Reign of a Billionaire : A Dark Mafia Enemies-to-Lovers Romance

Chapter 1Kingston

Eight Years Later

When Ivan Petrov and Sofia Volkov made a ghost out of me, they never thought I’d be back to destroy them like a vengeful king. I reigned over my empire while lingering in the shadows and used what I’d learned to go after them—those who stole my innocence and the girl who was my guiding light.

But they’d underestimated how far my hatred could go.

I’d become a shadow, almost erased from this world. I’d stalked and planned for years, revenge the only oxygen I breathed and killing the only nourishment I needed. A bleak reality of life without Louisa.

But then I’d seen her—Liana Volkov, alive and breathing, working alongside her mother, strutting along as Sofia’s sidekick as though nothing was amiss. The twin sister we waited for the night we were all supposed to escape the clutches of Sofia Volkov. Years went by without a word about Liana, and I assumed she died too.

I’d been fooled. Louisa was buried six feet under in an unmarked grave while Liana walked this earth. An invisible knife speared my chest, blaming Liana for her twin’s death. She was the reason we waited too long before running. She was the reason we got caught. Maybe I should let the underworld catch up to her, because it didn’t take long for the Thorns of Omertà to learn Sofia Volkov had a living, breathing daughter.

The invisible wound opened right up at the sight of the woman who wore Louisa’s face, leaving me gaping and bleeding. Shrill ringing filled my brain as I glared at the familiar face, every single muscle in my body immobile. Same face; wrong face. Same smile; wrong smile. Same hands; wrong hands.

The voices in my head insisted on revenge. End her. Rip out all the teeth in her mouth. Make her pay.

Except, there was a promise made. Fuck!

I’d been watching her for weeks, unable to wrap my head around the fact that Liana Catalano Volkov was alive. Living and fucking breathing, while her sister died in agony in fucking Siberia.

Pressure like heat in a kettle built behind my eyes as memories invaded, whipping through my skull with knife-like precision. The sound of her voice. The comfort of her touch. The softness of her heart.

A crater grew inside my chest and my mind, memories pouring out.

“I want you to marry me, Kingston,” she murmured, her voice soft and reserved only for me.

Louisa. My Lou.

“You’re not yet eighteen,” I said, pulling her closer to me. She rolled her eyes but immediately fell into my arms, unable to keep a smile off her face. Even when shit was hard, she found things to smile about, offering her sunshine.

“I might not live long enough.” She lifted on her tiptoes and brushed her nose against mine. “So why wait?”

I grasped her jaw in my hand. “You… We’ll live until we’ve earned our wrinkles and grays. Until we’ve seen our grandchildren and great-grandchildren walk this earth, as living proof of our love.”

I ran my fingers down the length of her silky blonde curls. Her golden eyes, speckled with hazel, met mine, and fuck, the urge to claim her drove me wild. But it was the heartbreak in them that kept me at bay.

“What’s the matter?” I demanded. She smiled again, but not as brightly. “Don’t tell me it’s nothing or there’ll be hell to pay.”

Her smile vanished, anguish in her eyes wrapping around my heart like a vise.

“Don’t hate me…” she whispered.

“I could never hate you.”

She looked over her shoulder, her fingers fidgeting with the buttons of my shirt, before she returned to watch me.

“Ivan—”

“Has he hurt you?” I growled, a red mist creeping in. It didn’t escape me that the sick prick had been eyeing the twins. Lou more than her sister. The fucker was like a bloodhound, sensing that Louisa was the softer of the two. With Liana, he risked having his balls cut off if he even contemplated touching her.

She shook her head. “No, but he…” She swallowed, her delicate throat bobbing. “He wants to marry me off to forge an alliance with the Tijuana cartel. Mother said no, but⁠—”

We both knew it was only a matter of time though. “Sunshine, we should wait for the right time.”

“I want you to be my first, Kingston.” My grip on her chin tightened, and she came up on her toes, her lips brushing against my mouth. “You were my first kiss. The only man to mark me.” Her full lips pursed, a soft smile curving them, and there was a pink hue that covered her cheeks. Our secret. A matching tattoo. “I just can’t bear⁠—”

Her voice cracked, as did my heart.

“Don’t you see, Lou?” I rasped into her mouth. “I want to be your first, your last, your only.”

“Me too,” she whispered, her cheeks staining red with her admission. “But whatever happens tomorrow, we’ve had today. We’ll have this. So why wait?”

There was so much pain in this household. Loneliness and fear. It wasn’t where I wanted our first time to be. Then there was the issue of her age, with her being just shy of her eighteenth birthday, I didn’t want her rushing into this. We should take our time—for her sake.

Her arms wrapped around my shoulders and she trailed her mouth down my chin, my neck, before burying her face into my throat.

“Maybe it’s time we run away,” she whispered. “You’re a ghost. Make us disappear before they end us once and for all.” She pulled away and met my eyes, her lip trembling. “She’s destroying you, and I can’t bear it anymore.”

The fury festered in my chest, even after all these years. It made me a monster, full of hatred and thirst for revenge. I’d take the whole Volkov empire down. And no one would be able to stop me. Not even death.

I closed my eyes, washing away the memories of the only good thing in my life and focusing on this woman in front of me who had a hand in taking her away. I hated that Liana survived while my Louisa died. She was my other half. My light in the darkness. She was my everything. It was time for Liana to pay for it. Every breath she’d taken since Lou’s death had earned her a punishment.

It had given me purpose for the first time since Alexei Nikolaev saved my battered body from that dungeon eight years ago.

While my appearance remained calm and collected, my insides were aflame.

There was a fine line between hatred and love. Even finer between sanity and insanity. I could no longer see that line. Not since I’d witnessed Lou die in front of my eyes.

I reached for a drink in my dark corner of the restaurant while I observed. Stalked. Planned.

The ember’s orange glow of my cigarette in the ashtray was the only sign indicating my presence in the restaurant. I looked over at the table where my target sat, my eyes tracking the movements of the young woman.

This dark hole in my chest was slowly swallowing me whole.

I’d cultivated this festering hole, nourishing it with bitterness and hatred. It was red, angry and raw. I welcomed the feeling. Embraced it even. It was better than the numbness I’d felt for so long.

I would not rest until I got my revenge. Until I made her death count.

They killed her, and I would kill every last one of them for the pain it’d caused.

My fist clenched, shredding the cigarette to ashes as my enemy dined across the room. How could Liana sit there like the world was still turning when Lou was gone?

Shutting down my nightmare before it could stir to life, I focused on the present, downing the whiskey and relishing the burn in my throat.

I had a purpose, a goal that drove me forward. Revenge was within reach. No mistakes. No rash decisions. Day after day, week after week, year after year—each metaphorical step brought me closer to her.

Sofia Catalano Volkov.

The bitterness and hatred seeped into my cells and mixed with the ashes of those years spent in captivity. With the loss I felt when she was taken from me. The innocent young woman who watched me with golden eyes, promising warmth and happiness.

I rubbed my thigh absently, stroking the phantom pain that haunted me. It was always present, the result of cold, dark nights spent in that basement full of horror. Full of nightmares.

A flash of movement brought my attention back to the young woman with hair the color of warm wheat. It was identical to my Lou, but I knew it wasn’t her. Lia was a fraud, the faded version of Lou.

Yet I found myself unable to tear my gaze away. It fed my broken mind. My body healed after Alexei Nikolaev saved me, but my mind didn’t. Nobody came out of that shit sane. Fucking nobody.

I watched my enemy as she focused on her daughter, unaware of the ghost lurking in the shadows. If Sofia turned around, she’d spot me easily, but she was distracted by her greed. With plans of her own. Or maybe she was too confident.

They’d never see me coming.

I watched as she handed a piece of paper to her daughter, and disappointment washed over me. Liana was knee-deep in this shit now.

Lou had insisted on trying to get her twin out, sensing it’d be Liana’s downfall. She was right, except my and Lou’s downfall came first. Could I blame her twin? Fuck yes. She knew right from wrong, and she—along with her mother—signed their own death warrants.

Sofia Volkov apparently hadn’t learned anything, keeping her daughter in that world. She’d lost two daughters—her firstborn, Winter Volkov, who was kidnapped by the Irish and then later died in childbirth, and Louisa. She was about to lose the third one.

There was no forgiveness for the pain Lou had suffered. What they did to her in her final hours.

Her punishment for trying to run with me and loving me was death.

Giving my head a subtle shake, I decided not to follow that train of thought. Lou’s screams tattooed themselves onto my brain, haunting my dreams and plaguing my waking hours.

My lips curled in disgust as I studied Liana’s profile, her eyes scanning over the document before she handed it back to her mother. A terse nod and her mother extended her hand to Perez Cortes’s men for a handshake.

My eyes drifted to the piece of jewelry around my wrist—made of teeth dipped in silver and gold. It was Lou’s, once upon a time. Now it served as a reminder to finish the job—eliminate the people who’d hurt her.

Ivan Petrov and Sofia Volkov made me their ghost. Lou was mine.

It became my signature. I craved death, wanting to follow the shadow of my dead woman, but it wasn’t time yet. First, I’d make the world pay. Over the years, I’d wondered about the distinction between justice and vengeance, where one ended and the other began, but ultimately, I knew it was up to me to bring it all to an end.

My gaze flicked back to my bracelet, and memories of rare smiles and friendship dug a hole in my chest.

It was time to add more teeth to my collection.