Most girls get a party for their nineteenth birthday. They get balloons in their favorite colors, a cake with sugary frosting that stains their teeth, maybe a used car with a big red bow on the hood. The lucky ones get a kiss from a boy they've been crushing on since algebra class—a clumsy, sweet promise of a future.
I got a loaded Beretta 9mm and a death threat.
"Reload," the voice commanded from the shadows.
It was a voice that had haunted my dreams since I was a child—baritone, rough like gravel, and cold as the grave. Cassian Vance. The man who fed me, clothed me, educated me, and kept me locked in this gilded cage for fifteen years. To the world, he was a ghost story—the Underboss of the Shadow Syndicate. To me, he was the only reality I had ever known.
