My brother vanished into New York's glittering night, swallowed whole by Sergei Larov, the city's diamond-eyed mafia Czar. He collects souls, and now he owns Stevie.

Mercy failed.

Defiance bought me a seat at his gilded table, a hundred miles beneath his arctic glare. But something in Larov's serpent gaze holds me captive – a flicker of interest in this lowlife who dared to defy him. Is it boredom?

Or does a deeper darkness slither beneath the brazen opulence he wears like a second skin?

They say he sees your sins. Now, a treacherous allure threatens to shatter my resolve. But I know serpents, and survival burns brighter than temptation in my blood.