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

“Whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t.” Marcelo cut straight to the chase. “Not today.”

My eyebrows winged up. “What, exactly, do you think I’m planning to do?”

“I don’t know, but I know it has to do with Alessandra.” He nodded at his sister, who was talking to a model I vaguely recognized from the billboards in Times Square. “It’s not the time, Dom. You know how much our mother stresses her out. She doesn’t need you adding to that.”

“I just want to talk to her. I’m not going to hurt her.”

“You mean, more than you already have?”

I flinched. That shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did, considering it was the truth, but that was precisely why his words stung. I had no defense.

Marcelo sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “Look, I like you. You were a good brother-in-law, and you’ve done a lot for me over the years. But Ále is my sister. I’ll always choose her over anyone else.”

I suppressed another flinch at the word were. I’d never thought there’d be a day when a simple past tense would sting, but the past two months had been eye-opening in more ways than one.

“I should’ve kept my distance in Buzios. I was too…” Marcelo shook his head. “Fuck, I don’t know. We were brothers for ten years, and it was hard to switch that off. I want you both to be happy, and I thought if you worked out your issues, everyone would win.”

“That’s still possible.” My hand flexed in lieu of reaching for my lighter. It was the only thing I had left from Alessandra that I could hold, and the compulsion to check that it was in my pocket every other minute was growing untenable.

“No,” Marcelo said softly. “I saw her face during the ceremony when she looked at you. You broke her heart, Dominic. It would take a hell of a lot more than a trip to Brazil to fix that.”



Marcelo’s words echoed in my head throughout the reception.

He was right. Taking time off work and coming to Brazil was a drop in the ocean of what I needed to fix things with Alessandra, but it was hard to make progress when she kept running from the shore.

After Marcelo left to take care of something with the caterers, I caught up with Alessandra near the bar, where she watched her mother and new stepfather dance with equal parts exhaustion and amusement.

“Fourth time’s the charm, right?” I came up beside her, my senses coming alive with the scent of lilies and rain.

“God, I hope so. I don’t think I can sit through another one of my mother’s weddings without shaking her.” Alessandra stared at the creamy surface of her passion fruit sour. “I didn’t get a chance to say it earlier. Thank you again for flying us here. I appreciate it.”

“Any time.”

We lapsed into silence. I typically avoided parties unless they were useful for networking. Too many people, too much noise, too few inhibitions. They were overstimulation hell, but they were always more tolerable when Alessandra was next to me. She was the only reason I’d soldiered through as many society events as I had over the years.

“I should— ”

“Do you want to— ”

We spoke again at the same time. I gestured for her to go first.

“I should check on the food,” Alessandra said. “The cake is, um, delicate.”

“Your brother is doing that now.”

“Then I should check with the DJ on the setlist. It’s tough to balance a mix of Brazilian and American music. I don’t want anyone to feel— ”

“Ále,” I said in a low voice. “If you want me to leave, I’ll leave. You don’t have to make up excuses to avoid me.”

She’d always had a tough time with her mother, who had paid more attention to her revolving door of boyfriends and husbands than she had her children. Fabiana should have been the one taking care of Alessandra, but whenever they were together, Alessandra slid right back into her role of caretaker. Even now, I could see her mentally calculating how long it would take before she had to cut Fabiana off from alcohol so she didn’t embarrass herself at her own wedding.

She had enough to worry about without worrying about me.

Alessandra fiddled with her glass without looking at me.

I paused, a tiny kernel of hope kindling in my stomach. “Do you want me to leave?”

An eternity passed before she gave a tiny shake of her head.

I wasn’t naive enough to think she wanted me here because she was ready for reconciliation. Besides Marcelo, I was the only person in attendance who understood her wariness when it came to her mother and who was here for her, not Fabiana.

It didn’t matter. She could ask me to stay and mop the fucking floor and I would do it.

“Come on.” I held out my hand. “The reception’s over soon. You can’t leave without at least one dance.”

To my surprise, Alessandra didn’t argue. She set her glass on the bar and slid her palm into mine.

I guided her to the dance floor, where I rested my free hand on her hip as we swayed to the music. My pulse thrummed with nerves.

Don’t fuck this up.

“Do you remember what happened during our reception?” I murmured. “Someone hacked the DJ’s booth…”

“And started playing nineties rap during our first dance,” Alessandra finished. She let out a small laugh. “I’ve never seen you look so panicked.”