Page 1 of Kingmakers, Year Four

1

The Spy

Three Years Ago

Iwake to my mother’s hand clamped over my mouth.

“There’s someone in the house,” she murmurs in my ear.

I slide out from under the light summer sheet, moving silently and listening for whatever sound might have alerted her. I hear nothing at all—not even the whir of a fan or the mild hum of the appliances down in the kitchen. Glancing at the digital clock on my nightstand, I see only a dark face.

The power’s beencut.

That’s what she heard—not a noise, but the sudden absence of sound as everything in the house shut off.

I’m wearing boxer shorts and an undershirt. It’s been sweltering in Poseidonia, the sea breeze barely managing to cool the villa by midnight. I bend to retrieve my shoes. My mother gives a swift shake of her head.

She’s barefoot beneath her silk pajamas, padding noiselessly toward the window. She checks the garden below, and the deck to the left, without ever bobbing her face into view. Then she motions for me to follow her toward the door, staying against the wall where the boards are less likely to creak. She glides along like a shadow, her dark hair tousled with sleep.

She’s left the door cracked. I join her, waiting for her to scan the hallway in both directions before we move.

She’s about to head toward my sister’s room when I grab her shoulder.

“She’s not in there,” I murmur. “She fell asleep in the study.”

I saw Freya passed out on the chaise with an open book splayed across her chest. I covered her with a blanket before I went to bed myself.

My mother curses silently. The study is at the very top of the villa, accessible only by the staircase on the other side of the house.

Changing direction, she heads toward those stairs.

My father intercepts us, dressed in sweatpants and no shirt. His broad chest is heavily inked with the tattoos I know as well as my own face, crossed by the strap of the AR hung over his shoulder. He passes a second rifle to my mother, who sets the stock against her shoulder and assumes a low, ready position.

They split apart, creeping down the hallway with my father in the lead, my mother covering him. They duck under each window we pass. I’m careful to do the same.

I still haven’t heard anything. I’m hopeful that my father’s soldiers will deal with the threat down on the grounds. We always bring at least six men with us, even when we come to the summer house. As my father’s wealth has increased, so has his caution.

We’ve almost reached the stairs.

I hear the creak of someone coming up. My father motions for us to fall back. He gets low, his rifle pointed at the doorway.

The hulking figure holding a Beretta is instantly recognizable to me—my father’s cousin Efrem, big and bear-like, with an incongruous set of spectacles perched on his nose. His shoulders drop in relief when he sees the three of us.

“Where’s Timo and Maks?” my father demands.

“Unresponsive,” Efrem says, tapping the radio on his belt.

My father’s face darkens. That’s not good.

“We need to—” Efrem starts.

He’s cut off by the sharp crack of shattering glass and a thudding sound. My father grabs me by the shoulder, yanking me to the ground as an explosion blasts through the house. The whole floor heaves beneath me, a wave of pressure and heat roaring out from the direction of our bedrooms.

Now that the silence is broken, the night comes alive with gunfire and shouting. The sharp staccato of automatic weapons bursts up all around us, seemingly from every corner of the grounds. I smell smoke. Not pleasant campfire smoke—the acrid stench of paint and fabric and carpet burning.

“We’ve got to get to the helicopter!” Efrem says, trying to grab my mother’s arm.

She shakes him off impatiently. “That’s where they’ll expect us to go,” she says.

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