“You tolerated my father for Micah’s sake,” Emil said, “and because he invested in you.”

Michael inhaled, already breaking his poker face. “It’s…no secret we saw eye to eye on very little. But we were able to work together. Mutual cooperation was nothing but good for our businesses.”

“Good, but not great,” Emil retorted, his voice eerily calm “My father was getting old. He thought he had enough money, and he lost sight of what we were building.

“Which was?”

“A legacy that survives,” Emil replied. “He should’ve stepped down ages ago.”

Micah shifted in his seat, and I trailed my eyes over the faces of his siblings, Kaiser looking stern, Valentin staring at the floor, Victor gazing at Winter, cocking his head like she was a meal, and Hadrien and Eslem with their eyes unfocused, listening.

“Your share has been fair,” Michael said. “Fair keeps us friends. Do you not like friends?”

“We’re not like our father.”

“Cooperative?”

“Weak,” Emil fired back, not missing a beat. “Friends are unpredictable. Secrets, on the other hand, always have value, and your family is rich in those, aren’t they?”

“As is yours,” Michael answered.

Emil’s eyes flashed to Micah, disdain and a promise written in them.

“We’ll increase your percentage to twenty-four percent,” Michael stated. “That keeps us friends.”

“I think you’ve been mistaken.” Emil’s lips pursed in a smile. “We require half. Half keeps us polite.”

I lifted my chin, trying to appear unshaken, but my eyes darted to the girl again, seeing her gaze on the top of the wooden table unfazed.

I didn’t think she’d even blinked yet.

“I know what your family is capable of,” Emil said, meeting each of our eyes. “But with all due respect, you knew the risks of playing with mine. You may be your little town’s waking nightmare, because here you make the rules, but the tactics change when you’re playing with others who have their own game. You good people do not have the fortitude to do what is necessary to hang on to what you have. And it will take a lot. To win.” He thinned his eyes, zoning in on Michael. “How far are you willing to go?”

I shook my head, breaking into a chuckle.

All eyes turned to me.

“We’re not the only ones playing,” I told him. “We’re merely the faces of six families. Against one. What do you really want?”

He had hired hands. We had a dynasty in the making. Was he really here to make enemies of us? We may not take out hits on people, but we had the stomach for this.

But then his gaze turned, settling on the teenage blonde at Michael’s side.

I stopped breathing for a moment, a cool sweat covering my forehead. Victor, Kaiser, Valentin, and Hadrien followed suit, mischief in their eyes as they stared at the pretty girl with two different-colored eyes and her hair in a wild braid.

Eslem remained steady ahead, unchanging, though.

I studied her. The chestnut hair in her own intricate style of braids pulled away from her face. The fitted black coat falling all the way past her knees, and the boots rising up her calves.

She was the only one wearing gloves.

Michael’s hard voice startled me. “You better look away from my child in 3…2….”

Emil just laughed under his breath, dropping his gaze. “She could be the face of the seventh family,” he told Michael. “We like her.”

We like her.

He didn’t want half of the resort. He wanted something much more valuable. A stake for his family in ours forever.

I looked at Eslem again, still staring at the table in front of me with a gleam in her twenty-year-old eyes.

Poised. Calm. And completely aware.

My lungs emptied, the pulse in my neck throbbing.

She was the heir.

She was the one in charge. Not Emil.

“Send her to Deadlow Island tonight to celebrate with us,” Emil told Michael. “We’ll bring her back.”

Michael rose, and we quickly jumped to our feet.

He buttoned his jacket. “We celebrate Devil’s Night in Thunder Bay.”

Deadlow Island wasn’t far off the coast, its lighthouse visible from here, but it was surrounded by a jagged coastline, and couldn’t be easily reached. Especially in the storm brewing.

No one had ever thought to build on it, given its inaccessibility, but somehow they had. Amongst the wild coastline and forest of the island laid a grand house that the Moreaus enjoyed seasonally when they weren’t sleeping upside down by their feet.

Emil stood up, the six members of the Moreau family straightening. “I think you’ll be surprised where the tide takes you tonight, Mr. Fane,” he said.

Then he dipped his chin in a small bow at Michael’s daughter, Valentin and Victor behind him with excitement in their eyes. “Athos,” he said, bidding farewell.

Spinning around, one by one, they all left, the heels of their shoes descending the corridor toward the entrance from where they came.

But Eslem stayed rooted in her spot, remaining in the room.

I watched her watch Athos, the younger woman not shifting an inch under the scrutiny, and giving it back as good as she got.

Who wanted Athos? All of them?

Or just one of them?

Eslem’s dark brown eyes gazed at her, her presence suddenly more imposing than her five brothers.

“See you soon,” she whispered to Athos.

Then she met Athos’s parents’ eyes before twisting on her heel and walking out of the room.

No one breathed in the thirty seconds before we heard the door slam and bolt shut far at the end of the hallway and Crane returned to verify we were now alone.

Michael spun around, ordering Crane. “I want her at Delcour, all the entrances locked, and get David and Lev back in town immediately.”

“No!” Athos cried.

“The safest place for her is with us,” Rika argued.

“I agree with Michael,” Damon chimed in. “Get her out of town. Now.”

“You think they’re going to care if it’s Devil’s Night or not?” Banks pushed back her chair and walked around the table. “We can make her safe tonight, but there’s no stopping them coming back tomorrow or the next day.”

“I’m not going into hiding,” Athos told her father, a tendril of hair hanging in her face. “I’m not some prize to protect. I’m probably a distraction, so they can keep you occupied worrying about me instead of protecting something they really want here.”

“They wanted her at the island tonight,” Kai pointed out. “It’s her they want, and they’re going to tear apart this town coming after it. If we don’t go to Deadlow Island, they’ll bring the war to Thunder Bay.”

“I’m not going to that island,” Rika said.

“If they want us there, they’ll find a way to draw us there,” Alex told her.

“She needs to be under lock and key,” Aydin told Michael. “One of those little shits knocks her up, you’ll never escape that family.”

“Yo, fuck nut!” Damon barked, telling Aydin to shut up.

Aydin lifted his middle finger, rubbing his temple with it.