It was complicated, it was also just the beginning. A decision. A simple choice. There is always that one moment in life where things could have been different. That one moment where you could have chosen a path that would lead you down a certain road. A different life. It was easier to pretend that we were still best friends, and that she was my girl and I was her boy. Pretending was better than knowing the truth. I. Ruined. Us. I had her. I lost her. I love her. All I did was complicate us.

The night she showed up at my bar with a fake ID, I kicked her out. On her birthday, the following week, she showed up again. Except this time, she was demanding a job and willing to do whatever it took to get it. Against my better judgment, she got her way, but I'm not going to make it easy on her. Neither are the guys at my bar. I have two choices: Pretend she's mine to protect her. Or deal with the consequences when her five older, overprotective brothers find out what their little sister is up to.

I didn't know darkness and evil lurked inside me until I had to murder to survive, forced to become my own worst enemy. With so much blood on my hands, I was surprised I could still see my own skin. I killed, I tortured, I loved. I played God while I was rotting in a fiery inferno. Thriving on control and power was the only way I knew how to live. There were no other options. If you weren't my friend, you were my foe. If you weren't with me, you were against me - traitors, as I called them. There were no imaginary lines. I'd crossed them all. 

Trust. Loyalty. Family. The tangled web of mafia life. We grew up together. Me, Eden, my brother Tristian. He was always the safe bet, the sure thing, the good guy. And me? Well, I was the Casanova, the killer who flirted with anyone and anything, breaking Eden’s heart again and again. We both loved her. Mind. Body. Soul. Until I gifted her to my brother as if she meant nothing, when she meant everything to me. Tristian was safer. Better. Could give her the life I never would be able to. But things changed. We changed. 

One look. One moment. One girl. She was all it took for me to lose my focus. My whole life changed in the blink of an eye.