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PROLOGUE
CESAR DA SILVA hated to adut was heavy and tight as he stood on the path near the grave He asked hiers closed around the sht in his hand He’d alotten about it
He se of thirty-seven he’d be obeying urges and coic and reason
People drifted away froreen space Ornate mini-mausoleum-style headstones dotted the ceenerously watered in the Greek heat
Finally there were only two ht, with dark hair One had slightly darker and shorter hair than the other They were broad, as Cesar ith powerful builds
It was no wonder they were all similar He was their half-brother And they had no idea he even existed He saw one put his hand on the shoulder of the other They were Rafaele Falcone and Alexio Christakos They all shared the same mother, but had different fathers
Cesar waited for icy rage to surge upwards upon seeing this evidence of the family he’d always been denied, but instead he felt a kind of aching e in quiet voices Cesar caught his youngest half-brother’s words on the slight breeze—so like, ‘Couldn’t even clean up for the funeral?’
Falcone replied indistinctly, with a quirk to histoo
The eer rose up within Cesar But it was a different kind of anger These rave And since when did Cesar feel protective of the woe of three that he could depend on no one?
Galvanised by that very unwelcome revelation, Cesaron his lips, s at first and then, as Cesar drilled holes into hi else Cold
With a quick flick of a glance to the younger man by his half-brother’s side, Cesar noted that they’d also all inherited varying shades of their beautiful but treacherous reen eyes
‘May we help you?’ Falcone asked coolly
Cesar glanced over therave in the distance He asked, with a derisive curl to his lip, ‘Are there any more of us?’
Falcone looked at Christakos, as frowning, and said, ‘Us? What are you talking about?’
Cesar pushed down the spreading blackness within him and said with ominous quiet, ‘You don’t remember, do you?’
But he could see fro shock that his half-brother did, and Cesar didn’t like the way soht green eyes widened imperceptibly He paled
Cesar’s voice was rough in the still, quiet air ‘She brought you to my home—you must have been nearly three, and I was almost seven She wanted to take me with her then, but I wouldn’t leave Not after she’d abandoned me’
In a slightly hoarse voice Falcone asked, ‘Who are you?’
Cesar smiled, but it didn’t meet his eyes ‘I’m your older brother—half-brother My name is Cesar Da Silva I caave me lifenot that she deserved it I was curious to see if any more would crawl out of the ork, but it looks like it’s just us’
Christakos erupted ‘What the hell—?’
Cesar cast hie of conscience for i the news like this, on this day But then he recalled the long, aching years of dark loneliness, knowing that these two men had not been abandoned, and crushed it ruthlessly
Falcone still looked slightly shell-shocked He gestured to his half-brother ‘This is Alexio Christakosour younger brother’
Cesar knew exactly who he ho they both were He’d always known Because his grandparents hadabout them He bit out, ‘Three brothers by three fathersand yet she didn’t abandon either of you to the wolves’