Chapter 1

Cas

The phone rings loudly and wakes me out of a sound sleep.

“Mmph. Hello?” I answer groggily.

“Prince Caspian! He lives! You’re gonna love my ass when you hear this bit of news!”

The voice on the other end of the line belongs to Nico, my younger brother and my right-hand man. He’s way too perky, and it’s way too early in the morning for my liking.

“I hate morning people, Nico,” I grumble. “This information better be worth waking me up for.”

“Look, man. I’m coming over! Can I come over?” His voice is unusually hyper.

“I—” I begin.

“Awesome! See you in a minute then!”

Click.

I put the phone down, thinking I won’t see hide nor hair from Nico until well past 1p.m.

I close my eyes and try to return to sleep when I suddenly hear a banging on my front door. It sounds like the hounds of fucking hell.

“Fucking Nico,” I grumble, kicking the covers off me and stomping towards the door.

The day has clearly begun, and I’m not exactly in the best mood about it.

I swing the door open, scowling as I do so.

Nico is at the door with a cup of hot coffee in each hand, a shit-eating grin on his face, and his blue eyes flickering with mischief and mayhem.

“Brother of mine!” he says, over-exaggerating the “mine” and blowing air kisses towards me.

“Fuck you,” I say, grabbing the hot coffee and stomping back into the loft. “What brings you here terrorizing me this morning, Nico?”

He tosses an envelope on my bed. “Get your suit, Cas. We’ve got a wedding to go to.”

“We do?” I ask, sipping my coffee. “No shit. Who’s getting married?”

“Have a look for yourself, bud,” he says, sticking his head in my refrigerator. “Why do you never have anything to eat in here, Cas? Jesus Christ.”

I ignore his comment, sit on my bed, and open the envelope.

The invitation is cream colored, made from the finest parchment, with gold leaf lettering. On one side of the invitation are the letters “YA” and on the other side are the letters “AR.”

Who the hell? I think to myself.

I open the bi-fold of the invitation.

“Mr. and Mrs. Boris Rachmanoff request the honor of your presence at the wedding of their daughter, Ana, to Yuri Andreievich, son of Mr. and Mrs. Vladimir Andreievich…” I read out loud.

It hits me.

No. No fucking way.

“Nico!” I bellow loudly, my voice reverberating through the loft. “Are you fucking kidding me with this?”

Nico appears in the doorway with a Granny Smith apple in his hand, munching loudly.

“Finally found something to eat in here, asshole,” he says between chomps.

“Nico, shut the fuck up and answer me,” I growl, waving the invitation in his face. “Is this a fucking joke?”

Nico grabs the invitation with his free hand, looks at it absently, flips it over, and hands it back to me.

“Nope. You see me laughing here, Cas?” he says nonchalantly.

“Goddammit,” I say, tossing the invitation across the room. “I’ve been looking for her for three years—three goddamn years. And now she turns up, and she’s ready to marry this Russian mook? Like I never existed?”

Nico raises an eyebrow at me.

“You know as well as I do that these marriages are a matter of contract, Cas, and not a matter of love,” he says, still nonchalant. “Doesn’t matter if she loves this ‘mook,’ as you call him, or not. She’s a girl, and in our world, girls are currency to be used in transactions.”

He looks at the invitation again.

“Yuri Andreievich, eh? He’s really come a long way from just being a bag man in the Rachmanoff crime family.”

I suck my teeth in exasperation. “Excellent insight, Nico. Thank you. When is this wedding gonna take place?”

Nico purses his lips until they form a thin line across his face. “Huh. Look at that. They’re getting married today. In a 6p.m. sunset ceremony, no less. Pulling out every stop for this—”

I growl, scream loudly, and flip my dining room table over, sending the marble crashing to the ground and into a million pieces.

“And when the fuck were you going to volunteer this information, Nico?!”

“You didn’t ask!” he screams back. “What the fuck, I’ve gotta tell you everything, Cas? You can’t read?”

I don’t even bother to give him a response—or a crack across the jaw—because I’m scrambling the web, looking for a flight to New York City.

“You know what? Fuck it,” I say out loud, flipping through my phone contacts and stopping when I see the private jet service.

I dial the number.

“Yeah, Mickey? It’s Cas,” I say. “The fuck you mean, ‘Cas who?’ Do you know any other Caspian Andreas? I need a goddamn plane to New York City. When? How about now, Mickey? What’s that? Thirty minutes? Okay, fine. See you then.”

I put the phone down and look at Nico. “I can leave you alone with the family business, can’t I, Nico?”

Nico scoffs. “This isn’t the first time you’ve left me alone with the business, Cas.”

“I know, Nico,” I say, a little more softly this time, as I begin changing my clothes and freshening up. “But ever since daddy got shot by Boris, you know I’m in charge around here. And I have to make sure that my consigliere is on point, always.”

Nico sighs. “I get it, Cas. But I haven’t let you down yet. Why would I let you down now?”

“You wouldn’t,” I reply, fully dressed and ready to go.

Nico looks me up and down. “That’s how you’re going?”

I look at myself. “All black everything, and all Ferragamo everything. Why not?”

“All in black, though? For a wedding?” Nico asks.

I smirk. “Nico, my brother, there’s gonna be a funeral before there’s a wedding in New York City. Consider me dressed for the occasion.”

Nico’s eyes widen as I flip through my contacts once more and call for a blacktop car to take me to the air field.

“Aren’t you going to bring a change of clothes? You barely even washed your ass.”

I roll my eyes and shake my head. “They’re going to know it’s me coming, one way or another.”

I look out the window of my loft and, within five minutes, the blacktop shows up.

The sun was still trying to peek its way through the mountains.

“Alright,” I say, opening the front door. “Be good, Nico. You know what to do.”

I don’t give him a chance to answer before I slam the door and bolt down the stairs.