Twisted Hearts Preview

Chapter 1

Eilish

 

I really hate surprises. 

A twisting sensation knots in my stomach as the elevator begins to rise. My throat works as I swallow nervously, my eyes squinting in an effort to see through the blindfold, even if technically that would be cheating.

I like plans. I like schedules. I like to know what’s on the other side of a door before I walk through it. I’m going to have to force myself to swallow all that back tonight if I’m really going to go through with this.

And I am going to go through with it. I might not usually do surprises. But I also don’t “do” breaking and entering or theft, either. 

And, well, here we are.

“You look like you’re going to puke.”

Britney sneers, the only other person in the elevator.

“I’m fine.”

“I mean, I would have thought that committing a crime as part of your initiation would be as easy as breathing for you, Eilish. But if you want to back out, now’s your—”

“I said I’m fine, Britney.”

She snickers. “Sure. If you say so.”

The elevator keeps rising higher and higher, just like my blood pressure as it thrums in my veins. My hands fidget with my phone in the front pocket of my hoodie. 

Her joke isn’t anything new to me. Yeah, har-har-har, my family, the Kildares, are effectively the royal family of the Irish Mafia here in the US. And yeah, my Uncle Cillian runs the whole show. Like I haven’t heard every possible joke and snide remark involving my family’s criminal connections since I was in kindergarten. 

Someone’s juice box is missing? Well, you know who Eilish’s family is. A teacher is out sick? Gosh, they probably crossed the Kildares.

Don’t piss Eilish off, or she’ll have you whacked.

I gave up trying to tell me people that my family name doesn’t define me years ago. Because they were actually right: being a Kildare did—and obviously still does—define me. 

So instead, I threw myself headlong into being “good”.

I aced every test. I was top of every class. First chair cello in the New York Youth Symphony. Valedictorian with honors at NYU with early acceptance to Columbia School of Business.

But it doesn’t matter how high you soar. It doesn’t matter if there’s never a single hair out of place or a single piece of lint on your clothes. 

Names matter.

Family matters.

Blood matters.

And mine is inescapable. 

Not that I want to escape my family. I truly don’t. For all their involvement in what is categorically “bad”—i.e., crime—my family is amazing, flaws and all. My sister Neve, with her chaotic energy and heart of gold. Our broody, grumbly, overly protective bodyguard Castle, who at this point is effectively our big brother. Even my uncle Cillian, the lethally cold and vicious head of the Kildare empire, who is a literal, actual psychopath—at least, with his enemies. With us and his new wife, Una? He’d kill for us.

He has killed for us.

It’s not just them. In the last year, my family has basically doubled, after Neve married Ares Drakos, head of the Greek mafia Drakos family. Now I have four new brothers-in-law, not to mention a sister-in-law, Callie, who’s quickly become my best friend. 

Yes, a lot has changed in a year.

I’ve changed, too. And I know it hasn’t gone unnoticed. I know my family is worried about me. Three and a half months ago, when the combined Kildare-Drakos forces almost went to war with the Reznikov Russian Bratva family, a bomb tore through the bar that Neve, Callie, and I had been working our butts off to open. 

I’ve been different since then. A little reckless, maybe. A little aimless. A little feeling like I’m just bouncing around, waiting to crash into something.

Neve, Callie, and the rest of them assume it’s because of the explosion that sent me to hospital with fragments of my new pub embedded in my shoulder and thigh like so many cruel, wooden bullets. 

That’s a lot of it, of course. But in the almost four months since that night, my body has healed. And I’ve mourned our family friend, Sean Farrell, who died shielding me, Callie, and Callie’s grandmother Dimitra from the worst of the blast. 

But I’m still not the same.

When we were little kids, before Castle became our bodyguard, an older, grizzled street brawler named Eoghan used to watch over Neve and me. We used to sit together in the kitchen of our family home and listen while he told what I now realize as an adult were horrifically inappropriate stories for children—tales of his various battles, fights, shootouts, and brushes with the law. And one thing he said back then always stuck with me in particular: when warriors die, they meet the ghosts of those they sent to Heaven or Hell before them.

It was only a terrifying story when I was a little girl. 

Now I know it’s true.

Because when I was in that hospital bed getting emergency transfusions as they rushed to stitch up the nicked artery in my leg, I got closer to whatever happens after life than I ever had been before.

And I saw the ghost of the one I sent there first.

The crime I’ve buried for more than a year. The crime that no one knows about. 

Everyone looks at me and sees “the good one”. The little angel who’s always played by every rule, charmed every teacher, and aced every test.

When I look in the mirror? I see a darkness.

A killer.

I’d shut it away before the bombing, somehow. I’d kept it buried, hidden in the blur of day-to-day life and my friends and family finding their own happy-ever-afters—Neve with Ares, Cillian with Una, my friend Elsa with my brother-in-law Hades. But when I saw that ghost leering at me, pointing an accusing finger at me, all the walls I’d built around that one act of evil came crashing down like Jericho’s.

And now they won’t go back up. Even though I know what I saw was just the morphine and blood loss talking. Ever since, it feels like I’ve been slowly speeding faster and faster toward a cliff. 

Aimless. Just bouncing around. Reckless, after spending my entire twenty-one years on the planet avoiding risk at all costs.

Hence, me being here—wherever “here” may be—with Britney Torres, a blindfold on my face, and a mission to steal something of value in about two minutes.

The mission is part of my initiation into the very exclusive, very secretive Crown Society—a club for “excellent students with driving ambition” at Columbia Business School. It’s sort of like Yale’s Skull and Bones, or the almost mythological Kings and Villains at Lords College in London.

The list of Crown Society alumni allegedly includes Senators, members of Congress, heads of major corporate entities and tech behemoths, and no less than five former U.S. Presidents. Needless to say, being a member opens doors to a world and opportunities most people can only fantasize about. 

The downside is, you have to deal with absolute cunts like Britney Torres—a senior member of the Crown Society, and unfortunately my “pledge adjudicator”, aka, the bane of my existence over the last three weeks of hazing and initiation tasks.

But honestly, you know what? I’ve been shot at, threatened, declared war upon, and blown up. Britney’s going to have to bring her bitchy mean-girl schtick up about a hundred notches if she thinks she’s going to get to me.

With a ding, the elevator doors finally open. Wherever we are, it’s pretty high, given the length of time we were in the elevator.

“Still feeling fine?” Britney jeers as she leads me out into a cool, air-conditioned space. It smells clean and rich. I frown under my blindfold, trying to think where we might be, so I know how to prepare.

A year and a half ago, the Eilish everyone knew wouldn’t have dreamed of doing any of this. Tonight’s task—the final test before being confirmed as a member of the Crown Society—involves “proving you’re ready to take on the establishment by taking what’s theirs for your own”. 

Which is a sort of overly dramatic, overblown way of saying I’m supposed to break into the office of some rich, powerful head of a major company and steal something of sentimental and usually monetary value to them. Apparently, the current recordholder is a pledge from five years ago who managed to steal one of Napoleon’s actual swords from the office of the CFO of Blackpool Financial Group.

“Yep,” I mutter back at Britney. “Still fine.”

She snickers. “If you say so.”

I shiver, and it’s not from the air conditioning. Wherever we are, the established members of the Crown Society have prepared the place, which includes paying off guards, looking for blind spots to sneak in, and hacking into the building’s security system to make sure the crime I’m about to commit doesn’t lead to my imprisonment. There’s still obviously risk involved—a lot of it. But they don’t want or need their prospective pledges going to jail.

“Okay, Kildare,” Britney murmurs, moving closer to me after we’ve just walked up a staircase of some kind. “Your clue is ‘if you want to make an omelet’.”

My brow furrows. That’s the other thing: I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to steal. And I won’tknow until I get into whatever office I’m about to walk into and hopefully figure it out.

“Got it?”

I nod. “Got it. Can I take this off now—?”

My phone rings, making me jump.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Eilish!” Britney hisses. “Are you actually serious?!”

Shit shit shit. I must have turned the ringer back on by accident when I was fiddling with my phone in my pocket. I quickly jam my hand inside to silence it.

“Sorry,” I mumble.

“Fuck,” she sighs. “I really thought you’d be better at this—”

The phone rings again before I can turn it down. My face twists.

“I’m so sorry. Can I just check to see if it’s an emergency?”

Britney groans. “Fuck. Fine. Knowing your family, it’s probably someone needing bail.”

Yeah, fuck you, too.

“Okay,” she mutters, grabbing my arms and shoving me back. I jolt as my knees hit the back of a chair, toppling me into it. “You have one minute.”

“Can I get some privacy?”

“No.”

My teeth grind as I pull my phone out of my pocket and I frown again under the blindfold. “Uh, can you…”

“Oh my God, the fact that you’re even being considered for the Crown Society is mind boggling to me. Here. It’s someone named Callie. Not a fucking word about what you’re currently doing, as if I need to say that?”

I can feel her hand brush mine as she taps the answer button. Then I raise the phone to my ear. 

“Hey, Cals, this isn’t really a good time—”

“Are you fucking serious, Eilish?!”

I wince at the abrasively loud tone in her voice. Which is saying something, considering “abrasive and loud” is sort of her default setting.

“Um…about?”

“Don’t fucking bullshit me!”

“This is really not a great—”

“Do you even have any idea what the fuck you’re doing?! Breaking and entering?!?!”

Shit.

“Who fucking told you!?” I hiss into the phone.

“Dahlia.”

Goddammit. Dahlia is one of my closest new friends from business school—a good enough friend that I might have maybe spilled the beans about my initiation tasks to her. In fucking confidence, I might add. 

She had plenty of concerns, obviously. And apparently when I ignored those concerns, she passed them straight up the chain to Callie.

“Dude—”

“I have to call you later, Callie.”

“Can we appreciate the fact that I am being the voice of reason right now, and by extension how serious that makes this?”

“Duly noted. Call you later.”

“No! Eilish, don’t you fucking dare—”

Her voice cuts off abruptly as my thumb finally manages to tap the button to end the call.

“Did you want to plan your Christmas vacation and maybe do your taxes while you’re at it? Or are you ready to fucking do this?”

I glare through the blindfold in the direction of Britney’s obnoxious voice.

“I’m ready.”

“Great.”

I jolt as she grabs my wrists, pulling me out of the chair and maneuvering me forward. I hear a door opening, and then she’s pulling me through it. 

“You remember how this works, right?”

I nod.

“We’re in the office. I’m going to head back to the elevators and leave. You, count to thirty before you take the blindfold off, find your object, take it, and then get out of the building without being caught. You got all that?”

“Got it.”

She snickers again, the sound drifting away from me as she steps out of the office.

“Good luck, Kildare.”

The door shuts behind me. I almost rip the blindfold off immediately, but stop myself just in time. Britney is a petty enough bitch that she’d do something like stay in the room and just make it sound like she left so she could catch me breaking the rules so that she could boot me.

So I wait and count in my head, my pulse thudding in my ears. 

…Twenty-nine, thirty.

Swallowing, I reach up and pull off the blindfold. Even though it’s dim to the point of darkness in the office, I still blink as my eyes adjust from the total blackness of the blindfold.

Holy shit. Where am I?

First of all, the office is huge. And gorgeously decorated, albeit in a very masculine way. High ceilings, slate stone walls with black and dark wood accents, and an enormous glass wall overlooking all of midtown Manhattan with a partial view of Central Park.

Even though whatever security system there is in here has been disabled, I still instinctively pull the hood of my sweatshirt up around my face. I walk quietly across the dark-stained hardwood floor and elegant area rugs toward the mammoth, all-black desk. Behind it, elegant built-in shelving frames a huge open space on the wall, where hangs what looks like an amazing replica of one of Monet’s Rouen Cathedral paintings.

My eyes scan the built-in shelves, looking for family photos, diplomas, anything that will give me a hint about who I’m about to steal from. But there’s nothing.

Not a single picture. No kids’ drawings. The desk itself almost looks like it’s been staged, as if no one actually uses it. The laptop is perfectly squared. Two silver pens are completely straight and in line next to it. There’s even a bottle of still water with a crystal tumbler next to it, with a fucking paper cover on top of it, like in a hotel room.

Great, I’m stealing from a serial killer with OCD tendencies.

I prowl around the desk, repeating the clue in my head.

If you want to make an omelet…

My brows knit as I raise my gaze to the wall opposite the desk that I ignored when I walked in because I was too distracted by the view and the Monet replica. There, sitting on a shelf under a glass box, is a gorgeous, delicate, incredibly detailed, black and gold, oversized….

…you gotta break a few eggs.

Oh, fuck me.

Not just any egg, I realize as I walk over. It’s a Fabergé egg. As in the House of Fabergé, the 19^th-century firm famous for the jewel- and gold-encrusted eggs and other priceless decorative works of art they created for the Tsars and the other ultra-wealthy of pre-revolutionary Imperial Russia.

Like the Monet, it could be a replica. But judging by the glass case around it, not to mention the other opulent wealth clearly on display in this office, I’m guessing it’s the real deal.

I’m also sure that this is what I’m supposed to steal.

Fuck. Me. Sideways.

Forget Napoleon’s sword. This thing has to be priceless. It also has to be under the protection of an alarm. But again, that’s one of the assurances made by the Crown Society concerning this task: all alarms and other security measures will be turned off during the theft.

My pulse races as I reach out with shaky hands, letting my fingers graze the glass of the case. No alarms. I wince, lifting it up as gingerly as I can.

Still no alarms.

I exhale slowly as I set the glass box down on the shelf next to the egg. Then I just stare at it sitting on its delicate, understated black wire stand mounted on an ancient looking wooden base. I mean it’s gorgeous—a matte black egg girdled in gleaming gold with lines and swirls of what I think are yellow diamonds all over the surface.

It’s simply beautiful. And for a second, I hate that I have to take this, even though I know that within a week, an anonymous courier will bring it back to this very office with a note of apology on paper bearing the seal of the Crown Society. Apparently, a lot of the “targets” that get picked for these initiation ordeals are either Crown Society alumni themselves or have otherwise heard of the ritual. Even the guy who had his Napoleon sword stolen apparently laughed about it once it was returned.

But fuck me, I have to walk out of here with this? A priceless, old, not to mention fragile, decorative freaking egg? Ideally without, you know, smashing it into a million pieces? Great.

I take a deep breath and ready myself to touch it. When suddenly, my gaze drops to the tiny slip of paper next to the egg glued to the dark wood base banded with brass that itself looks like an antique.

A slip of paper with beautiful, neat, masculine handwriting on it.

In Russian.

Moyemu synu. Vsya moya lyubov’.

I took two levels of Russian literature in undergrad. It was basically only enough to feel smug when discussing Tolstoy. But it’s also enough for me to know that the note reads “To my son. All of my love”.

My gaze drifts to the letterhead on which the little note is written, which includes the name of this benevolent father giving his son a freaking Fabergé egg as a token of his esteem: 

Vadim Tsarenko.

It takes me half a second. Then cold, naked, razor-sharp fear stabs right through my heart.

Holy. Fucking. Hell.

Tsarenko. As in Gavan fucking Tsarenko, the co-head of the same Reznikov Bratva we almost went to war with four months ago. The same Reznikov Bratva whose captain, Leo Stavrin, blew up my bar and killed Sean. The same Reznikov Bratva who we might not openly be at war with, but whom we certainlyare not “at peace” with.

I’m in Gavan Tsarenko’s office at his massive holdings and acquisitions company, Ironclad Capital.

This is horrifying.

I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be within five freaking blocks of this entire building. And I definitelyshouldn’t be stealing a priceless heirloom that he got from his father.

My heart races into overdrive, my ears ringing as my throat opens and closes reflexively. 

Run. You need to run, now.

I know I should. Old Eilish would. Old Eilish would already be halfway down the block by now. But new Eilish is apparently fucking insane. Because before I know what I’m doing, my hands are raising again, reaching for the gorgeous black and gold egg.

My pulse skips as my fingers touch the gilded gold and yellow diamonds. I gently cradle it in my hands as I lift it from its wire stand and gaze at it with wide eyes, holding my breath.

Now, to get you safely out of the building—

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing!?”

My heart almost stops as the deep, slightly Russian-accented voice roars behind me. As huge, powerful hands grip my arms fiercely. As the black power of the voice’s owner rolls over me like a thunderhead crashing into a shore. As the heady, intoxicating scent of bergamot, wood, and maninvades my senses like a drug.

I flinch as he grabs me, like I’ve been zapped with a taser.

My hands spasm.

My fingers release.

Oh God—

It doesn’t happen in slow motion. It takes merely a fraction of a second for the priceless, gorgeous thing to slip from my hands and explode against the hardwood floor.

“You little. FUCKING—”

My reaction is instantaneous. When Gavan’s grip tightens on me, the self-defense moves Castle has spent hours and hours drilling into me come to the fore without warning. It doesn’t matter that this isn’t some random mugger in the park. It doesn’t matter that the man grabbing me is the single most powerful, dangerous man in New York.

I just react.

My foot stamps down on the bridge of his foot. And just as he hisses in a mix of pain, shock and surprise, I throw my heel back hard, my foot kicking all the way back and up until my shoe connects with his balls.

The bruising grip releases from my arms as he groans, and I bolt—flinging myself out the door of his office and rushing headlong down the halls of Ironclad Holdings. I skip the elevator and take the stairs first two and then three at a time, almost blind with the dizzying fear and adrenaline roaring in my veins like napalm until I go crashing out a doorway into a side street.

Then I turn and run into the night, the scent of bergamot and wood still in my nostrils, the feel of his grip still tingling on my skin.

 

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