Prologue
Luca
The second I stepped through the doors of the Dane residence, I knew he was dead.
Not because anyone said it. Not because I saw it on a call or heard it in a report. I knew because the silence was heavier than it had ever been. It sank into the marble floors. Wrapped itself around the pillars. Lingered in the corners of the chandeliers.
It was in the way the guards straightened—still, too still—before bowing their heads.
In the way the maids curtsied with trembling hands, their eyes full of questions they already knew the answers to.
And in the way my own heart stopped just for a moment before racing like it was trying to catch up.
Lincoln Dane—the man who ruled over criminal empires, whose voice could stop a room, whose shadow stretched across continents—was gone.
And I hadn’t even made it to the top of the stairs.
I didn’t speak.
Not to the staff, not to the guards, not to the house itself as it watched me return in clothes that still smelled like the lecture hall I’d left an hour earlier. I’d been sitting in a college classroom talking about global economies when my phone vibrated with a single message.
Come home. Now.
That was all it took.
Now I was walking the halls of the house I was raised in—the one I ran from when I thought I still had time. Time to study. To laugh. To fall in love with people outside the life we were born into. Time to pretend I could be something else.
But there was no pretending anymore.
Because I was walking toward the room that only ever smelled like cigars and blood and power.
And I knew what waited behind that door.
The hallway felt longer than it ever had before, like time itself was dragging its feet. My shoes echoed against polished stone. The portraits on the wall—oil paintings of men I was related to but never loved—watched in silence.
When I reached the door, it was already cracked open.
Salvatore stood just inside.
His head bowed.
I stepped in, and time stopped.
Lincoln Dane lay on the bed in a white button-down shirt, sleeves rolled, chest still.
No blood. No violence.
Just stillness.
Like he had closed his eyes mid-thought and forgot to open them again.
My chest burned.
I took two steps forward, slow. Deliberate.
He didn’t look peaceful. My father never looked peaceful. Even in death, his brow was drawn. Like he was still planning something, still five steps ahead, even from the grave.
“Was it his heart?” I asked quietly.
Salvatore nodded once. “Massive coronary. The doctor says it was over before he hit the pillow.”
Just like that.
Just gone.
All the warnings he gave me growing up about enemies, betrayal, loyalty—he never said he would be the first one to leave.
I looked down at him for a long moment.
Then I turned away.
The painting still hung above the fireplace—our family crest in deep crimson and gold. But the safe wasn’t there. Not the important one. The real one was behind the larger canvas on the left-hand wall, behind his desk.
I moved toward it, hands steady.
Salvatore didn’t speak as I reached for the edge of the frame. I knew where to press. The fingerprint reader was behind the left eye of the lion in the portrait. The steel shifted with a hiss as the painting slid open, revealing a matte black safe with a single, circular button in the center.
Not a dial.
Not a keypad.
Just one button.
The kill switch. The crown.
I stared at it.
Then pressed it.
It was soft. Silent.
But I heard it in my bones—the signal.
The king has fallen.
The world would know within the hour. His lieutenants. Our allies. Our enemies. Every single man and woman who served under the Dane legacy would feel it ripple across the city like thunder.
I took one step back.
And dropped to one knee.
My hand clenched the floor.
I had just inherited the one thing I thought I still had time to prepare for.
I thought I had another year. Maybe two. I thought there would be more warnings. More lectures. More of his cold glares and brutal truths. More time to still be someone else.
But there wasn’t.
Now it was me.
Luca Dane.
No more college. No more second life.
I looked up at the safe. At the small button now glowing red with confirmation.
There was no turning back.
He was gone.
And the throne was mine.
BOOK TWO OF THE BENEATH SERIES.
CAN BE READ AS A STANDALONE, SOME THEMES MAY BE CONFUSING AT TIMES IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE FIRST BOOK! TONE IS SET WAY BEFORE ARSEN AND STELLA IS EVEN THOUGHT OF.
ENJOY <3
