Page 1 of Emperor of Wrath

1

ANNIKA

I’m not supposed to be doing this.

Actually, I’m not supposed to be doing several of the things I’m doing right now.

Number one is obvious: attending exclusive, invite-only parties hosted by notorious mobsters without an invitation—especially mobsters also infamous for being unhinged psychopaths—is generally considered a bad idea.

Number two might be even worse, though. It’s not just that I’m crashing Cillian Kildare’s birthday celebration for his wife, Una, at their sprawling new estate in the Connecticut countryside just outside New York, which has a veritable who’s-who of the mafia world in attendance. I’m not here for the guest list, or the expensive champagne, or the cake.

I’m here to take something that isn’t mine.

At least, it’s not mine yet. But in the world I came of age in, you simply take what you want, and run when those who want it back come looking for you.

It’s been like that since I was eighteen and my entire world was yanked out from under me.

“Focus, lady.”

I blink at the sudden intrusion to my thoughts, piped into my ear via the skin-toned transmitter half-hidden by a lock of my red hair.

“I am focused,” I mutter to Freya, turning away from the lawn crowded with mafiosos and pulling a compact from my clutch.

The microphone is in the silver pendant hanging from the delicate chain around my neck. But even if our host this evening is well-known for being a lunatic, and very well might talk to himself out loud from time to time, I can’t afford to be seen doing so. Sneaking in with a fake invitation is one thing. Doing so with the intention of stealing from the psychopathic Irish mobster who lives here is quite another altogether.

Don’t break more than one law at a time, right?

I fuss with my hair in the compact’s mirror, hiding the movement of my lips with the errant locks.

“Peek-a-boo,” Freya snickers into my ear. She can see what I see right now via the little camera in the bridge of the fake glasses I’m wearing, which means she’s looking at me pretending to primp in the mirror. “You were focused all right, but it was on that hottie giving ‘I’ll fuck you ’til you call me Daddy’ vibes over at the bar by the pool.”

I roll my eyes. “You need help. Or to get laid.”

“Is this an either-or thing? I’m not sure we can rule out both.”

I snort before I bite my lip to quiet myself.

“The guy giving Daddy vibes would be Ares Drakos, head of the Drakos Greek mafia family. And he’s married.”

“Hey, you were the one ogling his ass.”

“Therapy, Frey,” I hiss. “Get some. I wasn’t ogling anyone. I was being vigilant. In case you’ve forgotten, we’re not exactly supposed to be here.”

“What’s this we shit?” she snickers back. “You’re the one crashing Una Kildare’s birthday bash. I’m half a mile away quietly minding my own business.”

“If I get busted, I hope you know I’m taking you down with me.”

Freya laughs. “I’ve missed this. We should do this more often.”

I grin to myself. Freya and I are two peas in a pod. We both come from fucked up backgrounds, and we both had to start over from scratch at a young age.

We also both have a gift for taking things that don’t belong to us, which is kind of how we linked up in the first place over ten years ago. Now, we’re thick as…

Well, thieves.

I’m the hands-on type: breaking and entering, opening safes, dodging security. It’s how I survived when I was first on my own after my old life literally went up in flames. Over time, it went from being about survival to a bankable and highly sought-after skill. Freya, meanwhile, is a computer wizard and can hack her way into pretty much anything.

Like, as a totally arbitrary example, the digital safe hidden in the bookshelf in Cillian Kildare’s home office at this very house.

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