King of Greed (Kings of Sin #3) by Ana Huang

Hatred, I could battle. But indifference? That was the death knell for any relationship.

The boat stopped at the dive site. I tried talking to Alessandra again, but she either didn’t hear me or was actively ignoring me as we prepared to go into the water.

Frustration chafed at my skin. The waters surrounding Buzios contained incredible marine life, but I was so focused on Alessandra I barely paid attention to my underwater surroundings.

It was hard to believe she was the same woman who’d lost all color when I’d suggested diving during our honeymoon in Jamaica. Now, she lingered by the corals, marveled at a passing sea turtle, and swam alongside a school of yellow fish. The only time she freaked out was when an eel brushed her shin, but overall, she handled herself with such grace I couldn’t help but smile.

I hated that we’d grown apart, but I loved how much more at ease she was with something that had once terrified her. I was so fucking proud.

The entire excursion lasted four hours, including transport to and from the dive center. By the time we made it back to land, the group was equal parts exhausted and exhilarated.

The businessman immediately left while the students crowded around their phones, giggling at the pictures they’d taken. The couple, Josh and Jules, announced they were getting drinks at a nearby beach bar and that we were free to join before splitting off.

“Are you hungry?” I asked, falling in step with Alessandra as we walked into the main building. “There’s a good restaurant down the street for lunch.”

She shook her head. “I’m eating at the house with Marcelo.”

“Why wasn’t he on the dive too?”

“He woke up late.”

“Typical.” Alessandra was a morning person, but her brother was a night owl. One time, he’d visited us in New York and hadn’t woken up before noon the first three days.

We lapsed into silence as we entered the dive center.

“What about dinner?” I tried again. “I can get us a table at the new restaurant near Tartaruga Beach. Including Marcelo.” The restaurant was booked out during high season, but I could easily pull a few strings.

Alessandra stared at the floor. “I haven’t decided yet. We might eat in tonight too.”

“Right.” I rubbed a hand over my face. “Well, if you change your mind, let me know. You have my number, or you can…I mean, I’m right next door.”

The familiar heat of humiliation crept beneath my skin.

I hadn’t stumbled over my words so badly since my high school English teacher had forced the class to take turns reading Hamlet aloud. It’d taken me an eternity to get through one sentence while everyone else snickered behind their hands.

“I know.” Alessandra’s voice softened a smidge. It wasn’t much, but I’d take anything I could get. “I have to go. I’ll, um, see you around.”

I watched her walk away, deflated. I hadn’t expected her to jump back into my arms simply because we were on the same excursion, but I’d expected…fuck, I didn’t know. More. More talking, more progress.

Then again, perhaps I didn’t deserve more.

Instead of staying in town, I returned to the villa and caught up on the news by the pool. The latest job data, market fluctuations, and press conference held by the new head of Sunfolk Bank, whose previous CEO died of cancer a couple of months ago. Between Sunfolk and Orion, there’d been a lot of bank CEO deaths lately, but none of the news was interesting enough to capture my attention or distract me from the woman next door until I spotted a name that hit me like a punch in the gut.

Thayer University Regents approved naming a wing of Carter Hall to honor former professor David Ehrlich, who died in 2017. The David Ehrlich Wing is home to Thayer’s Department of Economics, which served as Ehrlich’s academic home for more than twenty years.



I read the paragraph twice, partly to make sure I was understanding it correctly and partly because I couldn’t believe Ehrlich’s name was resurfacing again after so long.

It was about damn time. He’d been one of the best professors at Thayer and the only teacher who’d treated me like I was a normal student instead of an annoyance they (barely) tolerated. We’d kept in touch after graduation, and his death had devastated me.



“You have to eat.” Alessandra came up behind me, her voice gentle. “You can’t subsist on alcohol alone.”

“I’m not hungry.” I stared out the window, where rain poured from the sky in a relentless river of grief. It was late afternoon. It’d rained nonstop since the morning, and it seemed fitting that Ehrlich’s funeral had taken place during the most miserable day of the year.

The procession, the casket, the eulogy. They’d been a blur. All I remembered was the ceaseless, biting chill in my bones.

“Two bites.” Alessandra handed me a sandwich. “That’s it. You’ve barely eaten since…”

Since I got the news that Ehrlich had died of a stroke two weeks ago. If it weren’t for her, I’d have drowned at the bottom of a bottle by now.

Some people might have wondered why I was so torn up over the death of a former professor, but I could count the number of people I cared about who also cared about me on one hand.

If Ehrlich hadn’t pushed me into tutoring, I would’ve never met Alessandra, and if he hadn’t leveraged his connections to help me the past few years, I wouldn’t be opening my own company next month.