all concerned was to leave me with the nuns at Our Lady Hildegard Home for the Sisters of Mercy, a convent outside Birmingham.

Which is why all of this, from the clothes I’m wearing to just being in this conference room, is so shockingly new to me. I’d never even owned a smartphone until two months ago. My entire life, all I’ve known is the convent, the sisters who raised me, and of course, the piano in the conservatory that I’ve poured thousands of hours into.

Sister Carmen tells me I’m a natural. That my talent for playing and the way I’m so drawn to it is proof that I was destined to come to Our Lady Hildegard. Which is named after Saint Hildegard of Bingen, the patron saint of musicians and writers, herself an accomplished composer.

I don’t know about that. But I do know that playing the piano is possibly my favorite thing to do in the world.

My world, consisting solely of Our Lady Hildegard, expanded two months ago, when my father came back into my life. It was a reunion straight out of one of the feel-good Hollywood romantic comedies the sisters loved to play on Friday nights in the main hall.

In this movie, a simple country girl—living in a convent, no less!—discovers she does in fact have a family. She has a father. Moreover, he’s fabulously rich, terribly handsome, and most importantly, completely over the moon that he has finally found the daughter he was forced to say goodbye to twenty years ago.

Ever since that reunion two months ago, I’ve been thrust into the whirlwind that is high society London, and a pool of a million things that are so far over my head it feels as though I’m drowning sometimes.

But a business meeting this scary, with a father who’s gone without answering his phone for two full days, is a whole new level.

I glance at Elsa again.

“Has he called?”

Her lips twist in an attempt to hide the shadow crossing her own face.

“Not yet.” The shadow fades, and she smiles that practiced, corporate, precise smile at me. “I’m sure he just got caught up with something. But honestly, Rose, there’s nothing to worry about. Paul has done this before, gone quiet when he’s gotten embroiled in business dealings that drag on for days. And I’m extremely good at what I do. Whatever Mr. Drakos intends for this meeting, trust me: I’m more than capable of handling it without your father being here.”

I nod mutely, glancing back down in my lap, at the twisting hands beneath the table. It’s comforting to hear her say that. But it’s still overshadowed by the enormous elephant in the room.

“You’re still curious about why you were asked to be here for this, aren’t you, Rose?”

I glance at her nervously, but she just smiles calmly.

“Your father does a lot of business with a lot of people. I’m somewhat familiar with the Drakos organization, and I know that family is important to them. I’m assuming they’ve either asked for you to be here as your father’s”…she uses her fingers to make air quotes… “Heir. Or else your father wanted you to be here to show Atlas Drakos a united family front as a strategic business move.”

I swallow, the knot of fear in my stomach burning a little hotter again.

Atlas Drakos, as in, the heir apparent to the most powerful Greek Mafia family in the country, possibly the world.

Or at least, that’s what Mister Google said when I sat down to prepare for this meeting. Google also told me that the man coming to this meeting today has been at the center of an inordinate number of murder, assault, witness tampering, and evidence theft charges, none of which has ever stuck to him.

For the three -hundredth time, I wonder where in the heck my father is.

“You’re thinking the worst. I get it.”

I turn to see Elsa arching a brow at me.

“I remember the first time I sat down with a client and someone like Mr. Drakos.” She shrugs. “I’m sure the internet has told you all sorts of campfire stories about him. But trust me, men like him operate exactly like any corporate CEO, most of whom have done far worse than self-proclaimed gangsters like Atlas Drakos. If you think he’s going to come in here talking blood contracts or murder or anything like that, let me burst that bubble right now. He’s most likely here to discuss some sort of real estate contract your father has with him.”

She flashes me another confident smile as we hear footsteps approaching the door. Then in an instant the smile fades from her face, and I stare in awe at the way she transforms into the lethally cool, savvy legal expert that she is.

“Game time, Rose.”

She stands. I do too, just as the door opens. But whatever confidence I’m leaching from her vanishes when the door slams open, and a large, husky, surly and cruel-looking man storms in. An insidious power seems to come with him, a power that sucks the light out of the room as he plants himself two feet inside the door.

Fists at his side, thick brows furrowed, the menacing, stocky man’s eyes make a glowering sweep of the room, back and forth, moving right over me and even Elsa as if we weren’t even standing there. His lip curls menacingly.

“Coward,” he hisses under his breath.

He turns to mutter something in what I think must be Greek to someone outside the room. Then he strides to the table, yanks out a chair across from Elsa and me, and drops down heavily into it like a barbarian chief back from battle.

Behind him, another man follows him into the room; this one a younger and far more darkly attractive but equally dangerous-looking version of the scowling man sitting across from me.

Elsa clears her throat.

“Mr. Drakos,” she says cordially, addressing the man in his late thirties or maybe early forties sprawled in the chair across from us. I notice that she doesn’t bother extending her hand because it’s clear he won’t be shaking it anyway.

“Elsa Guin. I’m Mr. Laurent’s attorney. And this is—”

“Where the fuck is your client?” Atlas snaps.

Cold, naked fear rips and claws at my heart. Meanwhile Elsa looks like she’s completely in her element.

“My apologies, Mr. Drakos. Something urgent came up at the last minute and Mr. Laurent was unable to pull himself away. He sends his most profound regrets.”

“Regrets won’t stop me from ripping his goddamn heart out of his chest and fucking the hole my fist leaves behind.”

My face goes white. Then the younger man behind him drops a heavy, powerful hand on Atlas’s hulking shoulder and glances at Elsa.

“You’ll have to forgive my big brother,” the man growls in a deep, darkly sensual tone. He smiles thinly at Elsa as he extends a thickly muscled arm bulging at the seams of his expensive-looking suit.

“Ares Drakos, Miss Guin,” he purrs, shaking her hand before his sharp gaze slides to me. “And you must be—”

“What I am owed.”

The older Drakos brother’s gravelly voice cuts through the room, silencing it.

Elsa clears her throat. “Why don’t we all sit down and we can dive right into whatever this is about?”

Atlas ignores her completely as his gaze cuts right into my soul. For the first time since he walked in, the mask of pure hatred and disdain seems to drop a little, as he flashes a cold, monstrous, hungry smile at me.

“I never thought to look for you—”

Elsa frowns beside me.

“Mr. Drakos, why don’t you tell us why we’re all here—”

“I am not interested in speaking to you, or to any other of Paul Laurent’s fucking underlings. Now do not interrupt me again.”

Elsa bristles, but swallows it back with the grace of a monk as Atlas drags his eyes back to me.

“Do you know who your mother was, Rose?”

I swallow thickly as I shake my head.

“Tell me what you do know about her.”

“That she—”

My voice cracks. He smiles cruelly as I clear my throat and begin again.

“I know she was from a wealthy Irish family, and that they didn’t approve of her and my father. I know she hid me from my father and sent me to be raised in a convent.” My mouth thins. “I know she abandoned me.”

The room is silent for a second before Atlas begins to laugh mirthlessly.

“What a beautiful little fairy tale, princess,” he rasps. “And how lucky that your benevolent father finally, finally found you after all these years. To pull you into his world and his warm embrace.”

His eyes narrow as the smile drops from his face.

“Your father is a fucking liar and a thief.”

I bristle. “My father is—”

“Let me tell you a different story about your mother, little princess. Her name was Saoirse.”

I choke when he says it, like I’ve been slapped. When my father first found me, I peppered him day and night with questions about my mother—until I saw the pain even asking him about her gave him. So, I stopped.

Now I know her name.

“Saoirse Kildare,” Atlas rasps, his eyes stabbing into me. “And oh yes, she is from a very wealthy Irish family. Very wealthy indeed. A wealthy Irish Mafia family.”

My eyes go wide and Elsa clears her throat.

“Mr. Drakos, I have to insist—”

His temper flares and his eyes turn to daggers as he whirls menacingly on the lawyer beside me.

“What did I tell you about interrupting me?” he snarls.

Elsa doesn’t back down, even as I’m still numbly trying to process all of this.

“I don’t work for you, Mr. Drakos. But I do work for someone who is paying me by the hour. So again, I have to ask: what we are doing here, and why did you call this meeting?”

“I called this meeting,” he snaps, yanking his gaze back to me, “because your mother was betrothed to me.”

The world grinds to a halt as the rug is yanked out from under me and I stare at the cold, ruthless man across the table from me.

“No,” I hear myself say. “No, she was supposed to marry my father—”

“And again I say, your father is a fucking liar. Just as he’s a coward for not showing his face here today, sending you alone to pay his debts.”

My pulse thuds in my ears, my throat closing again.

“I—I don’t understand—”

“Twenty-one years ago, I was betrothed to your mother. An olive branch between two warring factions. That is, until your fucking father stole her from me.”

For some reason, my heart swells with pride and possibly love. The idea that my poor mother was chained to this monster and that my father rode in like a white knight to save her feels unbelievably romantic.

Atlas laughs coldly, the laugh of a man who can see every word in my head written on my face.

“Keep thinking that, princess,” he sneers. “You keep reading your fairy tales. Trust me, I’ll enjoy watching them burn at your feet. I was supposed to wed your mother. That opportunity was stolen from me. But luckily, we are a family of traditions—traditions that have already solved this little problem for us. Which is why I am so very glad that Paul found you…”

I tremble as his cold, shark-like eyes glint wickedly.

“…so that our families may still be joined and I may still claim what is mine to claim,” he snaps.

A cold sensation crawls up my spine, accompanied by a queasy feeling in my stomach.

“I don’t understand—”

“You.”

Everything freezes.

No…

My face numbs in horror as the man across the table smiles at me like I’m fresh meat.

“To answer your question, lawyer,” he snarls, “we’re here today to settle a debt your fucking client has owed me for over twenty years.”

Atlas Drakos’ eyes snap to mine, gleaming monstrously.

“You will be my bride.”

The floor drops away. The room goes stone cold silent but for the thrumming of my pulse in my ears, like an engine revving louder and louder before it drives the plane it’s attached to into the side of a mountain.

I whirl to stare at Elsa, my face horrified and pale, praying that she’ll say something, that she has got some sort of legal way to shield to me from this monster. But for once her professional demeanor has shattered and she looks as horrified as I do, stammering to find her words.

“Mr. Drakos, I—”

“Find your client, Miss Guin,” Atlas snarls. “Find him right fucking—”

My phone suddenly rings loudly, shattering the frozen scene. Still numb, my heart still pounding a mile a minute, I fumble as I reach for my bag and yank out the phone. I silence it as I stare at the picture of my father’s handsome, smiling face on the screen.

“Answer it,” Elsa hisses quietly beside me.

I tremble, glancing at Atlas’ sneering face before I stand and move to the far side of the conference room, by the windows overlooking London. I quickly answer and bring the phone to my ear.

“Dad?” I choke, my face burning as I feel every eye in the room drilling into the back of my head. “Dad, where are—?!”

“Rose!”

Something is wrong. My father is usually all easy smiles and dimples. All charm and poise.

The man choking my name on the other end of this phone, however, sounds like a shell of that man: strangled, terrified, and desperate.

“Dad?! Where are you? I’m at the meeting and—”

“Rose! Listen to me! I’m in trouble!”

I freeze.

“He’s got me, Rose. I’m his prisoner, and I need—” he wheezes, choking in fear and pain as my face goes white.

“Dad—”

“I’m his prisoner, and I need you to come help me.”

“Dad!! Who—?!”

“He’s a beast—”

The line goes dead.

 

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