Page 1 of Iron Crown

Prologue

Kira

Eight years ago

“You want more time?” Giorgio Morelli’s cigar dangled from his lip. “You know what you need to do.”

He leered at me, his blunt fingers tracing down his dress shirt, crawling over the buttons until they rested at the zipper of his fly.

My father was dead. I buried him in a quiet ceremony, attended by one: Me. Being poor and dying made it hard to keep friends. Being poor, in general, made the loneliness even more stark.

The loans hadn’t saved him. Everything I had done, every humiliation I had endured, was all for nothing.

I had sacrificed my body, my pride… and my only family still took his last breath in misery and pain.

I’d held my father’s hand as the cancer filled his body. I’d watched him close his eyes, leaving me alone in this cruel city.

And still, this devil wanted more. He wanted his pound of flesh.

This city wasn’t made for people like me. I was prey. I wasentertainmentfor these men—like an ant burning under a magnifying glass.

“No.” I was done. The shock had faded, replaced by a shooting anger that made my hands shake.

Giorgio must have thought it was fear, or compliance, that made me vibrate with barely controlled emotions. He unzipped his fly and smirked down at me like the pervert he was.

I couldn’t pay my debts. I would never be out from under his thumb. The system wasn’t created to allow it. I was meant to be on my knees before this bastard until the end of time because of one misfortune. One.

Because my father got cancer.

“No?” Giorgio said with a sneering sense of invincibility that all these evil men had.

When the system failed, when insurance was denied, what was I supposed to do? When the charities turned their backs, and even lenders wouldn’t approve us because we were nothing but mere artists… I had no choice.

I was left here, suffering, even after my father’s body went cold.

“No.” I wouldn’t get on my knees again. I would not sacrifice my dignity again.

I couldn’t do this anymore.

My father didn’t want this for me. He’d chosen to die so that Iwouldn’thave to.

Did he know the full extent of it? Of course not. But he had decided that dying was better than watching his only child break herself in two to save his life. A choice I couldn’t talk him out of. A choice I had wanted him to take back until he embraced me and said that heneededto do this. To die.

For me.

Living wouldn’t be worth it if he watched me wither and break. How could I tell him that I was already a husk of a human, so broken, I barely existed anymore?

“Open wide.” Giorgio’s mocking tone sent a shiver down my spine. Bile rose up my throat.

I turned away from him, ready to walk out of this room, this building, this entire fucking city.

What would he do? Sue me? Ha!

The Mafia were strong in cities like New York, but they weren’t omnipotent.

Maybe I’d head south, to warmer climates, where people had skin as dark as mine. Or maybe even further, to some remote land where no one would ever know the empty shell called Kira Kekoa.

I had nothing to lose, but I’d have everything to gain if—

---