Kingmakers, Year One

Prologue

PROLOGUE

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

I t’s my last Christmas at home. Once I leave for Kingmakers, I’ll only be able to visit over the summer.

Christmas has never been my favorite season—I’m more of a Halloween kind of girl. But knowing this is the last time all of us will be gathered around one table to eat turkey and pull crackers is making me more nostalgic than usual.

Leo…not so much.

He can’t wait to leave. He’s so done with high school, I’m not sure how he’s going to make it through five more months of classes plus final exams.

Actually, I don’t know how he passed any of his classes. He’s not much for following instructions.

Right at this moment, he’s supposed to be helping me set out the place cards so everyone can find their seat at dinner. Instead, he’s swapping the order for maximum drama.

“You’re supposed to sit each family together,” I remind him.

Leo only grins. “What’s the fun in that?”

With twenty-four people en route, it’s lucky the dining room in my parents’ house resembles the great hall in a medieval castle. The fireplace is large enough to stand up in, and the table stretches about an acre end to end. If my mom and dad sat at opposite ends, they’d hardly be able to shout to each other. But she always sits right next to him.

“Don’t even think about moving that one…” I point to the card with Nessa written in my mother’s pretty, cursive script.

“I’m not suicidal,” Leo says, leaving that particular card exactly where it sits, right next to the one reading Mikolaj.

Leo is dressed more formally than usual, meaning he’s wearing trousers with his halfway tucked-in T-shirt. But his dark, wavy hair is messier than ever, and when he bends his knees, his slightly-too-short pants show several inches of eye-searing Christmas socks.

I smile to myself. “Are you growing again?”

If he is, he better stop—Leo’s approaching the height of your average NBA player, which means he already doesn’t fit very well into airplane seats or compact cars.

“Let’s see…” He comes around to my side of the table, wrapping his arms around me in a hug so he can rest his chin on the top of my skull. “Nope…we’re still exactly one head apart.”

“Maybe I grew, too.”

“How am I supposed to judge anything if you won’t stay the same?” He smiles down at me, not letting go.

I’m not complaining. Leo gives the best hugs. I mean, the best out of anybody, ever. For one thing, his body temperature seems to burn at about 102 degrees. Also, he squeezes like he means it.

Until my dad enters the room—then Leo lets go of me quick.

“Almost finished?” my father drily says. Pretty much everything he says comes out dry. Or menacing. Or both.

You have to know him well to spot his moments of softness. He has a narrow vein of emotion, but it runs down to his core. No one loves deeper than he does.

However, that love is almost exclusively reserved for me, my mom, and my two younger siblings. He’s not the biggest Leo fan.

As Leo is well aware.

He shoots me a sideways smile.

“Look how beautifully Anna set the table...”

Smooth recovery. Leo knows the best way to mollify my dad is to compliment me.

I do think it’s one of my best efforts. I’ve brought in armfuls of white Christmas berry from the garden, filling the air with the scent of evergreen. The ghostly berries and tall white tapers are offset by the black tablecloth and bronze plates. It’s elegant and slightly gothic. Basically, the exact opposite of Leo’s socks.

“Anna’s taste is almost always excellent,” my dad says.

When he’s safely out of earshot, Leo mutters, “He means with the exception of me.”

I laugh. “I’m pretty sure he was talking about my clothes.”

I dressed up too, but like Leo, I have my own definition of what that means. My favorite tulle gown with its trailing, transparent layers and short, puffy sleeves looks like something a vampire would wear if she died when she was twelve years old.

“But black’s his favorite color…” Leo grins. “His only color, as far as I’ve seen. Does he know other colors exist? Have you ever seen him wear blue, for instance? Or the ultimate horror…pink?”

I bite my lip to hide my smile. “Don’t make fun of my dad.”

“I would never.” Leo places his palm over his chest in pretend penitence. “I told you, I’m not suicidal.”

“Sometimes you make me wonder.”

“Oh, look!” He grabs my arm, pulling me over to the window.

Snow has started to fall. It drifts down in huge, puffy flakes, obscuring our view of the overgrown backyard.

We stand in silence, watching.

One of my favorite things about Leo is that even though he buzzes at ten thousand beats a minute, he knows when to be quiet, too.

“Let’s go stand in it,” he says.

We sneak out through the conservatory, knowing my poor, stressed mother is sure to assign us another task if she catches sight of us.

The back garden is always like its own secret world, but never more so than when it’s blanketed in snow. The silence is complete, the twelve-foot-tall stone walls and towering trees blocking out any noise from the city beyond.

My parents fell in love in this house. My father almost died in this garden. I was born in one of the rooms upstairs. When I think of leaving, my heart feels stretched to its limit, torn in two directions.

Looking at Leo gives me the same feeling.

You can’t get everything you want. Not when you want two opposite things at once.

I want to keep everything I love, perfect and unchanging, preserved under glass like a snow globe. But I also feel the pull of the great, wide something more…

“What are you thinking about?” Leo asks me.

He asks that question often, whenever he can’t tell just from the look on my face.

I don’t mind. Not when he’s the one asking.

Leo’s the only person who gets open access to my mind. I can tell him anything, and I don’t have to translate it, minimize it, or change it so it’s what he wants to hear…

Or at least…that’s how it used to be.

Lately, when I look at Leo, I still get that swell of warmth and excitement…

But I also feel like I might burst into tears. Like when you hear a song so beautiful your chest hurts, and you want something you can’t name…something that may not even exist…

I don’t understand what changed between us.

He’s right here, right next to me.

He’s giving me that grin that’s been lighting me up almost every day of my life.

But lately, Leo’s grin is torture as much as pleasure. The smile hasn’t changed…only the way it tears me up inside.

Something deep within me whispers, Tell him…

“What is it?” Leo says.

He tilts his head, examining my face.

I look into his eyes, tawny brown, but that could never capture all the depth of color dancing there. Leo’s eyes are lit from within, golden lights, as wild as whatever lives inside him.

Softly, he says, “You have snowflakes in your eyelashes.”

So does Leo. Also, snowflakes in his hair, pale stars nestled in the dark waves. They melt the moment they touch his warm, brown skin.

Leo looks like he toasted just a little longer than the rest of us, like he burns a little hotter.

He’s not like anyone else.

Even surrounded by people I love, Leo’s special to me, precious. A bond so tight it hurts.

If I asked him for something right now, for anything, he’d give it to me.

But I don’t know what to ask.

Promise me this won’t be our last Christmas…

Promise me you’ll never change…

Impossible things. Stupid things. Things that no one can promise.

Promise me I’ll never lose you…

Even that, no one can say. Either one of us could die tonight, struck by lightning. Or in our case, probably something a bit more personal…

So instead, I ask of him, “Promise me that we’ll always be friends.”

Leo’s smile spreads slow across his face, illuminating each feature in turn until his eyes are aflame.

“Anna…” His voice is low and secret. It warms me to my toes. “You know I couldn’t stop. Even if I wanted to.”

The joy that burns inside of me is fierce and hot and dangerous.

That’s what I cling to, like a bright bead of gold that I swallow while it’s still molten hot: Leo will always be my best friend.

Headlights sweep across the yard.

Leo turns. “Looks like everyone’s arriving…”

“Everyone” means every single one of our aunts and uncles and all the cousins. They’ve traveled here to commemorate our last holiday at home, even Dante and Simone, all the way from Paris, and Raylan and Riona from their ranch in Tennessee, with their four redheaded sons.

Simone and her daughter Serena come up the walk first, their arms full of wrapped gifts. Serena looks impossibly beautiful and stylish in her Parisian coat and high-heeled boots. I’m not surprised to see the three oldest Boone boys fighting over who gets to take the packages out of her hands.

Only Teddy, the youngest, remains immune to the charms of our gorgeous foreign cousin, much more interested in tearing around the house with my little brother Whelan.

It’s not Serena’s fault she’s so stunning—her mother is a supermodel, after all. And I can’t even hate her for it because she’s so damned nice.

“I brought you some of your favorite macarons.” She presses an elegantly wrapped package into my hands then kisses me on both cheeks.

Her older brother, Henry, does the same, taking my arm to help me back up the icy walk.

“No kiss for me?” Leo says with a slightly strained smile.

“How about a hug…” Henry releases my arm.

The competition for tallest member of our family has been running hot ever since Henry passed Uncle Seb and then Leo threatened to pass Henry.

Henry grabs Leo by the shoulders, locked in a kind of steely examination that finally ends as our eldest cousin sighs. “Yeah, you definitely caught up.”

“Caught up and passed you!” Leo chortles.

“Let’s not get carried away; we’re eye to eye.”

“Then how come I can see the top of your head?”

“Pinch yourself; you’re dreaming.”

Serena links elbows with me instead.

“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “I already know you’re taller than me.”

“I missed you!” she says in her silvery, soft voice, melodic as a Christmas bell.

I lean my head against her shoulder, already full to the brim with the buoyant warmth of seeing the people you love and liking them even more than you remembered.

“No hugs for me? And no help with the packages, either,” Uncle Dante grumbles, alone and forgotten behind us.

Aunt Simone laughs, kissing her husband on the cheek and squeezing his bicep the size of a ham hock. “If these can’t carry packages, then what are they good for?”

“You know what they’re good for,” he growls in her ear.

“Gross, Dad,” Henry says in a resigned tone.

“If your dad wasn’t irresistible, you wouldn’t exist,” Simone reminds him.

“Yeah, but we’re here now, and we’ve had enough of you two sucking face,” Simone’s youngest pipes up.

“Don’t say ‘sucking face,’” Simone corrects Dario. “It’s crude.”

After a glance at his glowering father, Dario ducks his head and says, “ Désolé, Maman, ” then races off to join Teddy and Whelan.

“I want to hear Dante say something in French,” a merry voice calls.

Aunt Aida comes up the walkway, her mischievous face flushed and beaming.

“His French has really improved,” Simone says at the same time that Dante grunts, “Not a chance in hell.”

“How does he survive in Paris?” Uncle Nero inquires, always eager to join his sister in teaming up against their eldest sibling.

“I bet he points a lot,” Aida says. “Or pretends like he didn’t really want that thing, anyway.”

Dante rolls his eyes. “Could you two wait until we’re inside before you start bullying me?”

“Bully you!” Aida stands on tiptoe to give her brother the kind of hug that might rival one from Leo. “Not until after dessert.”

The rest of our relatives stream into the house, Leo’s parents the last to arrive, along with my grandparents, whom they picked up along the way.

By the time we’re done with the rounds of kisses and greetings, the entryway is at least ten degrees hotter, and the sofa has disappeared beneath a mound of discarded coats and scarves.

My mother’s running everywhere, stacking gifts, bringing drinks, and separating Whelan and Dario, who have already begun to squabble. My father helps her, trying not to grimace at all the rowdy boys running around his house and all the hugs he’s forced to endure.

“Don’t you just love all this Christmas cheer?” Aida teases him as Dario lets out a particularly ear-splitting shriek.

I think my aunt Aida is the only person on this planet brave enough to rib my dad.

But then, her husband is also pretty scary.

Uncle Callum looks only slightly less tortured than my father. As soon as could possibly be considered polite, my dad says they need to “discuss something,” aka disappear into his study to drink their whiskey in peace.

Funny that those two tried to murder each other once upon a time. Now they bond over jazz music no one else likes and the unfortunate sociability of their wives.

“Do we have the weirdest family that ever was?” Leo murmurs in my ear.

Uncle Nero is showing my Aunt Aida his newest knife. Aida gives it a practiced flick and sends it spinning across the kitchen to sink hilt deep into the turkey. The Boone boys hoot and howl like a pack of redheaded baboons. Aunt Riona looks slightly less impressed.

“I spent seven hours on that turkey!”

“His name was Lawrence,” Teddy Boone sadly says.

“I told you not to name him…” Uncle Raylan rests a hand on Teddy’s shoulder. “You do this every year.”

Leo’s my cousin, sort of. His aunt Aida married my uncle Callum. It wasn’t exactly a voluntary marriage—the Griffins and Gallos were rival mafia families who tried to destroy each other for generations. Now we all eat pumpkin pie and only jokingly threaten to murder each other.

But the iron roots of our family tree remain.

The Griffins and Gallos decided to graft their branches before they burned each other to the ground.

But not all our blood feuds have been laid to rest. Not even close.

An hour later, we’re all seated around the formal dining table, with the exception of the youngest cousins, who eat in the kitchen. Nero’s daughter Sabrina was so incensed at being relegated to the kiddie table for one more year that she swiped a box of chocolates and a bottle of wine and disappeared entirely. She’s probably up in the attic, which was also my favorite place to sulk.

I’ve been amusing myself with the results of Leo’s place card swapping that have Serena seated directly between Creed and Marshall Boone, who are well on their way to a fistfight, and Aunt Aida next to Grandma Imogen, who looks appalled at the triple-decker turkey-cranberry-stuffing sandwich Aida is building.

Henry was supposed to be sitting near me, but I notice he’s now three seats down on the other side of Uncle Dante.

“How’s your residency going?” Uncle Raylan asks him.

“Excellent.” Henry takes a heaping spoonful of corn and passes the bowl down. “Other than I get no sleep and I have no life.”

“That’s what you get for being the smart one,” his sister Serena teases him.

“I thought I was the smart one,” Marshall Boone remarks.

“ You! ” Creed Boone scoffs. “You’re not even the sixth-smartest one.”

“I heard Leo got an offer from Duke,” Aunt Riona interrupts to stop her boys from squabbling.

“Yeah, but I’m not going,” Leo says, without even thinking about it.

“What?” Aunt Yelena says a little too sharply.

Quiet falls across the table. You can hear the birch boughs popping in the hearth.

Leo glances at his mom, who’s sitting directly across from us. Aunt Yelena is tall, even taller than Aunt Simone. When calm and composed, she resembles a Viking princess. Right now, lips pale and violet eyes crackling, she’s a full-fledged Valkyrie.

Uncle Seb slips an easy arm around her shoulders. She shakes him off.

“What do you mean you’re not going to Duke? When did you decide this?”

Russian accents are scarier than Polish. That’s what I’m thinking, as even my dad’s head snaps up.

It’s not the most comfortable thing in the world to have twenty pairs of eyes turned in your direction, especially when one of those pairs of eyes belongs to your extremely pissed-off mom. But Leo squares his shoulders and answers firmly.

“I already told you—I’m going to Kingmakers.”

My heart jerks in my chest.

I’ve never heard Leo say it for sure—that he’s definitely going.

I want him at Kingmakers with me.

It’s no normal school, or even one you’d find on a list of colleges.

Kingmakers exclusively serves the children of criminal families from around the globe.

Many glances are shared in many directions across the table. The two oldest Boone boys lean forward, excited—they love a good fight.

Uncle Seb tries to murmur something to his wife, his big hand rubbing slow circles in the center of her back. Yelena’s not having it.

“No, zhizn moya,” she hisses. “That’s enough of this foolishness.”

Aunt Yelena draws herself up to full height in her high-backed chair until she towers like a snow queen, eyes glittering like chips of violet ice.

“You are not going anywhere near your cousin, let alone sleeping in the same school as Dean.”

Leo is an only child. I’ve seen how Yelena gets pale and quiet when the littlest ones are around, how she’s softest with the babies. My other aunts fell pregnant easily. They used to ask when she’d have another. She’d laugh and say, “When Leo’s less trouble…” But soon she stopped laughing, and people learned to stop asking.

Leo is her light and joy. Usually, she’ll give him anything.

But, apparently, not this.

Leo hesitates, sensing the static in the air.

“Mom, I’ll be fine…they haven’t had a death at Kingmakers in years. I can handle myself.”

“Oh yeah? Have you been in a lot of street fights?”

The soft sneer comes from Uncle Nero. His attack is unexpected—Uncle Nero doesn’t often involve himself in other people’s business, and he’s the last one to throw stones for risky behavior.

Feeling teeth where he most expected support, Leo hisses back, “Yeah. I’ve been in a few. You don’t need to be in a hundred, Nero, to prove that you can do it.”

Uncle Nero’s face darkens at that disrespect.

Leo’s eyes meet mine, full of hurt and frustration.

But the last cut comes, swift and cold, from my father: “How many of those fights were with a Russian with a knife?”

Leo presses his lips together, jaw tightening. No matter how frustrated he might be, he’s not going to argue with my father.

It doesn’t matter. My dad’s not even close to finished.

“Do you think Dean is sitting down at a table like this tonight?”

He gestures down the length of the room, stuffed end to end with liquor, delicious food, and friendly faces. My father sits at the head, pale and stern as a ghost.

“Look how far our family has wandered and forgotten about a blood feud. Leo, your life is in danger as you sit here. If you don’t think that the son of Adrian Yenin has planned many ways to kill you at Kingmakers, you have already underestimated him. He will try to destroy everything you love…” He casts a long and burning look at my mother, who slips her pale hand into his, completely black with tattoos. “He’s had eighteen years to plan his revenge…that’s what I would do.”

The silence that falls is complete.

I’m begging for someone to break it, so I can breathe.

I glance at Aunt Aida, certain that she, at least, won’t let me down. But even Aida is somber.

In fact, she’s gazing across the table at her youngest brother, Uncle Seb. The exchange that passes between them is puzzling—Uncle Seb mouths something that looks like, I’m sorry, and Aida whispers back, Me, too.

All the adults at the table are exchanging guilty glances, even my grandparents.

And then, with a jolt, I understand…

They’re remembering all the ways they fucked up.

All the reasons we’re in this mess in the first place.

And even if they’re right that Leo can be just a little bit reckless…

I’m not going to let them gang up on him. Not on Christmas Eve. Not even my dad.

So, I grab Leo’s hand beneath the table and squeeze it hard. My voice cuts across the room, high and clear.

“You’re all afraid because you remember the scars from the bad decisions you made when you were younger…” Some of those scars are literal, like the six bullet wounds on Uncle Nero’s back. I stare him right in the eye, and Uncle Seb, too. “Leo’s eighteen. Where are his scars? He doesn’t have any because he knows what he’s doing! He makes good choices. He’s the most popular kid at our school; everyone loves him. Maybe he’ll mend things with Dean!” I’m becoming reckless, but I don’t care because I believe it as I say it. I believe in Leo. “He’ll figure out a way to fix it—I’ve seen him do incredible things. You should trust him.“

Leo stares at me, open mouthed. For once, he’s speechless.

I am, too.

I don’t think I’ve ever talked that much at once at a family gathering.

It’s received with the usual dignity.

Marshall Boone rolls his eyes. “When it comes to Leo, Anna’s never biased.”

Creed Boone reminds me, “You slept with Sailor Moon sheets until you were fourteen years old.”

Did I think I loved these people?

Now I’m understanding why so many murders happen around the holidays.

It doesn’t matter. Leo gives me a grin that makes it all worth it, squeezing my hand and mouthing, Thank you, before letting go.

“Besides,” he says to his dad, reclaiming his confidence, “Dean can’t actually kill me. They’re pretty strict about that whole eye-for-an-eye murder rule.”

“You’re saying if he kills you, they’ll kill him back?” Uncle Seb snorts. “Never go to war with someone who has nothing to lose.”

“Don’t be simple,” Nero snaps. “There’s plenty of ways to get away with murder…”

Leo better hope Uncle Nero doesn’t think of one later tonight if he’s still sore about that snippy comment.

Aunt Aida’s finally ready to lighten the mood. “Do we have to wait for pie?”

“I’m only here for pie,” Marshall Boone says, seizing a stack of plates. What do you know—pie is what it takes to get Marshall to be helpful.

I gather the glasses, threading them through my fingers like the stems of a bouquet. Leo rises to do the same.

My head feels light and floating, full of bubbles. I drank two of those glasses of champagne, and now I’m wondering if Leo might like to come look at the snow with me again, now that the moon is out…

He pauses in the doorway, his fingertips resting on my hip.

“Did you want to tell me something earlier?

“What?” I say, heat in my face.

“Earlier…” Leo looks in my eyes, his golden and close. “I thought maybe you wanted to tell me something.”

The moment resurfaces, the whisper in my head… Tell him…

My lips part, like they know what to say…

“Kiss her!”

The shout splits us apart.

Aunt Aida’s laughing at the mistletoe over our heads. She’s had too much to drink. Or maybe not—she kind of behaves the same either way.

“Kiss her,” she teases Leo, her expression mischievous and taunting.

And in that moment, when I look up into Leo’s face, I think, Oh my god, he’s actually going to do it…Right here, with everyone watching…

The dining room disappears.

Leo’s eyes are all I see, gazing into mine…

His full lips part. He dips his head…

And drops a kiss on my forehead.

The kind of kiss you’d give to a little sister. Or a cousin you’ve known all your life.

Humiliation sweeps down, a red, boiling curtain. I hear Marshall’s hoot, and I’d give everything I own to punch him in the jaw.

But then he might see tears on my face. Or Leo might see something much worse.

All I can do is turn and run.

Leo finds me an hour later, long after the ice has entered my soul. I’ve been sitting out in the gazebo, punishing myself for being that fucking pathetic.

He takes off his jacket and wraps it around my shoulders. “Tell me you haven’t been sitting out here the whole time.”

“I haven’t.” The lie comes out easy. Scary easy, considering I never lie to Leo.

“Good.” His face melts with relief.

Oh my god. He can’t tell. I always thought he’d be able to tell if I lied to him.

“You’re cold, though…” Leo puts his warm palms on the outside of my frozen arms and rubs vigorously.

“You’ve got a fat lip.”

He touches the place where his lower lip is split, right down the center. “Oh yeah. I beat the shit out of Marshall.”

My face flushes. “What for?”

“You saw—he was asking for it.”

Without his coat, Leo’s only wearing his T-shirt, but he doesn’t seem cold. He leans forward on his knees, huge hands crossed loosely in front of him, plumes of steam coming out of his warm lungs.

His breath touches my face. The coat hangs around me like a cocoon, toasty warm, covering me neck to knee, the cuffs hanging over my hands.

It’s the best feeling in the world. The absolute best.

If I don’t want to lose it, I know what I have to do.

Leo glances over at me. He bites at his split lip, worrying the cut with the tip of his tongue.

“Sorry about earlier…”

“What do you mean?” A slight toss of my head.

“With the mistletoe?—“

“That was nothing,” I interrupt, looking only at the blank snow, not meeting his eyes.

“Oh.” Leo hesitates, less certain. “I thought maybe?—“

“No.” I’m firm, while inside I’m screaming. “I was just embarrassed. Everybody looking. Sometimes Aida?—“

“I know. She’s an asshole.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Lie lie lie lie lie! “Seriously, don’t worry about it. I’m sick of all of them; I can’t wait to get out of here.”

“Me, too.” Leo sighs with relief.

He’s glad I’m letting it drop. Glad we can just pretend the whole thing never happened.

But inside me, something is ripping…

In fact, it’s already gone.

Whatever rogue part of my heart was rebelling, beating, begging for more, I’ve torn it away and encased it in ice.

What it wants can never happen.

It would destroy everything I love.

So, it has to freeze and die.

When I’m calm and composed once more, I look at Leo. “Are you really coming with me? Even if Dean?—”

“I’m coming.” His eyes are locked on mine with that stubborn certainty I know so well. It means Leo’s going to do what he wants to do, even if our entire family is set against him. But then he blinks and says, “If you want me to…”

I know what I should say to Leo—what his parents would want me to say.

Leo could have a real career in basketball. He got offers at plenty of schools besides Duke.

The blood feud with the Yenins is no joke. They killed Leo’s great-grandfather. They shot Nero. For Leo’s safety alone, I should keep him far away from Kingmakers…

But to do that, I’d have to tell another lie.

Leo waits for my answer, his head cocked to the side, his hands thrust in his pockets, his white T-shirt as crisp and glowing as the falling snow against the burned brown of his bare arms.

I fling my arms around him.

Nose pressed in the soft waves of hair around his ear, I whisper, “Whether it’s wrong or right…I’m always going to want you with me.”