"What I see is a washed-up vampire prince attempting to manipulate his eldest brother with guilt and melodrama. I assure you, I�m moved by neither." The elevator returned, and he stepped inside, hitting the button for the penthouse.

"Dorian. This isn�t�"

"Don�t wait up," he said, smiling at his brother as the elevator doors began to close.

"Colin and Gabriel," Malcolm blurted out. "They�ve already arrived at Ravenswood. They�re expecting us to return together."

Dorian held his smile despite the fresh pit opening up in his stomach. "Tell them not to wait up either."

"Your family needs you, Dorian."

Silence.

It wasn�t until the elevator doors closed and the lift began its silent ascent that Dorian dropped his grin.

Reality hit him then, a wrecking ball straight to the chest.

It wasn�t the hush of his father�s final breaths. It wasn�t the scrape of the match against the flint, the blaze of the fire as it consumed the corpse, the fetid stench of it all. It wasn�t preparing paperwork for the attorney, or receiving the condolences from his driver, or wiping his father�s ashes from the sleeve of his bespoke Italian suit.

It was this moment, right now, when Dorian finally understood. This moment, when the brother he�d taught to read and write and shoe a horse looked into his eyes with the pain of a thousand regrets and spoke the words that had plagued Dorian�s nightmares for centuries.

Your family needs you�

Malcolm. Colin. Gabriel. All that remained of his once expansive family. Bound to him first by blood, second by love, and lastly by the brutal legacy none of them�no matter how far they�d scattered, no matter how many years had passed�could ever outrun.

The king is dead, long live the king.

The vampire royals of New York have returned.

Dorian�s chest squeezed tight, forcing out a ragged breath and a single utterance that encapsulated the entirety of his thoughts.

"Well, fuck."

Get in. Get the intel. Get out. And above all, don�t get noticed.

Repeating the mantra in her head, Charley D�Amico sipped her Sapphire and tonic, steeling her nerves for tonight�s assignment.

Thirteen years on the job, and she�d never broken the rules. Never left a shred of evidence behind. That was her thing�no trace. The whole reason she handled the public-facing gigs. She was, as her father had declared after her first big win all those years ago, a phantom.

So how the hell did a phantom manage to screw up before she�d even stepped into the elevator?

The man in the lobby had definitely noticed her. And in the span of four seconds, the sinfully hot stranger had burrowed so deeply under her skin, he was practically all she could think about. The sensual curve of his lips, the fire in his eyes, the commanding presence that made it impossible to look away�

Hell on hotcakes, that kind of distraction was enough to put her life at risk.

As if she needed another reminder, her phone buzzed with a text.

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