CHAPTER ONE

       Ajax

      I WAS TEN years old the first time I suspected my father was a criminal.

      At thirteen he showed me the truth.

      That’s when I decided I was going to take him down. But if you want to take down a man like Augustus King you have to do it right. You can’t leave anything behind. A crime empire is like a Hydra—cut off the head and twenty more sprout.

      It took me nearly two decades to cut off every single head. Yet I did. And I put that prick in jail once and for all.

      But surviving decades of being the oldest son of the biggest crime lord in Sydney doesn’t leave a man without scars, and mine ran deep.

      That was okay, though. Scars were reminders of the big picture and my big picture involved keeping my brothers and my city safe. Staying vigilant for danger. Always on the lookout for threats.

      Threats such as William goddamn White, my father’s enemy and the last head of the Hydra.

      Dad had been in jail five years and I’d been legit ever since, running one of the fastest growing property development companies in Sydney, and, as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t simply cut that head off the way I preferred. Not if I wanted to avoid jail myself.

      No, I had to use other methods.

      I leaned against the wall of the ballroom of one of Sydney’s top hotels, studying the glittering, couture-wearing crowd all gathered to celebrate the formation of a new charity.

      I hadn’t been invited—no one would invite a King to a swanky charity ball like this one—but I’d shown up anyway and they’d been too afraid of me to turn me away.

      The King past was something my two brothers and I were trying to overcome, but it came in handy at times. And I wasn’t above using it, especially when it came to driving home to the cream of Sydney society that the King brothers were up-and-coming and they couldn’t ignore us any more.

      But