Page 5 of Kingmakers, Year Two

I put my arm around my sister and hug her hard, closing my burning eyes.

“Thank you Cat,” I murmur.

“I’ll help you put it on,” she says.

She circles it round my wrist, closing the tiny clasp. It fits perfectly.

Daniela will be furious if she sees that I’ve augmented her meticulously curated look, but I don’t give a fuck. I can’t express to Cat how much it means to me to wear something I actually like, one good omen within this awful night.

“We’d better go down,” I say to Cat.

Even though Cat and I are early, our father and stepmother are already waiting in the airy foyer. It shows how anxious they are to close this deal with the Prince family.

Daniela is wearing a sleek gown of deep bronze, her hair in an elegant bun. My father has on a black velvet jacket with a matching bronze pocket square. He’s a man of substantial height and breadth, though Daniela is still always careful to select heels that will put her at least an inch or two below him. He has a mane of grizzled gray hair that makes him look like an elderly lion, and a broad, aristocratic nose. His mouth is the only weak feature about him—his lips thin and fleshless, always pulling down at the corners.

They turn to examine Cat and me as we come down the stairs. I slip my left wrist into the folds of my skirt, so Daniela won’t notice the bracelet.

Daniela frowns, displeased with something in our appearance. Maybe it’s Cat’s flyaway curls that can never be tamed, despite the best efforts of the professionals. Maybe she doesn’t think my waist looks small enough. It’s always something, and usually nothing we could actually fix.

My father nods his approval, so Daniela keeps silent.

“Be sure to curtsy to Rocco when you see him,” my father says.

I crush down the rebellious part of me that cringes at that instruction. I hate this formal parade of false affection. I hate that I’m expected to bow and simper all night long in front of all these hateful strangers.

I follow my father out of the house to the waiting limo.

We live in a traditional-style villa in Sitges, on the south coast of Barcelona. My father bought this place because of the unusually large plot of land and the clear view to the ocean. The grounds include a spa and sauna, a Turkish bath, several ponds stocked with exotic fish, a large outdoor dining area, and an orchard. Surrounded on all sides, of course, by hedges and stone walls.

He likes to think of himself as a gentleman, though we’re descended from fishmongers.

The Galician clans were all fishermen to begin with.

Then the Bay of Biscay ran barren, and they turned to tobacco smuggling instead. Smuggling was far more lucrative than fishing had ever been. The fleets multiplied and the fishermen grew rich with empty nets, and cargo holds stuffed with tobacco, hashish, and cocaine.

The Galicians made contacts in Colombia and Morocco. Spain became the entry point for the vast majority of the high-quality cocaine smuggled into Europe.

They built distribution routes to Portugal, France, and Britain, made alliances with the Albanians and the Turkish mafia to bring in heroin, too. They bought politicians and won the love of the people by sponsoring festivals, schools, and football teams. Juventud Cambados became the highest-paid football players in the nation, despite being located in a tiny town, all thanks to narco money.

But what had been a local operation between the tight-knit Galician clans became an international enterprise. The clans began to feud. Long-seated resentments flared up all over again, this time with exponential force behind them.

Threats turned into kidnapping. Kidnapping into torture and murder. A cycle of bloody reprisals split the clans apart.

This is where my father finds himself now: caught between the powerful Alonso clan who have allied themselves with the Brits, and the Torres family who owns the People’s Party and the Galician Premier.

My father needs a partner, or he’ll be swallowed up by one of the other clans. Or worse, crushed under their boot. He’s clinging on to his empire by his fingernails.

That’s where the Prince family comes in.

The Princes own the most powerful distribution network in Germany. With our product and their network, we’ll all become wealthy beyond measure.

For the small price of my marriage to Rocco Prince.

I’m sure his parents know they’re raising a psychopath.

He bounced around boarding schools across Europe to hush up the rumors of his cruelty, his depravity, his senseless violence . . .

I doubt there’s a mafia family in Germany who would give him one of their daughters.

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