The last time Dison was in a room this tense, someone got killed.

John Jacoby, sitting behind his desk, his upper lip in a constant snarl, ran his tongue over his teeth. “Let me make a call to my accountant before we go further.”

For an hour Dison had been negotiating with him, while the man with him, Kristof Miocic—nephew of his client, Ivan Miocic—mumbled insults in Croatian, ratcheting up the tension with every move of his freckled mouth. Jacoby’s office had no chairs save for his, an intimidation tactic to keep his guests uncomfortable on their feet, which only added to Kristof’s ire.

Dison knew bringing him was unwise.

Nevertheless, when your most important—and only—client tells you to do something, you do it, and Ivan had insisted Dison bring him. Against his gut instinct, Dison obeyed, despising that he had no choice. Kristof was a punk, had bullied people around his neighborhood for money, including beating up a handicapped teen who’d talked back to him, and allegedly sexually assaulted a human woman at a club.

And yet, Ivan aimed to have him lead his empire one day?

Dison had one singular goal, to bring together the Miocics and the Jacobys. A mission he was fairly confident he could accomplish by bringing up the magic word: money.

Ivan owned a transportation company; Jacoby sold guns and ammunition. Win-win. Hell, if the families hadn’t been enemies since the Dark Ages, then they probably would be the best of mates; they had more in common than not. However, they were not mates, and other powerful families were sick to death of the rivalry that was so old, no one even knew exactly why they hated each other. Only that it was high time they got over it.

Finally, after years of wearing him down, Dison talked Ivan into considering a mutually beneficial arrangement with John, if the terms were right.

But Kristof just had to accompany him to this meeting. To “learn” the art of the deal.

The second they’d walked into Jacoby’s office, and John set his sharp, icy blue gaze on Kristof, alarm bells had rung in Dison’s head. Jacoby had a zero tolerance policy for insolence, and Kristof had it coming off him in waves.

Dison could tell Jacoby hated the heir apparent, who’d dressed inappropriately for a formal meeting, showing up in crocodile shoes with sharp tips, a tight dress shirt with the buttons halfway done, a giant silver cross necklace, his blonde hair slicked back with a fine brush.

Dison, on the other hand, wore his usual business attire, a white shirt under a bespoke sport coat, his neatly trimmed hair finger-combed.

They couldn’t look more opposite.

Ivan insisted his nephew go because he desperately wanted Kristof to be respected, as he was, when he had to be aware his nephew just didn’t have it in him to be a leader of jack shit. Miocic also had two daughters, but was too much of a misogynist to let either one of them take over outright. Marina, beautiful, but aloof and introverted, preferred working on motherboards and hacking into highly secured databases for amusement.

Her older sister Sesila was clever, ambitious, and fully capable of taking the reins, but was headstrong, and lacked sophistication. Perhaps if Ivan had spent any time cultivating their strengths, they would be more than capable of standing at the helm, but Ivan wouldn’t consider it, desperately hoping his nephew was the prodigy he longed for.

Ever since he hit his maturation age at thirty, Kristof had been bulldozing his way into the business of things instead of earning it, which most entitled assholes tended to do.

Jacoby finally hung up the phone. “So do we have an accord, Mr. Huxford? Five percent?” he asked Dison.

Kristof spit on the expensive Peruvian carpet. “You call what you just offered a fucking accord? I call that piss.”

Jacoby stiffened. “I don’t give a fuck what you think.”

“Fuck you,” Kristof shot back, then glanced at Dison. “Tell him, Huxford.”

Dison’s jaw clenched. Miocic emphasized he wouldn’t take anything less than ten percent of the cut for transporting the guns, and Jacoby had offered five. Getting them to split to eight shouldn’t be a problem. The spoiled idiot obviously didn’t know the game of negotiation. The first offer was always the lowest, then a counteroffer was made, and finally, the number between the two was agreed upon. A kindergarten could grasp the concept.

Dison nodded. “I’ll relay the offer and get back to you.”

“You’re standing next to a Miocic and I say no!” Kristof snarled in his Croatian accent. “Twenty percent or shit.”

Dison clenched a fist, but remained cool, turning his gaze on Kristof. “We’re just starting to negotiate. We’ll see what your uncle says.”

“My uncle sent me in his place. I make the decisions. I speak on his behalf.”

“Is this true?” Jacoby asked, fury in his puffy eyes.

Dison’s blood started to simmer as tension thickened the air. “No, he doesn’t speak on his uncle’s behalf. Expect my call tonight,” he said, praying Kristof would drop it, and headed for the door.

Kristof gaped at him, and followed, a hand slapped to Dison’s chest. “What the fuck? Asking my uncle is a waste of time. Five percent is a laugh!”

Dison pushed off his palm. “And twenty percent is unreasonable, double what your uncle asked for,” he said through gritted teeth.

Kristof leaned in with his psychotic eyes piercing into Dison’s profile. “Oh? My balls too big for you? What do you know about taking risk and making real money? Huh? Nothing. And you’re nothing but a fucking numbers geek. An errand man at best. I’m not walking away.” Before Dison could stop him, Kristof turned, yelling, “Twenty percent! We cutting you a favor! Our trucks are fastest. Employees? Loyal! Police? Paid for! Twenty percent is a gift for what we provide! Do you think we are morons?”

Jacoby pushed up from his desk slowly. “If you don’t get the hell out of my house, you will regret it.” He set his hard gaze on Dison and pointed. “I took this meeting out of respect for you, Dison. Then you turn around and bring this turd to my house so he can mock me and spit on my floor?”

Fuck. The last thing he needed was to get on Jacoby’s bad side because of a punk like Kristof. “Mr. Miocic insisted on it—”

“Dison doesn’t fucking speak for my uncle,” Kristof drawled, lifting his hand, tattooed to his knuckles. “Listen, you piece of shit, Ivan doesn’t need your respect or your money. We are the Miocics! Of royal blood!” He thumped his chest once with a fist. “When your balls is big enough to play with the real men, you give us a call, huh?”

The Jacobys were royals too, so his declaration was shit. Gods. Dison was maddeningly close to punching him in the face until he had no face. “Kristof, your uncle needs Jacoby’s business, and we all know it. We’re not leaving here with nothing but our cocks in our hands.”

Because Kristof had half a brain and knew he was right, he said nothing, glaring at Dison from lowered lids.

Mr. Jacoby’s mouth twitched, his ego partially soothed it seemed. “I’m changing the offer to three percent.”

Dison suppressed a loud sigh. Now Jacoby was just playing games. “No lower than five. The liability doesn’t calculate for three. The extra weight of the cargo, the security, the documentation, the payoffs…”

“Fine,” Jacoby sniffed. “We’re back to five.”

Could this bloody meeting please end? Next time, he wouldn’t bring Kristof, no matter what Miocic said. “Good.” Dison tucked his hand in his pocket to hide the fist it was forming. “Kristof, let’s go.”

Kristof shook his head. “No. The minimum is twenty.”

Ignoring him, Jacoby flipped a fat hand, dismissing them. “We’re done here.”

“Oh, we’re done?” Kristof marched across the office, but Jacoby—proud and fearless—remained composed, almost daring the nephew of his biggest rival to try something.

He muttered something to Kristof that Dison couldn’t hear.

Kristof spit in the man’s face, grabbed a letter opener, and stabbed Jacoby’s hand to the desk.

It happened so fast Dison blinked to make sure he’d seen it correctly.

Jacoby roared in pain, his eyes flashing, his teething sharpening.

Kristof laughed as he stumbled back, heading for the door, pushing past Dison.

“Stop him!” Jacoby shouted.

Did Kristof have a death wish or was he literally crazy?

Dison didn’t know whether to stay and beg for Jacoby’s forgiveness, or flee with the coward. The stab to Jacoby’s hand wasn’t a serious physical wound, but it definitely had to hurt like hell. Jacoby pulled the opener out of his hand with yell, and Dison watched the wound seal, but the look in the man’s eyes was lethal.

Dison glanced back and put his hands up. “By the gods, Jacoby, I’m sorry. I had no idea Miocic’s nephew was so unhinged.”

Jacoby grabbed a handkerchief from a drawer and wiped the blood from his palm. “I’ve known you a long time, Dison, and you’ve always been straight with me. I know what you’re trying to do between me and Miocic, but the fact remains if he was serious about doing business, he would’ve come here himself.” His gaze moved over Dison’s shoulder to the guards at the door. “Bring him in here.”

Jacoby’s strongmen dragged Kristof in, gagged, the tips of his shoes scraping the floor. He wretched his shoulders, making incoherent words through the tightly bound rag between his lips, eyes blazing with scorn.

Did he really think he was going to get away?

“Funny,” Jacoby began. “Not that long ago, I would’ve let something like this go. A stab in the hand?” He shrugged. “Nothing compared to what others have done. But now? I’m old. Tired, even. I see the youth and hope in my son’s and daughter’s eyes and wish I could bottle it, sip on it, and see the world differently. The longer in the tooth I become…” Jacoby sauntered to a wide cabinet above his bar and carefully took down a sheathed sword. “The less I’m supposed to care. That’s what my human friends say. The older they become, the less concerned about appearances, money, status, offenses. Much less concern.”

His blunt fingers traced along the length of the sheath. “For us, it’s not the same. We grow old only when we become parents, and even then, we live many years before we even see a wrinkle. I know I have time, a lot of time, before the gods take me. And guess what. I do care. I am concerned. That the underworld we so desperately try to protect will be left in the hands of psychopaths like this one.”

Heart hammering, Dison remained silent, watching Jacoby trace his fingertips along the blade like it was a pet. Jacoby kept his disturbingly calm stare on Kristof, who continued to whine and wrestle like a bounded animal.

“Jacoby,” Dison warned softly. “Don’t.”

The gun dealer ignored him. He brought the tip of the sword under Kristof’s chin and jerked it up, eyes dark and cold like black ice, while Kristof’s widened.

A series of the ramifications flashed through Dison’s mind of what would happen, should Jacoby actually execute his enemy’s nephew. Despite the fact Dison didn’t know what his own fate was, he knew he had to be the voice of reason, whether or not it was futile.

“You’ll be declaring war with Miocic,” Dison stated the obvious, looking from the terrified Kristof to the terrifyingly composed Jacoby. “A very serious war all because of him?” The thought of the bloodshed and violence that would follow the death of such a prick sickened him.

Kristof whipped a furious gaze on Dison, telling him if he managed to get out of this alive, Dison’s future was doomed. Whether or not Miocic gave his nephew permission, Kristof would hunt him down and punish him for the insult, even if it saved his life.

“A lot of wars have been activated over bullshit,” Jacoby murmured.

Kristof yelled through his gag, though nothing of what he said could be understood, the viciousness of his tone and the vein popping out of his temple proved he wasn’t begging for his life, just spewing out more insults, trying to act tough to the bitter end.

But to be executed with his hands tied behind his back, with no way to defend himself, wasn’t fair, regardless of the fact that he’d wounded Jacoby first. It hadn’t been a mortal wound, so in vampire eyes, death without defense was unseemly.

“At least give the man a fighting chance,” Dison advised.

Jacoby’s gaze roved to Dison and back to Kristof. “You’re right. The only time he should be on his knees is when he’s begging for my forgiveness. Is that what you’re doing, Kristof?” he taunted, tapping the sword on Kristof’s cheek. The young vampire jerked away from the blade, eyes narrowing. “No, I didn’t think so. Bring him up. Remove the gag.”

The guards pulled Kristof to his feet and untied the rag, but kept his hands bound behind him.

“You motherfucker,” Kristof snarled. “I will kill you.”

Jacoby laughed. “Ha! If my fate is to be ended by the likes of you, then so be it. The gods might be bored enough to let it happen. You want to fight me, boy? You’ll get one shot. If you win, well fuck off, my legacy goes down the shitter and you’ll be notorious! If I win, well, I guess the only benefit I’ll obtain is never seeing your face again.” He appeared almost in a delightfully dark mood as he brushed past Kristof, sword in hand. “To the courtyard. You too, Huxford.”

One of the guards pushed at Kristof to follow, who called after him. “There will be no mercy on my end, old man. Either you die or you die quickly. I won’t give you the choice to beg on your knees.”

Jacoby gave no retort.

Dison lowered his hands, feeling as though time was moving excruciatingly slow, and wishing he’d never even considered this meeting in the first place. Now he was either about to witness the death of a royal’s nephew or the death of a royal. Either would kick off a domino effect of retaliation that could take decades to settle.

Nevertheless, there was nothing he could do to stop this runaway train. If Kristof wanted to fight Jacoby—who was over three hundred years old and a weapons expert—and Jacoby wanted to fight the young relative of someone he despised, then he wouldn’t stand in their way. He was a financial consultant and negotiator, and neither man was worth dying for. No way was he going to stand up for Kristof, no matter who he was related to.

Regardless of who won, his world was about to change.

The courtyard was in the middle of Jacoby’s estate, an open air square with nothing but grass, used for training and weapons testing.

And apparently, fights to the death. Dison had no doubt Jacoby would win, and when the guard cut the ties from Kristof’s wrists, and the man’s shoulders bunched, his head down, he had a sense Kristof realized he was out of his depth.

Of course, pride would never let him back down at this point.

“Choose.” Jacoby pointed to the side table where a selection of weapons was available. He sauntered to one side of the courtyard, turning his wrist in circles.

Kristof stood at the table of weapons and huffed. “I’m not fighting you with a fucking sword. I fight with my hands.”

Jacoby turned with a look of disgust. Of course he hadn’t thought of that, assuming every vampire worth his salt would’ve been taught how to battle with swords. Some families taught it, some didn’t. “Gods, I hate your uncle even more now.” He tossed the sword to the guard without looking, who caught it one-handed. “Fine. I’ll beat you to death.”

With a smirk, Kristof began removing his chain and shirt. Jacoby was large and strong, but Kristof was young and quick. It could go either way without weapons.

Dison walked up to Kristof. His last chance to end this madness. “Your uncle wouldn’t want you to do this. Don’t let your pride decide your fate.” He glanced back at John, who’d removed his shirt also. “Jacoby is a reasonable royal. Apologize, show some respect, and he’ll let us walk out of here. If he wins, you’ll die. Do you really want to take that risk?”

“Get the fuck away from me, numbers man. Once I win, I’m dealing with you next. I’ll take Jacoby’s territory and have more money and more power than my uncle ever had.”

“You really think the other royals would allow it?”

“Fuck the other royals. I don’t need their permission, or yours, or my uncle’s. I take what I want.”

He sure did, and it was going to get him killed. Dison didn’t want to be here to witness it was because his presence alone would mean he was responsible for whatever happened to Kristof, no matter the circumstances. Too bad Jacoby’s son wasn’t around to assert how stupid this was; despite being the child of a temperamental father, he had grown up to be a lot cooler headed.

One last try… “He’s fought literally centuries more than you have. He has the advantage here. We’re on his territory. Who’s to say even if you do get the upper hand, his guards won’t kill you anyway?”

That gave Kristof pause. Could he possibly see reason through his dense skull?

Kristof cracked his knuckles, glanced at Dison, lips pursed, then set his gaze on Jacoby again. For one second, Dison had hope, picturing Kristof muttering an apology for disrespecting Jacoby in his home and asking for another chance to make things right.

Kristof plugged one nostril and blew snot on the ground with the other.

Dison sighed. That was why fantasies were not called realities.

Jacoby gestured for him to come forward, expression bored, confidence high.

Dison flicked a look at the guards stalking the perimeter of the courtyard who were not really paying attention, as if they knew it was going to be a short confrontation and that their leader would be the victor.

Kristof attacked, with a head first tackle into Jacoby’s midsection, to take him down and pummel him from on top. Barrel of a man that he was, Jacoby wouldn’t let himself be forced to the ground, dug his heels in, and pushed against Kristof’s momentum, planting his hands on his opponent’s shoulders, shoving him back. Kristof stumbled, and Jacoby took advantage with a right hook to the jaw.

With a frustrated yell, Miocic swung back and missed, meeting Jacoby’s other fist. Once again, he tried to take him down to the ground. Jacoby laughed and pushed him off; he was enjoying this. He didn’t laugh when Kristof connected a well-timed fist into his ribs and an elbow to the back of his head however. Then the fight turned serious.

For a few minutes it went on. Perhaps if Kristof had learned to fight rather than just brawl, he might’ve stood a chance. But when Jacoby headbutted him, breaking Kristof’s nose and sending him reeling back in blood and pain, the favor fell completely on Jacoby. He advanced, kicked Kristof in the knee, buckling him. Then, with Kristof yelling in pain, Jacoby hit his face with the back of his hand over and over, until Kristof fell over, gasping.

Jacoby kicked him in the stomach, and Kristof raised his pathetic gaze up to Dison, and reached out. His opponent found this amusing and let up. Bleeding, out of breath, Kristof scrambled up to his feet toward him, swaying and heaving. He grabbed Dison by the lapels, teeth gritted, saliva shooting out of the corners of his mouth.

Just when Dison started to shove the man’s hands off him, Kristof yanked a knife from the heel of his shoe and swiftly got behind him, shoving the sharp point to Dison’s neck.

Shit. He hadn’t seen that coming.

“Come any closer,” Kristof warned while Jacoby went for his sword, “and I’ll slice his vein all over your grass.”

Dison’s hands curled to fists. “By the gods, you are stupid.”

But Jacoby didn’t advance to his aid. He took pause, glaring at the two of them, assessing the situation. Of course he didn’t care what happened to him. All Dison ever did was make the man money, but now that he worked strictly for Miocic, that wouldn’t save him.

He could make a quick move to escape Kristof’s clutches, but that would risk a deep slice to the neck that could bleed him out in seconds, too fast for him to heal. Calculating risk was his job and it wasn’t worth it to find out.

“Come on, you shit, come on,” Kristof spat, pulling him to move toward an exit.

“Let us leave,” Dison advised Jacoby.

“Cheating bastard,” Jacoby yelled at Kristof. “Get back here and fight me!”

“Fuck you!” He shoved the knife harder into Dison’s neck and cut him, the blood poured out of Dison’s skin and down his chest.

“Fine.” The feral look in Jacoby’s eyes was unmistakable. He wasn’t going to let Kristof leave. “You cheat. I cheat.”

Just as Kristof had dragged him to the archway, Jacoby disappeared. Dison had no idea the man could blur.

“Where—where the fuck did he go?” shrieked Kristof.

A breeze blew on the fine hairs of Dison’s neck and in the next second, a sword pierced through Kristof’s stomach. The young royal let out a sound of unimaginable despair.

Dison whipped around in time to see Kristof look down at the magnificent blade Jacoby had stabbed him with, dripping with his blood. Jacoby sneered as he pulled out the weapon from Kristof’s body, and watched him collapse to his knees. He gave Dison no glance as he came around to face the man.

“Damn. Killing you isn’t nearly as satisfying as I thought it would be.” With his left hand, he raised the sword over his right shoulder. “And you know? I’m actually looking forward to this war with your uncle.” He sliced off his head with one smooth cut.

Kristof’s skin and clothes disintegrated into ash, while his skull bounced on the ground, and his bones fell in a heap.

Dison briefly closed his eyes. And so it begins.