Year Four (Kingmakers, #4)

by Sophie Lark

This is for anyone who sacrifices for their family 5535756469 Xoxo

Though she had never seen it done before, she successfully knotted the cord and severed it with the edge of a scallop shell.

I’m feeling pretty confident, though. I’m smart and funny, and always down to try something new—what’s not to like?

She looks boldly back at them, daring them to approach. None has gathered up the balls to do it yet, probably because she’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. Her skin is deeply tanned, her figure outrageously sensual, her lips full and pouting, and her eyes an unusual shade of foggy gray. Her eyebrows are dark slashes, slightly tilted up at the outer edges, giving her a fierce expression, though she’s actually smiling slightly.

“Sabrina Gallo,” she says.

“Dean Yenin will take charge of you then—he’s not nearly as nice as me, so watch the lip or he’ll knock you on your ass.”

This girl is fucking insane, and I’m loving it.

“Sabrina Gallo . . .” the Chancellor says softly. “Cousin to Leo Gallo and Miles Griffin.” “That’s right,” Sabrina says, chin up-tilted. “I’m beginning to regret extending admission to any of your family,” he says.

“There’s two kinds of men in the world,” she says. “The kind who want to hurt you . . . and the kind who want to be persuaded by you.”

The Spy aka Ares Cirillo

I’ve spent three years pretending to be Ares—calm, kind, patient. Humble.

never realizing that they were speaking to the son of the most powerful Bratva boss in Russia.

I’m separated from everyone I love—except for her.

His sister?

My mother’s scent reminds me of my father’s.

So his mom?

My mother sits at her desk, dressed in her ridiculous disguise.

“Loyalty in Blood,” I say. It’s the motto inscribed on the gates of our monastery. And on the band of my father’s ring, wherever that might be. “Loyalty in Blood,” my mother replies.

I don’t understand how the man I love and respect more than anyone can be known as a monster.

“enforce the law of silence. This is the one point on which you must be ruthless: snitching is punished more harshly than non-payment. Silence is control. Silence is collaboration.”

“What about Frans Van Der Berg? He was my uncle. He taught me how to fight and how to drive. Then he made a deal with your father. And somehow he ended up upside down in a vat of acid, with all his fuckin’ teeth pulled out. Does that sound familiar to you?”

Hedeon Gray has been digging for clues about his biological parents. I could tell him everything he wants to know. Instead I have to pretend to be his friend, his confidante, while secretly blocking him from ever discovering the truth—yet another task assigned to me that I loathe.

“I used to come in here to blow off steam . . .” he grins. “Now I’m just trying to look good for Cat.”

All my friends have paired off. It’s just me left alone. Always alone.

You can capture a man. Torture him. Maim him. Kill him, even. But when the violence is over, the pain stops.

She looks like a mermaid taking human form.

I hate her, and yet I’m transfixed by her.

I’ve never seen a girl look so powerful.

I want to destroy everything she knows and loves.

In Russia, we say, Kakov pop takov i prihod: What the priest is like, so is the church.

“Moroz,” the giant says. “Marko Moroz.”

“Brothers, then,” he says. I already have a brother. But who says I can’t have another? I take his hand and shake. “Brothers,” I agree.

Oh gosh. I see wherethiss is going.

Because really, they only needed one son. The heir and the spare.”

“Women are always more than they seem.”

Marko Moroz killed his former mentor with a pen. Stabbed him right through the eye, or so I’ve heard.

I can’t be attracted to her. That’s fucking insane. I haven’t been attracted to anyone for a long time. Every time I saw a beautiful girl at Kingmakers, I stuffed that emotion deep down inside me. Lying to my friends is hard enough. I knew I couldn’t possibly keep up the facade in a romantic relationship.

Nix is a wild thing, a force of nature.

I feel like an animal that wants to bite and claw and fuck. I want to chase her down, throw her against those rocks, and mount her.

Russian mermaids are called rusalki. They’re the malevolent spirits of girls who die near water. Perhaps they leapt in a river to escape an unhappy marriage, or they might have been forcibly drowned by a father who discovered his daughter pregnant with an unwanted child. They haunt waterways, luring young men into the deep where they entangle their prey in their long red hair and drag them down.

It’s said that the rusalki can alter their appearance to match the tastes of the men they intend to seduce. I never believed in such a thing . . . until this moment.

I was wrong about her, I can see that already — her candor is no act. She’s not trying to manipulate me, not trying to appear as anything but herself. She embraces what she is, even when it doesn’t align with what her father wants.

I can’t stop watching her.

“I’d rather have a true friend over false family,” I told my father.

“Ilsa’s grandfather and Evalina’s father were brothers. And guess what Evalina’s father’s name was?” Cat says, throwing a triumphant glance at Ares. “What?” Ares says dully. “Hedeon Markov,” Cat replies, in the tone of a slamming book.

I’m not sorry when Hedeon Markov interrupts us, accompanied by his son Kristoff, his daughter Evalina, and her fiancé Donovan Dryagin. The Markovs are one of the only families who supported me during my bloody battle with my rival Remizov. The Markovs’ loyalty will not be forgotten—they will always have a place at my table.

“Did you see Evalina Markov’s face?” she says. “What about it?” “She had melasma—darkening of the pigment in the skin.” “What of it?” I say. Sloane frowns, cradling our son’s warm body in the crook of her arm. “Usually that happens from pregnancy,” she says.

Kade and I used to talk about how much fun we’d have attending Kingmakers together. Now I have to pretend I don’t even know him.

I hadn’t realized that Nix would have heard about the deal Miles cut with her father, handing over his drug pipeline to Dieter Prince and Alvaro Romero in exchange for breaking Zoe’s betrothal to Rocco Prince.

Little did he know, that’s not Marko’s money. It’s my fucking money.

I see the Chancellor congratulating Sabrina Gallo on a rare Freshman win.

He’s standing close to Sabrina Gallo, his black, heavy-browed eyes roaming over her face. The deep, craggy lines on his face are arranged in an uneasy mixture of curiosity and something else . . . something very like hunger.

I admire Ares.