Page 13 of Stolen Hearts

I follow it with a kissy face emoji and a sunglasses emoji for good measure.

Me

you won’t believe this, but I’m on my way to PARIS, baby

Stavros

Daaaaaamn dude. Sick! What for?

Me

Your boss’ lady’s birthday

Ares is king, but in the hierarchy of our family, Hades is in charge of the boots-on-the-ground, enforcer-soldier types. Stavros Cirillo technically works for the Adamos family, one of our vassal families. But he reports directly to Hades as if he were a Drakos soldier.

I know him because I was pretty good friends with his younger brother, Tomas, who sadly was killed by Ezio Adamos to keep the new peace between Drakos and Kildare when Neve and Ares first got together.

In those early, uneasy days of our truce, Tomas and some of his friends took it upon themselves to exact vengeance on the Kildares for the death of Ezio’s son, Jason Adamos, who’d been shot dead at the same meeting where my uncle Vasilis Drakos and Declan Kildare were also killed. When Tomas and his buddies fired at Neve and Eilish in reprisal for the death of their friend, Ares put his foot down and told Ezio to deal with it.

Ezio had Tomas and the two other men killed later that very day.

It shook me up for a while when it happened. Tomas and I had been reasonably good friends for years—nothing romantic or anything, just the same age and the same circles, but still. Since then, I’ve come to be friendly with Stavros, too.

It’s not lost on me that the older Cirillo brother would like to bemorethan friends with me. He’s not exactly subtle about it. But I haven’t led him on in any way. Very early on, he flat out asked me on a date, and I refused. The reason I gave him, of course, was my betrothal to Luca Carveli.

The real reason, though, is that someone already had, and still has, my heart.

My phone buzzes again.

Stavros

Well have fun. U wanna hang sometime when u get back?

Me

I would LOVE that!

More kissy face and sunglasses emojis.

I smirk to myself as I send it, imagining Castle shooting daggers at my phone the same way I was just glaring at his exchange with that Loraine bitch.

“Dom, how are you. Good, good. Listen, I wanted to check in on that warehouse space in Harlem we’d talked about.”

Goddammit.

I turn briefly, and my face falls when I realize Castle is facing completely away from me, in the middle of a phone call, and he missed the whole thing.

So much for making him jealous.

* * *

Four hours later,I’m officially on Team Gavan. Fuck the haters. Not only has he flown us in the most extravagant private jet in the world toParisfor the ridiculously cool Bijou Gala, and not only has he paid for everyone’s hotel suites—not just rooms, suites—overlooking the Seine River and the Eiffel Tower, but also, when we land we find a waiting fleet of gleaming silver Mercedes G-Wagons ready to take usshoppingat the most exclusive private designer boutiques in Paris to find dresses for the gala.

Yup, consider my love officially bought.

It’s all cool enough that it momentarily pulls my thoughts away from how mortified I am about last night. Or from the blackness of picturing Castle with this fucking Loraine chick.

At least, it kind of does.

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