Page 50 of Thorns of Deceit
The city outside my office window was a sprawl of steel and shadow—gray towers piercing a colorless sky, streets below swallowed by the hum of engines and indifference. Even the clouds seemed tired, sagging low over the skyline as if weighed down by the monotony.
Luca King DiMauro—my brother-in-law, who mostly stuck to Sicily—was on speakerphone, giving a full monologue about some fashion gala in Paris where all the Omertà heads planned to mingle. The man had an opinion about everything, especially Enrico Marchetti, the Omertà boss he despised with a fiery, almost operatic passion. Whenever “official” matters arose, Luca relied on me to play his stand-in for the sake of peace.
But this?
This didn’t sound official at all. Just another excuse for him to vent his frustrations and wish Enrico Marchetti dead.
So I let him rant, his words fading into the background hum of the city while my mind drifted back to my own problems—the contracts piling up, the missing shipments, the deal that was starting to rot from the inside out.
Every deal I’d touched in the past few years bore the same invisible bruise: Duncan Lyons. His name hung over every negotiation like a curse, poisoning trust before it even had the chance to breathe.
And still, none of it compared to the wound that never closed.
Five years and the ache still lived in my chest like a parasite that refused to die. Five years since that explosion tore an innocent life from me.
It had been five years since Raven died in that explosion—five years since I’d watched everything good in my life go up in flames. I was the one who pulled her into this world, the one who thought I could protect her from it. I ruined her. The guilt has a way of resurfacing in the quiet moments, curling cold fingers around my throat until I couldn’t breathe.
Moving on felt like betrayal, like erasing her. Especially after learning how Uncle Jack had approached Blair, what he’d said, what he’d offered. That truth still burns, festering beneath every deal, every handshake, every hollow victory.
A tremor started in my fingers and I pressed my other hand over it, but it didn’t stop. Some things you couldn’t steady—grief, guilt, ghosts.
“So, what do you say?” Luca’s voice cut through my thoughts.
I blinked, refocusing. “About what?”
“About going,” he shot back, impatience dripping from every syllable.
My brows drew together. “Going where?”
“To Paris,” he snapped sharply. “Haven’t you been listening?”
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “I have. But from what you’ve described, it sounds more like a social circus than Omertà business.”
Five minutes later, I was booked for Paris. Damn him. Luca King DiMauro could talk the devil into being an angel.
I leaned back into the seat, my gaze locked on the skyline, but it would seem peace wasn’t meant for me today. The door of my office swung open and my uncle strolled in.
“I hear another one of our shipments went missing.” Uncle Jack’s voice slithered from the doorway, smooth as ever. Uncle Jack had retired after a heart attack and left me to deal with this mess he started when he insisted on a marriage alliance, and afterwards Duncan Lyons blamed us for my wife’s death.
“We cannot tolerate missing shipments in our own city,” he continued. “What are you going to do about it, nephew?”
I didn’t bother turning around.
“Last I checked, you’re no longer head of our family,” I muttered, lighting a cigarette. “Besides, you only have yourself to thank for jumping the gun on Duncan Lyons five years ago.”
Lyons’s criminal empire roots originated in Scotland as a small smuggling ring run by Duncan Lyons’s ancestors along the rugged northern coast before evolving into one of the most influential underground networks. Operating from a fortified estate outside Glasgow, the Lyons syndicate controlled a vast web of illegal enterprises, from arms trafficking and money laundering to high-end art theft and digital fraud.
Though outwardly posing as a legitimate shipping and import business, their operations spanned multiple continents, with footholds in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The family itself is both the source of Lyons’s strength and his greatest vulnerability. His sister, who was once his most trusted confidant, had grown increasingly reluctant to assist him after Duncan’s disastrous outing with her husband. Despiteher hesitation, she remained entangled in the organization’s dealings, bound by blood and the secrets that could destroy them all.
“You really enjoy reminding me that you’re the boss, don’t you?” He let out a dry, humorless laugh that scraped against my nerves. “And you can’t still be holding me responsible for everything that went down with Duncan. How the hell was I supposed to know he’d react the way he did?”
I finally turned, my chair creaking as I faced him. His suit was tailored, his smile polite, and his eyes colder than a goddamn morgue slab.
“Is there a reason for your visit?” I inquired. “Or did you come to agitate me?”
He stepped further into the office and took a chair across from the desk. “Nephew, you have to let shit go. At some point, you might want to start living again.”
My jaw tightened.
