Page 1 of We Are the Match
Act One: Deathless Goddess
Chapter 1
Paris
On this side of the island, where the cliffs are stark white and brutal and the people are crammed together in small apartments like dolls in a dollhouse, your neighbors can hear every scream.
Or, in Thea’s case, moan.
She and Perce are in my bed, as usual on a Saturday night, and the three of us have spent it as we always have—fucking, arguing about business, and then fucking again.
It’s the buzz of my phone on the bedside table that finally interrupts us for good, and I clamber over Perce—who looks exhausted, poor man—and flip it over, silencing the alarm.
“So are you actually going to show up, Paris?” Thea flops back onto the bed beside Perce and arches a perfectly groomed eyebrow at me. “For the party?”
“I don’t understand why youwantme there,” I say sharply, and there it is again. The argument that is always so close to the surface with us, the part where I ask her why she left me—left all of us at the group home—behind to play god with the crime families of the Grecian islands.
Perce groans. “Paris,” he says. “I don’t know what it will take to convince you. I really don’t. You’re our friend, and we haven’t had aproper engagement party. So we want you there.Iwant you there, even if it’s ... well, even if it’s Zarek’s party, really.”
Thea sits up and grins at me, the look on her face sharp. “Come on, Paris,” she says. “This is how Zarek is. It doesn’t mean we can’t have fun at our party.”
Thea works for Zarek in the same sense that we all do—he owns the mansion on the hill in name, but he owns all the rest of the island, city and all, in practice. Even on mainland Greece, far from the island, Zarek has reach that extends far beyond what it should.
“What’s fun about a party with a bunch of high-up people from the Family?” I say.
Despite the number of times Thea’s asked me to be one of her fixers, I’ve kept the Families and the work they do at a distance. Thea drills me with a look. “You always seem so sure you’ll have nothing in common with any of them,” she says thoughtfully, “when you’ve done similar work yourself over the years.”
It’s not that the work bothered me as much aswhoI’d be working for, though: after all, I’ve smashed a few fingers in my time. Convinced the occasional guard not to see something. Helped a whistleblower decide not to whistle.
Teach the bird not to sing.That’s what the heads of the crime families say when they want someone silenced. It sounds innocuous enough to wiretaps and listening ears. Almost pretty, if you’re the right audience.
“Willshebe there?” I ignore Thea and direct my question at Perce this time.
He sighs, threads his fingers through Thea’s, his bronze skin contrasting with her much-darker brown skin. “Are you asking about Helen?”
Helen. Daughter of the most powerful man on the island.
The reason I am going to this party in the first place.
Not that Perce and Thea know this.
“Of course she’s asking about Helen.” Thea’s eyes narrow. “What’s your obsession with her?”
“No obsession.”
It isn’t Helen I’m obsessed with; it’s what her death will do to Zarek. He took my family, and I’m taking his. Pretty fucking simple by my standards.
“You know she doesn’t often make public appearances,” Thea tells me. “But I’m told she’ll be there tonight to celebrate her close friend’s engagement.”
I snort. “Close friend? I don’t seeherhere.”
“Not for lack of trying.” Thea releases Perce’s hand and swings her legs over the bed. “If you want introductions, and if you want to play the game, I got you. If you want to make a scene, do me a favor and just tell me now.”
“No scenes.” It’s a bald-faced lie, and if Thea still knew me like she did when we were growing up in the group home on Troy together, she would know that.
“What, are you finally ready for your leg up in the Families?” Thea asks me.
Thea’s been on this shit for years, saying she has a place for me if I want it, and good money, too. The kind that could buy me a new life, if I wanted it.
