CHAPTER ONE

      Leon

      ‘IT’S VERY SIMPLE.’ I kept my back to the office as I gazed out of the floor-to-ceiling windows that gave magnificent views of Sydney’s impressive harbour. ‘I want your daughter.’

      There was silence behind me.

      Clearly, I’d shocked Thomas Hamilton—one of Sydney’s most beloved and lauded philanthropists—into silence.

      Excellent. Keeping him off-balance until he’d agreed to my demands was half the battle.

      ‘What do you mean you want my daughter?’ he asked.

      There was a hint of unsteadiness in his voice. It was very, very slight but I heard it, oh, yes, I did.

      I said nothing, letting him stew, watching the yachts in the harbour and the ferry sailing towards Manly, the sunlight touching on the white curves of the iconic Opera House.

      Christ, I loved Sydney. Bright and flashy and sexy, with a dark, dirty underbelly. My kind of town.

      It was like looking at myself in the mirror.

      Leon King. Second son of Augustus King, the erstwhile emperor of Sydney’s crime scene, now answering for those crimes in a maximum security correctional facility...aka prison.

      Yeah, the King is dead. Long live the King.

      Or should I say ‘Kings’?

      The new Kings of Sydney were me and my two brothers, Ajax and Xander, and it wasn’t our father’s old empire we wanted to inherit, not when we were the ones who’d toppled it in the first place.

      No, we were after redemption. Making good on the King name. Building something out of the ashes of the old empire. Going legit or some such bullshit.

      At least that was what Xander and Ajax wanted.

      Me, I was fine with going legit. Things were a hell of a lot easier if you didn’t have the cops interfering with your business, but it wasn’t redemption I needed.

      I didn’t even particularly care about the King name.

      I’d been my father’s lieutenant, the muscle at his back, and years of dealing out violence to other people had burned the fucks I had to give right out of me.

      I’d been happy to be the bad guy back then and, five years after my father had gone to jail, I was still happy to be the bad guy.

      It was a fresh start I wanted, in a city where no one knew who I was or who the Kings used to be. Where I didn’t have a past. Where I could be whoever and whatever I wanted to be, master of my own destiny. Where I could escape.

      But before all of that, I had one last order to obey. A debt I owed to my oldest brother. And I was prepared to do anything to make good on it.

      I turned from the view to the sleek minimalist room that was my office. We were in the tower that housed King Enterprises, the hugely successful property development company my brothers and I had formed out of the rubble of Dad’s empire.

      Hamilton was sitting in the uncomfortable chair I’d positioned in front of my desk. He was an older man, silver-haired and blue-eyed, with that well-preserved look that only the very rich had.

      Except he looked every bit of his sixty-plus years right now.

      I tended to have that effect on people.

      ‘What do you think I mean?’ I gave him my very widest smile, the one that I was infamous for giving right before I was about to do some serious damage; nothing put someone off-balance like a smile right before you punched them in the face. ‘I want to marry her.’

      Hamilton paled. ‘You can’t be serious.’

      ‘Of course I’m bloody serious. I’d never joke about the sanctity of marriage.’

      He stared at me, confused by my sarcasm and my smile.

      Good. Let him stay confused. It would make it easier to close the deal.

      ‘But...why do you want to marry my daughter?’

      ‘I thought I explained.’ I adjusted the cuffs of my white cotton shirt, admiring the contrast with the dark blue of my suit and taking my time about it. Small movements right before the gut punch. Another way to play with an opponent, and I did love to play with my opponents. It was such a power trip. ‘My brother wants to expand the King portfolio into the luxury apartment market and we’re having difficulty getting investors.’

      Hamilton nodded. ‘I understand that. But I still fail to see why marriage is necessary for that kind of expansion.’

      ‘It’s the name,’ I said. ‘No one wants to put money behind a King. Not with our past.’

      A muscle twitched in the side of Hamilton’s jaw. ‘But you don’t need my daughter for that. Simply pay me the money you said you would, and I’ll mention to my friends that you’re a good bet and—’

      ‘If only it were that simple,’ I interrupted with a heavy sigh. ‘But sadly it isn’t. I need an...insurance policy, you see. In case you decide to renege on the deal or change it, or alter the terms.’

      ‘I would never do that!’ Hamilton looked incensed.

      I didn’t give a shit. He wasn’t the do-gooding pillar of the community everyone thought he was, not when he was up to his eyeballs in debts from a gambling addiction he’d tried to keep secret.

      Unfortunately for him, it was no longer a secret. At least not to me. I was good at finding dirt on people and I’d found plenty of it on him.

      ‘I don’t care what you would or wouldn’t do,’ I said coldly. ‘I need an insurance policy and your daughter is it. Plus, a few “introductions” to your friends is not enough. We need a total image overhaul.’ I paused to make sure he was with me. ‘Having Sydney’s biggest charity