Page 1 of Brutal Collateral

PROLOGUE

The Sister – Albany, New York – Nine Years Ago – Age 18

“Get out of the car,” my brother Alexander hisses, sitting next to me in the backseat of a rickety old SUV driven by the same man who works for my father.

It reeks of cigarettes and worn-out leather, but the assault on my senses for the duration of the four-hour drive is nothing compared to the way my heart is pounding seeing a Navy recruitment office.

“Please don’t make me do this,” I say, trying not to cry.

“It’s for your own protection,” my brother grumbles the same bullshit reason I’ve been hearing my whole life. BS that’s done nothing but kept me isolated.

That looks to be changing. I’m being forced to leave my family.

“But tell me why?” I plead, trying to break the wall he’s kept up for the entire drive in deadly silence.

“Okay, I’ll tell you why.” Alexander turns to face me, his thirty-year-old smile as harsh as our father’s. “Father owes Mr. Christou alotof money and offeredyouin payment for the debt.”

That shuts me up and paralyzes me with fear hearing the name. Thegodfather, the head of the Greek Mafia is coming for me? Oh God.

“I won’t let that happen.” Alexander grips my chin. “But it will take time to undo Father’s damage to this family. I vow to restore our name to the glory and respect it once held so I can officially take over.”

Yesterday, my aunt—Father’s sister—gathered everyone together in her Park Avenue apartment with my younger cousins to sing me happy birthday. I turned eighteen, imagining all the freedom I’d have.

Then my oldest brother woke me up at five a.m. and told me I was enlisting in the Navy! TheUSNavy, not even the Hellenic Greek Navy where he served.

Next, I was pushed into the bathroom where a woman bleached my dark hair to a sickly white color! I barely had time to look in the mirror when I was then ordered into this car.

“You have to walk in there on your own, sister. Don’t make me drag you out of this car and carry you,” my brother growls. “Now tell me your name.”

I stare down at the envelope with my new identity. I’ve studied it as I’d been ordered to, but when I open my mouth, Alexander shoots me a warning glare like he knows I’ll answer my real name just to be a brat.

He snaps his fingers in front of my face to change my mind.

“I got it,” I bite out.

Growing up with four brothers, who narcissistically think they’re Greek Gods, I had to be tough to find my place and earn their respect.

“I know it seems like I’m punishing you, but I’m saving you from a life of hell. Father doesn’t give a shit about you.” His words sting, but he doesn’t voice the reason why my father has no love for me.

I found out one night when he was drunk.

I look exactly like my mother, the woman who gave him five children and loved him, but he ran her off. Paid her not to come near us. Given Father’s power at the time, she had no choice.

I’ve never heard from her since that dreadful day.

“Does... Does anyone know what you’re doing, or where I’ll be?”

“No,” Alexander says sharply. “I’m taking charge of this family. Our brothers will know soon enough not to question me.”

I shoot a look at him, thinking about the brother I’m closest with because of our ages. “Ambrose will want to know where I am.”

“Just as I have plans for you, I have plans for Ambrose. I have plans for this whole fucking family. But I can’t do that with savages at my gate looking for you, demanding I hand you over to pay the debts Father incurred with his gambling, whores, and bad business deals. As soon as you get your ass on that naval base, I will announce your disappearance.”

“And then?”

His cold eyes make me shiver. “Then I’m killing Father for daring to sell your virginity.”

“Why not just kill the man I’ve been sold to?”

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