Master Of Sin Read online

  "Great visual, asshole." Zack picked up his phone, scanned it, responded to the message, and set it back on the table without blinking an eye. "So how are we supposed to handle the fallout?"

  Zack, Pierce, and I ran Vegas. It may sound conceited, but it was true. Others may have big projects and casinos, but they all knew that one word from any one of us and all their endeavors would come screeching to a halt.

  Case in point, the situation Zack was reaming me about.

  "Since he broke it, he has to fix it," Pierce interjected.

  Shrugging my shoulders, I released a breath. "You two pussies didn't want to get your hands dirty. I just made it very clear to the foreman that if he messes with the business dealings of one Lykaios brother, he messes with all of us."

  "Yeah, but the dipshit turned tail and ran. Now I'm short a construction foreman, out over one hundred grand, and delayed on the hotel build-out." Zack picked up a few nuts sitting in a bowl in the center of the table and popped them in his mouth

  "Cry me a river. That's chump change. You make more than that in less than a minute."

  The one thing Zacharias Lykaios wasn't short on was money. He gambled and won, both literally and through real estate. There were few risks he wouldn't take.

  Zack shrugged. "Money's money."

  "I'm not sure why you're bitching to me. It's not like I beat his ass or anything. It was a very civilized conversation."

  "Sure, I buy that." Pierce shook his head. "You probably made him piss himself when you walked up."

  I looked down at myself. I was probably the most laidback brother out of the three of us. Pierce was the most volatile of all of us. His emotions motivated him in ways that were only going to cause him grief. And then there was Zack. He was most sensitive and most ruthless. His whole world revolved around his end goal—the destruction of our father. But that had nothing to do with me. I'd closed the door on Collin years ago.

  It would take more than a chump foreman to piss me off. I'd learned long ago, anger and temper only got me so far. Cold, calm efficiency garnered greater and more effective reactions.

  "For the record—" I lifted my tumbler and sipped my drink, "—I never once raised my voice or threatened him with bodily harm. I only made it clear that our legal team would make it very hard for him to procure future contracts with any organization if he didn't get his act in gear. It was all on the up-and-up."

  "Cold is what it was. You love playing up that reputation of yours."

  "It worked. Didn't it?" I said, lifting a brow.

  I could deny my past added to the "don't fuck with me" reputation. But then again, when one is thrown out onto the streets as a teen, one does what they have to. It's either survive and join the underworld or get eaten by it.

  Though, I wasn't involved in half of the shit people assumed I was.

  "You're such an ass," Zack said. "Next time I'll handle it myself."

  "Would you rather I'd punched him as you suggested, pretty boy? My way is cleaner."

  "At least with Z's way, they aren't going to assume a mob hit is in their future."

  "Sometimes I really wish I'd drowned you both at birth."

  "It wouldn't have worked. I do have six gold medals in swimming. And Zack here was the baby and everyone's favorite. So, Mom would have kicked your ass."

  "Assholes," I muttered.

  "I can't wait to see the woman who melts the ice in your veins." Zack smirked at Pierce and gestured with his thumb at me. "I bet the frozen tundra he calls a temper will erupt at every turn and then maybe he’ll feel something like us mere mortals."

  "You'll be waiting a lifetime or two. She doesn't exist. Women have a place in my life, and long-term isn't one of them."

  With the lifestyle I lived, I'd never had a shortage of companions to stand by my side or keep my bed warm. Nothing ever lasted more than a few weeks.

  By my choice, not theirs.

  Yeah, it was cold, but there was no point in stringing someone along and giving them false hope. Anyone I was involved with knew from the beginning that what we had was no strings and with a finite expiration date.

  "Case in point," Zack said, "this proves you have something other than hot blood that runs in your veins. At least, I can say I've had a bad relationship or two to keep me from anything serious. You act like relationships are a plague."

  "Whatever. I like my life the way it is. No complications, no regrets. Simple and easy." I leaned back in my chair and lifted my glass in my brothers' directions before taking a deep gulp.

  "I call bullshit." Pierce smirked with a gleam in his eyes.

  "Meaning?"

  "There’s only one woman who has always gotten under your skin."

  "And who might that be?"

  A look passed between Zack and Pierce that made me want to punch both of them.

  In unison, they said, "Persephone Kipos."

  Immediately an image of the beautiful goddess with golden skin she'd inherited from her Indian mother and her father's piercing emerald eyes appeared in my mind. She was a man's walking wet dream with curves one could hold on to while driving in deep and lips meant to wrap around a fat cock.

  Fuck, what the hell was I doing? Focus, dumbass.

  "Good try, but I'm too old for her."

  "Keep telling yourself that lie if you want to, but we know the truth. That girl has been giving you a hard-on since she hit puberty."

  I'd be damned if I confirmed or denied Pierce's claim. Persephone was someone a man like me could want from a distance. She was beauty, smarts, curves, and innocence. My touch would corrupt her and bring her into a world that could cost her everything. It was better I never acted on the mutual attraction we'd skirted around for the last decade. Distant friendship was where our relationship would remain.

  "I'll take your silence as a confirmation. Too bad she lives in a gilded cage, and her stepmother won't let her anywhere near us." Pierce paused and then continued. "Especially you…"

  "That's because our brother here was the one man Dara Kipos couldn't seduce. Hell hath no fury and all that," Zack added.

  "That's old news. She's moved on to barely legal pool boys."

  "You are the reason her precious son works for us under the radar. Imagine the shitstorm Dara will unleash if she finds out we’re grooming Adrian to take her job." Zack picked up his phone again, scanned something on the screen, responded and then set it back on the table. It was more than likely the latest stock updates and trade orders.

  The man never stopped working. I wasn't lazy by any means, but I had the ability to turn it off once in a while.

  "Speaking of Adrian," Pierce said. "That boy is brilliant. The places he can hack and the information he has the ability to acquire is remarkable."

  "Plus, the kid has balls," I added.

  Adrian Kipos had somehow circumvented my security to enter one of my most exclusive and restricted parties, walked up to me, and without blinking said, "If you want to prevent your data from being hacked, you need to hire me."

  At first, I'd thought the little boy I'd bought ice cream for had lost his mind. Then he'd pulled up his phone and showed me how he'd infiltrated HPZ Holdings, the conglomerate my brothers and I had created for our different ventures. My brothers and I were floored. We had implemented the most high-level cybersecurity money could buy and here was a nineteen-year-old college sophomore cracking our system. Needless to say, we hired him. All Adrian asked for was to learn how to run an international organization like the one he'd inherit when he turned twenty-one and never to let his mother know what he was doing.

  For the last year and a half, he'd taken on any job we gave him, and to our amazement, continued to evade our security. Zack jokingly called Adrian our own personal Hermes, after the Greek trickster god who could obtain and send information as well as infiltrate any known place.

  "That he does," Zack agreed. "Too bad his mother has no idea he is planning to overthrow her in the very near future."

  "We
are going to need to make sure nothing happens to him. I have no doubt his mother would prevent him from obtaining control of Kipos International." Pierce frowned.

  Zack nodded. "The only saving grace that boy has is Penny. She gave up her life for him. She's more a mother to him than the woman who gave birth to him."

  "Adrian is too smart not to know that he has to cover his back. It's Penny I worry about." Pierce watched me, and I knew he was trying to gauge my reaction. "Dara will destroy her to maintain control of the company."

  If there was one thing I knew, it was that Persephone Kipos wasn't the docile flower she allowed the world to see. The girl had secrets, ones I'd discovered recently—ones that would knock the conniving stepmother off her ass.

  "I wouldn't discount her cunning. She is so much more than what she lets the world believe." I swirled the aromatic liquor. "Now If you two are done analyzing my sex life and drinking my limited-edition whiskey, I have a lunch meeting to attend."

  "With who and about what?" Zack asked.

  I couldn't hide the smile that touched my lips. They were probably going to shit themselves when I told them. "It's a business proposition with someone I like to call Starlight."

  Penny

  * * *

  "I NEED ALL the latest analyses of the recent batches," I said to my assistant and cousin, Anaya, as I walked around the distillation vats. "I also need to know any updates on the property negotiations for the European manufacturing locations."

  "You'll have it by the end of the day." Anaya paused. "By the way, we received another offer from Lykaios Holdings for a face-to-face meeting. They sent over an extremely lucrative proposal for the exclusive use of Firewater for their hotels, casinos, and venues."

  I sighed and shook my head. "The answer is as it always is, Ana. No. Collin isn't someone I plan to now or ever work with."

  "Won't you consider meeting with him, if only to see what he has to say?"

  "Wait a second." I studied Anaya. "Does Collin know about my involvement with Firewater?"

  "No. I swear. No one outside our circle knows anything about who owns PSK Distilleries. According to Henna, he loves our whiskey and would love to have distribution rights to the product."

  "Even if I considered his offer, I couldn't accept it. I have a deal established with Hagen, Pierce, and Zack. I won't renege on our contract."

  "Would you entertain a limited distribution deal? Collin and Henna have been working their asses off to reestablish Lykaios Holdings’s appeal. He isn't the same man he was a decade ago. He’s done more for Henna and me than anyone could ever imagine. He has a lot of regrets, and most of them revolve around his sons."

  My cousins Henna and Anaya Anthony were the daughters of my mom's sister Lena, whom I called Lena Masi, and my deceased uncle Victor Anthony. They had an adoration for Collin Lykaios that I could never understand.

  No, that wasn't true. I could understand it, even if I couldn't comprehend why Collin had changed his ways.

  About fifteen years earlier, Uncle Victor had been indicted on charges of embezzlement and tax evasion. He'd swindled nearly a billion dollars from his business partners, friends, and family. Among them was Collin Lykaios. Collin had lost almost fifty million dollars in investments. It had been a national scandal, and even more so after Uncle Victor had committed suicide to avoid prosecution.

  In order to escape the fallout and backlash of all the angry investors, Lena Masi had left the state and assumed a completely different identity. What was most surprising in all of this was that Collin had been instrumental in keeping my aunt and cousins safe. He'd gone as far as having new birth records, bank accounts, and school histories established. Then when they were older, he'd funded their college educations and offered them jobs in his organization. Henna had accepted and now ran Lykaios Holdings, but Anaya was a science and computer nerd who, like me, enjoyed behind-the-scenes tinkering.

  I could accept my cousins' loyalty to Collin, especially after all he'd done for them. However, I had my own loyalties, and it was to the three young boys Collin had disowned when they were barely grown. I wasn't sure I would ever be able to get over the fact Hagen had lived on the streets for a time because he'd had nowhere to go. I know to this day the man's dark reputation was something he'd had to build to avoid becoming a Vegas statistic.

  I could still remember Papa's anger at Collin when he'd heard about what he'd done to Hagen. Papa had driven around the streets of Vegas looking for a skinny teen with looks too attractive to survive without coming out unscathed.

  Shaking the thoughts from my head, I looked at Anaya. "I love you, but you have to stop beating this dead horse. Praising Collin's acts of service won't change the fact he hurt three people I care about."

  "I know." She released a resigned breath. "It's hard for me to reconcile the man he is now with the one he was before. Just so you know, he worries about you too. He's seen how Dara treats you."

  Sadness hit my heart. Collin had been one of my favorite people when I was younger. He’d told the most amazing stories and always encouraged me to pursue science when "good Greek and Indian girls" were supposed to focus on family and culture over their studies. If I was honest with myself, it was the seed Collin had planted that had given me the push to research the process of aged whiskey. And because of what I learned, I was able to create Firewater, a whiskey that tasted like one aged for twenty years but without waiting for the results. Science and technology had the ability to defy time.

  "You of all people should know, the mousy pushover the world sees isn't who I am… Never mind. I can't think about that right now, or Collin. The goal is to analyze the next batch and set Adrian up to succeed when he takes over and Dara is history."

  CHAPTER THREE

  Penny

  * * *

  A LITTLE AFTER eleven thirty I arrived at Ida Astro for my lunch with Hagen. I took a deep breath and waited for the valet to open my door.

  "Wow, this is some car." The awe in the attendant's face made me smile.

  I may have the world believing I was a weakling, but there was one thing I was known for. And it was my love for sports cars, especially refurbished classic ones. I'd inherited my obsession for fast vehicles from my parents, who'd met at a racetrack in Greece when Mama had illegally entered my grandfather's Aston Martin and won. She'd been barely sixteen and had snuck out of her gilded cage overlooking the Mediterranean. The fact she'd won the race hadn't mattered to my grandfather. He'd seen it as being corrupted by European morals and had sent her to live in India for two years with a distant uncle. However, when she'd returned, Papa had all but kidnapped her away from my grandfather, and within a month they'd been married.

  I drove the very car now, a 1965 Aston Martin DB5. Every time I was behind the wheel, I felt close to my two amazing parents.

  "Thank you," I said as I slipped out of the car, adjusted my skirt, and set my handbag on my arm.

  "I'll park it next to Mr. Lykaios's Spider."

  I glanced to the '66 Alfa Romeo in a nearly empty parking lot.

  Of course, Hagen would have the same vice I had. The man was all things dangerous, and therefore I was attracted to him.

  The thought of him had anxiety seeping into my stomach. Shit. I'd hoped the drive would calm my nerves.

  I had barely interacted with him for the last fifteen years, and here I was about to ask him to help me find out the truth of Papa's death.

  After Adrian had sprung the news of the meeting he'd set up, I'd grilled him on all the details of what he'd told Hagen. Adrian insisted that all he said was that I needed help with a personal matter. My brother was a man of few words, so I assumed that was the extent of the details he'd given. The fact Hagen had agreed without question added to the uncertainty I was feeling.

  I closed my eyes for a moment, gathering my courage. I could do this. I could meet with the man who'd starred in a majority of my fantasies and ask him to help me find out if Dara had orchestrated Papa's death.


  I expected there to be a price for his help. Hagen had a reputation of expecting payment in kind for his assistance in any matter. The problem was that I'd probably agree to anything he asked if it meant Dara was out of our lives for good.

  Maybe I'd be able to convince Hagen to give me something else in addition to his help. Something I'd never have considered before, but hell, I was already stepping into his world. Or maybe I'd just offer it without reciprocation. I couldn't think of any better way to lose my V card than with a bad boy like Hagen.

  My pulse jumped just thinking about the possibility.

  Snap out of it, Penny. You are about to have lunch with the man known as the Master of Sin. Your libido needs to take a back burner to logic.

  "Ms. Kipos?" A woman approached me, who I could only assume was the hostess. She had long blond hair and legs for miles. The color of her lips matched the form-fitting dress she wore. She was breathtaking and what I would dub very Vegas.

  I smiled at her, and she responded with a genuine one of her own. "Yes, that's me."

  "My name is Camille." She shook my hand. "I'm the manager of Ida Astro. If you would follow me. Mr. Lykaios is waiting for you on the veranda."

  Okay, here it goes. I squared my shoulders and followed Camille inside.

  The interior of the restaurant was bright with clean lines and glass sculptures everywhere. This was nothing like the dark and indulgent atmosphere Hagen's other establishments were known for. There was a polished elegance to the place. In fact, the color scheme was very similar to what I'd have chosen, if I had a home outside of the corporate one I used.

  It wasn't as if I didn't have the funds to buy a house. I'd gone so far as to put an offer on a dream home in Summerlin, Nevada, a small suburb of Vegas that would have allowed me to step away from all that Sin City was known for. But almost immediately I'd decided against it. It was better to let Dara think she had ultimate control of my life. Until Adrian took over the company, I would let Dara think my inheritance from my mom was tied up until I was thirty as she believed and be the dutiful but inconsequential stepdaughter she tolerated.